Robert Bruce Avakian (born March 7, 1943)[1][2] is an American political activist and Maoist philosopher who is the founder and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP).

His father was an Armenian American lawyer, civil rights activist, and later as an Alameda County Superior Court judge.

[10] During that period, Avakian was a founding member of the Bay Area Revolutionary Union[11] alongside Leibel Bergman.

[5] He was charged with assaulting a police officer in January 1979 at a demonstration in Washington, D.C. to protest Deng Xiaoping's meeting with Jimmy Carter.

Supporters see him as a revolutionary leader and claim his body of work has advanced communist theory and represents a "pathway to human emancipation" from the capitalist system.