Re-envisioning Revolution and Communism WHAT IS BOB AVAKIAN’S NEW SYNTHESIS?

Revolution Books presents

Re-envisioning Revolution and Communism

WHAT IS BOB AVAKIAN’S NEW SYNTHESIS?

Presentation followed by discussion

Saturday March 22nd

1-5 PM

University Center*

525 S. State Street (State & Congress)

Red line to Harrison. Walk 1 block north. Brown, Pink, Orange lines to Library stop. Walk 1 block east, 1 block south

ON A PLANET WHERE BILLIONS LIVE A DAY AWAY FROM STARVATION…where the lives of millions of children are cut short by curable diseases…where brutal wars grind on in Iraq and Afghanistan and hellholes like Guantanamo stay “open for business”…where nooses spring up like weeds, immigrants are hunted and the availability of abortion is rapidly disappearing…where youth are treated as either criminals or commodities…and where all that is totally UNNECESSARY—the world badly needs revolution.

Revolutionary state power will set about ending these horrors and meeting the pressing needs of the people. But a truly emancipatory socialism must do much more than that. It must lay the basis, and take concrete steps, toward a society where people consciously change the world and themselves, in a society of freely associating human beings and where the need for any kind of state has been surpassed.

In that light, Bob Avakian has done path-breaking work to go beyond even the best of the previous socialist societies and re-envision a socialism that is both visionary and viable. His “new synthesis” has tackled a whole realm of questions, including:

* HOW DOES THE NEW REVOLUTIONARY POWER MAINTAIN POWER and maintain it as a power worth keeping? How does it not just survive in a world dominated by imperialism, but do that as a base area for further revolutions?

* WHAT WOULD BE THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, civil society, and politics outside the purview of the state? What would be the role of a constitution and elections? Why would this re-envisioned socialism not only tolerate, but foster, dissent?

* WHAT WOULD BE THE RELATION BETWEEN SCIENTISTS, ARTISTS AND INTELLECTUALS carrying out urgent work to meet the most pressing needs of society and, at the same time pursuing work, experimentation and exploration not tied to those kinds of immediate goals? How would the age-old division between those who work with ideas and those who are locked out of that, be overcome—in a way that does not sacrifice but actually enhances vibrancy and intellectual ferment throughout society, in unprecedented ways?

* WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF A FEARLESS ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TRUTH and what have been the shortcomings and blinders in regard to this in the communist movement as it has developed?

* HOW DOES THIS NEW SYNTHESIS BOTH CONTINUE ON THE PATH FIRST CHARTED BY MARX, LENIN AND MAO— AND YET GO BEYOND IT, IN NEW AND CRUCIAL WAYS?

Come hear this presentation and then wrangle over all this.

Sponsored by Revolution Books

1103 N. Ashland Avenue

Chicago, IL 60622

773•489•0930

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Bob Avakian is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. And he is more than that: he’s an innovative and critical thinker who has taken Marxism to a new place; he’s a provocative commentator on everything from basketball to religion, doo-wop music to science; and he’s a pit-bull fighter against oppression who’s kept both his solemn sense of purpose and his irrepressible sense of humor.

Bob Avakian will not be in attendance at this event.

*This program is not sponsored by or affiliated with University Center