On Thursday February 29, Raymond Lotta and a group of Revcoms (revolutionary communists) marched into Timothy Snyder's “Hitler, Stalin, and Us” class announcing “No class as usual today, we are in a state of emergency.”

• Why Timothy Snyder? Because he is a high-profile anti-communist ideologue who traffics in lies and slanders about communism.  Because he uses his “expert” credentials to drum up support for the U.S.'s proxy war with imperialist rival Russia. The U.S. is using the military forces and civilians of Ukraine as cannon fodder in the name of a crusade of democracy (really, U.S. imperialism) v. tyranny (Russian imperialism). A proxy war that could escalate to world war and nuclear war!
• Why now? Because the world is a horror: genocide in Gaza backed by the U.S....women stripped of the right to abortion... “made-in-America” fascism on a rampage...the climate crisis careening towards catastrophe. These and other extreme crises are rapidly intensifying. And the direction and future of the planet hang in the balance. So, yes, a state of emergency.

BUT THERE IS A WAY OUT: to make a real revolution to overthrow this system—a liberatory revolution guided by the new communism developed by Bob Avakian. A revolution more needed and more possible!

• So, again, why Timothy Snyder? Because by slandering communism and prettifying U.S. imperialism, Snyder is locking people into this system of capitalism-imperialism, It is a system in which America is #1—with its supply chains of misery and exploitation and history's most monstrous military machine of death and destruction. What country has carried out more invasions and coups, is the only one to drop nuclear bombs, and has plundered our planet's resources more than any other? The U.S.! Still, Timothy Snyder promotes the “official” narrative that this system, for all its flaws, is the best of all possible worlds...the world to preserve and “perfect.”

Brainwashing 101: Two Examples of Snyder's Lies and Distortions

• Snyder claims the socialist Soviet Union under Stalin and fascist-capitalist Germany under Hitler were twin “totalitarian” regimes. This is as ridiculous as it is baseless. Hitler murdered 6 million Jews...the socialist Soviet Union during World War 2 protected and saved the lives of 1.5 million East European Jews in those parts of the Soviet Union not occupied by the Nazis.
• Snyder claims that the famine in Ukraine of 1932-33 was an act of deliberate starvation by Stalin. The evidence shows otherwise. This famine—which also affected other parts of the Soviet Union, not just Ukraine—was principally caused by drought and plant disease that resulted in two years of crop failures. And the Soviet government reduced grain exports and provided millions of tons of food as famine relief. Such historical experience must be truthfully examined, so we can do even better in future revolutions, not lied about to scare people away from revolution.

Have the Courage to Engage the New Communism and Leadership of Bob Avakian...Step Into Revolution

Bob Avakian has analyzed the overwhelmingly positive achievements but also the problems, including serious problems, even grievous errors under Stalin, of the first socialist revolutions in the Soviet Union (1917-56) and China (1949-76). He has developed the new communism—a whole new framework for human emancipation. It ruptures decisively with the poisonous notion that the “ends justifies the means.” Avakian has written a Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America that, in the framework of a society moving to end all exploitation and oppression, protects and promotes dissent and intellectual-cultural ferment on a scale unseen in human society. 

No, We Did NOT “Force Evacuation” of Snyder's Class; We Challenged Him to Debate These Issues

The Yale Daily News claims that we forced an “evacuation” (a word that implies some sort of threat). No, we announced “no class as usual,” not “no class.” The whole purpose of our dramatic intervention was: a) to jolt people awake about the horrific nature of this system, and why revolution is needed now; and b) to boldly challenge Snyder to debate. He decided to duck the issues, including why he has not condemned U.S. support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. 

Yale Does Its Part to Close Off This Critical Debate...and Critical Thinking!

Professor Snyder called security on us, who arrived in the midst of our engaging some of these issues with several students from the class. We were told that while Yale is an “open campus,” we broke certain rules. And vague restrictions have been threatened against the revcoms. Let's be clear. Yale is not protecting Snyder's classroom integrity, but his lies. Yale is not acting to ensure robust intellectual debate and the search for the truth, but impeding it. If Yale goes forward in suppressing this debate, it will be acting to keep the lid on people's capacity to conceive of a world beyond capitalism—and the real possibility of a revolution to put an end to all exploitation and oppression.

Be Part of This Debate...Resist the Brainwash... Dare to be Part of the Revolution to Change Everything

Bring Raymond Lotta To Your Campus This Semester: The New Communist Revolution So Badly Needed v. The Anti-Communist Brainwash You're Getting! 
Contact: revbooksnyc@yahoo.com

Learn More:

• Bob Avakian: BREAKTHROUGHS, The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism
• @BobAvakianSocialMedia
• An Open Letter from Sunsara Taylor and a Team of Revcoms, January 2024,
  Students, Faculty, Administrators, and Everyone with a Conscience
• You Don't Know What You Think You "Know" About...
  The Communist Revolution and the REAL Path to Emancipation: Its History and Our Future
  Interview with Raymond Lotta

Get in Touch with the Revcoms: @therevcoms, @revcomcorps_nyc, and revcomcorpsnyc@gmail.com