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Bob Avakian Quotes

born 1943 United States

Robert Bruce Avakian (born March 7, 1943) is the founder and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP). Avakian developed the organization's official ideology, a theoretical framework rooted in Maoism, called "the New Synthesis" or the "New Communism."

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Random Bob Avakian quote

19 quotes

This is like arguing that, since this country was founded in slavery, it makes no difference if slavery is brought back now!

Writings in 2020–A Momentous Year (2020)

The so-called "demise of communism" is really just revisionism becoming more openly bourgeois.

The End of a Stage - The Beginning of a New Stage (1990)

There cannot be a proletarian revolution if there are no class-conscious proletarians striving for that revolution.

THE BASIS, THE GOALS, AND THE METHODS OF THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION (2005)

The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people.

Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian (2003)

White supremacy and capitalism—it is not possible to overcome and finally abolish the one without overthrowing and finally abolishing the other.

WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION (2018)

The police, the armed forces, the “intelligence agencies,” the courts, and so on—all this represents the dictatorship of the capitalist-imperialist system.

WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION (2018)

Fear nothing. Be down for the whole thing.

The End of a Stage - The Beginning of a New Stage (1990)

The truth is that social democrats in an imperialist country must ultimately and fundamentally be pro-imperialism. This is an essential characteristic and requirement of social democracy in a country like this.

Writings in 2020–A Momentous Year (2020)

There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.

COMMUNISM AND JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY (2008)

A major role of the Democratic Party is “corralling” and “domesticating” dissent.

WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION (2018)

In a "free country" like the U.S. you are free to ask questions, but you are not really free to question.

Some Notes on the Developing Crisis and War (2001)

If you don't have a poetic spirit—or at least a poetic side—it is very dangerous for you to lead a Marxist movement or be the leader of a socialist state.

The End of a Stage - The Beginning of a New Stage (1990)

In fundamental terms, we have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!

WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION (2018)

This crisis with the coronavirus has brought into sharp relief the reality that the capitalist system is not simply out of step with but is in fundamental conflict with, and a direct obstacle to, meeting the needs of the masses of humanity.

Writings in 2020–A Momentous Year (2020)

There is not one human nature. There is not some uniform and unchanging way that everybody is and how everybody sees the world. Human nature has different meanings in different times and for different classes and groups in society.

Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian (2003)

In the way this country has been built, and for the powers that be in this country, the humanity of Black people has never counted for anything—they have never been valued as human beings, but only as things to be exploited, oppressed, and repressed.

WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION (2018)

In taking up the revolutionary struggle against the system and taking up the most revolutionary ideology to guide that struggle, people can and do change themselves. In rising up and overthrowing the system, they begin to make themselves into new people.

The End of a Stage - The Beginning of a New Stage (1990)

American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People's Lives

Bringing Forward Another Way (2006)

We should instill in the victims of this system an attitude of despising this system and all it stands for—of recognizing that this system represents not the "wave of the future" but the dregs of the past—that it is the thing standing in the way of a much brighter future.

The End of a Stage - The Beginning of a New Stage (1990)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Bob Avakian (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.