A recent article by Hannah Zeavin in the journal n+1 resorts to typically unprincipled—and at the same time ludicrous—methods in an attack on Bob Avakian (BA) and the revcoms (revolutionary communists) he leads. On one level, this article itself is hardly worth responding to. But, in some significant ways, it does represent a concentration of the unprincipled methods of opportunist attacks that need to be clearly refuted and firmly repudiated. Despite—or, rather, because of—the low level on which they operate, attacks of this kind do real harm: distracting from the big questions people need to be seriously engaging, and undermining principled relations among those who need to be actively uniting in the urgent struggle to defeat and remove the fascist Trump regime.

Zeavin attempts to lend “legitimacy” to her supposedly “profound” negative judgments about the revcoms, and Bob Avakian, by invoking a distorted account of some relatively short-lived experience she had, two decades ago, in working with some of the revcoms. More specifically, her attack consists of the all too familiar approach of substituting superficial interactions and subjective impressions, as well as outright fabrications—including fabrications of “personal lived experience”—in place of serious scientific analysis. This, in turn, relies on (and makes its own modest “contribution” to) the prevailing putrid culture—including the ignorant and irrational anti-communism—that is characteristic of way too many in these times, including much of the so-called “left and progressive movements.” And especially now, this is in acute opposition to the way that masses—literally millions—of decent people have taken to the streets, and in other ways risen up in righteous protest and resistance against the fascist onslaught of the Trump regime, and the need for this mass mobilization to become even greater in numbers and in powerful effect.

In Zeavin’s attack article, many of her distortions and fabrications (or, put more simply, her lies) are intended to lend an air of “authenticity” and “authority” to her “narrative” of so-called “lived experience” with the revcoms—much of which “experience” she did not actually “live.” To cite one striking example (and there are many—see the accompanying statement on this), Zeavin claims that during the time she was around the revcoms, in the early part of the “aughts” (the first years of the first decade of the 2000s), people were wearing T-shirts with the slogan “BA Speaks, Revolution—Nothing Less.” The reality is that T-shirts with this slogan were not part of things until a decade later, after a BA speech with that title—when, by her own account, Zeavin had long since ceased to have any involvement with the revcoms. Again, inventing scenarios like this—posing herself personally in the company of people wearing these T-shirts—is aimed at lending an air of “authenticity” and “authority” to this article, when her article is actually full of fabrications, as well as other unprincipled methods.

Zeavin uses the same kinds of irresponsible and unprincipled methods in her supposed account of Bob Avakian’s development as a revolutionary and a communist, beginning in the 1960s, and his role in the development of—and struggles within—the communist movement during that period. In this, Zeavin draws on puerile gossip, as well as ignorant pseudo “analysis” by uninformed people—when serious and substantive discussion of this can be found in BA’s Official Biography and more extensively in his memoir, From Ike To Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist (and, if Zeavin has actually looked at BA’s memoir, she distorts what is said there as well, including what is recounted in that memoir about BA’s close relationship with leaders and members of the Black Panther Party, during its early, revolutionary period).

In keeping with her lack of a serious and principled approach, Zeavin never even attempts or pretends to engage the kinds of crucial and urgent questions that are raised, for example, in the last part of Bob Avakian’s social media message number 118 (@Bob AvakianOfficial): 

what is represented by this Trump regime and what it means that it is fascism, what is the fundamental source of this fascism and the fundamental solution to the terrible situation in this country and the world as a whole—including the growing dangers to the very existence of humanity, through environmental destruction and the heightening threat of nuclear war. 

An important dimension of this involves questions such as: Does communism and the revolutionary process to achieve communism represent a viable and desirable solution to the terrible situation with which humanity is confronted, and what can and should be learned from the history of the communist movement in regard to this?

Instead of focusing on important questions like this, in line with a long tradition of playing on ignorant and irrational anti-communism, Zeavin makes the perverse argument that if someone like Bob Avakian has refused to turn his back on the need to change the world in a fundamentally positive way, through communist revolution, that is because he is supposedly an out-of-touch dogmatist and the leader of an antiquated “cult.” The fact that, instead of giving up on the only real solution, BA has, for decades, continued to apply himself to grappling with the answers to the monumental challenges and profound problems of a truly emancipating revolutionary transformation of the world is, in Zeavin’s warped worldview, “proof” of BA’s irrelevance, and malevolence. Does Zeavin hold to the ill-founded, facile judgment that, since no revolution has come about in this country, in all the years since the 1960s, that is ipso facto (in and of itself) a sign that there must be something essentially wrong with those who continue to recognize the need for—and remain determined to strive, through all the daunting difficulties, to bring about—this emancipating revolution? Does Zeavin actually think that making a real, and really emancipating, revolution—especially in the U.S., which for decades has been the most powerful capitalist-imperialist country in the world—would be, or should be, “easy”? Or does Zeavin simply not care about big questions like how to achieve the emancipation of humanity from the long dark night in which humanity has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been subjected to a continual nightmare of oppression? (And, by the way, a distinguishing feature of BA’s leadership has been to forthrightly sum up mistakes that have been made, including on his part, and to openly make a scientific summation of not only the mistakes themselves, but why these mistakes were made, so that people as broadly as possible can learn from this.)

According to Zeavin’s “logic,” it is somehow a mark of great maturity and rationality (when it really involves miserable and degrading rationalization) to accept the permanence of this system of horrors that is capitalism-imperialism—and to seek, at most, some kind of limited change within the confines of this horrific system—while accompanying this with woefully (and willfully) ignorant and unprincipled attacks on those who refuse to accept this world as it is, who recognize the need for, and are continuing to devote themselves to bringing about, fundamental revolutionary change, beyond the terrible confines of this system.

In line with this, Zeavin takes great offense—and assumes that everyone else should be similarly offended—by the following statements at revcom.us: “Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.” And: “WHY IS BOB AVAKIAN SO IMPORTANT? Besides the fact that he is the only leader in this country who is talking about a real revolution—and besides the fact that he is actually leading the process of actively working for that revolution—what Bob Avakian (BA) has done, with the development of the new communism, is of world historic importance. It is, in fact, a whole new framework for human emancipation. No one else has done what BA has done.”

Clearly, what is involved in these statements has to do with matters of great, indeed of world historic, importance: would any serious and decent person deny that it is of world historic importance whether “a whole new framework for human emancipation” has actually been developed? Flowing from that, whether these statements regarding BA are true, or not, is itself of very great significance. The fact is that BA has actually developed a whole new framework for human emancipation. But to judge whether that is true, or not, requires first of all caring about human emancipation; and it requires some work, in order to have the basis to make a rational judgment about this. Assuming that (despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary) Zeavin actually recognizes the importance of intellectual integrity, the only honest answer she could give to the question of whether these statements about BA are true, or not, is: “I don’t know. I cannot say, because I have not done the work to have the necessary basis to evaluate this. But I am going to seriously look into this, because of its objective importance.”

BA has a whole body of work (much of which is available at revcom.us in BA’s Collected Works). Which works of BA’s has Zeavin seriously engaged (or engaged at all)? Has she read the book The New Communism, or the essay Breakthroughs? Or the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, and what it says about the importance of dissent as well as intellectual and cultural ferment? How about “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating”? Or BA’s writings on the law and jurisprudence? Or what BA has written regarding science, or religion, or culture (including sports)? Or the article U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters’ Vision Of Freedom—Added Notes (And Brief Introduction)? Or BA’s articles on exploitation and putting an end to exploitation and oppression? Or the critical analysis and synthesis BA has done with regard to the positive and negative experience of the communist movement, in “Conquer The World” (more than 40 years ago now, in the early 1980s), and continuing up to the present?

Zeavin mentions in passing BA’s involvement in the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at UC Berkeley in 1964. Has she read BA’s article “FSM Reflections: On Becoming a Revolutionary” (updated October 14, 2024), which includes discussion of how BA has incorporated important principles of the FSM into his development of the new communism?

What does Zeavin think of BA’s statement that the new communism: 

thoroughly repudiates and is determined to root out of the communist movement the poisonous notion, and practice, that “the ends justifies the means.” It is a bedrock principle of the new communism that the “means” of this movement must flow from and be consistent with the fundamental “ends” of abolishing all exploitation and oppression through revolution led on a scientific basis.

Over the last number of decades, in talks and writings, BA has provided crucial analysis regarding the rising strength and very real danger of fascism in this country. In the past year and a half, in addition to continuing writings (available at revcom.us) speaking to a wide range of important questions, BA has issued over a hundred social media messages (@BobAvakian Official), also dealing with important political as well as philosophical and other ideological questions, and providing timely analysis and leadership in regard to developments in the world and significant “current events,” focusing this year especially on the danger represented, and the ongoing atrocities committed, by the Trump fascist regime and the need and basis for a massive, nonviolent but determined and sustained struggle to create the conditions where this regime is removed from power, before it can fully consolidate its fascist rule and carry out even more unrestrained lawless tyranny.

Zeavin, it seems, has nothing of significance to say about all this. She is provoked by the fact that BA’s name appears many times on the home page of revcom.us, while on the same home page there is access to works of BA on Key Topics, covering more than a dozen very important subjects. Has Zeavin read any of this? Can she say specifically, with regard to any of BA’s works, what the essential themes and arguments are and what BA says by way of expanding on and substantiating those themes and arguments?

Zeavin has at least looked at recent videos featuring BA—his 2025 New Year’s Statement, and the two-part interview he did with Sunsara Taylor. But, instead of engaging the important content of this, she indulges in incredibly petty and inane tabloid-style gossip about his appearance (including the silly suggestion that he may have had plastic surgery)! This is the level to which opportunists sink who cannot, or will not, seriously engage the substance of what is represented by BA and his many important works.

Predictably, Zeavin’s perverse conclusion is that all of the efforts of the revcoms are “for him”—for BA. Once more, the reality is that all of the work and leadership of BA, and of those who take up and apply the leadership he is providing, is for the emancipation of humanity—as in the name REVCOM CORPS FOR THE EMANCIPATION Of HUMANITY! Emancipation from thousands of years of merciless exploitation and cruel oppression, the terrible suffering inflicted on the masses of humanity, and the horrific way this is acutely (im)posed in today’s world. That someone like Zeavin is not interested in this emancipation—or at least is not willing to engage in principled discourse in regard to it—is a glaring shortcoming on her part. But when (to echo Mark Twain) Zeavin chooses to employ “the perfect combination of ignorance and arrogance” in attacking those who do recognize the urgent need for and the profoundly liberating character of what is represented by BA’s development of the new communism—that goes beyond a mere personal failing on Zeavin’s part. As emphasized in BA’s social media message number 118, in speaking of this kind of unprincipled opportunist attack, it “is always harmful and is especially so now when there is a great and urgent need to unite all who can be united in the fight to bring about an end to the Trump fascist regime. To act in a contrary way—to wage unprincipled attacks on those with whom unity should be built in the fight against Trump/MAGA fascism—not only does great harm in general but also concretely aids the fascist regime and its terrible juggernaut of atrocity.”

That something like this article by Zeavin could be published with the expectation that it would be taken seriously is, unfortunately, a sad commentary on the putrid dominant culture of today, including among way too much of the so-called “progressive” and “left” currents. But, again, as much as Zeavin’s article traffics in low-level gossip, blatant falsehoods, fabrications and overall unprincipled methods—and as much as any serious and principled person would be tempted to dismiss her article as simply fatuous garbage—real harm is done by the kind of attacks Zeavin indulges in. As BA wrote in his Challenge To Katherine Stewart, what is needed—especially now, in opposition to the facile and destructive opportunism that prevails way too commonly—is adherence to and a consistent application of “the fundamental principle that, especially regarding matters of substance and importance, expression of disagreements should be based on serious engagement with, and honest characterization of, the positions of others with whom one disagrees.” And: “There is particular importance to this now, in light of the need to unite all who can be united in opposition to Trump/MAGA fascism—something which all decent people (including those holding significantly different views regarding the fundamental nature of the system that rules in this country) should recognize as urgently necessary.”