I’m writing about the importance of the social media messages coming out from Bob Avakian every week—and the urgency to get the Campaign to spread @BobAvakianOfficial out much much further than we have thus far. 

Do we even fully understand what we have here?! 

Let’s start with the role of these messages and why they should be the central pivot of everything we are thinking about and doing. Let’s start with the fact that we are in a rare time—when things are beginning to come to a head and go up for grabs in a way that they have not in this country in over a century—when revolution is MORE possible than it is in normal times.* These messages make up week in-week out, real-time leadership in what we need to be thinking about, talking about, and doing to bring forward masses of people to seize this rare time. And these messages, in many different ways, bring that understanding directly to the masses in a very living way.

But it’s bigger than that. First off, these messages give a very living sense of Bob Avakian—BA. BA is not “just” the leader of the revolution (which is huge)—he’s brought forward a whole new synthesis of communism, a new communism, that can give people hope on a truly scientific foundation… a communism marked by the largeness of mind and generosity of spirit of the leader who brought it forward. These messages let you know from so many different angles the humanity of this leader and the humanity of the road he’s forged, while you get trained in the science you need to travel that road.

Beyond that, virtually every week BA provides key and timely analysis of the most critical world events, revealing the underlying dynamics and their grounding in the fundamental nature and dynamics of the capitalist-imperialist system. On that basis, Bob Avakian shows how those events relate to the struggle to overthrow and move beyond this system. These messages provide by far the most powerful, cutting and artful agitation, and overall they give us our single most important tool for cracking open the political situation. They provide a means for direct and timely intervention into a complex and rapidly changing political situation. And the more the BA Messages get before huge numbers of people, with tens of thousands anticipating and digging into each message as they come out, the more we will be impacting and changing the political situation.

In addition, there is nothing else that even comes close to breaking open in a mass way very basic ideological questions that grip and weigh down the masses of people and that suck people back into the bourgeois framework of “look out for me and mine, and fuck everyone else.” There is nothing else that even comes close in struggling against all manner of narrow distortions, conspiracy theories, and other bullshit from the bourgeoisie. The way he does this both arouses people’s passion—and gives them the ability—to fight for a methodology of getting at the truth. Case in point: the controversy that has erupted in Chicago over social media post #73 on “Black People Hating on Immigrants. Nonsense, and worse, from people who should know better,” which you can read about here.

There is no other dimension of what the revcoms are doing right now in which the training of strategic commanders at every level comes anywhere close to what is being done with @BobAvakianOfficial. This ranges from how Bob Avakian trains people how to understand major events in society from the standpoint of a deep materialist analysis of the class interests behind those events AND how he shows the connection of those events to an actual strategy to make revolution in this time. BA shows people how to understand and evaluate the actions, programs and world views of various political forces that emerge in these struggles. BA’s messages enable people in real time to wage struggle against political lines and programs that represent the capitalist-imperialist class, whether in the form of fascist Trump or the sweet-talking genocidal Democrats. And his messages enable people to see the limitations of political lines and programs that may dissent from this or that policy but that stop short of revolution—and thus ultimately lead people back under the wing of the imperialist bourgeoisie. 

In regard to what revcoms must do to “come from behind” to make revolution, there is no other dimension of our work that provides anything close to the opportunity to ideologically get people working off the same playbook and quickly bring them together into a vanguard of thousands and tens of thousands virtually overnight—which is what will be necessary. Nothing close. To be clear, there are other works from BA that people do urgently need to get into—e.g., the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, BREAKTHROUGHS: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, the three-part series of interviews with BA from The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show. But even if you for some reason could only steep in what has been done in these messages at @BobAvakianOfficial, you would get pretty far in absorbing the outlook, goals and methods of the new communism. 

There is no other dimension in what the revcoms do where a leap in its effectiveness would have close to the same kind of effect on actually making revolution. Again, developing a network of thousands now who are deeply engaged in and following these messages @BobAvakianOfficial and who themselves are increasingly spreading them is the single most important way to make up the ground that needs to be made up in the time we have. These, along with The RNL Show interviews of BA, will ground people in the importance of what this leader has brought forward, a sense of who this leader is, and a strong basis to understand the need to defend him.

There is no other dimension of what the revcoms do that can reach into the broader millions and circulate in their mind a real sense of what this revolution is all about, planting seeds for when all the other solutions are increasingly found to be wanting and the social cohesion of society is reaching the breaking point. And the messages at @BobAvakianOfficial, along with the BA Interviews, can give people in their millions a real sense of WHO this person is and what he stands for, when “who you gonna follow?” suddenly becomes a life-and-death question for millions.

Spreading and waging a political battle with masses of people to spread, fund, and seriously get into and take guidance from the @BobAvakianOfficial messages is most decisive of all that we have to do now. These messages are the key and the heart of revolutionary preparation in this immediate situation. They are the leading edge and through-line of the whole ensemble of revolutionary work that is laid out in Revolution: Building Up The Basis To Go For The Whole Thing, With A Real Chance to Win; A Strategic Orientation and Practical Approach. The BA messages blast through the straightjacket on people’s thinking, they reveal the possibility for revolution today, they train us and the masses in the method and approach to make a revolution for the emancipation of humanity.

Finally, it has to be noted that there is nothing else we undertake with less spontaneity going for it and more going against it. Breaking through here will require much more leading focus and collective attention, much more relentless fighting through on key initiatives within the overall campaign, and much more real-time ideological combat—and seizing on openings to fight for the revolution we need and the leadership we have for this revolution in Bob Avakian.

Let’s really realize what we have here, people, and take this to another level. Let’s take up and wield this incredible tool we have to do the job that humanity is counting on us for!