There's Nothing More Revolutionary than Marxism-Leninism, Mao-Tsetung Thought: Bob Avakian on Anarchism

by Bob Avakian

(from the publication page):
Shortly after the publication of "Conquer the World? The International Proletariat Must and Will" by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (Revolution magazine, No. 50, December, 1981), Comrade Avakian responded to a number of questions from a comrade who has been involved in the revolutionary struggle throughout the decades of the '60s, '70s, and into the '80s. The answers elaborate on a number of questions raised in "Conquer the World?...". Excerpts from this series of questions and answers were published in the Revolutionary Worker.
In this pamphlet we reprint those excerpts dealing with anarchism. They originally appeared in RW issues 145-146. Other excerpts dealt with questions about party issues (issues 136-144 now available in pamphlet form), "'60s people" (issue 147), and from the '60s into the '70s and today (issues 148-150 and 154-5).

Genres: Politics

60 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1982

About the author

"If you don't have a poetic spirit-or at least a poetic side- it is very dangerous for you to lead a Marxist movement or be the leader of a socialist state. "
- Bob Avakian

Bob Avakian (BA) is the architect of a whole new framework of human emancipation, the new synthesis of communism, which is popularly referred to as the "new communism. " The goal of the new communism is a total revolution - the most radical revolution in human history that aims at nothing less than overcoming all forms of oppression and exploitation all over the world, a society where humanity could truly flourish. The new synthesis is based on more than 40 years of revolutionary work that BA has done critically analyzing and drawing from past revo­lutionary experience and theory, and a broad range of human activity and thought. It is a continuation of, but also represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some important ways a break with, communist theory as it had been previously developed. It provides the basis--the science, the strategy, and the leadership--for an actual revolution and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation.

Bob Avakian is the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP), which he has led since its formation in 1975. He emerged as a major political figure throughout the upheavals and rebellions of the period of the '60s: awakening to political life in the period of the emerging discontent and ferment among students in the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley; joining and then becoming a leader of the resistance and protests against the Vietnam War; becoming an early and prominent supporter of the Black Liberation struggle where he was closely associated with the Black Panther Party; then playing a critical leading role in the political and ideological struggles of the New Left Movement of the 1960s, which ultimately led to the founding of the RCP. In the decades since the 1960s BA has given decisive leadership to the theoretical as well as strategic and practical dimensions of the revolution, both in the U.S. and internationally.

BA’s extensive body of work includes more than a hundred articles, books, films and audio recordings.  His collected works are available through The Bob Avakian Institute, http://thebobavakianinstitute.org.

The above is excerpted from “Bob Avakian (BA)–Official Biography,” a publication of The Bob Avakian Institute.

Reviews

[Michael]

10/19/2014: This is another of my relatively-rare 1-star reviews. Normally I reserve these for books that are so bad I can't finish them, but this one is so short that I probably have, at some point read the whole thing. Not recently, though. On the whole, it is an effort by Chairman Bob to reduce Lenin's The State and Revolution into a folksy pamphlet and argue that Communism is of course the most radical movement because it is scientifically proven to be so by Saint Marx. Except that, unlike Lenin, Avakian has no talent for writing and no ability to speak in specifics and only a limited understanding of theory of any kind. He is fond of vague terms like "the whole thing" and "this thing" and "So, that's a kind of..." which may be meant to be accessible but just come across as stupid. Interestingly, the last word goes, not to Chairman Bob, but to a reprint of a letter from "The Anarchist Eclectic," a completely forgotten group who actually manage to make Avakian look good in comparison. The pamphlet was printed in dual Spanish and English, with the "front" cover for the Spanish serving as the "back" cover for the English section.

6/19/2024: Nearly ten years later, I took another look at the thing. Actually, that letter from “Anarchist Eclectic” may be the most interesting part. It claims to have had 32 signatures, though it opens with the sentence “I wish to bring up a few points dealing with contradictions in the proposed line of the RCP,” followed with “I submit…” and then 23 points that could have been written, to judge from the tone, by more than one person. Getting 32 anarchists to agree to put their name to anything is a major, perhaps even momentous, accomplishment, and if they really collaborated in the writing process, this could be a historic event. I suspect that really it was written by one person, who then got 32 of his friends to sign it, possibly without actually reading the whole thing, much less, in most cases, offering editorial suggestions. Possibly most of them weren’t even anarchists. It’s funny that Chairman Bob wound up preserving this obscure document. It’s worthy of study by some radical historian – far more so than Bob’s own words are.

[Michael]

This is another of my relatively-rare 1-star reviews. Normally I reserve these for books that are so bad I can't finish them, but this one is so short that I probably have, at some point read the whole thing. Not recently, though. On the whole, it is an effort by Chairman Bob to reduce Lenin's The State and Revolution into a folksy pamphlet and argue that Communism is of course the most radical movement because it is scientifically proven to be so by Saint Marx. Except that, unlike Lenin, Avakian has no talent for writing and no ability to speak in specifics and only a limited understanding of theory of any kind. He is fond of vague terms like "the whole thing" and "this thing" and "So, that's a kind of..." which may be meant to be accessible but just come across as stupid. Interestingly, the last word goes, not to Chairman Bob, but to a reprint of a letter from "The Anarchist Eclectic," a completely forgotten group who actually manage to make Avakian look good in comparison. The pamphlet was printed in dual Spanish and English, with the "front" cover for the Spanish serving as the "back" cover for the English section.