The last week was—once again—packed with jolts and outrages.

In Texas, the fascist governor said in advance that he will pardon the man convicted of killing a protester against the police murder of George Floyd in 2020—without that pig governor even having seen the trial transcript. 

In DC, one of the lead fascists on the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, says that the Court will review this week the attempt of a lower-court judge to outlaw across the whole nation the main abortion pill used to end unwanted pregnancies—and there is a real chance that the Supreme Court will side with that judge.

Some low-level National Guard member released a whole trove of classified documents that reveal just how deeply the U.S. is orchestrating the war in Ukraine and just how widely it spies around the world.

In Juárez, Mexico, more came to light on how police kept 39 refugees locked in their cells as they burned to death in a fire. These refugees from other Latin American countries were seeking to gain asylum in the U.S. Cruelly and illegally blocked from entry by the U.S., they were instead being held in a makeshift Mexican prison.

Last week it also came out that nearly 500 bills attacking the rights of transgender people have been and are being debated in 48 different state legislatures around the country so far this year, with over 40 of them already passed.

And in the streets? The police carry out murder and mayhem, young people are still caught up in killing each other, fentanyl keeps wrecking lives and putting people in graves… and the beat goes on.

Why Does Horrific Shit Like This Keep Happening, and Keep Getting Worse?
And Why Is Now a Time When Something Can Really Be Done About It?

In Organizing for an Actual Revolution: 7 Key Points (which is based on the key points of the “foundation” and “roadmap” for this revolution in the work by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian: “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, And the Looming Possibility of Civil War—and the Revolution That Is Urgently Needed, A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution”), the following is said, and it gets right to the heart of what we have laid out above:

Under the rule of this system, all this will only get worse. The deepening divisions within this country now, from top to bottom, mean that those who have ruled in this country for so long (the capitalist-imperialist ruling class) can no longer rule, as a “unified force,” in the “normal” way that people have been conditioned to accept—with a system of government that has an outer shell of “democracy” to cover over the fact that it is an actual capitalist dictatorship at its core, relying fundamentally on the armed force of the institutions of “official violence,” the police and the military. Because of big changes in this country and the world overall, one part of the ruling class, represented by the Republican Party, has become fascist: they no longer believe in or feel bound by what have been the “norms” of “democratic” capitalist rule in this country. And the other section of the ruling class, represented by the Democratic Party, has no real answer to this—except trying to maintain the “normal way” that the oppressive rule of this system has been enforced for hundreds of years, while the fascists are determined to tear up those “norms” and rule through more openly and aggressively oppressive means, without the traditional disguise of supposed “democracy for all.”

The crisis and deep divisions in society can only be resolved through radical means, of one kind or another—either radically reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive means, or radically emancipating revolutionary means. And this resolution could quite possibly happen, one way or the other, within the next few years. This rare situation, with the deepening and sharpening conflicts among the ruling powers, and in the society overall, provides a stronger basis and greater openings to break the hold of this system over masses of people. In a situation like this, things that have basically remained the same, for decades, can radically change in a very short period of time. This rare time must not be wasted—it must be seized on to have a real fighting chance to bring about a truly emancipating revolutionary resolution, and not be subjected to a terrible, reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive resolution.

Acting on May 1… and Making Revolution

Take one minute and think about what “7 Key Points” says: we today have a “real fighting chance to bring about a truly emancipatory revolutionary resolution” to this madness. Again, think: an actual “fighting chance” to prevent the destruction of life on this planet—whether through environmental catastrophe or nuclear war—and, not only that, a real way for people to move beyond the world of grinding exploitation and bitter oppression people are locked down in today. And this is not just a wish: there is a sweeping vision and a concrete blueprint for this society embodied in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian. 

But for this to happen, the revolutionaries of today must very quickly grow to the thousands and then the millions. And that is where May 1, 2023 comes in. On that day, people need to see the reality of a force—one whose numbers may not yet be large but whose vision, determination, daring and confidence in their cause and message will reach out and reverberate far and wide. A force that aims not just to protest, or to change a few things here or there, or to put some new faces in high places—but one that aims to establish a whole different system aiming to emancipate all of humanity, worldwide. A force that can begin now to be a magnetic pole for those hungering for something different, something truly better but who up to now have not seen a force they can put their hopes and trust in.

How We Reach People to Come Out May 1

The more people who come out on May 1 with a basic sense of this message and purpose, the more powerful this can be, and the more revolution can get on the map. 

So, how do we find the people who would want to hear this message and bring them forward into this movement? And for those who ARE interested—how do we bring them into things, even as they are still checking this out?

First, the Revolution Clubs need to organize all the people who are around the clubs or who have been around the clubs in the recent past and give them materials to get out wherever they can, either on their own or in outings with other club members, or on social media. There are already plenty of good materials—posters, flyers, poems, audio, videos, and especially the interviews with Bob Avakian—that can be used to take the message to the people. People in the clubs and masses of people much more broadly should be encouraged to watch The RNL Show—especially together with others—using the show as a guide and model for taking revolutionary May Day to the people.

Even as it is good to spread this all over, it is very important to pick a few key places to focus on, and set real goals with real well-founded plans to reach those goals. And here’s a key thing—people who show any interest at all need to be given ways to participate right now and challenged, in a good way, to do so. People can donate funds, they can buy one of the revolutionary T-shirts and wear them, they can take leaflets and either post them on walls (which is very important) or get stores or rec centers to carry them and “report back” how it went, including the controversy and questions they ran into. They need to know that their participation on any level is a key way to spread this now, and it’s also part of getting organized for the future time when people can be organized in their millions to go all-out for revolution. Doing all this now is essential to doing this in that future time. And of course, people can and should be encouraged to go out with the Revolution Club. 

In those places where the revcoms are holding events like dinners next week, tickets should be energetically sold and people signed up whenever we go out. And the message must be spread:

By coming out on May 1, and by participating now in whatever way you can, you are and will be part of bringing into people’s vision a revolutionary force; you are and will be part of strengthening that force to the point where it could actually lead millions to go all-out for revolution.

Build the Revolution Clubs as Vibrant Centers

As we do this, the Revolution Clubs should be built as vibrant centers where people can thrash out ideas and work together on the problems and questions they run into and that get posed by the events of life itself. Where such clubs don’t yet exist, people should be still trying to spread, apply and organize people around the 6 Points of Attention for the Revolution. But rather than go more into this point here, we strongly recommend that you read Michelle Xai’s letter on some of the recent experience in the Los Angeles Revolution Club.

The point is this: These next two weeks have to be weeks of reaching the people day and night in many different ways, while continuing to wrangle with each other over the path forward and, right now, the best ways to build for a revolutionary May 1