Originally published January 1, 2014 | Republished October 19, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
This statement from Bob Avakian, first issued on New Year's Day, 2014, remains timely and profoundly relevant.
This is Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, with a New Year's message—A Call To REVOLUTION.
We need a new world, a radically different world.
Look at the world today. Destruction of the environment. Youth in the inner cities robbed of a future, "presumed guilty" for being Black or Brown, hounded and shot down by police, incarcerated in huge numbers. Women raped, battered and murdered, denied their basic humanity and their full potential as human beings. People scorned, bullied, brutalized for being gay, or just being "different." Millions of children dying every year from starvation and disease. Immigrants driven from their homelands, forced into the shadows, exploited, deported, ripped away from their children. Slaughter and enslavement in the name of one god or another. Wars, torture, and massive government spying.
Things are this way because of the system that rules over us and declares its "special right" to rule the world. A system like this is a system that no one should put up with or go along with. It needs to be swept off the face of the earth. And it can be.
This system is not a mystery, or something that only a few people can understand. And it is not all-powerful. This system has a name—capitalism. This system is full of contradictions—an economy based on ruthless exploitation and dog-eat-dog competition, repeated crises, unemployment and poverty...savage inequalities...claims of "peace" and "justice for all" that are bitter lies—contradictions that this system cannot resolve. All this is the basis to bring this system down and bring something much better into being.
A lot of people say: "You can't really change things. Nobody cares what we think. Those who have the power don't give a damn about us." Yeah, they don't—but so what! Their power is illegitimate anyway—a law and order of injustice and exploitation, enforced with brutality, murder, high-tech assassination and devastation, here and worldwide. It needs to be overthrown.
And what we do matters a great deal. Our lives should be, and can be, about something with meaning and purpose that is really worth living for and fighting for. Why should we do what they want us to do—killing and crippling each other, trying to beat down or beat out each other, ending up in jail, or paralyzed, or dead at an early age—instead of joining together to go up against the system that has got us in this mess in the first place? Why should we accept the lies that people who are of a different color, or live in a different place, or speak a different language, or love in a different way, are less than human and deserve to be locked up, or beaten down, or murdered? Why should girls and women be treated like things, whose only value is to be used for sex and having babies? Why should we go along with the sickening culture of this system which says money is more important than people, and people are only a means to make money? Why should we believe that "it's all in god's hands," when all this horror and suffering is completely unnecessary and could be ended? Why should we accept the way things are, or just try to make things a little bit better, still living within this system that will keep on destroying the lives of human beings, and denying a decent future to the youth, all over the world?
We need to, and we can, do much better than this. We can change all this—we can change ourselves as we change the world—Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, for REVOLUTION.
Revolution is not an impossible dream. It is not "unrealistic." Changing all of society, changing the whole world, is not a crazy or dangerous idea. What is crazy, and dangerous, is going along with the way things are, and where things are heading, under this system. Revolution—a radical change in how society works, how we relate as human beings, what our values are, how we understand the world and act to affect it—this is what we, what people all over the world, desperately need. And it is a lot more realistic than trying to "fix" this system.
People say: "Revolution has been tried, and it didn't work. It got smashed, or turned into something worse than what it was fighting against. Everybody has given up on revolution." No. The process of revolution has gone through twists and turns, mistakes have been made, there have been setbacks and defeats—but the truth is that, in its short history so far, the communist revolution has accomplished great things on a road of liberation never before taken. This revolution remains the only road which can actually bring about a radically different and much better world. As long as human beings continue to be exploited and abused, there will be the need and the possibility for this revolution.
And everybody has not given up on revolution. On my part, I have not just refused to give up, but have recognized the need to make new breakthroughs for this revolution. I have gone to work to learn from the experience of revolution, and from experience more broadly, and this has led to a new synthesis of communism—a deeper, even more scientific understanding of the methods, the goals, the strategy and plan for making revolution and creating a new society. On this basis, our Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, is right now building a movement for revolution, and we are building our Party as the leadership that is needed for that revolution. But this movement and this Party have to get much stronger. More and more people need to get with this.
I call on youth in the inner cities, men and women in prison, people struggling just to keep from going under, mocked by the lie that "you can make it if you try," all those catching hell under this system, everyone deeply troubled by the desperate situation and dismal future facing so many youth—I call on students, academics, musicians and other artists, all those outraged by the crimes perpetrated by this system, everyone who agonizes over the state of the world and the future of humanity—to seriously get into this revolution. Go to the website revcom.us, and read the newspaper Revolution, where our Party puts forward why we need revolution, what the goals of this revolution are, and how to work for this revolution. With the guidelines this provides, thousands can move now in a unified way and build up the basis to lead millions when the time comes. Fighting back against the injustices of this system, and learning as we fight. Spreading and deepening the movement for revolution—preparing minds and organizing forces for revolution—in the neighborhoods and schools, everywhere people are who need to know about and join in this revolution. Helping to bring about, and getting ready for the time when millions can be led to go for revolution, all-out, with a real chance to win.
This is no joke, and it is not just some "grand idea" with no basis "in the real world." It is real, and it is being taken up with a serious, scientific method and approach—and with the joy of striving for a world where the suffering and madness that is now daily life for the masses of humanity will be gone, and whole new dimensions of freedom and of human potential will open up for people everywhere, no longer divided into rich and poor, masters and slaves, rulers and ruled. No longer fighting and slaughtering each other, but working together for the common good. No longer destroying, but acting as fit caretakers for the earth. This is communism, the goal of our revolution, a future—for the youth, for all of humanity—that is truly worth dedicating our lives to.
This is Bob Avakian, with a message of revolution. The challenge is there. The leadership is there. What's needed...is you.
