Overview
Avakian defines the basic aims of the communist revolution as seeking "to make those two radical ruptures of which Marx and Engels spoke: the radical rupture with traditional property relations and with traditional ideas. It seeks not to replace one form of exploitation with another but to do away with all forms of exploitation and indeed ultimately to eliminate all class distinctions."
There is much contention even among communists around Avakian's development of what he has defined as a "new synthesis": what he describes as a recasting of the theoretical framework for carrying forward communist revolution; a re-envisioning of revolution and communism. Over the past 30 years, Avakian has critically examined what he views as the "first stage of the communist revolution" as concentrated in the revolutionary societies in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
In his body of work, Avakian attempts to excavate, for critical evaluation, not only the practice of these revolutions, but also many of the fundamental theoretical concepts, from Marx, Lenin and Mao, underlying the strategic thinking and first experiences in making revolution and transforming society. While he upholds what he calls the great achievements of these revolutions and what he claims they have proven in terms of the possibility of people being able to create a better world, at the same time Avakian has been developing new thinking which he characterizes as real ruptures with elements of the past understanding and experience, a synthesis which he describes as reviving the "viability and, yes, the desirability of a whole new and radically different world, and placing this on an ever firmer foundation of materialism and dialectics … a source of hope and of daring on a solid scientific foundation." Some of the main elements of this new synthesis address philosophy and method; proletarian internationalism; the character of the dictatorship of the proletariat. and socialist society as a transition to communism; and a strategic approach to revolution, including on the possibility and approach of actually making revolution in a developed country such as the U.S.
A basic premise of his body of work has been that communism is not only a revolutionary political movement, but also a science, a scientific approach and method to understand and change the world. He has spoken of "the importance of the unity between grasping and applying Marxism as a way to engage all of reality, on the one hand, and its particular application to the problems of making revolution, on the other hand." This basic premise, that communism is a science, has historically been a major point of contention with liberal thinkers such as Karl Popper, other communists in the international community, and for a long time, even within the RCP.
While his "new synthesis" is at the heart of Avakian's works, he has written on a variety of other subjects that are related to society and revolution, including extensive radical and provocative critiques of traditional thinking, from democracy to religion. Avakian is an outspoken atheist.
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