You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism…
Nikita Khrushchev
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
Karl Marx
In the late Twenties, when I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist myself—but not when I left. The average college kid idealistically wishes everybody could have ice cream and cake for every meal. But as he gets older and gives more thought to his and his fellow man’s responsibilities, he finds that it can’t work out that way—that some people just won’t carry their load…
John Wayne
Well, this is my third installment in a series on “The New Communism,” but I haven’t really given a definition of the subject so here is my short answer, it’s just more of the same ol’ same ol’ but my long answer is in the remainder of this installment.
This concept of a new communism is the result of the efforts of Bob Avakian to arrive at a new synthesis of communist theory. The New Communism, also known as Avakian Communism, is a new synthesis grounded in the scientific method of understanding reality known as dialectical materialism.
In communist philosophy, all understanding of the world is based on objective reality or material reality. Therefore, it follows that communists believe “that all of reality, all of existence, is made up of material reality and nothing else.”1 [emphasis added] But Avakian has abridged Marx and Engel’s dialectical materialism by removing any relationship with the spiritual or dependence on faith. In other words, there is no room whatsoever for God or any of the other gods in Avakian’s new communist utopia. Avakian continues arguing for communism as a science based on the understanding that “reality is not static”2 and that “Reality is made up of contradiction.”3
It is not ‘totalitarian’ to say that there is objective reality, that we can engage it and we can transform it. We can learn about it, and, yes, keep on learning, and keep on refining what we’ve learned, and maybe even discard some things. But there is an accumulation of knowledge by proceeding in this kind of way, with this kind of method and approach.4
It’s interesting to point out that the favorite catch phrase climate alarmists use to defend their position against “climate doubters” is that the “science is settled” which, in fact, contradicts the scientific method. Avakian is clever enough to avoid using the term, “climate” outright in his diatribe against capitalism but he nevertheless insinuates capitalism is the cause of climate change when he argues that the current economic system needs to be “transformed”5 so that we don’t “further destroy the potential for human life.“6
We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
Barack Obama, October 30, 2008
Progressives, socialists, communists…Avakian believe society can’t advance (progress) under the current economic system. Avakian tries to convince the reader that “socialist society is a dynamic society, in transition, that has to go forward to the complete achievement of communism…”7 Okay, let’s experiment a little and try to apply the scientific method to the discussion of communism as put forward by Avakian in his statement on objective reality above. Given that socialist society is constantly changing and evolving, how does Avakian know that communism would be the ultimate goal? What if the progression towards socialism, then communism, eventually takes you back to capitalism? Hasn’t this outcome already been demonstrated? And, if somehow you do happen to arrive at the “complete achievement of communism,”8 what then?
Okay, so what is the bottom line here with this new synthesis of communism? I believe what Avakian has tried to do in his 424-page book is to say that the scientific method as applied to communism is the realization that reality is comprised of contradiction and motion9 along with the acceptance of the new leadership that has brought this about, i.e., Avakian himself. I believe everyone understands the concept of reality in motion, but what are the contradictions?
Avakian is dogmatic in his insistence that in order for anyone to be a real communist, that person must be a Maoist, “You’re a communist, you’re with Mao. That’s it, baby.”10 Avakian is adamant in his belief that in order for anyone to call themselves a communist they need to follow Mao.11 He defends his position by applying the principles of material reality to Mao’s understanding of communism. That is, Mao believed that since socialist society is a dynamic society, in transition, there will continue to be class struggle, that is, the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoise; and between capitalism and socialism;” and that this “assumed a concentrated expression within the communist party itself…”12 Mao recognized that within the communist party there will be revisionist elements and those desiring to go back down the capitalist road. Mao considered Deng Xiaoping a “capitalist roader.”
In Avakian’s mind, the United States is a capitalist-imperialist society. I use the term “society” because Avakian doesn’t believe in sovereign nations or nation states. Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) is targeting the entire world not just the U.S. for revolution, but the revolution needs to start here, in the U.S.
Was it a coincidence that American essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau published his essay “Civil Disobedience” only one year after Marx and Engels published their Communist Manifesto in 1848?
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation…A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things…
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
I’ve read Thoreau in college but I don’t remember being taught or told that Thoreau was a revolutionary, but the above quote has a very Marxian ring to it. Thoreau used the phrase “mass of men” and Marx used the term “people” or “masses.” The notion that the mass of men are leading lives of quiet desperation seems to imply that they are being oppressed, a theme not overlooked by Avakian. For Marx, the oppressors were the bourgeois owners of the means of production and for Thoreau the oppressor was or could be the government.
Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Thoreau breaks with Marxian philosophy and dialectical materialism which proposes that reality is only material and in a constant state of transition. Thoreau, being a New England Transcendentalist, conformed to an idealistic system of thought that rejects the notion that all existence is made up of only material reality.
Avakian is a revolutionary communist, so what is his strategy for achieving the revolution? Avakian’s strategy for revolution is based on Mao’s strategy for resisting the Japanese during their occupation of China during World War II which is “hastening while awaiting.”13
The hastening involves the preparation of the vanguard for revolution. The vanguard being the ones who will be making the sacrifices, i.e., the ones who will be doing the dying. The vanguard is easy to identify, it consists of the members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter along with radicalized college students and those in the Me Too and feminist movements. Let’s not forget those individuals and companies supporting The Resistance, those within the Never Trump movement, and the evangelists for the revolution in the mainstream media and their enablers in the Democratic Party who are spewing out propaganda 24/7. I’m being overly polite here.
So, what about the awaiting? Avakian says that “You have to have the right conditions, the necessary conditions,”14 in order for the revolution to be successful. But what are these conditions? Well, I have a few theories. First of all, the masses need to be convinced that any form of socialism is preferred over free-market capitalism. The second is through a breakdown in law and order so that society starts to go adrift. And thirdly, last but not least, is the confiscation of firearms from law abiding citizens. Do you really think that the 16 million AR-15s and AKs that could be confiscated in the U.S. would be sent to the crusher? No, I believe that a Federal government firearms confiscation initiative would be nothing more than a redistribution of armaments from those that don’t or won’t support the revolution to those that do.
I have the hardcover version of Bob Avakian’s book, The New Communism, but I also downloaded a PDF version from the REVCOM.US website and I discovered that the word “exploitation” appears 133 times in the text and that the word “oppression” appears 56 times, and “emancipation” appears 51 times. So, what does humanity need to be emancipated from? According to Avakian, it’s capitalism and America’s Christian heritage—a topic which I’ll address in Part 4 of this series.
But what is the nature of all the “horrors”15 and “horrendous outrages”16 that the masses are forced to endure according to Avakian? While he doesn’t really elaborate on those things, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to infer what they might be.
Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party seems to believe that all of humanity needs to be emancipated from the following:
- Capitalism
- Religions
- Police/Military
- Private Property
- Free Speech
- Individualism
- Sovereign States
- Traditional Family and Social Structures
- Currency
You get the picture. Of course, none of this is really new, all these things have been under attack by the progressives since the 1960s at least. Back then, the radicals were all for free speech because political correctness and revisionist history weren’t being taught in colleges and universities, but that has been completely reversed on today’s college campuses.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The current COVID-19 pandemic panic is a perfect example. I’ve lived through many flu outbreaks and pandemics in my lifetime: H2N2, Influenza A/B, H3N2, H5N1, and H1N1. During the H2N2 outbreak during the 1968-1969 flu season there were approximately 100,000 deaths in the U.S. I graduated high-school in 1968 and I don’t remember anyone really being concerned at all; life went on as usual. But today, there have been 276 deaths from COVID-19 and the entire country is shut down. What’s different?
Don’t be deceived. The last thing The Resistance wants is for the economy to recover before the 2020 Presidential Election. Let’s hope that Remdesivir, chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine, and other drugs don’t prove to be effective treatments for COVID-19 so that the panic continues, the country stays in lockdown, and the economy continues to tank. Otherwise…well you know what will happen.
Maybe The New York Times is correct, maybe this really is the “Trumpvirus.”
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