Friday night, the Russian protest/punk band Pussy Riot had an art opening and performance at a major gallery in West Hollywood. Funds from the art show, titled Putin's Ashes, were going to support soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

The Pussy Riot art show featured a video installation and live concert. To make their performance participatory, people had to wear a balaclava to get into the gallery. The video was of a performance piece in the desert where they exploded a big picture of Putin and then bottled the ashes, which were also on display. The founding member of Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova, said about the art piece, “While working with artifacts, bottling ashes, and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony. I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up. Putin is a danger to the whole world, and he has to be stopped immediately.”

On the National Tour to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution, we knew this event would have broad impact and reach an important audience of artists and intellectuals—too many of whom don't understand the actual danger of nuclear conflict in this war, but more fundamentally, are caught up in the grotesque idea that America is a force for good in the world. Thinking about what's needed for a revolutionary people of millions to go for the all-out overthrow of this system—which the revcoms are actively preparing for now—you can see the real urgency to break people out of this kind of ugly American chauvinism.

As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) and revcom.us have powerfully argued, the war in Ukraine is “not a struggle between 'autocracy and democracy,' but a conflict zone of imperialist rivalry between U.S. and Western imperialism and Russian imperialism. The Ukrainian people and Ukrainian army are cannon fodder in this war—being used cold-bloodedly to advance U.S. imperialist interests in contention with their Russian rivals.”

We went to challenge people who are righteously angry at Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but who are letting themselves be blinded to the even greater danger of the U.S. People who aren't confronting the thoroughly criminal nature of the U.S., with its record of truly monstrous crimes—within the U.S. itself as well and in the world as a whole, throughout the history of this country, down to today. This includes its role now in waging a proxy war with Russia which threatens direct military confrontation with Russia, and holds the danger of nuclear war.

There is a need to wake people up with the reality from BA that “We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to dominate the world and to determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible.” And people need to know there is leadership for this revolution being provided by BA, which they can see for themselves in the new Interviews he did on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show.

To have a big impact with all this—reaching inside of and provoking people—we decided to do our own art installation outside, compelling people to engage, discuss and debate.

We had a crew of four people—wearing balaclavas—standing on both American and Russian flags, each holding the slogans: “NO U.S./NATO War With Russia! NO World War 3! It’s THIS SYSTEM, Not Humanity, That Needs to Become Extinct! We Don’t Accept THEIR Future. It’s Time to Get Organized for a Real Revolution.” Alongside them was an eight-foot A-frame with a long list of American crimes (with a QR code to the revcom.us series) and a shorter A-frame with Russian crimes. We had a display with laminated photos of American crimes with text on the back so that people could come up, look at the photos, and turn them over to read the descriptions. Above this, we projected about four minutes of clips from The BA Interviews where he speaks sharply about the danger of the war in Ukraine, and the reality that this is a war between oppressors with the U.S. as #1 oppressor. This was interspersed with the slogans and news footage.

This whole thing was quite effective and lots of people were taking pictures and video and were working to understand what we were saying. There was a great deal of openness to the whole message, and some real struggle and debate. Importantly, people were approaching it as art and taking time to understand the message and hear the ideological challenge.

When we agitated to people on the line, people were grabbing for the flyers, and seriously reading them throughout the night. The crowd was mainly younger and more middle-aged artists, with a good number of people from the Ukrainian and Russian diaspora, including recent refugees who fled the war. 

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of heated debate especially among people from Ukraine. Some argued that Putin has to be stopped in Ukraine or he will endanger the world—there was a fight with people to not just look at things from Ukraine above all else, but to proceed from the interests of humanity. Some were given pause by what it will mean if this continues to escalate with this dangerous dynamic that is not in anyone's control—and the missing element here is the masses of people standing up against the imperialists on all sides. There was tremendous ignorance about the actual history of the U.S., so having the evidence against them right there in a form that was in your face was important.

Even among people who were angered by our message, there was a reflectiveness and openness to hear the argument, and to take the materials. Toward the end of the night, a young man from Ukraine came up to us and asked, “Are you the people who oppose both sides? How do I join?” He got asylum in the U.S. recently and was very excited to meet a movement for revolution here.

The question of what flag to stand on also became a point of controversy throughout the night—one man from Ukraine was begging us to stop standing on the American flag because they were helping the “good side” in the war so had to be supported, even if they were doing it for bad reasons. A couple—he from Ukraine, she from Iran—were having a fight about this. He didn't want to stand on the American flag because that's the country who he said saved him, but she argued that he was completely ignorant of what the U.S. has done—moved to stand on the flag and proceeded to read through the American crimes, arguing against his ignorance. A crowd of young people walked by, and when they were invited to participate in our installation, enthusiastically jumped and danced on both flags, with one woman saying this country is full of injustice.

Among people from America, most people had never thought about the war this way but were open to it. There were people who wanted to stand with Ukraine, but hadn't put together why the U.S. might be intervening and could see the problem of relying on the U.S. given its role in the world. We made the point repeatedly that people are allowing their sympathies for the Ukrainian people to be weaponized in support of the U.S. in its rivalry with Russian imperialism—and there was clear discomfort but also agreement—seeing how they're being played and again feeling in a bind about this.

One important thing about this—and the importance of the sharp ideological struggle that BA wages against this dangerous and persistent American chauvinism—is how much it is unexamined among progressive people. There is an urgent need and basis to really wage ferocious struggle to break people from this.

There was a lot of openness and interest in the new communism, with many people saying they wanted to watch The BA Interviews to learn more. Some people really felt the urgency about the need for a radically different dynamic in the world, and when they heard what we were saying about revolution, some wanted to sign up right away while others were more skeptical—recognizing that this system is really no good and an existential threat to humanity and the planet, but full of a lot of anti-communist verdicts and assumptions. There too, people were open to hearing more and having the debate and discussion.

Right now, in a moment of real upheaval and turmoil, a rare time when revolution has become more possible, this revolutionary message really needs to reach to all sectors of society—not just in “the political movements,” but everywhere people are agonizing about the state of the world. This was a powerful, creative way to do this and the kind of thing we need to do much more of!