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| <\/td> | \n\n \n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\nwww.sfgate.com\n\n \n\nReturn to regular view\n\n\n \n\n\nBerkeley: Memoir follows author's road to communism\n\n\n\n <\/b>\n- Rick DelVecchio, Chronicle Staff Writer \n\n\nFriday, April 29, 2005\n \n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n<\/p> Bob Avakian has devoted his life to the one ideology that he \nbelieves holds the promise of massively releasing human freedom and dignity. \nThe ideology is communism.\n<\/p> Berkeley-bred Avakian's new memoir, \"From Ike to Mao and Beyond,\" leaves \na breathtaking impression. Having deepened and purified his convictions over \n40 years of personal and political struggle, Avakian sounds a high, sustained \ncry for complete social transformation almost as if he were the trumpet of \nLenin himself.\n<\/p> It's as if democratic capitalism's triumph in the 20th century was \nhistory's biggest mistake, a tragic wrong turn from the revolutionary road \nmarked out by Lenin in the Russia of 1917 after the writings of Marx and by \nMao in the China of the 1950s and 60s. Unswervingly, Avakian holds that road \nand is esteemed by fellow revolutionaries as the marathon man of the \ninternational anti-imperialist struggle.\n<\/p> Avakian, 62, a veteran of the Free Speech Movement and other upheavals of \nthe Bay Area in the 1960s, makes an unqualified case for Marxism-Leninism as a \nfertile thought system that's as alive now as it was when the two \nrevolutionary masterminds created it to answer what they saw as capitalism's \nfundamental inhumanity.\n<\/p> But although Avakian is a devotee of Marx and Lenin, he's also respected \nin revolutionary circles for his ground-breaking criticism of communist \nmethods. More evolutionary than revolutionary, his nondogmatic communism \ntolerates contradiction, welcomes dissent and demands the participation of \nartists and intellectuals in creating a classless society. \n<\/p> \"Marxism is not a scripture, it's not a religious dogma,\" Avakian writes. \n\"It's a scientific approach to reality.\"\n<\/p> New York's Insight Press is debuting Avakian's paperback in Berkeley on \nMay 6. A diverse host committee made up of people who welcome Avakian as an \nalternative voice will present the work. Although the author has elected not \nto appear, give press interviews or even disclose where he lives, his \nrepresentatives say he wants the book to contribute to a renewed dialogue \nabout Marxism and political theory in general.\n<\/p> \"I think that Bob Avakian has taken the whole idea and conception of \ncommunism to another level -- he's revived the communist project, if you \nwill, going beyond Marx, Lenin and Mao in some really important ways,\" said \nLenny Wolff, who wrote the memoir's introduction.\n<\/p> \"At the same time, there's a lot of other folks who are not communist but \nwho are also trying to help him get heard because, from their own varied \nviewpoints, they think this is someone whose story and ideas and critical \nstance are extremely timely,\" he said.\n<\/p> Avakian's representatives said the author is eager to have his views more \nwidely discussed but wants to stay out of sight because he fears government \nharassment. He fled America in 1981 amid what he describes in the book as a \nsuffocating climate of intolerance.\n<\/p> \"Events like this Berkeley program are one important means to get the \nnews of this memoir out there and in that way introduce him, so to speak, to \npeople,\" Wolff said. \"However, we are also acutely aware of what this \ngovernment does to revolutionary leaders once they begin to win a hearing.\" \n<\/p> The first half of the book traces Avakian's four-square upbringing and \nswift political development from pre-adolescence. The second half shows him \nreclaiming Leninism as he turns aside the conservatism of the old-line \nCommunist Party, the pragmatism of trade unionism, the revolutionary \nexhaustion of the Black Panthers after their prime and the anti-leadership \ntendencies of the New Left.\n<\/p> Following what he is convinced is the correct line, he joins with two \nfellow Bay Area radicals to form the Revolutionary Union in the late 60s. He \nexpands the organization nationally in 1970 in a bid to create a vanguard for \na renewed communist movement. \n<\/p> But America in the '70s goes right instead of left. Ronald Reagan is \nelected president. Under surveillance for his political activities and \ngrieving a fellow revolutionary's murder in Chicago, Avakian goes into exile \nin France and assumes the chairmanship of the Revolutionary Communist Party \nUSA, a Maoist group intent on radical social transformation in \"the colossus \nof late imperial America.\"\n<\/p> Today, Avakian remains party chairman and is perhaps best known as a \nprolific, uncompromising contributor to The Revolutionary Worker newspaper. In \none his latest articles, he says the polarized conditions in America today are \nsimilar to those in the 1840s and 1850s, and he predicts a new civil war. \n<\/p> \"I have a very profound hatred, and I don't hesitate to say it, for this \nsystem,\" Avakian says on a CD that his publisher has distributed with the book.\n<\/p> The grandchild of Armenian immigrants who settled in Fresno to farm, \nAvakian enjoyed a warm and familial childhood. His mother taught him \ncompassion and sacrifice. The late Alameda County Superior Court judge \nSpurgeon Avakian, who was changed by his experiences of discrimination as a \nperson of Armenian descent, showed his son about fighting injustice.\n<\/p> Fresno at the time was split by a freeway, with blacks, Latinos and \nAsians segregated on one side. When the family moved to Berkeley, Avakian \nlearned more about discrimination from African American friends.\n<\/p> Young Avakian's religious beliefs and patriotism were deeply felt. He \ntells of saying the Pledge of Allegiance as a 9- or 10-year-old and wanting to \nfall to his knees in gratitude for \"not living in one of those awful countries \nthat so many people seem to have had the misfortune of being born in.\" \nSticking with Eisenhower even though his parents went over to Adlai Stevenson, \nhe was absorbed in TV coverage of the 1952 Republican presidential convention.\n<\/p> In short, young Avakian was very much a child of what he calls the \nnaively optimistic America of the '50s. His mainstream roots went deep, which \nis one of the critical ideas in a memoir that features a cover photo of the \nteen-aged Avakian in a Wally Cleaver moment as he spins a 45 on the hi-fi. \nAvakian loved the harmonies of doo-wop and sang with black friends in his own \nvocal group.\n<\/p> But devotion to mainstream values gave way to skepticism. A milestone on \nthe way to Avakian's transformation to radicalism was discovering that \nPresident Kennedy lied when he used the U.N. Charter to justify a naval \nblockade in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. \nClassmates at UC Berkeley wondered why he was so aloof the day the president \nwas shot.\n<\/p> Other kids listened to The Beatles and Dylan. Avakian listened to the \nspeeches of Malcolm X. When the sports-loving, doo-wop-singing kid started \nmaking Malcolm-esque pronouncements spiced with Richard Pryor-type humor, he \nhad begun his life's quest.\n<\/p> \"I always thought that if I hadn't ended up being a communist,\" Avakian \nwrites, \"I would have been a high school basketball coach -- but I was \nfeeling that my life should be about something more than sports.\"\n<\/p> At first drawn to the Panthers and other radical groups at the time, \nAvakian turned to communism under the tutelage of a disaffected old-line \nCommunist Party member. He took the revolution to Richmond, organizing workers \nand poor people -- the proletariat -- against the bourgeoisie. He read to \nthem from a popular book about village life in China before Mao's revolution.\n<\/p> Meanwhile, disgusted with sectarianism and dogmatism in the ranks, \nAvakian pushed his fellow radicals to stop fighting each other, think big and \nstay the revolutionary course.\n<\/p> He went to China in 1971 and was awed by Mao's Cultural Revolution. \"We \nsaw truly wondrous things,\" he writes. He came home convinced that \nrevolutionary change could take place in American society as a scientific \nprocess.\n<\/p> There were setbacks large and small. Avakian recounts an episode where \nhis old radical mate Eldridge Cleaver of the Panthers lit up a joint and said, \n\"Look brother, we've seen all the revolution we're gonna see.\" In China, Mao \ndied and what replaced his revolution looked to Avakian like capitalism in \ndisguise.\n<\/p> Fighting on after Mao, Avakian and his party rediscovered the writings of \nLenin. Especially influential was \"What Is To Be Done?'', which argues that \nclass consciousness, not economic need, is at the heart of the worker \nrevolution.\n<\/p> In the book, Avakian is at his most provocative when he assesses Stalin \nand Mao. He applauds Stalin for leading the first historical experience in \nbuilding socialism, the Soviet Union, under difficult circumstances. Although \nhe refers to Stalin's mistakes, he makes no mention of the millions who died \nunder the Soviet dictatorship and insists upon a balanced view.\n<\/p> \"If the bourgeoisie and its political representatives can uphold people \nlike Madison and Jefferson,\" he writes, \"then the proletariat and its vanguard \nforces can and should uphold Stalin, in an overall sense and with historical \nperspective.\"\n \nBook release event\n \"From Ike to Mao and Beyond,\" a memoir by Bob Avakian, 7 p.m. May 6, King \nMiddle School, 1781 Rose St. (at Grant), Berkeley. $5-10. (510) 848-1196. The \nbook is available at independent bookstores and through the publisher, Insight \nPress, at www.insight-press.com.\n<\/p> Contact Rick DelVecchio at rdelvecchio@sfchronicle.com.<\/i>\n\n\n<\/p> \n\n\n\nPage F - 5\n \n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n©2005 San Francisco Chronicle\n\n \t\n\n\n \n\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\n\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_addPair(\"site\",\"sfgate\")\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_addPair(\"section\",\"news||\")\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_addPair(\"psection\",\"article|news|\")\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_addPair(\"usertype\",\"reader\")\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_addPair(\"pagetype\",\"article\")\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_js=1.0\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_js=1.1\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_js=1.2\nTacoda_AMS_DDC_js=1.3\nTacoda_AMS_DDC(\"http:\/\/te.sfgate.com\/tte\/blank.gif\", Tacoda_AMS_DDC_js)\n\n\t\n\n\n\n","contact":"","link":"www.sfgate.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Review of From Ike to Mao and Beyond, a memoir by Bob Avakian","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2005\/05\/berkeley_memoir_follows_author__s_road_to_communism.htm","filesize":"14.4 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2005\/05\/126946.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":126995,"heading":"Avakian","article":"Sixty-two years old and he still thinks Stalin was a hero? Sad.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":126946,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-05-24 14:46:29","modified":"2005-05-24 14:46:29","fileurl":""},{"id":127023,"heading":"This just in: Communism still stinks","article":"Read Richard Wrights 'Black Boy' for the real scoop on communism.\r\n\r\nWright was a black communist in the 30s who wanted only to accelerate the Party's ideals through his writing. For no reason that was explained to him, the party leaders shunned him and made him an outcast.\r\n\r\nAs Wright so eloquently described, instead of working towards their ideals, communists were obsessed with accusing each other and trying to scrabble for power.\r\n\r\nThough inexplicably he stayed a Commie, Wright had the foresight to realize in Soviet Russia he would've been executed.\r\n\r\n\r\nSome 60's dinosaurs like Avakian still believe communism will work (if you ignore the murdered millions, of course).\r\n\r\nAnd there people who still believe the world is flat...\r\n\r\n\r\n","author":"Eldor","parent_id":126946,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-05-24 18:36:58","modified":"2005-05-24 18:36:58","fileurl":""}]} |