Raymond Lotta is a political economist, writer for revcom.us, and a spokesperson for Revolution Books, NYC. Lotta is a follower of the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian and an advocate for the new communism developed by Avakian.
Lotta has written and lectured extensively on the “first wave” of socialist revolutions: the Russian revolution (1917-56) and Chinese revolution (1949-76). He edited and wrote the introduction for Mao Makes Five, a collection of documents delineating the struggles within the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in 1973-76–culminating in the counterrevolutionary coup d’etat following Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. Lotta edited and wrote companion essays for Maoist Economics and the Revolutionary Road to Communism, a text on socialist political economy produced by the Maoist forces in China. Lotta has advanced the understanding of the innovative principles guiding, and the enormous achievements of, China’s planned socialist development under Mao.
Lotta has also written on the “state capitalism” of the former Soviet Union in the years 1956-91. In 1983, he and scholar Albert Szymanski held a major debate at Columbia University: “The Soviet Union: Socialist or Social-Imperialist.”
Lotta has directed the Set the Record Straight project and its website www.thisiscommunism.org. The project refutes the slanders and harmful mispresentations spread about the Russian revolution and Chinese revolution. Applying Bob Avakian’s new communism, the project rescues from distortion the overwhelmingly positive achievements of these socialist revolutions, especially the breakthroughs of the Cultural Revolution led by Mao…but also analyzes their problems and shortcomings–and how, based on the new communism, humanity can go further and do much better in a new wave of communist revolution.
Lotta has toured U.S. campuses, including UCLA, Harvard, University of Chicago, to “open up great debate about the historical truth of these revolutions and the need for communist revolution in today’s world.” The ebook You Don’t Know What You Think You “Know” About…The Communist Revolution and the REAL Path to Emancipation: Its History and Our Future [Insight Press, 2014], based on interviews with Lotta, is a comprehensive overview and analysis of the first wave of communist revolution.
Lotta’s works of political economy include America in Decline, “Shifts and Faultlines in the World Imperialist Economy,” “On the Driving Force of Anarchy and the Dynamics of Change,” and “Imperialist Parasitism and Class-Social Recomposition in the U.S. From the 1970s to Today: An Exploration of Trends and Changes.” His 2021 study “The ‘Industrialization’ of Sexual Exploitation, Imperialist Globalization, and the Descent Into Hell” is a work of rigorous research and visceral outrage.
Lotta has written and lectured on how capitalism-imperialism is the cause of global warming and looming environmental catastrophe. He helped develop “Some Key Principles of Socialist Sustainable Development.” Lotta states: “this system and its rulers are taking humanity over the cliff…only revolution gives us the chance to save the planet.”