First Published: Bolshevik Revolution, No. 1, December 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Many people around the US have seen a large dark poster bearing the face of a man who looks like a cross between the devil and Lou Costello. That man is Bob Avakian, chairman of the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party. The poster campaign was to publicize the trial of Avakian and other RCP stalwarts for their raid on the Chinese embassy in January, 1979, during Deng Xiaoping’s trip to the U.S. We were told for months in the RCP literature that Avakian was the most dangerous man in America, that he was the best leader the U.S. working class has ever had, etc. The U.S. government intended to “railroad” Avakian and the other “Mao Tse-tung Defendants”, the RCP blared, because RCP was seen by the government as “the most dangerous revolutionary organization in this country.”
How disappointed the motley crew that makes up RCP must have been when the government dropped all the charges against Avakian and company. From reading RCP literature, one would have expected they’d at least cut off his hand, or, maybe, have confiscated his cap. But alas, Avakian and his entourage have been let go scot free. (Maybe Bob’s dad, Judge Avakian, who is a California State Judge, put in a good word for junior and his pals.) No martyrs today.
The bourgeois courts do work in their class interest, of course. After granting Avakian wide publicity in their T.V., radio, and newspapers, they have let him go because Avakian is too important for them to have locked up. Avakian has succeeded in widely discrediting Marxism-Leninism and associating communism with his own cult following and revolution with RCP’s social-fascist antics. Although the government is appealing the dismissal of these charges, at this point the bourgeoisie prefers Avakian running around loose, especially to prepare for RCP’s 1980 May Day rally, which will most likely attempt to provoke a police attack so RCP can finally have some martyrs. This will further serve the bourgeoisie by giving them another pretense to unleash a wave of terror against the working class and oppressed masses.
Avakian is a leader all right, but not of the working class. His petty bourgeois and lumpen brigade is vying with CWP for leadership of the social-fascist trend. All these social-fascist groups have nothing in common with communism, and are only social props for the bourgeoisie that must be swept away along with their ruling class masters by the revolutionary proletariat.