This issue of revcom.us goes up on the eve of International Women’s Day. Tomorrow, March 8, will mark a major step to defend the right to abortion—a right that the Supreme Court is now on track to overturn this June. This would be a giant leap toward outlawing abortion altogether and a major attack on the humanity of women. This issue gives you the information you need to find out where and how people are standing up and to hear the voices of some of its leaders and members—and you can also go to Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights to find out about this, and to join it.  

Bob Avakian (BA), the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, in the timely and extremely important presentation “Something Terrible, OR Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed. A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap for This Revolution,” makes this essential point on the times we live in:

Here is another profound truth: Even with all the ways that the heavy chains of hundreds, and thousands, of years of oppressive tradition weigh down on the masses of people—and place a heavy burden particularly on the half of humanity that is female—there is a deep yearning to be free of all this, which not only leads to imaginary hopes of supernatural salvation but also erupts in unrestrained fury right in this real world. And that fury needs to be fully called forth, given a scientific, revolutionary expression—focused toward the emancipation of all the oppressed and exploited of the world, and ultimately all humanity—directed to fighting against the fundamental source of all the suffering: this system of capitalism-imperialism, with its suffocating and brutal, patriarchal male supremacy, along with all its other outrages. This takes on even more powerful meaning and urgent importance in the current situation in this country (and others), where the forceful assertion of raw misogyny (hatred of women) and patriarchal subjugation of women is becoming more blatant and unbridled, focused to a significant degree now in the escalating moves to even further deny women control over their own lives and their very bodies, with the right to abortion, and even birth control, being brought under mounting attack. Right now, this slogan and call needs to be taken up broadly and made a powerful material force: Break the Chains, Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution!

This righteous fury must be given full expression. This movement and the chord it has already struck is one manifestation of that. It has done this up against what is essentially silence and complicity of the Democratic Party and most of the so-called leaders of the so-called pro-choice movement, and their refusal to make a real fight of this—to call people into the streets, and not just once but week after week and day after day.

So go here to see and spread a short film of last Sunday’s powerful speak-out confronting St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York that builds for tomorrow; here for the recent appearance of Sunsara Taylor, the initiator of this movement and a follower of Bob Avakian, on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less Show on YouTube, and here to get more deeply into Bob Avakian’s work on the question of the liberation of women and the emancipation of all humanity. Come back to this site on Wednesday evening for sights and sounds from International Women’s Day. And definitely tune into The RNL Show on Thursday night to get a first pass on this—do so with friends and comrades and spread this tool of orientation and guide for the movement for revolution.

This tremendously important battle takes place in a context that is illuminated in the whole sweep of “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating.” Two sections of the ruling class—the fascists, who see the attack on abortion as a battering ram for their whole agenda, and the Democrats—are locked in an irreconcilable conflict, one that finds sharp expression around abortion and in virtually every other dimension of society. This conflict at the top and all through society sets the ground in which the emergence of a real chance for revolution is possible; and “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating” shows the deep foundations for today’s situation, and provides a road map with which to navigate through this toward revolution and emancipation.

The story dominating the headlines of the world today is Ukraine, where Russia wages a brutal, unjust war and the U.S. moves to take advantage of this to pursue its own imperialist interests… and the whole thing gets more and more dangerous for the people of the world every day. One very damaging element of this whole crisis has been the way that many liberals and “progressives” have rallied to the banner of the U.S. in this context. We feature a new piece that calls this out and digs into why it’s happening, by Bob Avakian (“Imperialist Parasitism and ‘Democracy’: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of ‘Their’ Imperialism”) along with BA’s previous article (“Shameless American Chauvinism: ‘Anti-Authoritarianism’ as a ‘Cover’ For Supporting U.S. Imperialism”); an analysis of key developments over the past week; and other extensive materials enabling you to see beyond the warped and slanted coverage that works to train you to see things through the eyes of the imperialists.

We also cover other important developments this week. See Part I and Part II for analysis of a major new report on the environment that came out from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and for how with revolution (and only with revolution) people could finally begin to deal with this horrendous situation. Read about the attacks on the homeless in New York City by Biden’s new favorite, Eric “the Black Giuliani” Adams. Plug into progressive and revolutionary thinking and activity inside the prisons of both the U.S. and Iran. And get organized on the Revolution Club page. It’s all here… and more.

Included in this issue:

* The struggle around abortion rights, International Women’s Day

• Call for mass actions around the country on March 8, International Women’s Day
• Speak-out and action at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC to build for March 8
• Sunsara Taylor on the RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
• Bob Avakian’s work on liberation of women and emancipation of all humanity
• San Francisco Protest: Handmaids Shake Up St. Mary’s Cathedral
• Speak-out at Stroger Hospital (formerly Cook County Hospital), Chicago: When Abortion Is Illegal, Women Die
• LISTEN: Sunsara Taylor as guest host of The Michael Slate Show interviews Skyler of RiseUp4AbortionRightsLA.org
• From one of the organizers of Causa Justa in Colombia—A message to women in the U.S.
• From La Opinión: Pro-Abortion Activists Organize Mass Protest for March 8
• International Anti-Rape Anthem, from Osyan in collaboration with revolutionary artist Shekib Mosadeq

* Ukraine

• Bob Avakian Calls Out
  FRONTING FOR THIS SYSTEM
  OF OPPRESSION
• Ukraine War Update: Behind the Comic Book Headlines—Escalating Horror, Danger of Nuclear War, and Imperialist Calculations
• To all Those “Progressives” Who Think That the U.S. Is Morally Superior to Russia Because “We” Would Never Invade a Country and Attack Civilians in Such a Wanton Manner:  WE CHALLENGE YOU TO LEARN ABOUT YEMEN
• Imperialist Parasitism and “Democracy”: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of “Their” Imperialism, by Bob Avakian
• A BASIC PRINCIPLE ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE, by Bob Avakian
• Shameless American Chauvinism: “Anti-Authoritarianism” as a “Cover” For Supporting U.S. Imperialism, by Bob Avakian
• Emergency Forum on the War in Ukraine
• Andy Zee on: War in Ukraine: What is happening?… Why is it happening?… Where do the interests of humanity lie?... AND WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE REVOLUTION HUMANITY SO URGENTLY NEEDS?
• Piercing the Lies, Digging Beneath the Surface The Larger Dynamics of the World Imperialist System Driving the War in Ukraine... And a Lesson from When There Was a Genuinely Socialist Soviet Union, by Raymond Lotta
• The Revcoms respond to @StevieVanZandt
• Hey Thomas Friedman (and the New York Times): The world has been subjected to nuclear devastation. Guess who did it?

* Revolution Club

• Opening Up the Debate at a Law School: “Woke” Surrender vs. Rising Up for Abortion Rights 
• Turning Heads in an Arts District on a Saturday Afternoon 
• Find out more about the Revolution Club

* New Major UN Report on Climate Change Impact

• Part I: 3.3 Billion Humans Highly Vulnerable to Climate Change: NOW!
• Part II: What Could The New Socialist Society Do Differently? And Would!—A Simple Example

* Eric “the Black Giuliani” Adams’ “Safety Plan” to Wage War on the Homeless in NYC Subways

* Responses from Prisoners to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) Survey Part 3: BA “is a fighter for the liberation of all people”… “the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America is a visionary and concrete application of the new synthesis of communism”

* Prisoner Writes on Bob Avakian’s Away with All Gods!: “It is enlightening and also hilarious”

* DAY 45: Heroic #HungerStrike4Life in Iran’s Prisons: Free Them All Now!