I’ve been part of a lot of rich discussions responding to the letter from a reader posted here a couple weeks ago: “A clear before and an after.”
That letter makes the point:
In the history of our project [a communist world, free from all forms of exploitation and oppression, with an emancipating culture] there is a clear “before” and an “after,” that is delineated by the emergence of the new synthesis of communism developed by BA [Bob Avakian]...
One thing I’ve kept coming back to in these discussions is what it means to say that “the new communism is a whole new framework for human emancipation.” Or as it says in the letter, “What BA has developed with the new communism really is a NEW path forward for humanity that is very DIFFERENT, and MUCH BETTER than anything that the first wave of socialism/communism was even able to conceive of, let alone put into practice.”
To further get into this, I went back to a Q&A with Bob Avakian from 2006, where someone asked him this question:
I’ve been thinking about two things: one is a statement by Arundhati Roy in an interview where she basically said—this is a paraphrase—“I support the Maoists in India, even though I would probably be the first person they would kill.”
Second, I’ve been thinking about this in relation to the need to make a distinction, as you emphasized, between those who are actively plotting to overthrow the socialist state and those who are just dissenting, or even vehemently opposed to it, but not actively plotting to overthrow it. My question is, taking into account the socialist experience and the very secondary aspects where Arundhati Roy might have a point based on what happened in China, and also taking into account the particularity of India and the particularities of this country, what should communists say to the Arundhati Roys of the world in relation to this contradiction, and why should they believe us?
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist and activist. She has been a target of repression from the fascist Indian government.
I really encourage people to listen to this and discuss it—what he's saying, why, to grapple further with the intense contradictions that will be faced in the socialist transition to communism, and how the new communism provides a framework for leading masses to work through those contradictions to get to communism.
BA answered this question before he wrote the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, and you'll see there how he further developed a concrete framework for how to lead through this process. He speaks more about this in the Interview he did with The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show. But this off-the-cuff answer gives you a sense of the down-on-the-ground way BA has been grappling with real-world problems that faced the first revolutions, and how we need to do better and different. In doing so he really lets you—or challenges you—to grapple in that same kind of way... and with that same kind of method, and same unity between the liberating ends we are fighting for, and the liberating scientific means we have to apply to get there.
These are not questions “for later,” but questions that anyone who wants to see a better world needs to be discussing together now—urgently.
Finally, I want to point out and appreciate how BA himself comes through this Q&A (and the whole set of Q&A's that this was part of). The matter of fact way of putting intense contradictions, the humor and the soaring and far-sighted vision!