Welcome to Kasama
Posted by Mike E on March 21, 2008
Main threads of our Kasama site include:
9 Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian’s Synthesis
RCP responses to 9 Letters ver. 3.0 : Still dodging substance
Polemics over the RCP & forging new revolutionary trend
- The Party’s Over
- Linc and Me: On the Material Basis of Incorrect Ideas
- Can we Imitate the Finland Station?
Early Reports from RCP NYC Event on New Synthesis
- More Unofficial Notes: Sitting Thru Avakian’s Synthesis, and Getting Beyond It
- Official Notes: RCP’s “Political Truth” about Synthesis Event
- This Moment & the Oppression of Women
- Women’s Leadership in Nepal’s Peoples War
- Rogouski: Journals of Rachel Corrie
- Nothing but each other — a story from our lives
Debate over Internationalism & Maoist revolution in Nepal
- On Nepal: What should we say and do?
- Revolutions can’t be copied, only created fresh
- On tactics and creative Marxism
- Nepal’s Maoists on criticism by the RCP
Reporting on the Maoist revolution in India
Ben Seattle said
Hi Mike,
I think the new “Main Threads” entry is useful and represents a step in the direction of making the Kasama site easier to navigate.
There are two additional things which I believe the site needs:
(1) The “Main Threads” entry looks like is currently just another entry. It will roll down the page after a while. Kasama needs something more permanent, as I suggested earlier: these basic categories should be reflected in the top navigation bar.
(2) Currently, there is a single topic page for “Polemics over the RCP and development of a new revolutionary trend”. These are actually two different topics. The two topics are related–but they are still different. The topic of a new revolutionary trend should be separate so readers can check out the development of our thought and focus on this without being overwhelmed by RCP-related issues and the inherent drama of the RCP’s latest non-response (or unprincipled response) to thoughtful criticism.
Of course, criticism of the RCP is related to what we need to build–because we must learn from the mistakes of the past. And to the extent that the RCP represented the revolutionary aspirations of many activists–we may expect that something will emerge from that revolutionary energy here. But the RCP is not the only cult-like organization in the left (in fact most of the militant organizations have cult-like features to one degree or another–the only distinction the RCP has in this regard is that the cult was intensified to the point of comedy). And while all of these histories (and ongoing polemics) are interesting and deserving of discussion and study–it is important that we build focus on the present and the future without getting (unnecessarily) bogged down in the past.
The topic page for a new trend would include articles like the one by Chegitz and the 1971 article by the Sojourner Truth Organization as well as my “How To’ article. It could also include an article on the FRSO pamphlet on party building. And we can arrange for articles on this topic to posted at least once per week in order to build focus on the present and future and fight the tendency to simply dwell on the shortcomings, bankruptcy and cultist features of the RCP.
This tendency (ie: to focus on what was wrong in the past rather than what will be right in the future) is real. It must be consciously fought. This tendency emerges because this topic exists in our “collective comfort zone”. We must consciously resist the tendency to stay in our comfort zone. How we organization the navigation of this site is part of this fight.
We cannot simply say that we need an organization which is not a cult or that it cannot be like the RCP. We must be able to understand and describe our goal in positive terms without reference to the dysfunction from which we are breaking. Until then we do not have a living goal around which to focus our efforts.
Hence we must focus on these questions:
1. what kind of organization do we need?
2. What principles must guide this organization?
– Ben Seattle http://struggle.net/ben/
Ben Seattle said
Hi Mike (and others here),
In the two weeks since I have written the post above you have added a category under “communist politics” labeled “vanguard party”. So now (after this improvement) if a reader looks in the right hand column and looks beneath “Recent Posts” and then looks beneath “Writings” and then looks in the “Posts Sorted by Category” and then browses through 187 categories–our intrepid reader will find a category which will look like it may (or may not) be relevant to the revolutionary alternative we need to create.
The label “vanguard party” is hard to find and the name of the label itself is not very helpful–because every one of the multitude of groups in the U.S. that have declared themselves to be “the vanguard party”–has turned out to be a cult.
Other than to add this label as one category among 187 categories–there has not been much of a response to my suggestion that the navigation of this site be improved in order to better focus attention on the nature of our revolutionary alternative to the kind of cult that Avakian built. No one has responded to my comment above.
So at this point I wish to express my disagreement with how this has been handled and my criticism of Mike (and the other people who post here often) for failing to recognize the importance of the struggle to focus on developing a revolutionary alternative. Yes, the other content here is good and useful. We all know that. However if the nature of this site is such that dozens of posts are made every time that Avakian blows his nose or farts (prompting endless speculation concerning whether the RCP will or will not or can or cannot give a principled response to the Nine Letters) while very little attention is given to the more difficult task of sorting out the nature of our alternative to a cult-like party — then I would submit that there is a problem here.
If readers here are content to dwell in the past (and with the bankruptcy of the RCP–something that others in the left have seen with clarity for thirty years) and to write and discuss articles concerning the nature of oppression in this society under capitalist rule–well I suppose that is better than doing nothing at all.
But I had hoped something more would come from this effort.
Ben Seattle
How to Build the Party of the WOrking Class
Mike E said
be patient Ben. It is only three months since we published the 9 Letters. It is only natural (and necessary) to have focused a bit on the RCP — and an initial critique of its synthesis. In the last two weeks, there have been RCP events reading out loud a new condensed verion of the new synthesis — and that has, for various reasons, taken some time to respond to and sum up.
I realize that is of less interest to you personally, but there it is.
Also the growing network around this Kasama site is doing some things offline.
We all expect to spend the next years building an alternative. It takes some patience, has some stages, and will unfold over time. So please don’t assume (or repeatedly assert) that nothing is “coming from this effort” because you don’t see it announced here. And there is considerable new theoretical and political work coming — precisely on building this alternative.
Ben Seattle said
Hi folks,
My reply to Mike (below) is taken from my much longer post
(yesterday) on the thread on building a revolutionary party at:
http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/on-the-party/#comment-2408
– Ben
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Why we need improved navigation on this site
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I have had an ongoing dispute on this site with Mike Ely concerning how this blog is organized and the difficulty that readers face in navigating to those threads which are most directly concerned with the nature of our revolutionary alternative to the kind of cult that Avakian has built.
There is a tendency here to dwell on the past rather than face the problems of the present. This tendency is certainly understandable considering that many readers here are emerging from a cult. All the same, this tendency must be fought–and improved navigation of this site must be part of this fight.
Mike’s response, to date, has been to create a “vanguard party” category as one of 187 categories that readers may be able to find if they dig hard enough. Presumably those readers who want to create a revolutionary alternative will find this category and click on it.
This is inadequate for two reasons:
(1) The link to the section of this site dealing with our revolutionary alternative must be in the top navigation bar–as one choice among a relatively small number of choices–rather than half-hidden as one choice among 187 entries.
(2) Describing this section as “Vanguard Party” will never get us anywhere. Who is going to click on such a link?
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Who can have enthusiasm for
a dysfunctional organization?
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It is a safe bet than when the working class creates a vanguard party here in the U.S. it will not call itself a “vanguard party”. The phrase “vanguard party” has been abused for too long and by too many cults to have any value left.
More than this, the prevailing conception here of a “vanguard party” is that of a cult. That can be seen from Jaroslav’s response to me above. The “vanguard party” will supposedly “protect” itself with “ideological qualifications” that will exclude most serious critics and restrict the flow of “internal” information to “outside” where it can be seen by the “class enemy”. And, oh yes, those activists who “make the cut” and are inside the party will not have the democratic right to organize internally on the basis of their common views (ie: because to do so would be to engage in forbidden “factionalism”) or to publicly discuss (ie: because of the bullshit requirements of supposed “democratic centralism” and the supposed “security culture”) their opposition to principles, policies or people that guide the party and which they consider mistaken or corrupt.
So because the prevailing conception here of a “vanguard party” is that of an organization that would be utterly dysfunctional — most readers here have little enthusiasm for creating revolutionary organization.
Such are the fruits, in the real world, of cargo-cult Leninism.
But without enthusiasm for creating revolutionary organization–what can we do?
One reader who (like me) found something lacking here expressed himself (March 23) as follows:
Mike responded to this person and to me by urging patience and saying that it takes time to get something started and that theoretical and political work is being prepared that has not yet been publicly announced.
I guess time will tell. Maybe (or maybe not) it is true that I am impatient. But while we are waiting–the navigation on this site should be improved. And just to make this as clear as possible I would like to spell out my “program” for Kasama:
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Ben’s three point program for Kasama:
Make it easy for readers to navigate to topics
directly related to our revolutionary alternative
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(1) Kasama needs a topic page for threads directly related to these three questions related to our revolutionary alternative:
(a) what kind of organization do we need?
(b) What principles must guide this organization?
(c) How can we take action today to help create this organization?
(2) Posts should be added to this topic page at least several times per month to help readers focus on these difficult but important questions.
(3) The link to this topic page should be in the top navigation bar and the label should reflect the content to readers in a meaningful way, such as:
(a) “Our revolutionary alternative” or
(b) “How will we reconceive as we regroup”
rather than something lame like “Vanguard Party”.
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This issue will not go away
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So far no one has supported (or even commented on) my suggestion for improved navigation and a topic area for our alternative that can grab the attention of readers.
But the issue of creating revolutionary organization that is real is not going away.
We can ignore this issue, of course, but it will still be there. And if we are too lacking in political consciousness or backbone to confront the needs of our time–then other activists will march forward while we wander around in circles.
Ben Seattle