Reaching the Thousands Who Desperately Need to Watch the Bob Avakian Interview
The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on YouTube has now aired two of the three parts of the new interview with Bob Avakian. Whatever people expected going into it has been far surpassed by “the real thing.” Bob Avakian, BA, has shown tremendous heart and soul while putting out a hard-core revolutionary line. He’s showed what it means to approach everything scientifically and he’s put forward a strong revolutionary strategy rooted in these times. He’s spoken directly and from the heart to the most oppressed in this society. And he’s done it all with a tremendous sense of humor.
This interview comes at a crucial time for humanity. Nuclear-armed imperialist powers, driven by the need for world domination, face off against each other in Europe and, increasingly, in Asia. Within the U.S., two sections of the ruling class are locked in deadly antagonism over how the system should be ruled—with one opting for outright fascism. At the same time, people are both despairing and/or deluded, yet also looking away from and resisting the only thing that can deal with this: an actual revolution, the overthrow of the capitalist-imperialist system which has humanity locked in this nightmare. The irony is that the very dynamics, conflicts and problems that haunt people and lead them to lower their sights are the conditions which make revolution more possible in this period: a point which BA drives home and sheds light on, from different angles, throughout these interviews.
BA in this interview makes the need for this revolution palpable and gives a living sense of how humanity could flourish with the new communism he’s brought forward. In the last installment, he not only dug into the contradictions we actually face, he answered the crucial question of how the movement for revolution could go from being very small today to actually contending for power in the not-distant future. He showed people how to analyze the dynamics of this situation and how we could begin to affect this, and he modeled the kind of struggle we need to wage with people to move this process forward. This next installment promises to get more deeply into the concrete character of what the new society would be.
This interview, right now, is a key link in unlocking people’s thinking.
But it is on us—on all of us who have seen this interview and been moved by it—to get this out there, far beyond the “usual suspects.” We have to close the huge gap—the yawning chasm—between the quality of what BA is putting on the TV screen and the numbers that are watching it.
On one level, we all need to be thinking about and talking with each other, researching and thinking creatively about ways to break this out into the whole of society, to make this interview something that people are hearing about in many different ways and being driven to check out.
And as we carry forward that process, we need to be very active in the two weeks from now through Thanksgiving weekend fighting for people to see this. This means:
First, being part of high-impact efforts to spread word of this, as well as massive saturation of key areas where people will be during this next period.
Second, and even more important: spread word of this yourself, in many different ways. Reach out to the people you know. If you need to, struggle with them to watch it; then follow up. Once they get into it, encourage them to struggle with others to watch the interview. If you live somewhere close to revcoms, get materials from them; if not, download materials from here. One person we know takes palmcards into coffee shops and passes them out, talking with people who are interested or have questions. Another makes it a point to go onto the subways with the cards and to strongly encourage people to use the QR codes to actually watch a clip for themselves.
Third, report on this and learn from the reports of others. We have revamped the “landing page” for this film to give materials, orientation, and other key orientation. This week we’ll be starting a moderated forum on this page that will be focused on responses to the interview, and ideas and experiences in spreading it. You can also be part of and build the Revolution, Nothing Less! YouTube show community as you do this. Go here for downloadable software for online group viewings that is posted in the description below the video on YouTube. Join the conversation and post a comment on the episode to the YouTube page.
Fourth, come together at movement centers or Revolution Books stores, or in smaller groups to watch the last installment, reflecting on the interview and making plans.
Fifth—and critical to all of this—fund-raise and get ready for a massive fund-raising effort to be launched soon.
Here is an essential point: As people get into this, pull them together. Pull them together to discuss the interview and what you are learning about BA, the revolution he’s leading, what it’s all about and what it’s aims are. If you’re unsure of your ability to do this, see if a revcom can help lead it, or go to our soon-to-be-launched interactive moderated forum for help, or join a group watch at the RNL Show YouTube channel. Collectively, working together for a single goal, being as scientific as we can in learning from our experience—we can make a major stride toward preparing the ground for an actual revolution.
Again—over and over in his interview, BA shows from different angles why this is a period in which a real revolution—an actual overthrow of this system and the construction of a new socialist system, based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—is more possible. He breaks down in different ways how a small force with the scientific method for understanding the world based on the new communism could grow very quickly to lead an actual serious attempt at a revolution. What we who are reading this guide need to do is this: to go all-out in the days between now and the new year to spread this interview as the next major step in preparing to be able to make that revolution and bring in a new day for real, while thinking and talking with others about how to make a major move with this interview.
In this issue:
* Three-part interview:
Up Close and Personal with
Bob Avakian
Heart and Soul & Hard-Core for Revolution
- New: Part 2
- Part 1
- Special page with ways to join the efforts to spread the word, donate, find out what people are saying and materials to distribute.
- First Takes on the Interview
* Organizing for an Actual Revolution: 7 Key Points
* New: The Real Meaning of the 2022 Elections THE REAL INTERESTS OF THE MASSES WERE NOT ON THE BALLOT
* Struggle in Iran
- New: Iran Uprising Enters 9th Week: Protests Continue, Islamic Republic Threatens Leap in Violence, Demand for End of Regime Spreads
- From Atash/Fire, Journal of the Communist Party of Iran, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, November 2022: If There Is to Be a Revolution, a Revolutionary Situation Must Be Created!
* New: Appeal Denied: New Evidence Emerges in the Case of Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
* New: Check It Out! The Voyage of Charles Darwin
* New: An Observation: On Why People Pay Attention to What Kan“Ye” Says
* No U.S./NATO War with Russia! No World War 3
- Bob Avakian on Biden, Putin & Xi Jinping: Imperialist Gangsters and the Need for Revolution! (video excerpt from new interview)
- The War in Ukraine and the Interests of Humanity: A Scientific Revolutionary Approach vs. Harmful Confusion and Chauvinist Delusion. Bob Avakian Responds to People Who Should Know Better (and Maybe Once Did)
- New: Pentagon Admits U.S. Military “Inspectors” Are in Ukraine… Remember How the Vietnam War Escalation Started with U.S. “Advisors”?