On the eve of the new year, the revcoms have been taking up and working to spread the Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show. We’ve been talking to people we know about scheduling viewings of these in their home, to their friends and family.

We’ve also gotten creative to get these in front of people—playing clips on the trains, or in barbershops and beauty salons where people are gathering. 

One experience to share:

Three of us walked into a barbershop and made a short basic announcement about who we are and what time it is. We said as the new year dawns, the choices are not between MAGA fascist Trump or Genocide Joe Biden, the choices are between this system of capitalism and the revolution we need to overthrow this system. And we talked briefly about how things are coming to a head, with the whole future on the line.

Everyone was surprised at this rare disruption, but the two barbers were obviously feeling what we were saying. As part of our announcement, we played a 30-second clip from the BA Interviews, and held up a tablet so people could see BA—they stopped cutting hair to listen. Then we asked them—the people in their chairs, and those waiting for their next cuts—what they thought. 

One of the barbers especially loved the part from BA where he contrasts how people need to break from having “their mind on their money and their money on their mind,” to the need for people to be on a mission with this revolution. He said people are just looking out for themselves, but what about our neighbors, don’t we need to look out for each other. He critiqued the music that’s out there today which just celebrates killing and getting money. And he critiqued how all the youth are just on their phones or social media.

We agreed with his critique—but also argued that the problem isn’t social media, the problem is this system of capitalism-imperialism and the solution is revolution. And yes, we need to struggle for people to think about the world—when the whole thing is on the line. This is where Bob Avakian, and these Interviews reaching throughout society can start to change some shit. The other barber was feeling us when we were talking about what’s coming to a head in this society and when we made clear what we meant by real revolution, their response was basically, “Oh shit, that’s serious, you’re going to need millions for that.” Yes! And over the next few months, if there were thousands with this, we could get the millions because of how drastically millions are going to be jolted. But if we don’t have the thousands, it will be nearly impossible to move those millions in any kind of revolutionary way.

The barbers said they would watch the Interviews because they wanted to know more what we were talking about, but since they were serious and since there is no one better at making clear what this revolution is about, we played a second clip from the Interviews. We played a short two minutes where BA sharply argues that “the choices are not between being the fucker or the fucked, the choices are between being enslaved or emancipated.” 

Right from jump, all the guys in the barbershop sat up to attention. They were jolted and challenged. The two barbers had wide grins of appreciation. After the clip played, they laughed appreciatively—“Yo, he’s telling it like it is.” The other barber just repeated, “He said it’s not being the fucker or the fucked!” The first guy said, “I want to hear him for sure, he doesn’t sugarcoat anything does he?” And the second guy asked, “So this is the leader of this?” And asked us to repeat again, “He’s not running for office though?” wanting to know more.

We talked briefly about who BA is, how radically different he is than all these other so-called leaders out here, again what we mean by revolution... and how lucky we are to have this leadership. BUT the urgency of people digging into this, and becoming followers of this leader—now.

One of us asked them about doing a showing of one of the full parts of the Interviews at their barbershop, which they were open to. At one point, one of the guys said this was like a movie you see about back in the day where people would come talk about revolution at the barbershops. And he was excited about it. Yes! And we brought it back explicitly to the fact that the future will be decided this year, one way or another. And they have an urgent role to play in whether we bring forward the forces decisive in wrenching out “something truly emancipating,” in opposition to where things will go without this force, “something terrible,” even worse than the nightmare people are living today.

It mattered in this to get concrete—not leaving things vague or up in the air. We set up a time to come back and made clear that their assignment was to watch the Interviews themselves so we can set up the showing the next time we’re there. They both agreed to this, and also made a donation on the spot to spread this further.

There were a few other experiences along these lines—with real engagement and struggle. And there was experience that was much more contested—including at one place where the owner kicked us out. At another spot, one guy kept thanking us for being so bold about just coming in to their barbershop and getting in their faces. He said it made him sit up and take notice. He too is going to watch the Interviews. We’re following up next week.

You see again the difference it makes for people to engage Bob Avakian directly and straight up. And this needs to get exponential quickly.