From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist Paperback - 2005

"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." --Bob Avakian Bob Avakian (BA) is the architect of a whole new framework of human emancipation, the new synthesis of communism, which is popularly referred to as the "new communism." The goal of the new communism is a total revolution--the most radical revolution in human history that aims at nothing less than overcoming all forms of oppression and exploitation all over the world, a society where humanity could truly flourish. The new synthesis is based on more than 40 years of revolutionary work that BA has done critically analyzing and drawing from past revolutionary experience and theory, and a broad range of human activity and thought. It is a continuation of, but also represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some important ways a break with, communist theory as it had been previously developed. It provides the basis--the science, the strategy, and the leadership--for an actual revolution and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation. Bob Avakian is the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP), which he has led since its formation in 1975. He emerged as a major political figure throughout the upheavals and rebellions of the period of the '60s: awakening to political life in the period of the emerging discontent and ferment among students in the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley; joining and then becoming a leader of the resistance and protests against the Vietnam War; becoming an early and prominent supporter of the Black Liberation struggle where he was closely associated with the Black Panther Party; then playing a critical leading role in the political and ideological struggles of the New Left Movement of the 1960s, which ultimately led to the founding of the RCP. In the decades since the 1960s BA has given decisive leadership to the theoretical as well as strategic and practical dimensions of the revolution, both in the U.S. and internationally. BA's extensive body of work includes more than a hundred articles, books, films and audio recordings. His collected works are available through The Bob Avakian Institute, thebobavakianinstitute.org. The above is excerpted from Bob Avakian (BA)-Official Biography, a publication of The Bob Avakian Institute.