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Revolution and Communism: A Foundation and Strategic Orientation

2008-04-28T16:17:00.001-05:00

Thursday, May 1st is International Workers’ Day! We’re having a celebration at 6pm at Revolution Books (details below)-- and we’re calling on every supporter and friend of Revolution Books to celebrate this special holiday in a number of different ways:

Revolution newspaper has just announced “the publication of a pamphlet entitled Revolution and Communism: A Foundation and Strategic Orientation on May 1, 2008. This pamphlet contains Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity, by Bob Avakian, along with On the Possibility of Revolution. “Some Crucial Points of Revolutionary Orientation—in Opposition to Infantile Posturing and Distortions of Revolution” is also included in this pamphlet.

This pamphlet emphatically challenges and refutes the message that revolution is impossible and communism unworkable and not desirable. In fact, revolution and communism are exactly what humanity needs! This pamphlet speaks to why communist revolution is not only necessary, but possible—and how it could be made. It concentrates the strategic foundation and scaffolding for advancing on the road of revolution and communism, and winning growing numbers of the masses to that cause, through hard struggle (both against the enemy, but also including sharp ideological struggle with the masses) and with all the twists and turns that will inevitably be encountered.”
(Read more about this it at revcom.us.)

Copies of this historic pamphlet and Revolution/Revolucion will be available starting Tuesday, April 29th. Other ways to hook up:

Wednesday, April 30, 7pm at Revolution Books
“Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity” by Bob Avakian. Discussion of the slogan “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution”

Thursday, May 1--8:30am
Join us in bringing revolution and communism to the immigrants’ rights march on May 1st. This is a big opportunity to connect Revolution/Revolución and the new historic pamphlet, Revolution and Communism: A Foundation and Strategic Orientation, with many thousands who are thirsty for a better world. Meet up at 8:30 am at the northwest corner of Union Park (Lake & Ashland). Look for the red flags!

Thursday, May 1--6pm
Afterward the march, we’ll be celebrating the holiday of the international proletariat with a party at Revolution Books— music, food, a few toasts, and lots of fun!

Sunday April 20 --

2008-04-17T00:06:00.011-05:00

Help Make Bob Avakian’s Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World a Major Social Question

From the Revolution Newspaper editorial:

A Challenge to Take Up, Engage With, and Promote Away With All Gods!
With the publication of Bob Avakian’s Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, a highly fraught political and ideological moment meets an author who can powerfully speak to the questions posed by that moment. At a time of broad controversy and debate over religion—on a scale unprecedented in recent times—and over ideology more generally, Avakian’s book fills a unique need with power. . . and poetry.
(Read more...)

Sunday April 20 find the ways to promote the book. Join up with the plan below, or develop your own plans with others (and let us know what you do!).

All day - call Revolution Books 773-489-0930 to hook up, or go directly to one of the following:

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April 19 - 7 pm Meet at Revolution Books to prepare for Sunday all out with Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World. Bring a Bible so we can look at what the churches are studying!

Sunday April 20 -

During the morning:

Maxwell Street - table with book and Revolution newspaper.

Trinity Church - meet at Revolution Books, 1103 North Ashland Avenue at 8:30 am to go to Trinity, or meet at Trinity Church (400 West 95th Street) at 9:30 a.m. Get a flier about the book to people going into services, and sell the book as people come out.

8:45 am - meet at Michigan and Congress. Take the book to Willow Creek Church, an evangelical Christian church, which meets in the auditorium at 50 East Congress. This church sits in between dorms for Columbia, Roosevelt and other colleges and the busy tourist areas on Michigan Avenue. Agitation and banner "God does not exist - We need liberation without Gods!"

9:00 am - meet at Unity Temple (Unitarian Universalist), 875 Lake Street, in Oak Park. Get a flier about the book to people going into services, and sell the book as people come out.

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During the day:

Teams in Loop, on Michigan Avenue, State Street and more. Meet at Michigan and Congress at 11:30, or look for teams on Michigan Avenue after that.

Team in Hyde Park/Bronzeville - meet McDonalds at 52nd on Hyde Park at 1 pm.

Evanston - Meet 11:30 AM on the corner of Church and Sherman. We will be a moble team-with table, books, order forms, Revolution Newspapers, donations cans and flyers. We will have a banner that has the front cover of the book and the table of contents.Everyone will wear a matching blue T-shirt with one of the stickers on the front.We are working on a "fireside" chat at one of the Northwestern Dorms for early evening.

Humbolt Park - meet at 1 pm at North/California

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During evening:

House parties to introduce the book to others.

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

2008-03-02T22:42:00.010-06:00

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.

Some activities

2008-02-13T20:53:00.004-06:00

Bart Ehrman
Monday Feb 25, 12:30 pm
Borders Bookstore 150 N. State St.
Ehrman (author of Misquoting Jesus) discusses his newest book:
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer
"He invites all people of faith - or no faith - to confront their deepest questions about how God engages the world and each of us."

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The '68 Experience
Tuesdays, February 19 and 26, 2008
CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM
1601 N. Clark

Forty years later, this three-part series takes a look at how politics, culture, and music shaped 1968. The series includes a special bus tour, Magic Bus: 1968 Chicago. Call 312.642.4600 for more information.
[NOTE: 1st event was on 2/12]

Born To Be Wild
Tuesday, February 19, 7:00 p.m.

San Francisco had Haight-Ashbury and Chicago had Wells Street in Old Town. How did the counterculture take root in Chicago and why was it so important? How did participants achieve a balance between determined political activism and a lifestyle of peace, love, and rock 'n' roll? Museum historian Russell Lewis will be joined by Abe Peck, 60s expert and former editor for The Chicago Seed Magazine and Bonnie Koloc, a female pioneer of the 60s folk music scene and a staple at the Earl of Old Town and other area venues.
Cost: $10; $8 members.

Dance to the Music
Tuesday, February 26, 7:00 p.m.

Terri Hemmert, music expert and WXRT DJ, leads a discussion about how the music of 1968 affected the culture and political movement of the times. The evening concludes with a 90-minute live concert featuring music from 1968 performed by the Captain Blood Orchestra.
Cost: $15; $12 members.

Black History Month events at Revolution Books

2008-02-11T23:10:00.000-06:00

Here's the text of the Black History Month leaflet.
It may be convenient for you to copy the text from here to send in messages.

Timuel Black on the Great Migration of Black People from the South to Chicago

Saturday February 23rd at 2PM

Timuel Black will speak on the dreams and expectations of Black people in their migration to Chicago, which gave way to a very different reality and the continuing struggle to bring in a better world.

Timuel Black is an historian and author, retired Professor Emeritus at City Colleges of Chicago. He also taught at Columbia College and Roosevelt University and is a graduate of Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago. He is a lifelong community activist across race and community lines and an activist in civil rights and civil liberties. Black is the author of the oral histories Bridges of Memory, the 3rd volume of which will be in bookstores soon. These oral histories include the stories of people at the center of social and cultural faultlines, from social justice struggles to jazz music.

Opposing White Supremacy and Getting to a Far Better World with Clyde Young of the Revolutionary Communist Party

Friday February 29th at 7PM

As a young man Clyde Young spent many years behind bars in "correctional" institutions and became a revolutionary leader while in prison - leading prison rebellions and other political activity. He was influenced by revolutionary leaders and movements of the 1960s, including Malcolm X, George Jackson, the Black Panther Party, and, especially, the Maoist revolution in China.

Upon his release from prison, Clyde met Bob Avakian and recognized in him unique and special qualities as a leader and also an enormous sense of humor.

Clyde's writings for the revolutionary press range from essays on Martin Luther King and the Vietnam War to recent commentary on Bush's constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage entitled, Biblical Morality, Slavery and Other Horrors, to a major analysis of demographic changes, which was written in the 1980s, Since the '60s: Trends of Impoverishment, Oppression, and Class Polarization in the Black Nation.

In 1990, the Revolutionary Worker newspaper (the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and predecessor of Revolution) published a lengthy interview with Clyde Young. Excerpts of the interview will appear in a book entitled, Bandana Republic, which is slated to be published by Soft Skull Press.

About Revolution Books

At a time when people are agonizing over the state of the world and the prospect of a different kind of future, Revolution Books is a vital resource for those looking for answers to the burning questions of the day and a vehicle for broad social ferment and debate. This store features the works of Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party (see RCP's weekly newspaper at http://revcom.us/) at the center of a growing range of titles.

Revolution Books
1103 N. Ashland Ave.
Chicago, IL
Phone: (773) 489-0930
revbookschi@yahoo.com

Bookstore February 2008 Calendar (updated 2/1/08)

2008-01-28T23:56:00.000-06:00

Revolution Books Calendar

February 2008

Sun. Feb 3

2 PM—Discussion of Ardea Skybreak's The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters. This will be the 2nd in a series of discussions of the book leading into national events on Darwin Day. We’ll discuss basic principles of natural selection, speciation and more.

5 PM—Discussion: of Making Revolution And Emancipating Humanity. This week we'll discuss - Are All Ideas Equally Valid and Good? This is part of a series of weekly sessions, open to those who've been engaging the works of Bob Avakian and those who are brand new. All are welcome!

Mon. Feb 4

7:30PM—9:30 PM Jam Session at Revolution Books:

Jam Session! An experiment in directive musical improvisation. An open invitation of participation is extended to ALL musicians to join in. The goal of the evening is to create a series of spontaneous collective compositions facilitated by the house band. EVERYONE is welcome to witness and enjoy this musical event and explore Revolution Books.

Fri. Feb 8

7PM—Movie Night at Revolution Books - The Fever

Vanessa Redgrave plays a nameless woman who leaves her cush life in London and travels to a country filled with civil strife where her worldview is shattered. A film adaptation of Wallace Shawn's play, with Michael Moore and Angelina Jolie. 83 minutes.

Sun. Feb 10

5 PM—Discussion of Making Revolution And Emancipating Humanity. This week: What is Freedom? What is power? And what is the relationship between the two? This is part of a series of weekly sessions, open to those who've been engaging the works of Bob Avakian and those who are brand new. All are welcome!

Wed. Feb 13

7PM—”Set the Record Straight” Another in a series of discussions addressing the relevance of the historical experience of socialism to the world today. The goal of the Set the Record Straight project is to: (1) provoke re-examination, promote debate, and stimulate research among students and professors; (2) respond to distortions in the media and affect broad public opinion; (3) contribute to a situation where there will be a more two-sided discussion of these vital questions; and (4) create heightened interest in the socialist project.

Sun. Feb 17

2PM—Discussion of Ardea Skybreak's The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters. This will be the 3rd in a series of discussions of the book around national events on Darwin Day (Feb. 12). We'll discuss evolution and human beings.

5 PM— Discussion of Making Revolution And Emancipating Humanity. This week: What is truth? What is science? Can you scientifically understand society? Does such an understanding mean that there is no role for "free will" and human ideals and actions? This is part of a series of weekly sessions, open to those who've been engaging the works of Bob Avakian and those who are brand new. All are welcome!

Fri. Feb 22 7 PM:

Movie Night at Revolution Books - The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till

Keith Beauchamp's documentary tells the story of Emmett Till, a spirited 14-year-old who went to Mississippi in 1955 to visit family and never returned. The film gives a terrifying view of life in the American deep south, and tells the story of defiant Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett's mother, who refused to let the truth be buried and helped spark the civil rights movement. 70 minutes.

Sat. Feb 23, 2pm

Timuel Black is an historian and author, chronicler of the Great Migration of Black people from the South to Chicago. He will speak on the dreams and expectations of Black people in their migration to Chicago, which gave way to a very different reality and the continuing struggle to bring in a better world. [Black is the author of the oral histories Bridges of Memory - Chicago's First Wave of Black Migration and Bridges of Memory – Chicago’s Second Generation of Black Migration]

Sun. Feb 24, 5 PM

Discussion of Making Revolution And Emancipating Humanity. This week: What about democracy? What is dictatorship? And what is America - a democracy, a dictatorship, or both? If the "true ideals of the founders" could be realized -what would it look like - and why? This is part of a series of weekly sessions, open to those who've been engaging the works of Bob Avakian and those who are brand new. All are welcome!

Fri. Feb 29, 7 PM

Opposing White Supremacy and Getting to a Far Better World with Clyde Young of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

As a young man Clyde Young spent many years behind bars in "correctional" institutions and became a revolutionary leader while in prison — leading prison rebellions and other political activity. He was influenced by revolutionary leaders and movements of the 1960s, including Malcolm X, George Jackson, the Black Panther Party, and, especially, the Maoist revolution in China.

Upon his release from prison, Clyde met Bob Avakian and recognized in him unique and special qualities as a leader and also an enormous sense of humor.

Clyde's writings for the revolutionary press range from essays on Martin Luther King and the Vietnam War to recent commentary on Bush's constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage entitled, Biblical Morality, Slavery and Other Horrors, to a major analysis of demographic changes, which was written in the 1980s, Since the '60s: Trends of Impoverishment, Oppression, and Class Polarization in the Black Nation.

In 1990, the Revolutionary Worker newspaper (the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and predecessor of Revolution) published a lengthy interview with Clyde Young. Excerpts of the interview will appear in a book entitled, Bandana Republic, which is slated to be published by Soft Skull Press.

Bookstore calendar - updated 1/6/08

2008-01-06T20:16:00.001-06:00

Revolution Books is filling up an exciting schedule of activities.

(Events in orange take place away from the bookstore)

A summary:

Wed Jan 9 - Film - Road to Guantanamo 7 pm
Fri Jan 11 - Wear Orange - Shut Down Guantanamo!
Sat Jan 12 - 4 pm - (and every Sat at 4 pm) discuss latest issue of Revolution newspaper
Sun Jan 13 - 2 pm - conversation with Raymond Lotta - the Venezuela Referendum
Sun Jan 13 - 6:30 pm - discussion of Ardea Skybreak's book: The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism
Tue Jan 15 - 7 pm Salon on Bob Avakian's new talk: Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity - "I want to get more, or we want another world"
Wed Jan 16 - 6:30 - at Depaul University - Torture/Guantanamo/Shredded Tapes
Sun Jan 20 - 11 am - discussion of Ardea Skybreak's book: The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism - Discussions to be Sundays at 6:30 pm for 3 weeks
Tue Jan 22 - 6:30 - Salon on Bob Avakian's new talk: Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity - "Communism will not be a utopia"
Thu Jan 24 - 7 pm - Film - Bulworth
Fri Jan 25 - 8 pm - Act Your Rage
Sun Jan 27 - 2 pm - Salon on Bob Avakian's new talk: Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity with Revolution newspaper writer
January 30 7 pm - Set the Record Straight Presentation
Other dates - see calendar featured events for details

(Enlarge images below by clicking on the calendar)

Experience to learn from on stopping torture

2008-01-05T21:12:00.000-06:00

This from someone in World Can't Wait - good food for thought:

Hey everyone: It's been a while, but I wanted to let you know that three of my co-workers have decided to come to the Jan. 11th action at Federal Plaza to take a stand against torture and to call for Guantanamo to be shut down. The younger woman is against torture, but said she had never been to a demonstration and she thought it was time to learn what that was like, even though she is nervous about the police. The two older women had been to the earliest demonstrations against the Iraq war and the Nov. 5th WCW action, but had gotten tired of marching when they thought nothing was happening as a result. This time they both quickly said Yes, they would be there when I showed them the e-mail from Debra and the local website (looks really good!) The day before we had had a discussion about the Iowa caucuses and the elections and, although, both of them ultimately want there to be an electoral solution to all the outrages of today, they were both disgusted that there was not even a peephole for real change in the 2008 elections.

Although this is hardly a wide cross-section of society (the four of us make up 100% of the current work force at my job) I wonder if there aren't elements in this to learn from and look for and strengthen where we can. New younger people who have never taken political action before and more seasoned marchers (but not activists) who were hoping the world or the elections would make all of this horror go away, but are newly recognizing that it comes down to us and what we do to step outside these boundaries that are choking us and people all over the world. Anything less is complicity and we must spread the resistance.

See you Jan. 11, 4:30 p.m. at the Federal Building!