The Controversy About Bob Avakian: NYRB Ad Appears, Charges of “Cult"and “Insignificance" follow. But What’s the Real Story? by Raymond Lotta
Bob Avakian, Maoist theorist and leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has been the
subject of three articles this past week, two by Mark Oppenheimer (one in The Boston Globe
and another on Huffington Post and a third by Scott McLemee on InsideHigherEd.com.
These commentaries were occasioned by the recent publication of an ad from the Engage Committee to Project and Protect the Voice of Bob Avakian that appeared in The New York Review of Books. Oppenheimer and McLemee sneer at the very idea that anyone would seriously conceive of revolution in today’s world. Here is my reply to Mark Oppenheimer’s original piece in The Boston Globe. Scott McLemee, like Oppenheimer, raises questions of “cult of personality" which I address in my reply:
Mark Oppenheimer (“Free Bob Avakian!"January 27, 2008) dismisses as much ado about nothing a New York Review of Books ad calling on people to engage with the timely and relevant work of Bob Avakian - a statement signed by over 250 intellectuals, artists, people from social movements, and others. We live in a time of human history when half the planet subsists on less than $2 a day; when the U.S. is waging unjust, brutal, and endless war inthe Middle East; and when global warming threatens ecocide. And Avakian is applying himself to nothing less than the challenge of how to transform the world in a liberating way.All this Oppenheimer conveniently ignores.
Had Oppenheimer bothered to engage with Avakian’s work, as I have, he would encounter someone who is not just a keeper of the flame, but someone creatively addressing how socialism could come alive and speak to the deepest needs and hopes of humanity in the 21st century.
He would have encountered a vision of socialism in which those now on the bottom of society, the great majority of humanity, would have the right and ability to explore scientific and intellectual questions while professional intellectuals would be able to work, create, venture in all kinds of directions, and contribute to the advance of knowledge free of the constraints of profit and empire. He would learn why Avakian believes that dissent, even dissent opposed to socialism, must be defining of the very fabric of socialist society. He would learn and perhaps argue with Avakian’s insights into how the next wave of socialism has to better handle the relationship between putting the needs of the great majority of society first while fostering individual initiative and protecting individual rights.
In Oppenheimer’s fantasy world, Avakian could not possibly be a target for repression. This flies in the face of the whole history of attacks on revolutionaries and radicals in the U.S. It also trivializes the dangers of the current political climate where anyone’s home can be searched without a warrant, or anyone can be snatched away for indefinite detention without trial. Oppenheimer wants to know where Avakian is. But this is irrelevant (since when does a person’s zip code determine the validity of their ideas?). And Oppenheimer’s insistence that a prominent revolutionary leader somehow be accessible to him, why can’t I have coffee with Avakian? is as absurd as it is obnoxious. Does he think that Toni Morrison, Brad Pitt, Stephen Hawking, or any person of public accomplishment or notoriety, has some special obligation to meet with him or any journalist who just so wishes? Come on.
Oppenheimer then tries to spook readers with the false claim that Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party are building up a religious-like “cult of personality. This does a disservice to the diverse range of individuals, coming from different political perspectives, who signed the public statement calling on people to engage with the work of Bob Avakian (to see comments from signers about what they see in Avakian’s work, go to engagewithbobavakian.org. As for what Avakian thinks about leadership, he is totally opposed to notions of the infallibility of and blind, uncritical adherence to leaders. Avakian makes it very clear that the promotion of his work is meaningful only insofar as that work concentrates a new understanding and vision of communism. He has explained that his leadership is meaningful in relation to the challenge of making revolution and getting to a world without classes, in which people are consciously and voluntarily changing the world and themselves in the process. He also points out that revolution and socialism require dedicated and far-seeing leaders but must at the same time work to break down the distinction between leaders and led, and empower the formerly oppressed to take hold of, and with the great majority of society, take ever-greater responsibility for the direction of society.
Bob Avakian has not made peace with the system. He not only remains committed to the idea of revolution. He is providing vital political and theoretical leadership to making that a reality in today’s world. Today, when millions agonize over the trajectory of society, and aspire to something just and emancipating, Avakian’s voice needs to be heard and defended.
Raymond Lotta is a Maoist political economist, author of America in Decline and Maoist Economics and the Revolutionary Road to Communism and contributor to Revolution Newspaper.
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