Mike Ely’s ‘Flat Earth’ Approach to Revolution

The following was sent to Kasama .

How Mike Ely Helps Us to See Bob Avakian’s Breakthroughs: Or Mike Ely’s ‘Flat Earth’ Approach to Revolution

by “Down with the Menshevik Inquisition “

1) ‘Partisan Bases’ (and the ennui caused by their absence): Mike Ely makes much of how the RCP has not developed ‘partisan bases’ over the course of many years. But, while Mike Ely has read a lot of books about history, he has absorbed few lessons from those histories about the general nature of people’s movements and how they emerge, develop and decline. Mass movements of all kinds (including those led by revolutionary communists to make revolution) arise: a) on the basis of a previous groundwork, both organizational and ideological, laid by small groups of dedicated people acting over extended periods of time; b) on scales that grow and decline in massive numbers, over very condensed time frames.
This is actually counter-intuitive to what most people first think about how movements should develop. Most people initially think that as revolutionary communists, if we do all our work right, we will gradually recruit people, and get larger. And as we get larger, we will become more influential, we will become stronger, we will get closer to and eventually reach our goals. And when that doesn’t happen, if people don’t take a scientific approach, then they become discouraged. However, by taking a scientific approach, we can see that this ‘gradualism’ is not how social and political movements develop in the real world. At one point long ago, much of humanity thought the earth was flat. Then, at different times in the ancient world many different civilizations discovered that the earth is round, and now the whole planet knows the Earth is round (although maybe the theocratic fundamentalists will try to reverse that too). Getting discouraged by the failure of an organization or social movement to gradually grow and become large and powerful is like being a ‘flat-earther’ in the world of social and political activism.

Now Mike Ely has come out and argued that if activists can’t build a ‘partisan base’ over a protracted period of time, that what they’ve been doing has to have been wrong. But this point of view represents a failure to take a really scientific approach to how social and political movements actually develop. And where does it lead? It argues that, if we can’t build a ‘partisan base’ around lofty goals that serve the interests of 90% of humanity in the short term, then what we really need to do is set some more ‘winnable goals’ that will allow us to gain a base of support among the American people and then we can ‘declare victory’ and be really influential and big. But that’s a big mistake. Why would we even want to do this if we lost sight of our original goals? Who wants to make a pact with the devil in the hopes of having a big and strong organization that isn’t organized to do anything good?

Mike Ely undoubtedly will deny that he has now become an outright and bold paladin of gradualism and economism. He may even believe it himself. But if anyone has any questions about where his line is leading, just look at all the well-know and consolidated economists and gradualists who have flocked to his project’s website since it was launched. In contrast to Mike Ely’s approach, the RCP, led by Bob Avakian, is pursuing new methods of mobilizing masses for revolution that break new ground, require further scientific testing, and actually have a chance to lead the masses in winning their liberation.

2) The Esoteric Knowledge of the Ely: Much of the authority of Mike Ely’s polemic rests on an underlying assertion of his access to inside knowledge. The RCP may not be telling you what it really thinks, but look, Mike has the ‘real deal!’ From the prison camps of RCP organizational life to the bitter secret war against the Nepalese communists, Mike gives us just enough salacious details that we ‘know what he means’ without him actually having to come out and talk like a stool pigeon. Stalin killed 100 million, Mao 200 million, and only history will show how many millions have died in the prison camps Bob Avakian has set up inside the RCP! Anyone who doesn’t buy this Jung Chang style account of the RCP’s internal life just needs to ‘get real!’

As for Nepal, well, Mike Ely seems to think he has found an opportunity there. According the Mike Ely version of things, the RCP has been waging a veiled campaign against the CPN(M) for some time now, which he apparently thinks gives him quite the horse to attach his cart to. Here too, Mike Ely throws principle to the wind, striving to cast whatever tensions may (or may not) exist between two long-time participants in the RIM in the most antagonistic light possible so as to maneuver himself in hopes of a Nepal franchise. Mike Ely clearly sees the Nepalese Revolution as a step-ladder for his own revolutionary career.

Pop quiz:
Q.: When is solidarity with a revolution not actually solidarity?
A.: When it is just a self-serving ploy in the service of careerism and opportunism.

So for anyone who actually gives credence to any of Mike Ely’s claims to privileged knowledge, think about this:
a) When have you ever known the RCP not to be vocal and up front about what it thinks?

b) Whatever may or may not be going on between the CPN(M) and the RCP,USA, would it really be unprincipled for them to be talking behind the scenes instead of in the front of the whole world, as Ely seems to be demanding?

c) Who is being benefitting from Mike Ely’s ‘efforts’ around Nepal? The people of the world, the revolution in Nepal, or Mike Ely?

d) How could things inside the RCP really be as bad as Mike Ely claims? These are hard-working people struggling for revolution. You can’t do that with a boot on your neck, and Avakian doesn’t have state power. There is no police force to enforce the kind of claims Ely makes about the RCP’s internal life. Fortunately, the credulous have been raised with anti-communist prejudices that Mike Ely’s claims play to nicely.

e) Think for a minute why Mike Ely stopped supporting the RCP when he did and not before. Then think about it for another minute.

3) The Menshevik Inquisition—Or a Liberating and Scientific Vision of Communism and Revolution
Bob Avakian takes a scientific approach to revolution. He encourages us to see communist organization as a team of scientists testing ideas and using the scientific method to figure out how to lead the masses to communism. As science develops, it advances. But there is a Menshevik Inquisition which sees science as heresy, and demands that we hew to old texts, as read through the cataract-laden eyes of the inquisitors. If we can’t have revolution, at least we can have a ‘communist identity’ under capitalism, and Mike Ely hopes to be the high priest of that ‘communist identity.’ Ely claims to want to creatively advance Marxism, but then on all essential points falls back on wisdom received from earlier generations of revisionists, failing to understand the possibility of being scientific in our understanding of human society and its development. Bob Avakian is developing dialectical materialism and revolutionary communism to new heights and in new directions. But Mike Ely, high priest of the Menshevik Inquisition, is scandalized by science. His inquisition seeks to enforce a ‘flat earth’ against those of us who are just now coming to see that the earth is round. The road to revolution is much harder than building up a fake solidarity group around a webmaster. But for those who would travel that road, Bob Avakian is the man with the plan in van.