Bob Avakian?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Okay this may be a stupid question but I'm serious-who is this guy? I have heard several people here think of him as either a crazy or a loon.

What is the general opinion of this man?

[Who?]

Bob Avakian is the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, the humor sorrounding him is primarily do to his absurd personality cult.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Bob Avakian is a longtime US Maoist activist. He was in a faction of the SDS, I believe that stemmed from the RYM II faction and formed the Bay Area Revolutionary Union. Eventually this became the Revolutionary Communist Party, today the largest US Maoist group.

Avakian's trajectory represented the implosion resulting from contradictions in Maoism. Much of the "New Communist Movement" as exemplified by Max Elbaum, eventually became liberals and worked for the Jesse Jackson campaign in the 1980s. The Freedom Road groups became social democrats similar to the CPUS.

In the mid 200s, I think the RCP began turning into a somewhat bizarre personality cult based around Chairman Bob. The RCP has been the subject of numerous parody threads in chit chat and they fully deserve this. The best of the group, around Mike Ely left to form the Kasama Project, a "cyber holding tank for ex-RCPers."

The RCP has recently concentrated on making "Bob Avakian a household name" and are asking for 10,000$ so they can print up copies of their proposed constitution.

Avakian himself is not unintelligent and probably does have something to offer but his organization has become a parody of itself.


http://kasamaproject.org/2008/08/12/cult-of-personality-purges-and-silence-on-struggle-details-of-rcps-constitution/

http://www.revleft.com/vb/new-constitution-t142156/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blob-avakian-burning-t142113/index.html


http://revcom.us/Constitution/constitution.html

[graymouser]

Avakian built up a layer of credibility in the Bay Area in the '60s by being essentially a white radical who was around the Black Panthers, and built up first the Bay Area Revolutionary Union and then a national Revolutionary Union group out of SDS fragments and independent collectives, which became the RCP. Avakian left the US in the early '80s (this is frequently put down to security concerns, either that Avakian would have been killed by US agents or arrested for his part in a demonstration in Washington - given the COINTELPRO information that was coming out at the time this was less unbelievable then than it is now) and has lived in France as far as anyone knows since then. The RCP has hardened into a personality cult around him, and the emphasis on Avakian has frankly become clownish.

From his material, there's not much that's worth reading - most of Avakian's writings are marginal at best. His book Away with All Gods! has piggybacked on the "New Atheist" bandwagon so it's available in mainstream bookstores, I'd suggest checking it out for the laughs with a cup of coffee at a Barnes & Noble, it's not worth actually paying for this guy's work.

[AK]

Bobby is my hero, that's who.

Actually, him and the RCP are nothing more than IRL trolls.

[RED DAVE]

Bob, cleverly disguised to outwit the ruling class (before he had to flee to France for making bad jokes – they even like Jerry Lewis over there), practicing his true profession. He still don't get no respect!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzmXfWexxus

RED DAVE

[Sasha]

Bob, cleverly disguised to outwit the ruling class (before he had to flee to France for making bad jokes – they even like Jerry Lewis over there), practicing his true profession. He still don't get no respect!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzmXfWexxus

RED DAVE

have an verbal warning for that post dave, no joke posts outside chichat please

[Adi Shankara]

Just close this thread for the sake of Revleft, before it gets out of hand and turns into a sectarian fest

[RED DAVE]

Summary of Avakian's views

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Avakian

RED DAVE

[durhamleft]

have an verbal warning for that post dave, no joke posts outside chichat please

bit harsh!

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

Just close this thread for the sake of Revleft, before it gets out of hand and turns into a sectarian fest

The RCP is widely criticized by vitually all groups that arn't the RCP as being a bobby cult. It's hardly sectarian, and I don't think anyone on this board supports the RCP.

[Red Commissar]

The RCP is widely criticized by vitually all groups that arn't the RCP as being a bobby cult. It's hardly sectarian, and I don't think anyone on this board supports the RCP.

I think there was a member on here who was briefly with the RCP, or at least aligned to it, but repudiated it later.

To be honest I haven't seen much of them in real life. I've only seen one who was wearing a Chairman Bob shirt, though I wasn't sure if he was for serious or doing it for laughs.

I'm told though that the RCP runs some books stores where they distribute literature written by Chairman Bob, among other things. If anything that seems to be their main function now.