"On The Possibility of Revolution - Could We Really Win?"

So. I attended this event at Revolution Books believing it was a very theoretical discussion about past revolutions and what has made them effective. This was not at all what the event was about.

My mother and I walked into the bookstore and were immediately met by an older man, who’s first words were, “So, how do you feel about communism? Do you have a gut reaction that it’s awful?” I was taken by surprise and my mother took the lead saying that she thinks the concept is pretty good, but it’s practice in Russia and China has been very problematic. He quickly followed up with, “What if I was to tell you that the practice has been much refined and the problems solved, and though Mao made some mistakes, communism, if implemented today would be great!” (I cannot promise this is what he said word for word, though I believe it’s quite close.) My mother and I smiled and nodded while the man carried on about the need for a revolution and the evils of capitalism.

The afternoon proceeded to follow a formula of: introduction by woman, video of Bob Avakian (Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party of America, not to be confused, with the Communist Party of America. The RCP supports an extreme Maoist version of communism,) followed by interpretation of Bob Avakian’s writings and speech by woman, followed by a reading of Bob Avakian by another man. There were three video segments of this guy speaking, mostly very repetitive with little to no content disguised with large words.

The main idea of the event was how to prepare for, and win a revolution to overthrow the US government, end oppression, and instate communism, BUT in the future because the conditions are not right for a revolution currently. They were very clear with the future element as it’s actually illegal to conspire to overthrow the government.

Stated necessary conditions for successful revolution:

1.     Conflicts among ruling class

2.    Legitimacy of ruling class heavily questioned

3.    Masses in agreement and beyond “individualistic expressions of frustration” moving towards an objective truth (I personally don’t believe there is such a thing as an objective truth, and if there was, it certainly should not be decided by Bob Avakian)

4.    Forces of reform are rejected by masses

5.    The middle classes must be neutral on revolution if not in support of, so that they may switch over to the side of the revolution, or at least let it happen.

Their next point was, “If conditions are met – Can we win?” (“we” being the RCP, who, when asked if they were trying to create a “cult of personality” around Bob Avakian, replied, “I certainly hope so. We’ve been working very hard to create one.”)

1.     Only win if “premature decisive encounters” are avoided. Which I think means, avoid inciting specific battles, that government forces could engage in and probably win with their superior force.  Rather commit small acts by small groups who could then merge back into the population.  (They quoted Mao here – revolutionaries should be “fishes in the sea of the people”)

2.    The government needs to be faced with a choice to either allow a revolution, or destroy the country.

This is where everything began to become absurd, if not frightening.

They gave out pamphlets, which were horribly written with no sense of grammar. One was titled, “Some Crucial Points of Revolutionary Orientation – in Opposition to Infantile Posturing and Distortions of Revolution”.

The words: scientific understanding, goal, reactionary institutions, qualitative change, the masses, objective situation, hypothetical, future, decisive, blood, and communism were used repeatedly. But it was never explained why capitalism is so evil, and communism would be so much less oppressive.

They were very excited that I was there – the only person under 40 and a representative of a generation they think is very important to their cause. At the end the older man cornered me and brought out “The Red Book” in Russian, and told me how everyone read it in the 70’s, it sold more than the Bible, it started this movement while flipping through it like a sacred artifact. He said his generation failed to start a revolution in the 60’s, when the conditions were right because they didn’t have the foresight on what was needed for a revolution to be effective, so my generation needs to know the strategy behind revolutions.

It was a very strange experience.