Mike Ely Gets Personal with the RCP
Posted by Mike E on November 9, 2008
by Mike Ely
For almost a year, the RCP has conducted a smear campaign against me personally. The whisper campaign is an attempt to distract people from crucial questions of line — from our criticisms of the RCP’s line, practice and its cult of personality. It was an attempt to deflect the RCP’s own supporters from any engagement with the 9 Letters to Our Comrades.
Our view is the Maoist approach that “it is line, not author, that matters.” And so we have basically ignored their smears — and started to carve out a new path of revolutionary preparations. And we have not responded in kind.
However, the RCP continued to repeat these personal attacks. In September, they published their now-notorious footnote 17.
So, at the urging of others, I have decided to answer the charges once, clearly and directly. And you have an opportunity to discuss these smears in this thread.
In a nutshell, the RCP charges that I am a dishonest, counterrevolutionary person determined to draw as many people as possible into capitulation to imperialism. It is hard for them to make this case, since quite a few people are know me and my work. But, the RCP’s leadership has pressed ahead to invent the following rather-strange portrait:
They claim that for years within the RCP I was secretly opposed to the line of this party but hid my views in hopes of diverting the party from its revolutionary road. They say that I suddenly left — also without raising my disagreements in a principled way. And they claim that, after leaving, I launched an anticommunist and “parasitic” campaign to “destroy” the RCP — setting myself up as an authority on the RCP in order to promote distortions and endanger leading communists.
Note that the RCP’s attacks create a crude Catch-22: they make charges against me based completely on internal party events — and yet they would deny me any right to publicly discuss those same internal party events.
To refute the RCP’s charges I could simply present a detailed history — I could present a list of the times and places where I struggled over the RCP’s deepening descent into sectarianism, fantasy and its unjustified cult of personality. But to do that, I would be forced to reveal a great deal about the internal history, methods, structure and leadership of the RCP. And I think that would be wrong, and luckily it is not necessary.
Three answers to the RCP accusations:
Answer #1:
I would like to state, clearly and simply, that the RCP charges are false. They are an invented fiction.
Answer #2
The RCP’s leadership accuses me of ” refusing to raise substantive disagreement with or wage open and aboveboard struggle around important aspects of the Party’s line.”
A simple question: If I hid my views, why did the party’s leadership remove me from the editorial committee of Revolution newspaper shortly after Avakian’s self-coup?
I was removed from the leadership of the RCP’s newspaper because it was clearly understood that I opposed Avakian’s course. Imposing that course on the newspaper and on the party required my removal as editor. Obviously, my deepening disagreements were well known.
Answer #3
The following is my personal resignation letter from the RCP. I believe it speaks for itself. Readers can judge for themselves if my approach was principled and communist.
* * * * * *
Mike Ely’s Resignation Letter from the RCP
Written April 18, 2007, Delivered the next day to a Party representative.
My political views and the direction the party make continued membership untenable. And I hereby resign.
What follows here is a letter, not a developed theoretical document. I may write more over time. But the issues involved have been discussed exhaustively over the last three years. As someone said to me, closing the discussion, “We know what the line questions are.”
And I don’t have any fully developed counterproposal to offer of how to resolve the contradictions we have been wrestling with. I have a deep sense though that I have to get off this road to even start to engage a solution.
1) In an number of fundamental ways, I disagree with the course of the party since the [event at which Avakian staged his self-coup]. This is contradictory of course. I have welcomed the sharp criticism of dogmato-revisionism, relativism and general social-movement social-democracy within the p[arty] and the ICM [international communist movement]. I have understood that real shock therapy was needed to revitalize an organization that had become deeply encrusted, lethargic, routinized (and more). And starting from those points of unity, I have tried to grasp and adopt this specific new course and line that has emerged over the last few years. I have hoped and even expected that it would all come together, through practice and ideological struggle, and that I would increasingly see, and understand, and agree with all this.
2) However, after trying and after watching the new approach unfold, I find myself unable to unite with this turn, and elements of the larger political and ideological synthesis that it expresses. I think it is incorrect on a number of levels. At a loss for any way to capture that more sharply: I would there is a lot of idealism in it – in the way it views the role of ideas and ideology, in the way it sees revolutionary movements emerging from the masses, and in the way it views leading individuals.
3) Politically, the increasingly single-minded focus on promoting the ideology and person of BA [Bob Avakian] increasingly goes away from what a van[guard] in our conditions should be doing. This may capture it: When I saw the front page of the new special issue, I thought this reworking of the old 1980 poster captured how things have changed. That original May First poster featured the advanced among the masses grappling with whether to step out on the political stage, to make real their dreams of a different world. This new reworking of that poster featured someone in a similar pose, but gazing fixedly on the word “leadership.” Not called on to step out in a revolutionary way on the stage of history, but called on to “engage” as a precondition for following. Will people really look at that reworked graphic and not see any “hint of religiosity or slavishness”?
Despite the correct and powerful things contained in that “special issue” – including the challenge to conventional wisdom, the defense of revolution and communism – and in the exposure, books, analyses our party has done — I don’t believe that this approach of focusing singlemindedly on announcing “we have a leader” can actually lead to the repolarization of politics (in the U.S., let alone the world) around one person. Nor do I think it is correct to train people to “just say what is on the paper” (including reading tracts out loud to passing crowds as a replacement for real agitation) rather than expressing our common ideas in a living way.
The real objective interests of humanity demand that there be a fight to have communism be given a fresh new hearing among the people – but I don’t think it will happen in this way. And trying to do it this way, turns it into something else.
4) With the issue of BA, as a person, a leader and a communist thinker, placed so central to everything – I have to say here that from the time I first met him long-ago in Richmond, it was my view that he had the “potential to be a Lenin,” and that this was a central reason why I joined this trend. There is a great deal in his work that I appreciate – and that I think makes a contribution to the M’ism [Marxism] of our times. A great deal falls on the shoulders of the quite limited conscious forces on a world scale, and it is true, I believe, that today’s communist forces internationally are still generally fighting using ideological views that fall short of what is needed.
However, I don’t view the “cardinal question” of his historic role in the way that the party has made a necessary condition of membership. And, though my thinking is in flux about these things and will take a while to sort out more, I find, at this point, in this approach we have called “the new synthesis” a significant amount of idealism in the understanding of how the masses become “fit to rule” – as if it is largely a matter of promulgating particular ideas for the masses to “work” with. And not principally a process of building real organization among the masses and the advanced around dividing line questions and a revolutionary program. A “revolutionary people” is forged in a number of ways – by conditions and the experience of the masses themselves, and by the work of communists among them. In every great revolution there were conditions “throwing up” waves of active and highly radical forces from sections of the masses to engage the revolutionary class struggle – in Russia 1905, China in the twenties, and in the revolutionary pulse among Black people in the late sixties – all emerging from deep and objective processes of development. Such things are not jerked into being by the subjective forces and their ideas in some overnight way, though the development and spread of communist ideas (by the party and its leadership) can potentially play a key role in how such forces emerges and what they then do.
5) What I see happening is an attempt at “get rich quick schemes” fueled by a particular reading (and some hyping) of the urgency of the historical moment – both its dangers and potentials. But I don’t think the deep political changes among the masses that we need will really happen that way. And, this has a deja vu feel (to me) of the previous attempts to do something similar – from around May First 1980 and in the years that immediately followed. But now, as then, these are the actions of relatively small dedicated core trying, unsuccessfully, to force a quantum leap, without actually building on the kinds of political work needed to make that leap or having the objective conditions for making it. We failed to bring forward new forces in large numbers around revolutionary politics in those previous cases. Things have never “caught fire.” And I don’t think these methods will do so now.
6) We have tried, in waves, and with different focus, and with differing methods, to gain a real foothold for revolutionary and communist politics – using various economist methods in the 1970s, using a number of approaches in the proletariat (among the homeless, among the housing projects, among youth, among immigrant people, among the various social movements against war, police murder and other crimes of the system) after that. And we have accomplished many things – not least among them sustaining and repopulating the core of a rev party in a country like this. We have attracted (and at times recruited) the most advanced, disaffected, radically inclined in small numbers – as individuals. We have influenced and even created a number of important movements of resistance. But in the end, we have never, in our common work that now goes back almost 40 years, succeeded in getting a mass foothold for our politics among any section of the people. I have never seen any summation of, for example, our efforts to build base areas in the housing projects post-1992 – but clearly there has been no creation of any partisan mass base of support.
We start each new effort from the essentially same place: as a small dedicated hardcore with some hard-won network periphery and no real mass base — with very little to show for the last wave, other than our own continued organizational existence, and the banner of communist revolution held for some to see at the margins of society’s political life. Those things are not nothing of course. But they remain far from what we have needed. I don’t personally have a developed answer to this question – though I believe that the way the “two mainstays” are envisioned take things in the wrong direction.
7) I have always thought, and still think, that the historic problems of getting a footing here can be overcome – that a revolution is possible in this world and in this country. The chair’s joke about Richard Pryor saying “You’re not going to make it’ and “death may come up in me” – is not what I’m thinking.
Profound new openings can arise from great crises and dislocations – and if the advanced forces are organized and oriented correctly, this can possibly be wrenched toward a radically different and liberatory politics. I believe something powerful and disruptive may arise from the situation of Latin American immigrants. But I do think some deep summation needs to be extracted from the difficulties we have had – a reconning that has been missing from the approach of the party.
In any case, I really can’t unite with the explicit assumption that the reason things have still come up relatively empty handed (in the sense of really getting “onto the political center stage”) – is that somehow the party failed to carry out the line of its own leadership, and so squandered those many years, and so that the solution is to now (finally!) bring that line forward and not allow the party cadre to stand between that leadership and the people. I think that in fact we have tried to hit at this historic problem from many sides, using many different approaches. I am not sure what exactly I think will succeed where we have so far not succeeded – i.e. to put revolutionary communism on the political map, in a real, massive, partisan way, able to strike and move forward from there. And it is, I understand, something that interpenetrates in a profound way with the question of what revolutionary communism actually is (and what it is not). It is certainly something that will continue to be the focus of my thought and practice.
8) Organizational matters are secondary and derivative – but I will mention them nonetheless. I have always loved this party, dearly, more than life itself – taking up its work with real enthusiasm. And yet it has been like waking up in an alien place. Where unit meetings have been drained of everything but the basic study and pro forma discussion of new theoretical work. Where other previous forms of collectivity have evaporated, to be replaced by orders that arrive by email or directive-without-discussion. And where painstaking micromanagement of every conceivable detail of political life and expression has reached extreme, and even bizarre proportions.
Fine and true words are spoken about the social need for vibrant and edgy debate and even about the need to take risks to have it – but how can such a society or climate can be created by a party that has restructured itself to be a hall of self-reflecting mirrors.
For a year, I have been increasingly severed from the work of our newspaper, and any real political life, while the party spirit seems to have been replaced by a low rumble of condescension and disrespect toward comrades.
9) It is worth asking whether I believe the party has become revisionist, an obstacle to advance etc. Those are not things I would say. But this party now appears to me firmly set on a course that I don’t believe will produce its intended results of preparing for revolution. I do not unite with the course it has locked onto, or with some of the key ideological and political lines it has adopted. (And I realize I have only sketched these things here.) And, it is quite clear that the party, at this point, is closed to continued struggle over those things – and in line with that I have not forced the issue by continuing anyway. Squeezed out of this party, I will now have to try to make my contribution to the world historic process somewhere else.
10) Perhaps events will prove me wrong, in which case this conversation will take a different turn down the road. For now, needless to say, this is a sad conclusion to come to – since I do think our cause and our party has been the only hope for the masses of people. And because I don’t see the outlines of anything else that can play that role.
Personally I have had a post from which to make a contribution to revolutionary change for years, within the party and especially as part of the newspaper. That is precious thing and far too rare in this world – and I have valued it deeply. And now I am going to find some other way and place to make whatever future contribution I can to the people of the world and to a communist future.
Behrooz Navaii said
Comrade Mike, it took you too long to find out.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the matter of Cult of Personality.
Lin Biao’s invention, little red book (silver!) and any imitation only makes sence at least in Nepal or say in Peru, where there is a real people’s war going on and there is something to take seriously; where taking away people’s god needs a replacement to an extent (like the face of leader with light or sun on back of his head!) but it also has its bad results (like chair Guzman gets arrested and while he makes a nice speech in public, later under torture he talks about …or for that matter when Apo, i.e. leader of PKK gets arrested and talks about uniting Kurds with Turks etc.) But, while I have a lot of respect for Mao’s way to revolution, that doesn’t necessarily make me like his attempts for great leap forward from killing the birds to melting all sort of metals… since a good warrior is not necessarily best president afterward.
But in the meantime we don’t even have the war to give the medals to our great comrade Avakian. It is as if due to passing of years and failure of tactics … They have stopped respecting Parachanda and they never speak of Naxalites (the current C P India Maoist) who are making the biggest revolution in the most suitable place for those Chair Mao’s teaching. I don’t see a bit of making a big deal of their chairman. I believe that the INDIAN MAOIST REVOLUTION will be GREATER even that CHINA, since they have learnt a lot.
With respect
Behrooz Navaii
John Steele said
I have to say a few things on all this.
I have known Mike Ely over a period of 30 years. During most of that time Mike of course was part of the rcp, while I was at varying degrees of closeness and distance to that organization at different times. He and I have talked, discussed, and argued continually over those years. One of Mike’s primary characteristics (as should be evident to all readers of Kasama) is the genuineness and forthrightness with which he puts forward what he thinks, and argues his case. To think that this revolutionary comrade, while within the rcp, was in some way sneaky, underhanded, dishonest, or less than forthright — this is quite beyond belief.
To spell it out: During those years Mike never failed to put forward and uphold the line of the rcp and to take on my own variations from this — but not (and again this will be obvious to all those who have contended with Mike on Kasama) in any sort of dismissive way which would sweep aside others’ views without thoroughly exploring them as well as taking them on. Arguing or discussing with Mike never failed, in fact, to give me a renewed sense of respect for the rcp, whatever my degree of disagreement — simply because the organization was represented by someone with the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and toughness which Mike always displays.
Of course Mike’s letter of resignation above makes quite clear that his growing differences with the rcp were very plainly put forward. Indeed what is striking in the above letter is the close identity of the points put forward there, with what Mike has continued to argue and deepen in the Nine Letters and on Kasama. It’s obvious from internal evidence alone that what Mike says now is thoroughly continuous with what he said within the confines of the rcp.
The sorts of personal attacks and slander wich the rcp has engaged in with respect to Mike Ely are quite thoroughly shameful. Shameful because they are purely inventions and slander, shameful because they attempt to smear someone as revolutionary and upright as Mike is, and shameful because they reveal the low place to which this organization has sunk.
Really the rcp should be called out from every side for the sorts of personal slander and attacks from the gutter which it has engaged in.
Linda D. said
In reading Mike’s “getting personal” and his “letter of resignation”, am struck by not only the obvious line differences between Mike and the rcp, but also the methodology he uses and has used in making clear line differences as compared to the rcp.
While I have been away from the rcp proper for many years, it is hard for me not to also be struck by the lack of, or unwillingness of the rcp to engage in principled struggle, which “phenomena” was taking root even when I was a member over 20 years ago.
With their latest character assassination of Mike personally (and Bill Martin by innuendo), and their trying to raise the stakes in overtly attacking Mike in particular, I think their desperation is becoming clearer. And ultimately their attacks are an attack on many revolutionaries, particularly anyone who disagrees with them, and moreover, ultimately an attack on the people themselves.
For an organization that has prided itself on its ability to elevate theory, for one thing, I find it pretty banal and mundane, and even potentially dangerous (to Mike in the immediate sense, but potentially for many revolutionaries), for them to sink to such a level of personal attack rather than engaging in real line struggle and discussion; they have reduced their “argument” for now to name calling. But even the name calling is nothing new. At the same time, for me, and I assume others, their missives have forced me to “compare and contrast” their line and methodology with that of the varied forces on Kasama, as well as forces in the international arena, even further.
In particular, compare Mike’s letter of resignation to their “footnote 17” from their Manifesto.
In my own experience, and from my “rear view mirror”, I’ve witnessed what has now come to light as being a “Cultural Revolution” (which at this stage of history sounds pretentious and presumptuous) within the rcp as something that’s been developing for a long time. The seeds were already planted (at least starting in the early 80s) for the rcp’s “new” emphasis on, and the culmination of the “appreciation, promotion, and popularization of Bob Avakian” and this new level started taking root decades ago. To call Avakian’s self-imposed coup, a coup, is not in my estimation hyperbole.(Articles started appearing in the RW about cult of the personality, being an intellectual, etc. way back when.)
It is obvious – especially given the time span – that Mike continued to raise differences with the leadership of the rcp. At the same time, he honoured the organization, and continued to raise these differences through proper channels. In my day, there was a strict adherence to division of labor. After reading the rcp’s new constitution and their latest manifesto, it appears that that division of labor and hierarchy has become even more entrenched. But Mike was an editor on the RW, so PERHAPS (!), he had some advantage (whatever that means?) in being able to even raise some criticisms or questions. But for a lot of the cadre, they were not privy to line and theoretical struggle, or this kind of debate (a debate in the spirit of moving things forward, not to be disruptive), and their avenues for struggle were either narrowed, or honest questions summarily dismissed. Back then, if you questioned the line, or methodology, all the while upholding the rcp and revolution/socialism/communism, you were isolated and often times labeled as agnostic, intermediate or even backward — for certain your “revolutionary will” was called into question.
To say the least, the atmosphere was growing more and more stifling. Seemed to me at the time that by questioning, and wanting to go deeper into some revolutionary debate was a lot more revolutionary-minded than just memorizing the latest document and citing it by rote. And amongst some people who dared to go against the tide, in a non-antagonistic way overall but were actually trying to be more visionary, they were isolated, and more often than not, emphasis was placed on your particular task…back to your post.
Division of labor, if handled properly, is one thing; raising the division between leadership and led to a principle is another.
But this experience raises some questions I have about democratic centralist organizations and parties. Not unlike Kasama for now, the RU was much more transparent. There was much more lively debate. Things were at a much more embryonic stage, and the world stage incorporated different views from many blossoming organizations. Also the objective situation and political climate was a lot different back then. But are the contradictions and “problems” and downfall of the rcp inevitable when an organization becomes so insular, dogmatic and entrenched with out and out careerists, etc.?
Does this automatically flow from some strict scriptures inherent in democractic centralism? I don’t know…but for a long time, and I must admit even to some degree today, I can’t help but quote another Marx—“I wouldn’t join any organization that would have me as a member.”
Here is what I consider as some of what’s at the heart of the problem with the rcp. To put it as crassly and simplistically as I can, they give revolution and revolutionaries a bad name.
There is a phenomena, and in some cases, and after some sway with orgs. like the rcp, some very earnest forces start to question the possibility of revolution itself, how all this falls out in practice and how we sum up and view our revolutionary history. Some, understandably, get demoralized. But even though there has been a character assassination of Mike by the leadership of the rcp, he is clearly someone who has not fallen prey to demoralization, nor has his honest revolutionary outlook diminished.
There is someone very near and dear to me who was born in Cuba in a small town, but as a teenager “left” with his family and for over 20 years has lived in exile (although eventually became a U.S. citizen). He is Afro Cubano, his father Jamaican and Chinese. After I had gone to Cuba , he, his mother (who is completely anti-Fidel) and I were “talking” about the Cuban revolution. At one point he finally said, “How can any thinking or feeling human being disagree with Marx or the fundamentals of Marxism? It’s how it comes down in practice that has me wondering.” (This coming from someone who is auto-didactic—and to this day has trouble reading in both Spanish and English, but has read “The Communist Manifesto” several times.) Contrary to his mother, he still upholds revolution (in theory at least) but via his own life experience, is skeptical and worries that the revolutionists will become the new oppressors. (This is a common theme, not just amongst a wide array of
people, but amongst revolutionaries themselves, including me.)
With the reversal in China , some very earnest, and knowledgeable, comrades fell by the wayside. To me, that period in our history was a test—NOT of your revolutionary will coming off of some hype, but a clarion call to further understand the complexities, twists and turns of revolution, dispense with some mechanical, voluntaristic and determinist thinking; to dig deeper into just what it means to make revolution, and how that applies even after the initial revolution is won (in the main). One of the biggest debts we owe to Mao and the revolutionaries he amassed around him was his materialist analysis—in part, that different forces concentrated in the communist party itself are contending, and that the revolutionary process continues even while building socialism. The real Cultural Revolution in China wrecked havoc with a lot of idealism amongst very honest revolutionary forces. Revolutionaries worldwide were at a crossroads, and the “struggle” (to put it mildly) was fierce.
Zack made some comments on another post (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/rcp-hopes-to-consolidate-oct-26-attendees/
(”RCP Seeks to Consolidate…”. Comment Nº 12) to which I wanted to respond, but then thought…nah. But with this open Letter (of resignation) and Personal account by Mike, I do want to add something to what Zack said, because I think what he says points to something inherent in both the overall line of the rcp and for sure their methodology (and practice); and how that methodology affects both revolutionaries as well as the revolution itself. But before Zack, would like to quote from the horse’s mouth, i.e., from the rcp’s Manifesto. To me these two paragraphs speak volumes about not only how the rcp views the subjective and revolutionary forces or principled struggle, but the making of revolution with its diverse paths, even including their view of the people en masse:
From the RCP’s recent Manifesto:
“The precipitating factor, leading to open and profound struggle over these fundamental differences, occurred in the context where the Party was preparing to carry out a campaign of building a culture of appreciation, promotion, and popularization of Bob Avakian’s role as a communist leader, as concentrated in his body of work and method and approach. Building this culture of appreciation, promotion, and popularization has now come to be recognized as one of the two mainstays of our Party’s all-around revolutionary work (the other mainstay is wielding our Party’s press—all this is discussed in our Party’s new Constitution). But at the time, only a few years ago, discussions about this within the Party revealed, more clearly than had been apparent before, that within the Party itself there was, as a recent internal Party document puts it, “an abysmal lack of appreciation for what had actually been the principal content of the Chair’s work—his re-envisioning of
revolution and communism, the new synthesis.”
“…As should be expected in a struggle of this magnitude and with these stakes, the process of the Cultural Revolution in our Party has been one which has involved a dividing out with those who were willing to make their peace with imperialism and its monstrous crimes, even if sometimes they would still call themselves communists, or would express the wish that a better world could be brought into being, so long as they did not have to take responsibility for the struggle, and face the sacrifices that would be required to actually make this a reality. Some people refused, or found themselves unable, to rupture with revisionism and so resigned (or were prevailed upon to resign) from the Party. For the most part, and with a few exceptions,17 those who have left the Party have done so on the basis of insisting that they do not believe that revolution is possible—at least not in this country, not in any meaningful time frame—while some have even acknowledged that they no longer
regard revolution and communism as desirable. In reality, what this means is not that revolution is not possible, and communism not desirable, but that these people’s revolutionary will and communist orientation have degenerated and—unlike those who have come forward through the course of the Cultural Revolution in our Party, and once again and more deeply have committed themselves to the cause of communism—those who have turned their back on the Party and on revolution recognize that this revolution and its goal of communism will require, but they are not willing to undertake, “the hard work, the risky work, the often unpopular and ‘going against the tide’ work, to make this a reality.”18 They no longer meet the basic criteria spelled out in our Party’s Constitution (Part II. Principles of Organization):”
Zack said a lot of things in his aforementioned comments, but in particular a few things hit me hard. Zack clearly states that he has tried to do lots of investigation (“from both sides”) but was met with dictums like: “you fire your ideas and hire ours,” “stop investigating and come with us, or you’re out”, etc. But Zack also got into his dismay that friendships that were formed with people in rcp clubs etc. have been broken. Even saying: “me formerly being one of the main web designers/admins for their site. They used me so long as they could. Not real friendships, but “what can you do for me” type shit.. Ugly stuff…
“….So of course this will obviously lead to people just dropping off the more apolitical friends and friends that are hesitant to just get on board without actually having answers…”
While clearly Zack is someone who is both thoughtful and has a heart, I don’t think dismantling or breaking friendships is what is important here. Instead it is the unwillingness on the part of the rcp’s leadership and led to engage in any kind of principled struggle. Revolutionary-minded and even party supporters and members are not seen as a precious commodity, so why bother. I have been reluctant to tell of my own experience, but will say that after 16 years of being in this organization, of living and breathing the rcp (which in hindsight is problematic in and of itself, as one is reduced to strictly looking at the world through the prism of their particular leaders), as I said in my letter of resignation over 20 years ago, “in good conscience….”, and that I wanted to remain a supporter. I also pointed to things I still upheld but at the same time, was finding I had big line differences (for starters, the line on homosexuality)—which were not all that clear but
rumblings of such had been stirred over the course of some years. Most unfortunately the avenues for struggle were narrowing, and if you dared to struggle or question lines and practice, you were summarily dismissed. After a particularly jarring incident, I still continued to carry out my assigned task—my thinking was how can I let my comrades down who are counting on me to “perform,” but during that entire day and night was thinking—I am not going to abandon my revolutionary principles, nor my willingness to make sacrifices, et al., but I am going to have to resign from the rcp. To say that this was a wrenching moment is an understatement.
So what happens, after 16 years – my leadership shows up on my doorstep a few days later, asks for my keys and documents, and that was it…except to take my partner aside and tell him he had to dump me because now I was a pariah. Absolutely NO struggle, no discussion of line differences, etc. And like I just wrote to a Kasama comrade – had this person struggled with me then, and over a more protracted period, I undoubtedly wouldn’t have resigned. I was in flux, I had questions, etc.
(What was probably a somewhat seemingly minor aspect for my taking the path I did, but at the same time somewhat of a catalyst, was prior to that day, a leading member—who had been part of the RU/RCP’s inception, whose leadership and line was pivotal in the work she was in charge of, and someone who pretty much changed the line a lot, had quit, unbeknownst to many. There was a very superficial discussion that ensued for us peons. A paper that summed up this comrade’s deviations and incorrect line was presented in a few pages—a sum up and verdict on the same person who had been held in high esteem only a month beforehand. And what struck me most was, while the same peons had been touting and regurgitating this person’s line before, they were now and suddenly in agreement that she was a counter-rev., revisionist, what have you. Seemed to me that the cadre didn’t grasp this person’s line(s) beforehand, nor did they have a very thoroughgoing understanding of her
differences with other leading members at the point of her resignation. This disturbed me so much, and while I had a lot of differences with this person, I was the ONLY person in the room to point to this person’s contributions to both the org. and making revolution, and that I thought this was a big loss. Furthermore that our “inability” to struggle over line differences was an even bigger loss. Suddenly I became suspect because I wasn’t simply nodding my head in agreement, and moving onto the next order of business.)
But not that different from Zack’s experience, about 3 weeks after resigning, my leading person set up a get together. Not to discuss ANYTHING of substance, but to ask if I would reconsider my resignation. “Well, what about this and that?”…not important, because what they really needed was someone to continue to perform the task I had been doing for 8 friggin’ years. Again no struggle. Nada.
I am not trying to AUTOMATICALLY be a cheerleader for Mike, while at the same time, through the years, he has gained my respect and I appreciate his demonstrated (over and over again) abilities (both theoretically and in practice)—and his unwavering revolutionary stand, even in the face of great obstacles. BUT for the rcp to even insinuate that he (in his words and via theirs) “was secretly opposed to the line of this party but hid my views in hopes of diverting the party from its revolutionary road. They say that I suddenly left — also without raising my disagreements in a principled way. And they claim that, after leaving, I launched an anticommunist and “parasitic” campaign to “destroy” the RCP — setting myself up as an authority on the RCP in order to promote distortions and endanger leading communists,” is outrageous and at best ludicrous.
Over the years Mike and I have had some intense struggle and definitely some differences—and we continue to do so. But I am convinced that we are both coming from some very profound points of a shared overall outlook, hopes and dreams, and have not wavered in wanting to be part of the monumental struggle for a better world and for the people. As part of that, we both ascribe to something fundamental (in a genuine sense) in the revolutionary process—“unity-struggle-unity.” And while each and all of us has had different life experiences, it gives me hope, strength and encouragement to see that the likes of the rcp, no matter how hard they’ve tried or are trying, has not been able to sap those very principles that many of us still hold dear, are continuing to struggle and/or unite around, and principles that we are obviously taking seriously with a new and developing maturity.
lunita said
thank you, mike, for publishing your resignation letter. i continue to be very concerned about the personal smear campaign as well as the line issues (here, in nepal, and elsewhere).
it is amazing that anyone remains tied to the rcp. how and why do dedicated revolutionaries accept being treated contemptuously and rationalize such treatment of “comrades?” the final break for so many, including myself (altho i was never a ‘member’), was the culmination of years of such treatment: any question of line, any offer of creative ideas, any suggestion of criticism was simply– and often brusquely — stamped out. (how many of us have been told, after mustering the gumption to contribute an idea/thought, “the masses will chew you up and spit you out?”) THIS IS NOT A STRATEGY FOR WINNING!
in the face of this, and as well as the broader (and rapidly changing) political landscape, i hope we can turn this split, which affects an already deeply fractured communist movement into its opposite. that is, as part of the restructuring, that we can engender a spirit of “unity-struggle-unity” w/other revolutionary minded forces.
as part of that, i think we should — at the very least — demand that the rcp not only remove, but publicly retract footnote 17!
land said
I agree with Lunita:
“as part of that, I think we should – at the very least – demand that the RCP not only remove, but publicy retract footnote 17.”
JB Connors said
I also agree with Lunita. We should demand the RCP retract footnote 17, because it is ugly and dishonest bullshit. It is a smear campaign intended to distract from the line questions raised in the 9 Letter to Our Comrades. It is untrue from beginning to end and lowers the whole level of debate among communists.
I have to say, the tactic reminds me of the ugly infighting we just saw in the ruling class — where, for example, the McCain camp, devoid of ideas, just tried to raise suspicions and fears about Obama’s motives (”palling around with terrorists,” “tearing down America,” “possibly a secret Muslim.”)
Is that really how debates and conflict should be carried on among communists: “Sling as much shit as you can and hope some of it sticks”?
Those of us who have worked with Mike know the smears against him are untrue. I have known Mike Ely for almost 30 years. I would say that I have learned much from him, including the lofty and principled way he has conducted struggle over line differences. And like many people, I have always been struck by his restless exploration of ideas and events — and his dedication to making revolutionary change.
It makes these charges (as John Steele says above) all the more shameful.
Mike has not suddenly become someone different from the person we have all known.
And if you have not known Mike personally, you can see what he is about from his writings and from this Kasama site which he has helped lead. And you can compare and contrast all this to the RCP’s approach.
In particular Mike has worked hard for a principled approach to people who disagree with him or attack him: He doesn’t take it personally. He consistently tries to learn from the negative as well as the positive things people raise – to draw out the criticism to learn more from it. If you’ve followed the site you’ve seen this method repeated over and over with those who have raised different views, criticisms and even attacks.
In short, the RCP is lying about this brother to confuse the issues — because Avakian has painted himself in a corner with all the hype about the world hanging by a thread, and about himself being the special, unique and irreplaceable person who alone can save the planet. Once they have enshrined all that, and can’t possible back away from it, they then feel compelled to use tactics that we all believed were beneath them.
Communists once had great respect for Avakian. He used that respect to drag the RCP into this hole. And he now feels compelled to demonize anyone who challenges that path and all his increasingly ridiculous assertions about himself.
Mike is being smeared for saying the simple truth that this mini-emperor has no clothes.
There are two more claims that I want to touch on briefly:
Mike and Kasama are accused of capitulating to imperialism. And there is literally no basis for this other than a circular one: they assert that the RCP and Avakian is the only hope for ending imperialism, and so if you have major criticisms of the RCP and Avakian you must somehow be for imperialism. The superficiality of that argument speaks for itself. By contrast, everyone can see how both Mike and Kasama are working to creatively retake the revolutionary road — the “presumptuous task” that starts the 9 Letters.
Second, there is the argument of “parasitic” — i.e. that Mike and Kasama have only destructive things to say about the RCP and nothing creative of their own. This is both wrong and undialectical. It is wrong because from the beginning, from the 9 letters to our comrades, Mike has started to elaborate an alternative approach to the RCP’s failures. And because Kasama has started taking up much needed internationalist work that the RCP abandoned. And it is undialectical because the destructive critical aspect of communist polemics is a crucial pre-condition for any new constructive theoretical work. However, if you start with the odd assumption that the ideas humanity needs are only coming from the brain of one unique genius, then any divergent ideas are dismissed as empty and counterrevolutionary.
I’m glad to see us develop this thread on the personal attacks on Mike. And I want to urge you quiet ones out there, who know Mike and his work, to pipe up so we can help others cut through the crap and focus on larger matters of line.
TellNoLies said
Demanding that the RCP do anything is to lose sight of the real project of organizing for revolution and to play the role of a small moon circling a dead planet. They aren’t going to retract it and almost nobody except themselves takes their verdicts on such things seriously anyway.
I am reminded of a cartoon my wife showed me of a guy hunched over his keyboard typing furiously and saying something to the effect of “I’ll come to bed soon, honey, but somebody said something wrong on the internet.”
To talk about the “now notorious footnote 17″ is to remain in their bubble. Footnote 17 is not “notorious.” The only people who care about it are either in the RCP or affiliated with Kasama. Notoriety implies the existence of a larger interested public. I understand the need to respond to such things, but the job of refuting the RCP’s smears has been done now, exhaustively I might add. I submit that the value of continued engagement with the RCP is increasingly offset by the resulting perception that Kasama is just a space for ex-RCPers.
zerohour said
I agree with TellNoLies. We’ve made our fundamental arguments. They are nowhere near the leading edges of practice or theory, nor do they have enough presence on the scene to justify any more attention.
Let’s move on.
lunita said
TNL:
while i agree w/you about “notorious,” in that it is, indeed, only notorious among a small group, i disagree about not taking the rcp to task. i think, in order for kasama to move on and develop its identity, goals, relationship w/other revolutionary organizations and individuals, etc., the air, particularly around the smear campaign against mike ely, needs to be sharply refuted. in the end, the red left is a small community and to let these lies remain as if they were fact will, ultimately harm the important work that lies ahead. while the rcp is obviously reeling from the mere existence of kasama, i doubt they will fold up their operation and call it a day. which means, in some way or another, our forces will have to engage w/them at some point. further, demanding refutation of such damaging lies could go a long way in clarifying the line issues from which they stem for communists more broadly.
i also agree w/you about kasama having exhaustively refuted the smears. i believe as part of the regrouping we need to focus our energy on the work that needs to be done for forcible overthrow and communist revolution and away from the rcp. but i think there needs to be some closure…
but i ask: how would we go about demanding such a retraction?
lunita said
sorry: air doesn’t get refuted. that should read:
“the lies and innuendo, particularly the smear campaign against mike ely…”
Zack said
It’s obvious now that RCP was in fact lying when stating in their Manifesto (footnote 17) that Mike had never raised the line issues whilst in the party and just abruptly quit… with the logic that he quit so as to wreck and destroy the party through rumor and unprincipled jabs.
No, it’s worse than it even seemed for the RCP. They’ve gone that low.
I recall a few weeks ago I was speaking with a supporter of the RCP and them plainly and matter-of-factly stating to me when I questioned what was unprincipled in the way Kasama carries out debate, “he lied and didn’t say ANYTHING when he was still in the party.” Now I don’t know if this was just carrying out the official word or if they honestly believed this.
I wonder how their confidence in pleading such lies to me is now.
Irisbright said
I think the best refutation of their smears is to go forward and develop our own line and practice. Demanding a retraction (which will never be answered to) is giving them too much credit. The nature of the smears themselves, coming from a a rev com org, demand a refutation by their very unprincipled nature, and speak for themselves without our making some ‘official statement’.
I agree we should move on. Thanks, Mike, for answering and putting down those charges. I believe it is important to put that out ‘to our comrades’–to cadre who are swallowing that line.
It’s just jumping a little hurdle, and moving on to the big stuff. the real stuff.
Zack, I have heard the same thing several times. It is line.
Irisbright said
I want to reiterate that this letter being published really settles some things for me, forever. That the RCP would do such a thing is outrageous, and this letter shows how obvious the lie is. I really hope supporters see it, because it is unrefutable. It is principled to defend revolutionary people like Mike Ely from such attacks (like, real ones!).
When I say move on, I would like to clarify that I was responding to the idea of demanding a retraction. Like I said, they are so obviously lying at this point, and since we’ll never get a retraction–why do it? this exposure is powerful enough–they are condemned by their own actions.
Jose M said
I’m with you Mike. We all are. Any serious revolutionary needs to be as well.
I agree with the sentiment that it is time we no longer respond to their attacks and clear lies on a tit-for-tat basis. I think it is important to construct a new synthesis as a rejection of theirs but more than that, as a new path forward for revolution. The latter in itself is enough to prove us correct.
I feel angry at those RCP supporters I know who are still stubborn at this shit. So many good and wasted comrades.
Stay up man.
land said
Can someone write a call for retraction.
It can be short.
I want to move on also. There is much to do.
But there needs to be a retraction. Let’s do it.
nando said
I see no point in demanding a retraction. I don’t think we want to demand anything from the RCP.
We have been speaking to “our comrades” — and helping them see the line questions involved. I think publishing the “letter of resignation” has (as several people say) exposed this smear campaign. And that is our purpose here.
That exposure not only helps us “move on” — but may help other comrades move on with us.
redflags said
I’m not interested in demanding anything from the ruling class, let alone an organization that once fought for the revolutionary transformation of the world and has now settled in for a long haul as the promotional sect of Bob Avakian.
Demand something from them? What have they got to give?
They’ve literally thrown away the people who wouldn’t embrace patent nonsense as the price of admission. They’ve bankrupted many, turned others to cynicism and serve as a cautionary tale for disconnecting from the people to get high on your own supply.
Have they lied about Mike, and the rest of us? Yes. They have.
And that only works on people who will put up with it. I am not against the RCP, though I have lost respect for anyone who puts up with this as if it had anything to do with changing the world or serving the people.
Avakian has sabotaged and eviscerated the party he once led, all in order to make himself the center of a rapidly shrinking universe. The international movement has apparently run out of patience with him, and the capacities of the party are reduced markedly inside the US. Guilt tripping, mania and paranoia have replaced politics. Cult of personality stands in for organizing the people. It’s a sad end, and one Avakian no doubt wishes to blame on someone, anyone besides himself. But not only is nobody buying the RCP’s rap – nobody not still on their internal information diet even cares.
It’s one thing to lie about Mike, but at this point, old comrades – you’re only fooling yourselves, and I think you know it.
lunita said
it is indeed sad, and maybe true, that the rcp does not have a shred of decency left. the cult of personality, painting the party into a corner, does remind me of what someone here posted awhile ago: watching this demise is like watching an old, sick relative slowly deteriorate. some have called the party delusional.
so am i delusional in thinking they’d ever retract footnote 17?
i totally get what TNL says, about playing “the role of a small moon circling a dead planet,” and absolutely agree we need to move on (pronto!), but nasty tactics do continue (beyond fn17), so i think we need to put a stop to the slander before it further escalates.
land, if — without delusions — we were to move forward with a call for retraction, i imagine we would need an intermediary.
otherwise, if that IS delusional thinking, then we’ve got plenty else to do.
In Struggle said
This is my first time posting but I’ve been paying attention to this site for a few months.
As someone who has been around the RCP for several years but was never a member, I have to throw my hat in with the posters who think Kasama should focus on developing the theory and strategy for making a revolution.
It is less than useless to argue with the RCP to retract their statements, as many people who have posted already know, once you begin to even ask questions about the correctness of their (BA’s) ideas, you become a pariah.
People seeking a better world in this country and more importantly all over the world need Kasama to learn what it can from the RCP experience and to move forward and take resonsibility for making revolution in this country. These are wild and unpredictable times and the Kasama project needs to move fast with its eyes on the future.
lunita said
thanks, all, for so kindly and eloquently driving the point home.
In Struggle, thanks for your post especially. can you elaborate a bit more on your comment:
“People seeking a better world in this country and more importantly all over the world need Kasama to learn what it can from the RCP experience and to move forward and take resonsibility for making revolution in this country. These are wild and unpredictable times and the Kasama project needs to move fast with its eyes on the future.”
Bz Nv said
Comradely greetings,
Seeing much closer, members of crd Mike E have to review such dark past of a party that has claimed that it is the one and the only founder of the RIM while their so-called cooperations with international rev parties [moderator snip] only brings sorrow. Why should I have to have more respect with Trotskyte groups like WOrkers WOrld who show respect to the ongoing revolution in Nepal?
But of course, maybe without winning a revolution, or even taking serious recent steps to start it, Avakian’s worshipers want to make bigger deal of him so pretty soon, maybe afte death, RIM will have to endure photographs of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao with one more guy with beard, Bob, as the forrunners of the world communism.
That only brings disgust and sorrow to many guerrilas from numerous PLAs, NPA (of Philippines) and various other activists.
I don’t deny that chair Bob has written valuable books at different times (Democracy can’t we do better, Phoney Com is dead, long live) but did he do that alone? [moderator snip] [Didn't others] spend their times and lives to bring sets of facts and history about for him to sum them up or analyze them? But don’t forget, he and his mechanical worshipers are the party history writers!
That reminds me of the greatest poem written by Bertolt Berecht as a talk fot the workers or the world:
A Worker Reads History
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?
Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?
So many particulars.
So many questions.
– Bertolt Brecht
* * * * * *
Now I’m asking brother Bob,
Who burnt the flag and got arrested in the belly of the beast?
Who were the ones that in LA and San Francisco arrested and bounded with plastic bands on May 1st and during the Rodney King related riots?
who were the smart sisters and brothers who, when the May 1st demo was forbidden — put real pigs dressed in police costumes into the street to make thousands of people laugh?
Should we simply say Avakian did all things since he and his intellecual clowns are re writing the history under his name?
But I still love them all, since they put hours of their lives, and x percents of their incomes, only to sell and publish paper and sometimes better than Jehova Witnesses in cold and warm times distributed the Revolutionary Workers,
And instead of the world adoring you history proclaimer, comrade Bob, step down and resign as a leader, make your rank equal to great other writers — like Larry Everest, Reymond Lotta and many others whose names are not known — and with an official apology, ask for the ones who resigned [moderator snip] to come back and draw more democratic lines around the party image and instead of turning into a smal cult that creates allergic reactions to revolution and communism, be a part of that movement with the people, not above the people.
In many countries brother Bob, and other readers, I have seen the smallest factions and splits of groups, organizations and parties all talk about “people’s leadership” and calling everybody else counterrevolutionary and many other names — as if the people, the proletarians, the national liberation movements of different national minorities, as if they are their girlfriend or wives about whom it is time to cut everybody else’s head in debate [moderator snip] in order to be the one and the only leading party or groups or guerrillas.
Comrades, at best, we are children of the people. nothing more, nothing less.
And first worlders talking of their own importance while they don’t loose thousands and millions of their comrades by disapearance an under torture, Chile, Indonesia, Iran, Argentina, Turkey, India, you name them, makes me want to puke at their typical first world individual. Boxes of egos. And believe me, commmunist-called or whatever, they still are made out of ticky-tacky, and they are all the same.
realized said
people are moving on look at this site. There is plenty of posting and discussion on other topics. I think the push to “move on” doesn’t help us to develop revolutionary theory and practice. People need to understand what is wrong and what went wrong with the rcp because like it or not it is or was a serious attempt at rev organization and politics in the us. We need to understand how line, structure and culture created this mess. When I was a supporter we did not have the opportunity to discuss our line in this way. We need to develop critical rev minded thinkers not just drones. We have to go thru this process of summing up while looking forward. To just move ahead without this critical assessment is unscientific.
Further, the rcp’s attacks on Ely, other comrades and this site is dangerous and must be spoken to. It’s incredible that there are people who are still regurgitating party line. Let’s not make the same mistake. Instead of “moving on” let’s train ourselves and others in a method of inquiry that breeds thinkers and leaders not followers and blind believers.
lunita said
Realized,
I think that what folks are saying is that “moving on” means grasping line and, quite critically, taking the principled road while doing so. That means not getting stuck in the RCP’s unfortunate quagmire which is surely headed for an abyss. As others have said, the RCP is so far gone that demanding a retraction — or attempting to engage in any type of struggle — would be a waste of time.
Many here have repeatedly spoken to the viscous attacks and smear campaign. And in so doing have exposed the RCP’s entrenched cult of personality, silence around Nepal, and unacceptable methods. The very launching and continued liveliness of this site (and this type of conversation) is all about summing up and developing new line. It is invigorating our forces. As much as I would like to see a retraction, as others have said, that would be giving the party too much credit.
I have never worked with Mike and wasn’t “there.” However, in the party’s orbit for over 20 years –and feeling (and being treated) like quite drone-like I have come to know quite a few cadre whose longtime association with and departure from the party mirror his experience. I am heartened by those who have had the courage to post their specific line differences here on Kasama. That is the type of critical assessment necessary to forge a new path.
zerohour said
“People need to understand what is wrong and what went wrong with the rcp because like it or not it is or was a serious attempt at rev organization and politics in the us. We need to understand how line, structure and culture created this mess. When I was a supporter we did not have the opportunity to discuss our line in this way. We need to develop critical rev minded thinkers not just drones. We have to go thru this process of summing up while looking forward. To just move ahead without this critical assessment is unscientific.”
I agree with you, but I think we have to step back and look at our assumptions here. Not everybody on this site, from readers to posters, agrees that RCP was “serious attempt at rev organization and politics in the us.” I think it would be more fruitful to make the case that this was so, this way people can understand the larger stakes involved. This could also help us produce a more critical understanding of the political terrain in which we work, without sectarian posturing or defensiveness. As such, a decontextualized critique of RCP, can only appear to be an in-house fight that spilled out onto the front yard.
So let’s do this critical assessment, let’s tell our stories, provide our analyses and create a revolutionary politics that can truly transform society.
Mike E said
[moderator's note: this was moved to its own post.]
In Struggle said
“We do need to continue to sum up the experience of the revolutionary movement (including the forty years of the RU/RCP) — there is some deepening to do. In particular I look forward to thinking through how the ideas and forms from one revolutionary upsurge become “exhausted” and irrelevent as another upsurge approaches. I look forward to discussing our experience with previous theories and practices of democratic centralism. I look forward to the crucial discussion of what political forms dictatorship and democracy can take in the socialist transition toward classless society.”
Lunita, I’ll take this part of Mike’s last post to elaborate on “the need” to sum up the past experience of the RCP and move forward because I think it sharply poses what I think is part of the work the Kasama Project does need to do around the RCP experience.
I say that people around need us, becuase when you look at the world today, the food crises, the millions caught in non-liberatory wars and regimes, the millions a year dying from prentable disease and hunger, this world needs revolution and communism and it is of the utmost importance that a viable revolutionary trend emerge in this country. Humanity needs us especially here in the belly of the U.S. beast.
I say the Kasama project needs to move fast because I do think there is the potential for something really good to come out of the times we’re living in. The imperialist system is in the grips of an economic crisis, the U.S. military is being stretched thin, the hopes and expectations of millions of people in the U.S. and even around the world have been enhanced by the recent U.S. election. These are wild and unpredictable times, and there maybe some opportunities for revolutionaries that emerge in the coming years and decades.
Because the kasama project has taken resonsibility for building a viable revolutionary movement in the U.S., there are many people who are hoping that it will be successful and many billions more who are suffering under the world imperialist system that need a successful Kasama.
Hopefully this helps to elaborate on what I said. I’ll also add that the initiatives that Mike Ely just announced on the last post, I think, are exactly the kind of things Kasama needs to be doing. The international communist movement needs this and more importantly humanity needs it. It’s sobering, but it is so true.
Caleb T. Maupin said
Is it just me, or isn’t this exactly the kind of shit Stalin said about the left opposition?
selucha said
Caleb, care to expand on that? I’m not really sure what you mean.
Zack said
I’ll join in with Selucha. LOLWUT?
the cold lamper said
I thought it was fairly obvious what Caleb meant: that Mike Ely and the Kasama Project are being victimized by the RCP in a manner roughly analogous to the way the Trotskyists were persecuted by Stalin. I’m personally not sure how well the analogy holds (I still think Stalin divides into two, e.g. his work in the 1920s when he still treated the struggle against the Oppositions as fundamentally political-ideological were considerably better than his later use of the police and administrative measures etc.), but one can detect certain striking similarities nonetheless.