About Kasama
Join the network of people around Kasama. Take part in the discussions here. Connect with us. Join us in our off-line actions.
Our name: In Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, Kasama is the word for the companions who travel the road together — in this case, the revolutionary road.
Contact us: kasamasite (at) yahoo (dot) com
Mailing address: Kasama | 3105 N. Ashland Avenue #145 | Chicago | IL | 60657
Come walk the revolutionary road with us.
In a world at war, the times cry out for a new direction. The existing left has been unable to speak to our times, let alone provide real-world solutions. Activists, organizers and dreamers have too often relied on old formulas from bygone days – and far too many have simply given up on radical change. A serious, creative break needs to be made to escape this impasse.
Kasama is a communist project for the forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions. We are open to learning, unafraid to admit our own uncertainties. At the same time, we will not shrink from what we do know: the solutions cannot be found within the current world order or the choices it provides. We are for revolution. We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.
To take this road, we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement. We need fresh analyses of the rapid changes shaping the world around us. We need to sum up a century of revolutionary strategies and attempts, victories and defeats – instead of the conventional wisdom and facile verdicts that paralyze our movements. We need to re-imagine a radical politics that can take life among people and move mountains. We need a movement that can listen, as well as speak.
REVOLUTION: rethinking the unthinkable
We intend to identify those fault lines where radical thought and action can emerge. We want to go deeply among the people to prepare minds and organize forces for revolution; for a global transformation of human life; for the urgent rescue of the biosphere from capitalist destruction; for the radical dismantling of the U. S. empire – its military, its nuclear weapons and torture camps; for the uprooting of intolerable racial inequalities and the archaic brutalities of male supremacy; for the final liberation of humanity from the restless, soulless rule of capitalist profit making!
Help launch our new organizing and theoretical projects. Let’s reconceive as we regroup for coming storms. The end of this world is the beginning of the new. Everything will change. How it changes is up to us.
Come walk the revolutionary road with us.
* * * * * *
Posting here does not imply endorsement by Kasama. Items are posted simply by one standards: are they of interest and potential value to revolutionary minded thinking people? We rely on the critical faculties of our readership to discern and uncover the validity of facts and arguments posted here.
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nando said
Kasama defines itself as a communist project that fights (in theory and practice) for the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
That is a statement of fundamental goals.
One of the reasons that you “don’t find any of this” on the website — meaning any of the particular phrases and formulas common in the previous communists movements — is that Kasama (overall) has chosen not to start by speaking in such formulas. It wants to take this moment to look back over the beliefs it has inherited, subject them to critical evaluation, speak about them in new ways among the people, and critically assimilate a new basis of unity and a body of theory and principles that the 9 letters calls a new “communist coherency.”
AGUS FAISAL said
Kamusta ka, salammat, Im agus from Indonesia, Viva for Maoist, yes !
In solidarity,
AGus Faisal
Carl Marks said
So does this mean that Kasama is open to communists who may not identify with some integral organizational tenets of Bolshevism? While I am a Marxist and want to see the rise of a new and powerful organization of the working class, I think democratic centralism and representative vanguardism is historically anachronistic when trying to organize in the senile capitalist world of the 21st century. I think it should be supported in the liberation of the underdeveloped world, so I totally am rooting for the Maoists in Nepal, the Philippines, and around the globe. But the conditions we’re facing in America today are so fundamentally different I think we need to be exploring new forms of revolutionary organization – that is, not repeating the same tired pitfalls of the past.
Jose M said
This is open to all communists and radicals tired of the current state the revolutionary movement (or lack of one) is in.
“Reconceive as we regroup.”
This isnt about discrediting or shunning a particular type of politics, but reconceiving the entire revolutionary project and digging deeply into the burning questions of our times.
And you are invited to become a part of this.
And I agree with this, as all that share in the spirit of Kasama do:
” But the conditions we’re facing in America today are so fundamentally different I think we need to be exploring new forms of revolutionary organization – that is, not repeating the same tired pitfalls of the past.”
Zack said
Well stated, Jose.
agus faisal said
Kamusta ka, salammat, Im agus from Indonesia, Viva for Maoist, yes !
From Indonesia =
In solidarity,
AGus Faisa
Bryan the Trot said
[moderator note: moved to its own post]
internasyonalista said
I’m an internationalist-communist in the Philippines. For me, INTERNATIONALISM is the basic principle of marxism. I agree that “we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement”. For me, this means that we MUST review and criticize the old dogmas and “revolutionary beliefs”. For me, maoism, stalinism, trotskyism, marxism-leninism, etc, prevent us for a fearless and open-eyed debate.
internasyonalista said
Could the people in Kasama comment on this link: http://en.internationalism.org/the-communist-left
I think it is very important that in analysing today’s conditions based on the revolutionary theory of marxism, we should study the more than 200 years experience of the international marxist movent, especially the debates within the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Internationals and test them in the actual experinece of the class and the evolution of world capitalism
Zack said
Hey Luis, there’s some discussion of the very link you mention in Threads.
Gary Rumor said
I am familiar with the ICC and their concept of Internationalism, I have only recently become aware of KASAMA. As a former Maoist who has been an anarchist activist most of his adult life due to my problems with the dogmatic attitudes of most of the Maoist group-lets that I was familiar with back in the seventies when I was a radical youth and my experience with the RCP which seems to want to perpetuate the worst aspects of Democratic Centralism, ie the cult of personality of the exalted leader, it has led me to stay as far from dogmatic lines as I possibly could be.
I have now though found that Anarchist theory is weak and dependent on Marx and therefore is ultimately more an expression of youthful enthusiasm than of a serious revolutionary theory, Although in Spain the Anarchist took the initiative in opposing the Fascists and were suppressed by the machinations of the Stalinists who were more concerned with Stalin’s playing footsie with the Fascists than with fighting to defend the Spanish Revolution.
I find myself agreeing more with the Left wing Communist comrades in Europe but I am interested in developing a greater understanding of the Asian scene although I think it is unfortunate that Maoism still predominates, as I think Raya Dunayevskya’s critiques of Mao are still cogent and I wish I had been aware of them as a teenager when I was rather foolishly waving the Little Red book around like a typically not very well informed activist with regards to the true nature of the Red Guard and the manipulation of so many lives by Mao and his associates.
Tell No Lies said
The ICC link was broken, but I’m not sure thats a bad thing. What has the council communist current represented here by the ICC actually DONE to make revolution anywhere on earth since teh 1920s? It is the definition of a steril sect. I’ve read the ICC’s press and the dull scholasticism and petty bickering makes the puniest most self-involved Trotskyist group look like thriving parties with deep roots among the people.
On a basic level I agree that Leninism and its variants is saturated and that there is a crying need to really rethink things. And that may involve embracing an insight here or there coming out of the council communist current. But the proposition that it is in the cul de sac of a trend that has literally done nothing in almost a century that we will find the fresh thinking the present situation demands is laughable.
What excites me about Kasama is most certainly not its roots in the RCP, but in the genuine rupture that has been made, the real opening that has been created here for people from different revolutionary trends to discuss things and to search for new analyses. If the ICC has something to say, by all means post it here and lets argue it out.
Chuck Morse said
TNL, I’m not sure if an idea’s popularity is the best criterion for judging its validity. Certainly your views are pretty marginal, but I don’t think that makes them laughable.
And why exactly do you reject council communism? As I understand it, you oppose Leninism but embrace revolutionary socialism, which suggests to me that you and council communism are actually quite a good fit.
Right?
um said
popularity isn’t the same thing as validity, but it does have something to do with relevance. eg: the eucharist is bananas, but you still have to pretend like it’s not the tooth fairy for grown ups.
I wouldn’t reject council communism, it just seem utterly irrelevant by its nature. It’s like demanding a world without antagonism, then acting like you get “betrayed” by those who point out there is an actually existing enemy. Tell no lies is right: the point isn’t to shop for ideas like a strip-mall shaman, but to scientifically approach the world. All the utopianism is fine, it’s just not a program that matters.
If I got to choose, I’d be fine with liberalism working. But it doesn’t work for most people on earth… so it doesn’t matter what I think or what ideas “fit” me.
No?
Tell No Lies said
Chuck,
I think Um is basically on point. If council communism worked in the real world I’d be pleased as punch. If all there was to it was a recognition of the limits of Leninism and a belief in the value of workers councils it would all be good. The problem is that council communism is a reification of a certain historical experience and then an attempt to impose it dogmatically on the the whole variety of circumstances in which people have and are trying to make revolution. It is the fetishization of a particular organizational form over a much more complex and living process. It draws the wrong lessons from the experiences that are its primary point of reference and then seeks to impose them generally. Needless to say this has produced pretty paltry results.
I believe the Leninist party form is, in Badious words, “saturated,” that is to say that it is no longer possible to move forward within it. But it was a form that responded to real demands of its times, not all of which have disappeared by any means. The council form (and forms based in popular assemblies in general) is an important starting point in imagining how a socialist society would emerge and govern itself. But its very strengths as an organization of the whole class mean it can’t fulfill the neccesary function of political leadership that the Leninist party was able to. That function is no less neccesary just because the Leninist party form is no longer adequate and the council form remains just as unable to fulfill that critical function.
I was probably overly snarky in my response to the folks from ICC. They may have things to offer our discussions here that I don’t appreciate. My general appraisal is that they are a refuge for folks like Gary who rightly recognize the theoretical poverty of anarchism but who want a Marxism that will give them anarchist answers to their questions nonetheless. That is to say they don’t want to really face up to the deeper implications of anarchism’s theoretical poverty where it matters most — on the questions of leadership, organization and the state.
Chuck Morse said
OK, TNL, but what’s not clear to me is this: if you reject the Leninist approach to leadership AND the anarchist approach, what approach do you support?
Keith said
I think that the Leninist/vanguard approach was appropriate in 1901 at a certain level of historical and social development.
Benedict Anderson argues that “print capitalism” makes nationalism possible. I think it also makes the Leninist vanguard possible. What is worth noticing, I think, is that Lenin is using the most advance forms of communication technology, the newspaper, available. Newspapers have certain limitations in terms of openness and horizontal forms of leadership.
The most advance form of communication technology available today is the web and it makes many older forms of communications technology obsolete along with the organizational forms that correspond to them. I wrote an essay about this and it available here.”
That is why the vanguard is retrograde. The productive forces, technology and human beings, have moved beyond that type of organization and that type of leadership. In other words teh development of the productive forces have made new forms of organization/social relationships possible.
To make a value judgment on Lenin is academic, unless you consider the actual historical conditions. In 1902 I would have been down with “What is to be done?” In 2009 I find the idea antiquated, which is why I never tire of mocking the newspaper sellers… the only understand the letter of Lenin but they murder the spirit daily.
Tell No Lies said
The simple answer is I don’t know.
But its also not a simple matter of rejecting two equally bad approaches to a problem. The problem, as I see it, is the inherent contradiction between maximal democracy and the neccesity of leadership. Anarchism doesn’t really have an approach except to insist that leadership is bad and unneccesary. Leninism was a solution that was able to accomplish important things under particular conditions. Those things are no longer the main tasks confronting revolutionaries and the particular conditions no longer obtain nearly as widely as they once did, but the experience acquired provides and immeasurably richer ground from which to procede under new conditions.
I think Lenin’s comments on the relationship between spontaneity and leadership is a very good place to start. Anarchsists tend to frame these questions dualistically rather than dialectically. I think the two interpenetrate and condition each other and can not be treated simply as logical opposites. Disciplined centralized leadership can open up spaces in which more horizontal or decentralized or spontaneous forms of activity can be elaborated. How these two aspects of the larger process interact can not be reduced to a formula. It is constantly moving and shifting in response to both large-scale processes (like rising levels of literacy, increased connectivity and density of human relations) and the twists and turns of the moment. The Leninist party was a response to conditions that obtained mainly in the periphery and semi-periphery of world capitalism where it compensated for certain objective political and organizational weaknesses on the part of the rural producers who formed the main base of support for revolution.
Those conditions have been transfomed, in part as a consequence of the successes of Leninist led revolutions and in part as a consequence of capitalisms revolutionizing of production in the Global South. In general I think we need to develop forms of organization and methods of leadership that are more democratic, more horizontal, more decentralized than the Leninist model, but I think this is very much a practical question that can’t be resolved with the dogmatic certitudes of anarchist hostility to leadership, hierarchy, discipline, etc…
Gary Rumor said
Leninism has failed as a model. It has produced some of the worst dictatorships in history, Stalin and Mao were responsible for more deaths than anybody since Genghis khan and that includes Hitler whose version of socialism, the nationalist variety has proven to be simply a shill for nervous capitalists.
On the other hand history has shown that capitalism is much more resilient than anyone had expected. But the Russian experiment was in a barely industrialized country where the attempt to sustain a dictatorship of the proletariat was almost certainly doomed to failure because of their small numbers in such a predominantly society. Communism has to emerge out of a highly developed industrial or post industrial society, Otherwise you have the monstrosities that emerged in China and Russia where the state provided a bootstrap for capitalism, a super fast method of industrializing by exploiting the masses in a more extreme form than would be conceivable in a liberal democracy. Anyone who would want to live in the Soviet Union of the 30’s or China of the 60’s is either a masochist, bureaucrat or an unfortunate who has suffered more than many of us.
The problem I see with Council Communism, Anarchism, the ICC and Leninist parties in general is a mistaken interpretation of the conditions in which rebellion occurs. We are all waiting for the masses to rise up in the industrialized west and they might in Europe but not likely in the United States. There may be peasant risings in Peru and Nepal but these are peripheral and can do little to bring about communism, At best they will bring about a Chinese style Capitalism and at worst a Cambodian style blood bath.
Socialism and the eventual communism must emerge as the next logical stage of social and economic development or each attempt will be no more successful than the Anabaptists were in the Muenster Commune of the 16Th Century.
What is needed is the emergence of the correct material and spiritual conditions, both material and mental, and that means going back to Hegel, or even further, I am reading the 16Th century protestant thinkers for ideas among others.
The problem is that when the conditions are ripe rebellion will break out and no party will be able to correctly predict those conditions. The party will be of necessity more concerned with its own correct theory and will be sterile unless capable of riding on the back of the workers as the Leninists did in 1917, along with their anarchist and Left Social Revolutionary comrades. Or the will simply take advantage of their superior military structure and the aid of an ally as Mao did when the Russians handed over the Japanese arms after World War 2. History is tough, it makes fools of theorists, but it gives us an opportunity to learn something, Exactly what I am not sure, but I am glad to have an opportunity to participate with others in thinking through to what is required for change to come.
Gary Rumor said
That is predominantly peasant society.
Gary Rumor said
That is predominantly “peasant” society. But I am sure you filled in that blank.
Chuck Morse said
TNL writes: “In general I think we need to develop forms of organization and methods of leadership that are more democratic, more horizontal, more decentralized than the Leninist model”
I agree with you. And your observation is a premise of the contemporary anarchist movement.
Gary Rumor said
People need to feel empowered to make the moves they need to make to take control. Any party or workers vanguard or whatever needs to be something that helps empowers the people. How such groups are structured internally is up to the membership but the point is that it must be relevant to the life of the people, something that is respected and counted upon. Simply being more radical than thou or having the correct line is meaningless if the people ignore you. Witness the experience of the American Maoist left in the 70’s, their organizations are all gone except perhaps that rump of the theological left the RCP. ‘Revolution In The Air” by Max Elbaum is a pretty good history of that movement in American Politics. Their attempts to keep up with the theoretical zig zags of the Chinese Communist Party is pretty sad. That was about the time I became an anarchist. But after seeing anarchists spin round and round the same tired notions and never being able to overcome their antipathy to structure, I have decided to give Marxism another chance. I find a lot of what Raya Dunayevskaya says to be important for the Marxist movement as a whole back in the 1950’s and 1960’s in her “Marxism & Freedom”, as a critique. As a locus for leadership, I don’t see the group that has grown up around her thought the News & Letters group to be the answer, but they are like many honest activists who believe in social and political revolution, seeking out a better theoretical approach. Same for the ICC and Bordigists and Council Communists.
When I see groups in the Philippines, Peru, Nepal, or in India struggling in conditions that have no equivalent here in the industrial west, I have a lot more sympathy although some of their emulation of Maoist tactics I find to be misguided. I have been to Calcutta and seen the conditions that the Maoist party that rules in the Bengal has to deal with and I can understand the frustration with conditions there, but I think they need us to take up the lead and bring socialism to the world sooner than later.
Tell No Lies said
Chuck,
The critical difference lies in my use of the word “more” which is relative rather than absolute. The real premise of the contemporary anarchist movement is that it is neccesary to develop the MOST democratic, horizontal, decentralized forms imaginable, irrespective of their actual effectiveness, and that to even talk about leadership as necessary is a sign of a personal lust for power and therefore impermissibly authoritarian. A corrolary is that the experiences with the Leninist model have produced nothing good and there is nothing other than negative lessons to learn from those experiences. I wish this was a caricature, but I think it quite accurately captures the hegemonic view within explicitly anarchist circles. It is a dogmatic view derived from first principles and impervious to and generally uninformed by serious study and investigation of actual experiences.
Chuck Morse said
TNL, your view of the anarchist movement is a caricature. All the anarchists I know talk openly about leadership and care deeply about the effectiveness of the movement.
Gary Rumor said
Chuck and Tell No Lies,
At least we have a discourse. I can speak more specifically from anarchist experience, although I was a Maoist in high school. At the Last Bastard Conference I went to in Berkeley there were primitivists who seriously advocated that the population needed to be decreased by a factor of 10 so that we could return to a hunter gatherer society. They were not a small minority.
Now I am a personal friend of John Zerzan I helped finance one of his books critiquing western civilization. When I met John he was an anti union ultra leftist. He hung out with anarchists, situationists and Council Communists, as did I. Hell I even hung out with the Yippies with whom I did Rock Against Racism. A critique which was carried on in the debates in publications like 5Th Estate in Detroit during the 80’s and 90’s where a green anarchist theory emerged around radical anthropology research that opposed the short, violent and brutish view of pre-civilization, gave me a theoretical basis for environmentalism that was not simply romanticism.
I gained an increased respect for those thinkers but I did not support the primitivist line that developed among many anarchists that promoted a view similar to right wing survivalists, where they believed in the massive human die off as the solution to many of the worlds problems.
Urban anarchists, especialy here in Los Angeles where I live are more racially mixed and have a more collectivist mentality, and many in anarchist circles are really ultra leftists. Often I find that the opinions of former Black Panthers and people like Michal Novick editor of the anti racist “Turning The Tide”, have a civilizing effect on the anarchist community in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately when ever anarchists gather into larger formations like Anarchist Communist Federation, Love and Rage, and now North East Anarchist Federation, they seem to flounder over how to maintain a working structure.
Sometimes I have been impressed by my anarchist comrades in action, such as the January 2003 protests against the War when we finessed our way around the cops and managed to roam downtown San Francisco for hours at will. We tried to do the same thing in Los Angeles at the big anti war Protests in February of that year and we were crushed by the Tac squad. They had it together in San Francisco. But that is one event. Anarchists are great at getting the college age raging young males into direct action. The RCP tried to tap into that same energy and never were able to compete. But coming up with a plan that will work in overthrowing the government and insuring the victory of the working classes and a lot of anarchists would rather see the workers die from starvation or mass disease than succeed. That is my biggest problem with anarchists they have no working class rooted theory of revolution, just borrowings from Marx mixed with radical environmentalism and 19Th century romanticism.
The communists have had more success and thus we can see the obvious failures in their attempts at creating socialism in any country. Anarchists have not had as many opportunities to fail. Spain is the only obvious case and there they could blame it on the Stalinist backstabbing. But a close study of the situation in Spain makes clear to me that the Anarchists would have had the same issues of dealing with the state even if there were no Stalinists there to betray the social revolution. The differences between the elements that joined the republican government and those who called themselves the “Friends of Durutti” and opposed participation in the government showed that taking on a system as large as a state is tough for anarchist. Makhno in the Ukraine might have been a more successful example. But then we will get into the issue of War Communism the red army vis peoples militias, and the terror of the Cheka even while Lenin lived. Not to mention Kronstadt and the guilt that the workers opposition felt that would not let them oppose the party when they crushed the workers there and lied calling them Whites. I don’t want to go there now but that is where we need to decide how do we deal with those issues when theory meets the real world.
Gary Rumor said
Where are we going here? Are we heading for some convergence or simply agree to disagree?
Gary Rumor said
Misspelled “Durruti” he was an anarchist leader killed in the Battle for Madrid during the Spanish Revolution.
grumpy cat said
Hey all
The ICC are not council communists they are left communists and they believe in the need for a party.
rebel love
Dave
bklynjak said
Chuck,
Please provide a link to a serious anarchist article or discussion where the necessity of leadership is acknowledged and discussed. I know that many anarchists care about the effectiveness of the movement. The problem is that said concern doesn’t lead to a serious questioning of the dogmatic opposition to leadership.
Tell No Lies said
Oops. The post above, supposedly by Bklynjak, was from me.
Gary Rumor said
Although I sympathize with the ICC and its perspective, I can hardly call them the only authentic Communist tradition. Each stream of communists and anarchists and council communists has it claim of authenticity. Recently I read of Anarchists and old line Communists working together in demonstrations in Russia. Often we see Trotskyists and Anarchist and Maoists all together at anti war events, with the Anarchist and Maoist youth often the most radical in their actions.
But the facts on the ground are that Marxists have failed to bring about the great socialist world that they promised even when they dominated almost half the planet in one form or another.
They voluntarily relinquished control of the government in Russia, after decades of struggle, the apparatchiks at the top gave themselves comfortable positions in a new capitalist order, created by the sweat and labor of millions of people, all given away in a rush to a few opportunists and now they have the oligarchy under Putin.
I congratulate the Russian party for having the guts to relinquish state power, to be willing to take a chance on popular democracy, but now they have been frozen out of power by the oligarchs and the Russian masses will have to think through to a new method of insuring that is there is another revolution, it will not end up in the hands of the bureaucrats again.
In the west, where capitalism never had faced a serious threat other than the military threat from Russia and the incipient resentment of their own workers during periods of crisis like the depression, there is now a move on the part of capital to bring a more rational state control to limit the wild swings of capital unconstrained after the defeat of state capital in the so called communist states. Its exuberance led to a wave of deregulation in the 1990’s and the subsequent bubbles and current crash that has wiped out any wealth that might have been accumulated by the working classes that bought into the 401k schemes of the capitalists who were trying to suck every last bit of income into the stock market and its irrational drive for profit.
It would be nice to say the masses are ready for socialism and in the election of Obama we can see a desire for a more equitable distribution of wealth, but we can also see there are fascist currents that are surging around the world also, especialy in eastern Europe and here in the United States where the Republican party rump has become the home of an extreme capitalist reaction simply waiting for the Keynesian’s in power to stumble so they can try again what they succeeded so well in doing for 30 years, to blunt and roll back the progressive wave to socialism that has been made in the liberal democracies since the 19Th century.
The second international may have betrayed its base by supporting the great war in 1914, but there has been a continuous move for workers rights, women’s rights, minorities rights all over the world except for the twenties when the revolutionary wave was crushed and since the 1980’s when radical capitalism came to dominate in USA, China and Great Britain and crushed the Soviet Bloc by the end of the decade. The United States has just now emerged with a new progressive coalition in power and Latin America has become a stronger and stronger leftist bloc. We have reason to hope that now people all over the world are ready to step out of capitalism. I don’t think there will be one party that has the correct line but a coalition of parties and interests.
This is my comment to the ICC people with the link provided. Unfortunately there is something wrong with their spam detector and won’t allow me to post a comment with them so I post it here.
Chuck Morse said
TNL, today I realized that even though you constantly harangue us about the “need for leadership” (and anarchism’s supposed “dogmatism”) you’ve never actually defined what you mean by “leadership.”
So, what do you mean? Do you mean the right to give orders and coerce people? Is that what you have in mind? Are you a leader? Do you order people around? Do you take orders? If so, from whom?
Or, by leadership, do you refer to the ability to galvanize/mobilize people?
I’m interested in what you have to say.
For now, I’ll just note that the anarchist tradition is rich in discussions about balancing individual initiative with collective accountability. Confrontations with the issue run from the First International to the present and there is a lot of value there. As a whole, anarchist discussions of this question are much richer than Leninist discussions, because Leninists resolve the question simply saying “we’re scientific” or metaphysically “represent the proletariat.” The RCP experience, which looms large for this site, is an instructive case in point: the only people actually discussing Bob Avakian’s “leadership” (hehehehehe) had to leave the group, whereas the rest are evidently enjoying the “culture of appreciation.”
Anarchists have also created a rich practical/organizational legacy of attempts to balance individual and collective needs, from the Spanish anarchists to today’s spokes councils.
And, in general, if you want to look at what anarchists are saying these days, check out the books distributed and published by AK Press. This is one place to begin. You won’t find answers to all the universe’s big questions but you’re also not going to find any books called “we hate leaders” or, to use your words, “leadership as necessary is a sign of a personal lust for power and therefore impermissibly authoritarian.” It should only take you a few minutes to realize how off-base your caricatures are.
Tell No Lies said
Yes, Chuck, I am a leader. More important to this discussion though, so are you. The question isn’t whether we are leaders, the question is whether we are good ones, whether we are guided by a correct understanding of the situation and whether our methods develop the overall capacities of the people to fight for and win a better world.
Leadership is present to one degree or another in almost all collective human activity. It arises neccesarily from the varied and uneven development of peoples consciousness, commitment and capacities. It can not be reduced to the question of “individual initiative” although that is certainly a component element of leadership. Leadership is the capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking.
In general leadership, and in particular revolutionary leadership, depends on the consent and trust of the people who follow it. While there are moments in which effective leadership demands a measure of coercion if it is not fundamentally based on consent and trust it will ultimately fail. Thus in a military context it may be neccesary to give orders or to threaten or even use coercion to get people to do dangerous things in the moment, but if the people feel coerced into participating at all or are unable to understand why such methods are used it will tend in the long run to undercut the effectiveness of leadership.
Leadership is a fact. It is a fact in liberal organizations and Leninist ones. It is a fact in anarchist groups and projects even when they insist that, as they so often do, “we have no leaders.” This denial of the fact and neccesity of leadership makes leadership in the anarchist movement very ad hoc and unaccountable, which in my view just make for another kind of authoritarianism. More seriously it disarms and confuses a whole layer of revolutionary-minded young people.
So long as the fact and neccessity of leadership are denied or not engaged clearly and directly it will remain impossible to collectively and systematically develop good leadership. Leaders arise spontaneously in the course of all struggles, but in most cases their capacities are very uneven. There is therefore a need to collectively identify the capacities that people need to be good leaders and to train them in those capacities. It is only through continuous training of new leadership that the monopoly on these skills (which are often concentrated in the hands of the relatively privileged and educated) can be broken and they can begin to be generalized. Absent such a process of generalization all the anarchist talk of horizontalism and democracy becomes a cruel joke.
Finally, I’ve looked tha the AK catalog before. If there are any books, artcles or discussions in particular that you could link to that make your case that my presentation of teh anarchist movementis a caricature I await them. My views were formed by long and intensive involvement in the anarchist movement and were not arrived at lightly. Your position is not obvious or “there for the taking.” You will have to actually make your case.
zerohour said
Chuck -
Why don’t you give us your view on leadership rather than pointing to other discussions?
“And, in general, if you want to look at what anarchists are saying these days, check out the books distributed and published by AK Press. This is one place to begin. You won’t find answers to all the universe’s big questions but you’re also not going to find any books called “we hate leaders” or, to use your words, “leadership as necessary is a sign of a personal lust for power and therefore impermissibly authoritarian.” It should only take you a few minutes to realize how off-base your caricatures are.”
I’d go even further and encourage people to go to anarchist meetings and speak to anarchists. It will take only a few minutes to realize that the so-called caricature is more on-target than Chuck wants to let on.
TNL says: ” It is a fact in anarchist groups and projects even when they insist that, as they so often do, “we have no leaders.” This denial of the fact and neccesity of leadership makes leadership in the anarchist movement very ad hoc and unaccountable, which in my view just make for another kind of authoritarianism. More seriously it disarms and confuses a whole layer of revolutionary-minded young people.”
Exactly. There is always leadership and hierarchy present in any anarchist gathering. That leadership is not characterized by a simplistic notion of someone who shouts orders demanding obedience. Rather such leadership shapes the framework for discussion, influencing its parameters through the use of charisma, intelligence, persuasiveness, seniority, friendship networks, initiative, confidence, having more free time to take on tasks than others, maybe even physical attractiveness. This is often not done intentionally, but it is an important way authority generates consent. Denying its presence only blinds people to it, making it impossible to hold it accountable and enshrining an “invisible” leadership structure.
nando said
Chuck writes:
I think part of the issue is the harsh dicotomy assumed here. Clearly we will all say “we mean the ability to galvanize and mobilize people.” But even then, is there a role for “giving orders”? Take an example of revolutionary warfare (China, Russia, Spain, Vietnam, wherever)… Can you galvanize and mobilize people without decisions — including (at times) some that arrive in the form of “orders”? Isn’t there always in collective action an element of coercion — even if it is voluntary? Isn’t there forbidding of scabbing during strikes? Or the forbidding of desertion during battle? Or the adoption of common tactics (and timing, and yes, leadership) during a pivotal action (especially a complex one that will involve decisions mid-stream)?
And beyond that, in a liberated society — is liberation really defined by an end to all coercion? Isn’t there coercion for reactionaries (who want “their” right to property, or patriarchy, or child beating, or hiring of labor)? And isn’t there even in a socialized production process inherently an element of coercion (in the sense that the production line has to start at some arbitrary time, and people generally have to be at their places when it starts)? Now those same people (obviously) have the power to stop production, interrupt it, for discussions (and even if necessary for protests). But in the actual production process in a socialized world, doesn’t the existance of collective and social action involve some element of coercion (even when decisions are popular, revolutionary, democratically reached, open to questions, tentative etc.)
Finally, i also don’t think we should just reduce leadership to a structural “function” or define it as either “authoritarian or consensual” — i.e. make the process the defining element.
I expect that revolutionary leadership will vary in its degree of authority depending on the moment (and should). There are times when major proposals should be subject to mass debate, and other times when it would be disastrous. There are times when a high level of trust and unity makes quick unity of action possible, and others when objective conditions require a much more painstaking process of explaining and “winning over.”
But I also think we need to put central the line of leadership — meaning by line: “going where?” What road is this leadership taking, and leading others along? Toward what? For what?
And with that, I think there comes a connection between end goals and methods — in other words, the forms of leadership, the methods of leadership are connected with what we are trying to accomplish, and how we see it happening.
To state this more clearly: There are forms of leadership that indicate road.
Bourgeois armies have methods of leadership that obscure the goals that war is being fought for and actively oppose the soldiers trying to understand the reasons (for the war, for specific campaigns, for specific forms of organization). “When we want you to have an opinion, we will issue you one.”
And by contrast, revolutionary movements can’t succeed unless the people involved understand the purpose they are fighting for (and unless there are methods of leadership that encourage that, and have methods of leadership based on that “mass line”).
In short: Methods of leadership reflect line. But there are other (larger) issues of line defining the nature leadership as well.
Tell No Lies said
Zerohour is, of course, correct. Its clear that Chuck WANTS the anarchist movement to have a more sophisticated understanding of leadership than it actually does, but anybody who has had any sort of extended contact with it knows that it is in fact characterized by a neurotic hostility to leadership of any kind that makes it impossible to even use the word in a positive sense in most contexts. (This is even echoed in Chuck’s own framing of his question about coercion and giving orders.) A consequence of this is that it usually only gets talked about in circuitous and euphemistic language about “the need for structure,” “the role of individual initiative,” and “the leadership of ideas.” Hidden behind these phrases is often a sincere desire to confront the question, but that desire is rendered effectively impotent by the refusal to confont the fundamental incoherence of the prevailing hostility to leadership as such.
To be fair to Chuck, many anarchists know that in actual fact they have leaders. The real problem is that they tend to view this as an unfortunate condition to be overcome. The statement “we have no leaders” is thus more an attempt to break down the reliance on leaders by declaration than it is a truth claim. Of course some anarchists actually think that the decree is all it takes and that they really do have no leaders. In either case the real situation is obscured with pernicious effects.
Gary Rumor said
The issue of leadership is an interesting one but it should be obvious that we need leaders for specific types of activities and others we don’t. My own experience has been that more aggressive people tend to take charge in situations and when you simply impose absolute democracy, ie making each person express their opinion it can slow things down incredibly. I recently read the book Horizontalism about events in Argentina after the government collapsed in the financial crisis and there were encouraging signs of people taking charge of their own lives. But because the book was impressionistic rather than analytic there was no way to determine how many people were involved in this Horizontalism.
Anarchists are rightly afraid of leadership becoming bureaucratic or establishing cults of personality. Using secret police or thugs to intimidate people as was done in Russia not very long after the revolution.
On the other hand not having accountable leaders and due process means that there will always be a certain level of amateurism and inefficiency in Anarchist process that will lead to fatigue and disillusionment on the part of those who simply have better things to do than to sit around listening to someone repeat what someone else said half an hour before. You either end up making ad hoc decisions among a small group usually called security culture by anarchists, or you get very little done and spend way to much time in meetings that should be accomplishing things, instead you end up repeating basic formulas and agreeing on one or two simple things.
I recommend re-callable leaders, general assemblies for basic issues, delegated committees for particular areas of interest and they reports to a secretariat on an interim basis and reports to the general assembly on a quarterly or annual basis depending on how large or complex the body is. Work place assemblies should be at least monthly, and committees meet weekly at a minimum. Some might meet daily if that is their normal work. A secretariat would have to be available at all times but the membership should rotate to avoid bureaucratism or nepotism. Whether you constitute as a party or a federal organisation is up to you.
There must be a balance between talent, responsibility, recall ability and opportunity.
Tell No Lies said
Gary Rumour’s suggestions reflect the anti-authoritarian (whether they call themselves anarchists, council communists or ultra-leftists) fixation with formal technical solutions to problems that, as Nando rightly reminds us, are really about political line or orientation. The dangers of bureaucratization and commandism in leadership are real, but they can not be resolved through simple reliance on formal solutions because they are really political problems. It is not at all difficult to imagine the structures Gary describes as becoming just as bureaucratized as any other. Mexico, for example, has a particularly rich history of “popular” assemblies where everybody gets to speak at length serving to legitimize de facto clientilism in popular movements.
Gary raises the recent Argentinian experience. This was exciting and inspiring for all of us at the time, but I think its fair to ask now what the ultimate outcome of the extreme horizontalism of that movement was. Where is the sequel to “The Take”? My understanding is that most of the gains made by the occupations movement have been subsequently rolled back. Whether there was a real opening to carry forward a thorough social revolution in Argentina at the beginning of the decade I don’t claim to know. But what seems clear to me is that in the crucible of such moments it matters a lot whether there is a revolutionary political organization able to LEAD, that is to say wit the confidence that people will trust in it, “we need to go this way and we need to do it NOW.” The widespread distrust of such organizations is a price we are paying for real errors committed by revolutionaries in the past, but it needs to be recognized as a real problem that needs to be overcome. Ultimately this will be achieved by the radical reconception of the revolutionary project more than by than abstract arguments over whether leadership is neccesary or not. That is to say our task is not simply to make the arguments but to demonstrate that neccesity in a practice informed by a real rethinking of our work in the light of the experiences of the 20th century.
Chuck Morse said
TNL, I’m glad that you finally offered a definition of the word “leadership.” This raises the level of discussion and marks a welcome departure from your usual line of argumentation (”leadership is good / anarchists are against leadership / therefore anarchists are cruel-incoherent-neurotic”)
You define leadership as “the capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking.” Okay, i think that’s a serviceable definition.
I will say two things in response. First, you remind us that an encounter with the idea of leadership obviously requires a confrontation with how it functions in the real world. Yes, I agree, and must point out that, to my knowledge, the only time that you actually “gave direction to a collective undertaking” was when you were active with Love and Rage, an anarchist organization. People still talk about Love and Rage and there’s an anthology circulating of writings from the paper (including many by you). Clearly it had an impact. However, as far as I, you have not “given direction to a collective undertaking” since you rejected anarchism and your “political” activity is now limited to posting on blogs. So, contrary to your assertions, it appears that the anarchist movement actually *developed* your leadership capacity and it is ONLY within the anarchist movement that you exercised it. Your very life history seems contradict your arguments.
Second, I am and I have never argued against the “capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking” and I am not aware of any anarchist that has. Of course you are free to attribute those views me and others, but your attributions have no bearing on reality and it would be more productive if you actually spoke with real,living anarchists–like me–rather than losing than yourself in labyrinths of invective and caricature.
You write: “So long as the fact and neccessity of leadership are denied or not engaged clearly and directly it will remain impossible to collectively and systematically develop good leadership. Leaders arise spontaneously in the course of all struggles, but in most cases their capacities are very uneven. There is therefore a need to collectively identify the capacities that people need to be good leaders and to train them in those capacities. It is only through continuous training of new leadership that the monopoly on these skills (which are often concentrated in the hands of the relatively privileged and educated) can be broken and they can begin to be generalized. ”
Although your argument is circular to an extent (i.e., “we can only have good leadership if we recognize that leadership is good)”), I essentially agree with what you said. What baffles me is that you think that anarchists are unaware of these things.
For instance, I am a member of a long-standing anarchist collective and bring many unique skills and privileges to the table. I am white, male, heterosexual, and nearly 40. I’ve also been involved in the anarchist movement since I was 13 years old and thus have been active for longer than some of my collective mates have been alive. I also have a college education (such as it is) and carry within me various forms of cultural capital related to my family upbringing. So, given these factors, you would presumably expect me to dominate the collective, but that’s simply not how it works. I’m accountable to the collective, I will be sanctioned if I don’t abide by collective decisions, and have no more or less decision-making power than anybody else. Are there some areas in which I am more knowledgeable than others and thus my views hold more sway? Sure. Are there are areas in which others know more than me and their views have greater sway? Yes, of course. There are all sorts of differentials, but we try to respond to them by sharing and distributing responsibilities, which allows to share work and also foster one another’s development (for instance, I am required to attend some meetings that don’t pertain directly to my work, but this allows me to learn about what my comrades are doing and hopefully develop some skills that I lack).
So, yes, we recognize that there are differentials in experiences and capacities, accountability is generalized, and we consciously attempt to foster one another’s development. This is the real, living, breathing anarchist collective that I belong to and, as far as I can see, it has no resemblance to the stereotypes that you’ve advanced.
Maybe denouncing anarchism makes your life easier somehow, I don’t know, but the truth is that anarchists don’t reject “the capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking.” We reject Leninism, which is a different issue (and apparently you agree with us here).
Mike E said
I’m not as interested in reaffirming the classic communist-anarchist divide (however important those distinctions are) as I am learning across that divide.
We are clearly needing to develop new forms of revolutionary organization — and I’m curious about the experiences of others in handling key contradictions:
How do we have leadership by the most far-seeing among us, without it being used to prevent others from seeing?
What are the forms of accountability that should be enforced? And how do we do it without having all the details and personalities of a revolutionary movement laid bare?
What are ways of improving process that don’t end up being a paralyzing focus on process?
How do you have a necessary division of labor and specialization (among revolutionaries) without reproducing the oppressive divisions of labor within society?
Gary Rumor said
Interesting comment. Leadership is not the issue though. Trust is. People simply don’t trust communist formations because they have failed to provide trustworthy leadership. Anarchists have not had a chance to fail, arguably they never will since they will run from power.
There was a Trotskyist group called RSL that I remember meeting at a Yippie led conference in Columbus, Ohio, they put out a publication called the Torch. They then reemerged as a component of the Love and Rage group and because of that I was suspicious of that formation and I would not affiliate with it although some of my friends did. It looked to me like an RCP attempt to recruit anarchists. But I have since been told that it was a sincere attempt at anarchist party building(?).
It would be interesting to know if the former RSL’ers turned Love and Rager’s are now back in the Communist fold, or have retired from politics or are still trying to get anarchists to form a platform…
Mike E said
Gary Rumor writes:
Well, i can understand that trust is an issue. And no one has more “trust issues” than those directly abused. In other words, those emerging from a closed formation have their own stories to tell. But still, for going forward, trust isn’t the issue. Summation, analysis and transformation are.
I certainly don’t think we can approach the tasks of the moment by reliving the experience of RSL inside Love-and-Rage, or the various suspicions it engendered. And if we examine history, I think we can discover that this history is not so simple and that communist leadership has also earned-and-deserved trust — in many complex moments and periods.
On organization: Communists need to lay aside a dogmatic inherited sense of “universal form.” We need to reject the false claims that materialist epistemology DEMANDS one particular form of organization — a claim that just doesn’t stand up to serious examination. Not all communist organization has to be (at all moments) built around democratic centralism, with cellular hierarchies. There are strengths to that form, and we need to find ways to identify its weaknesses. And we need to do some historical work to debunk the notion that the assumed “democratic centralist vanguard party” is “what lenin and the Bolsheviks did” (which it isn’t).
In other words we are in the world of “reconceive as we regroup.”
We need to look at our theory, and our situation, and the dynamics of our stage. We need to assert that form must follow function — not form follow formula. And take up a creative organizational process parallel to our other efforts at regroupment.
And (in my experience) that exploration quickly leads to the discovery that the revolutionary “functions” our forms must serve are not simple to lay out — they are dynamic, contradictory, emerge in stages, and some of them are shrouded in the mists of the future.
This much is clear: We need to serve our long range goals (i.e. communist goals require communist methods, but also revolutionary goals mean our structures have to be able to withstand repression, plus a “mass line” reliance on “the masses” demands methods that bring forward “the masses.”) And we need to be structured to serve our current goals (our current stage of revolutionary work with all of its particularity).
And those alone are some complex contradictions to navigate.
Tell No Lies said
Chuck,
Your knowledge of both my history and current activities is patchy and I’m not particularly interested in filling in all the details here online. I don’t call myself (or you for that matter) a “leader” to puff myself up, but rather because I think an honest description of our roles is a condition for a serious discussion of the responsibilities and proper methods of leadership. Suffice it to say that I’ve played leadership roles in a variety of projects before I was an anarchist, while I was one, and subsequently. Certainly Love and Rage was the biggest of these. While I think my capacities, such as they are, as a leader developed during my involvement in the anarchist movement that is not the same thing as saying that the movement developed them. And it certainly didn’t do it in a conscious or systematic way. Unfortunately for all concerned I was left largely to my own devices. I could describe several projects in which I have participated (including very recently) that had quite similar dynamics to that of your collective. None of which would really detract from my status as a leader anymore than your account detracts from yours. Leadership after all is not confined to the internal dynamics of groups, but is also a dynamic between groups and individuals and larger publics. To say that you are a leader is not to deny that you share that status with others, perhaps in your collective, and certainly in the larger movement of which you are a part. Indeed, I would argue that the ability to engage in the sort of collaborative dynamic you describe is generally neccesary for the exercise of leadership which I believe should be as collective in nature as possible.
The fact that one or a hundred anarchist collectives is able to operate as you describe in no way contradicts my description of the anarchist movement’s stance on the question of leadership. And that you think it does actually confirms my view in so far as it reveal the shortened horizons of the discussions of the question. Frankly I think you are being overly thin-skinned here and reading my comments as if they were a denial of the capacity of anarchists to engage in organized collective activity at all. My criticism really concerns how the anarchist hostility towards and/or evasion of the fact and neccessity of leadership is self-limiting. The ability of anarchists to form collectives is not in doubt, and like Mike I think we should learn what there is to learn from those experiences which are certainly relevant to many of the tasks before us. What is at issue is the ability to take up the responsibilities of leading large numbers of people in struggle to victory against powerful well-organized opponents. And this is where I think the anarchist take on leadership has quite clearly disarmed people.
I am still waiting for any links to writings that support your claims about the level of discussion of this question in the anarchist movement. I would truly be delighted to be wrong.
Tell No Lies said
Gary,
I agree with Mike that its not particularly useful to the discussion, but to satisfy your curiousity, the ex-RSLers became teh most orthodox anarchists in Love and Rage. While most retired from politics (indeed most retired when Love and Rage was formed) they did not return to any variety of Leninism at all. Despite my considerable subsequent differences with them, the charges that they were up to anything sinister in their turn towards anarchism were always sectarian bullshit.
Chuck Morse said
TNL, I do not object to your claims because I’m thin-skinned but because, um, I object to your claims. You tell us that anarchists reject leadership, which you defined as “the capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking.” Well, given your definition of the term, your claim is wrong: anarchists do not reject “the capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking.”
But you shift the discussion in your latest post. You say: “What is at issue is the ability to take up the responsibilities of leading large numbers of people in struggle to victory against powerful well-organized opponents.” This parallels something you said earlier (post #37). You wrote: “in a military context it may be necessary to give orders or to threaten or even use coercion to get people to do dangerous things in the moment”.
It is interesting that you raise these issues here, given that you left the anarchist movement after writing a piece in which you concluded that hierarchies are necessary for revolutionary warfare.
The problem is that these military, strategic issues are different issues. What anarchists might or might not do in a revolutionary war, or how they might navigate a large-scale social transformation, is not identical to its position on “the capacity to give direction to a collective undertaking.” Sure, those issues are linked, but they are still fundamentally different.
It appears that you have conflated the two. In fact, your argument seems to go as follows: “you need a war to make a revolution / you need hierarchies to make a war / anarchists are against hierarchy and thus are against revolution.”
But things are more complicated than that. While there is no doubt that anarchism and Marxism have serious problems, you mix and match issues of strategy and principle in such a way that obscures, rather than clarifies, the real challenges that revolutionaries face.
Gary Rumor said
This is one of the legacies of Maoism, that whole concept of surrounding the cities with a massive peasant army. It may work in a largely rural country after a major war when the major industrialist powers are temporarily unwilling to take on a major struggle as happened in China or in a country where the stakes frankly were peripheral as in Vietnam, but look how hard they fight in strategic areas, like the British did to defeat the Malaysian insurgency in the 50’s, the US defeated the communist insurgency in Greece right after World War 2 and they fought the Chinese to a standstill in Korea because they wanted to save Japan. And look at what eventually happened in Russia where constant applied pressure forced the state capitalist communists to totally surrender.
Armed struggle is a fools game. Only to be played in peripheral nations or in exceptional circumstances. Training your cadres in guerrilla warfare is not the answer in advanced industrial countries, because unless the troops refuse to fire on the people you will be massacred and that is a simple fact. What is needed is a massive unwillingness of the workers to continue to work for their masters and for the troops to be so demoralized that they refused to turn on their own people. Russia had such a perfect storm in 1917, Germany had one in late 1918 but it was betrayed by the social democratic parties.
It will not come from peasant armies no matter how paranoid the makers of Red October may have been the idea of Cuban or Nicaraguan or any army poorly armed peasants overtaking the USA or any of the major capitalist nations including China in its current form is highly unlikely, although if the Red Army in China got it in its head to help the peasants and workers, China might become the exception to that rule.
nando said
Gary’s remarks give me the chance to clear up a misconception. In some corners it is said that Maoism is a strategy of rural peasant warfare circling the cities, and therefore doesn’t apply in advanced capitalist countries.
In China, that is the strategy of the Maoists, but it is hardly the only strategic view of Maoism.
Mao in particular had two things to say on these matters:
First, he repeated (over and over for any who would listen) that revolutionary strategy had to be developed with a close and living sense of the particularities of each country and each situation. He was against cookie cutter approaches, and had to reject rigid models (of the Comintern) in order to make revolution in China. And in his many meetings with revolutionaries in the 60s and 70s, this is something he repeated over and over.
Second, he pointed out that there were major differences between semifeudal countries (with a large peasant agriculture) and developed capitalist countries (with largely urban populations) — and made specific observations about the impact that would have on strategy.
Mao wrote the following in his essay “Problems of War and Strategy“:
Now this essay (written in 1938) should itself not be taken as some kind of rigid formula. The conditions in all countries (and the dynamics of the world as a whole) have gone through some major changes. It is hard to continue arguing that there are basically only two kinds of countries — when in fact, a great deal of change and development has happened everywhere.
But the argument (often raised by trotskyists) for example, that Maoism only applies to third world countries is rooted in a misunderstanding of what Mao and Maoism actually says about revolutionary strategy.
There is another point raised here by Gary Rumor:
It is the assumption that the ability to seize power rests on the self-neutralization of the bourgeois armed forces. That is a rather defeatist assumption, and one that really ends up assuming that revolution is impossible. Clearly revolution is not possible most of the time in developed countries — certainly not when the system is relatively stable. And clearly, revolutionary situations do require a kind of “perfect storm.” But it would be wrong to assume that the crown has to lie in the gutter or that the forces of the state literally have to be neutralized by defeat and dissolution, before various approaches to power can be considered by communist forces.
It is both a misread of what happened in Russia , and an overestimation of the degree to which Russia’s experiences (over a century ago)define what is possible.
No, we need to go to Mao’s first point, and make a living analysis.
Finally, this is (imho) one of the valuable things about looking closely at the two revolutions in south Asia — india and nepal, not just at what they are doing, but at the living problems generated by their choices of path. The Nepali Maoists have consciously rejected rigid models (rejected taking as a model one or another of the two strategic descriptions Mao gives “Problems of War and Strategy”). They not only developed a form of revolutionary warfare deeply marked by the particular conditions of Nepal, but then made a leap in 2006 into uncharted waters.
They made their mental leap toward the seizure of power, they said, “by protecting revolution from the revolutionary phrases that we used to memorize in the early period.” And they say that then, later, they dared “to abandon the course once selected and have the courage to climb the unexplored mountain.”
And meanwhile, in India, the revolutionary forces face similar challenges in moving from remote rural base areas to contesting for power in the explosively urbanizing parts of the country — in moving from “your grandfather’s peoples war” to a strategic approach sharply honed to the particular conditions of India today.
Jonathan McCormack said
It’s a great site! But I’m not sure what you guys actually do – is this mainly a discussion group? Is Kasama a party? Does Kasama engage with politics/protests in any way – say by suporting a canadate? People are thirsty for action. Do you guys get together anywhere?
selucha said
Hey Jonathan, welcome to the site!
Kasama is not a party or an organization, which explains the high diversity of ideas on different issues that we express publicly. We have no official line other than that we are a revolutionary communist project that wants the overthrow of capitalism. We do not endorse candidates collectively, and I think you will find few people around Kasama that would do so individually either. We are revolutionaries; we see that the capitalist state cannot be reformed into being a force for good for the people, and it must be destroyed by revolutionary, not reformist, action so that a new, more just world can be brought into being.
There are some areas where I believe people around Kasama do get together and have discussions and work together on political issues, though it really depends on where you are. We’re still very new and so many of us are spread out. I, for example, am involved with certain online projects through Kasama and am working on some ideas to promote it and develop a base out where I am, but I am also active with other causes and groups, though this is my main focus. We have a project for promoting the revolutionary movements in South Asia, for example, that is a key part of what we do.
I definitely recommend sticking around and giving us your thoughts on articles and essays we post. What angle are you seeing Kasama from? Have you been active with any other groups/parties that have given you worthwhile or negative experiences?
zerohour said
Jonathan –
Welcome to the kasama blog.
To add to Selucha’s comments, we are gathered under the banner “reconceive as we regroup.”
We feel that the need to rethink many of the inherited assumptions handed down to us from past experience. While there is much to retain and uphold, there is much that needs to be rethought in the realms of strategy, organization and analysis if we are to produce a living communism that is appropriate for our time, and not dominated by the dividing lines of the past. As part of this process, we are working to regroup as revolutionaries to work through the complexities of our present situation that older categories like may not be adequate to comprehend, eg, “third world”, or demographic shifts that challenge the traditional notion of “proletariat.” At the same time, we need to also explore the different kinds of organizational strategies that are appropriate for different kinds of struggle, and more importantly, the kind of revolutionary organization needed for different historical periods.
We work around the notion of “problematics”, key questions that need to be investigated and struggled through, rather than a set of hard and fast positions. The main problematic of course is revolution.
You can read more in our recent pamphlet here.
Like Selucha, I welcome you to continue to read and participate.
Jonathan McCormack said
Thanks for the response. Sounds good. It reminds me of the recent New Left Review by Slavoj Zizek where he says “we definitely have to begin from the beginning—not to build further upon the foundations of the revolutionary epoch of the 20th century, which lasted from 1917 to 1989, or, more precisely, 1968—but to descend to the starting point and choose a different path” http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2779
He says the new communism must be grounded in actual urgent antagonisms and he identifies four: “the looming threat of ecological catastrophe; the inappropriateness of private property for so-called intellectual property; the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments, especially in biogenetics; and last, but not least, new forms of social apartheid—new walls and slums.”
I agree with Zizek. He suggests that now is the time to stand back and regroup, not a time for action; people ought to imitate Melville’s character Bartleby and make a conscious withdrawal from participating in the system itself with a “no, I would prefer not to.”
I’ve investigated a few other groups. The RCP is a bit too humorless and Stalinish for me. The Freedom road socialist’s are great, but they seem a bit ungrounded – standing for and making priorities of such obscure things like giving black people the option of their own country in the south for example. The Communist Party USA, for my taste, is too rigid, dry, and business like. The International Marxist Tendency is great, just a little too limited by dogmatic theory. The socialist democrats are fine – but they are reformist. What’s missing from them is the sense of love, joy, creativity, and excitement that one often finds in Anarchy groups. If we could combine that with a plastic non-dogmatic theory open to spontaneity it would be ideal. Also, those other organizations seem exclusively political, whereas a movement must also have a cultural basis (just look at the specific Soviet aesthetics born in Russia.) I’d like to see a group engage with rappers, artists, poets. That is the strength of Anarchist groups, even as they are impoverished theory-wise. This is the soul of a movement. And youtube channels and facebook pages don’t hurt either.
Anyway, thanks for the response!
-J
selucha said
Jonathan, great to hear back from you.
I’d definitely recommend listening to the podcast we just put up, I think you will find the conversation interesting since you mentioned a lot of groups missing a “sense of love, joy, creativity, and excitement” which is really what the most recent episode is about. I’m working on making connections with many revolutionaries in the cultural sphere, primarily rappers, so that we can do interviews and such with them and get make a more complete movement. We are working in a lot of these means of communication with people right now and I think you’re definitely on track with your suggestions. If you want to explore these ideas for engaging with culture, definitely get at me man. kasamaluis@me.com, it’s definitely an area of interest for me.
Comrade Alastair said
[...] by Mike E on August 29, [...]
tex said
new to this site… i have 1 starter question…
growing up, i was taught if i lived right {{didnt do drugs or anything like that}}, studied hard in school, and put in effort i could be anything i wanted to be. that was the beauty of america. assuming im not a degenerate drug addict, i can provide all my basic needs working for minimum wage even, and can work extra jobs if im so motivated….. in a communist society, what would be my motivation to work harder than the other guys?
Timo said
Welcome Tex!
Unfortunately you were taught wrong, most of us were taught many fallacies about america. But your question, well motivation would be very different. Peoples motivation will not spring out of competition, rather People will be working for the benefit of all of society. This may sound kinda crazy, but it has happened in different places and times. For example in China when it was socialist(socialism is the transition to communism) many people worked enthusiastically and selflessly, motivated to build a new china and a new world!
tex said
thanks timo –
im just a dumb ol Texan, not as learned as yall…but, i live in America. what is wrong about living right, working hard, and enjoying the success of ur hard work?
to me, marxism sounds like a welfare state, where the lazy are rewarded….is there any place for personal responsibility in marxism?
how wrong is this line of thinking:
a] if ya too lazy to work for ur own, dont expect my charity
b] if ya run around pumpin out kids with no way to support them, tuff luck…i dont have to support you cuz ur a slut
again, i appreciate your info. I am here to learn.
Timo said
It is important to find out where “wealth” come from? Unless your running the show, its kicked down to you. In capitalist society things are produced socially and are then privately appropriated. This means the large majority of people produce what is needed in society, however they do not control it. Some one else controls what many people have created. People create a surplus this is then out of the people who created its hands. That is not enough for the capitalist. They need to pay people as little as they can to maximize profits. The main problems with this is first people are being exploited, but also people do not truly see the fruit of their labor, because some one else is controlling it for personal gain. There many people in the U.S. who do see a small portion of the wealth that is privately appropriated but they get what kicked down to them from the spoils of imperialism, but thats another story.
I do not see marxism as something where the lazy get rewarded, on the contrary capitalism is where the lazy get rewarded. What does the big company owner do? travel the world drinking fine wine watching tennis matches, etc. How do they get that wealth? surly not by their own work, they get it from the position their in, their wealth is created by many other people.
Marx puts it like this in the Communist Manifesto
“It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us. According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.”
And for your line of thinking, I would say your wrong when you look closer to the real root of why people do or don’t do things.
Most people who are unemployed do so because they cant get a job(there are many different factors in this) they need a job to eke out an existence. They remain unemployed not because they are lazy. when people are given work such as in socialist society they take it, because they need it. Socialist society still has money, however the people benefit from what they create.
Where do you see many people with more kids then they can support? more impoverished areas of the country. Much of the information about safe sex practices may not be readably available. Also people are doing so much just to get by they may not even have the time to look for this information. My point is i don’t blame the people who are in these types of situations for there troubles. Its much more complicated then just personal choices. And also why should a woman be the one stuck with her offspring? It takes two to tango.
I hope this helped!
tex said
im fascinated by your argument timo, and i hope to learn more so i can understand better…you mention leaders of business that travel the world, drinking fine wine..I know you also see the over-whelming majority of small business owners literally working themselves sick too. I know doctors, store owners, dry cleaners, construction workers, etc who work 80 hrs a week, and have never left their own state. if a person invests all the needed capital to form a business, pays reasonable wages to employees, and makes a success — why should the workers be overly rewarded. They invested no capital, risked no credit, and were paid a fair salary.
the unemployed..humm. so if a job is mandated by a govt, a worker must do it and will be happy doing so??…right now in America, you are free to persue any type of employment in any field you want. no-one tells you what to do, and if ya dont mind starvin ya dont have to do anything. sounds fair to me. myself, i eat alot and im always spending money on women, i have to work smarter, harder, and longer to maintain that. under socialism, would it be possible to work smarter, harder, longer and recieve the same more compensation than the guy who loafs?
as for a lack of safe-sex education. that may have been the case 70 yrs ago and it may still be in some unfortunate places today, but not in america. it takes 2 to tango, and atleast 1 of them knows bad things happen from, err, ejaculating inside a woman. that bad thing might be disease, or it might be a kid ya arent prepared for. Im all for promiscous women, i support them wholeheartedly. But the Christian model, though Polly-annish, is probably the best for society. Kids having kids leads to bad times. ’cause momma’s out actin her age the child is neglected, which means he proly have issues and wont behave and will not only challenge my kids ability to get that education at the school my govt provided, but after he leaves school the neglected child will need further assistance, handouts. only, now he’s a victim of a social phenomenom so, well, lets analyze and change, and make more laws and blah blah blah….
….can ya agree with ANYTHING ive said so far?
Timo said
“if a person invests all the needed capital to form a business, pays reasonable wages to employees, and makes a success — why should the workers be overly rewarded. They invested no capital, risked no credit, and were paid a fair salary.”
People do take risks investing and so on, and if they get a little bit of a reward for there risk on top of a return on their investment that is not horrible. But what I am completely against is that the workers do not control what they create. People shouldn’t be overly rewarded. I agree with that. but who is really overly rewarded? once you get a return investment how much is enough? should one or a few people really control all that surplus value that was created by the work of others? I think we should use that surplus value for every ones benefit. Many people unfortunately are not paid a fair salary. It is true that the workers did not take the risks of investing capital, but they are in no position to do so. Something to note, showing the huge gap in social positions, in America the highest salary is about 75 times larger then the lowest paid, In china(when it was socialist) that difference was only 5 times more then the lowest paid. The choices we have in life and our ability to move up in society are all outside of our control. I am by no means saying that many people who do work hard to advance don’t move up in part by their hard work. What I am saying is that there is much more to it then just hard work. Even their ability to work hard is outside of their control, if your injured or crippled is it your fault?
“the unemployed..humm. so if a job is mandated by a govt, a worker must do it and will be happy doing so??…right now in America, you are free to persue any type of employment in any field you want. no-one tells you what to do, and if ya dont mind starvin ya dont have to do anything. sounds fair to me.”
you have to do your job now don’t you, or else you will get fired? Unfortunately many people even in America cant persue what ever field they want. This is primarily due to the cost of education, and also by the limited advancement opportunities many jobs have. This is related to what we discussed earlier. Many are unplowed not because they dont mind starving but because they cant find work, and those who are most exploited take horrible jobs because they need them to eat and they dont have any better options at that point(disregarding revolution for now). How is that fair? some can advance and choose while others cant. It is also important to note that capitalism will never have 100% employment rate. This is because capitalism needs a large group of unemployed workers, dyeing for the chance to work, a vast sea of people fresh to exploit. In society there is great need for food, shelter, all the things that are necessary to sustain life. Also look at all those unemployed people and those working for next to nothing. Why cant you address these things together by essentially killing 2 birds with 1 stone? Why cant you give people work to help solve the needs of people? Capitalism. There is no profit for any individual in doing so, and doing so would ruin capitalism. However socialism can do this and so much more! In China(when it was socialist) peasants were given a real education for the first time! We must also relies that the state is an institution, it is made up of people. It should not be separate from the people, people should have a role in politics.
Zack said
“i can provide all my basic needs working for minimum wage even, and can work extra jobs if im so motivated…”
I think of it this way in the context of your question; in a communist mode of production you could provide your basic needs with 6 hours as opposed to 60 hours under the current capitalist mode of production (way things are produced).
Timo said
“I think of it this way in the context of your question; in a communist mode of production you could provide your basic needs with 6 hours as opposed to 60 hours under the current capitalist mode of production (way things are produced).”
Correct me if Im wrong, but this all comes down to surplus value. So since people will be benefiting directly from the work they produce they will have to work less to meet their needs and everyone else’s because of the surplus. Also by having shorter work hours there are more work opportunities for others.
tex said
timo…i would be called a small business owner. in reality, i did not take advantage of the education the gov’t wanted me to get, i dropped out of high school. after floundering for years in dead-end jobs, i got my head right.. i started saving money, working two jobs and living frugal. i saved enough to buy a cheap tractor and a cutter, i placed ad’s in local papers and now {{14 months later}} i am enjoying a little success.. last month, i had to have help so i hired a neighbor, paying him more than his last job did..we mowed 900 acres, the farmer paid me $11/ac. working 10 hr days, i paid my helper $100/day. he worked 10 days..it cost me roughly the same amount for fuel/equip. maintenance as for my labor help.. i made a nice profit yes, the farmer was happy and my neighbor was so appreciative he gifted me some good hydro he grew….did i exploit him, or am i a good guy who hustled to help myself AND helped a neighbor?
{{incidentally, i tried getting a night job at a local warehouse before the summer…the supervisor told me plainly i didnt speak the right language to help his guys}}}
zack — i want more than just my basic needs met, so i try to be smart and full of effort. if that means workin 60/hrs a week, its worth it to me.
tex said
i totally agree on the outrageous costs of education…tuitions outrageous, and the books alone are crazy
but a bigger issue is those being taught. lets be honest, KIDS DONT LIKE SCHOOL.. if they did, there wouldnt be truancy or dropouts. kids would be in their seat, on time, ready to learn.. from the ‘hood to the ‘burbs, ya dont see that often.. plus, do half the parents nowadays even care about their kids? too many parents view school as a daycare
Timo said
It is still exploitation, from the dictionary:
1. use or utilization, esp. for profit: the exploitation of newly discovered oil fields.
2. selfish utilization: He got ahead through the exploitation of his friends.
3. the combined, often varied, use of public-relations and advertising techniques to promote a person, movie, product, etc.
However in your case it was not in a mean spirited attempted to make as much money as possible at the expense of others. I know things are much more complicated then just Workers and bosses. But in capitalist society who calls the shots? Big business, and Im sure you know of how big business effects small business.
Timo said
Oh and the school thing does it mean something is wrong with the kids or the schools?
Zack said
Tex: to quote Marx, “I am nothing and should be everything.”
I agree completely with you in that I want to enjoy more than just the bare necessities to live another day. I want to make art, I want to make love, I want to make music and such things.
I just think I could do more of all of that with a lot more freed up time… working 6 hours instead of 60 hours would surely fix that, right? Heh.
tex said
in my case, as in i believe the majority of american small business owners, im just trying to keep from flippin burgers ya know.. im not trained in anything, i dont have any great skill..i had an opportunity to not only feed my family, but allow a neighbor to do the same…
my political awakening is admittedly brand new.. i fear the current political tides in America are more about ‘gettin back at whitey’ than anything.. i’ve enjoyed our chat, and i hope u realize my mission is to learn, not fight.. myself, i guess this world is big enough for all kinds of people. i refuse to apologize for slavery. i mistrust anyone who takes govt money, whether politicain or welfare recipient. i believe we’re all born with about the same intelligence. i believe if we try hard, you can achieve whatever brand of success youre after. i agree, we have a responsibility for those truly unable to work.. i accept any immigrant who wants to come here and: speak our language, work hard, not steal from me, not live off welfare..
i just want a lil part of this earth for myself. where i can have my animals, or plant a garden, or just build sand-castles or whatever. i dont want anyone telling me what kind of work i have to do, i dont wanna have to support anyone who isnt willing to work for their own well-being. i dont wanna drive a lil pud-car. i believe cows were meant to be steak on my plate. i believe a man should be judged by his character, not his skin color or station in life…..where am i going wrong here?
tex said
somethings wrong with the families of the kids in the schools…too many kids have absentee parents who dont care whether their kids learn or not
Zack said
Tex, speaking personally, I can unite on some things you’re saying. Such things as: “i believe a man should be judged by his character, not his skin color or station in life”, “we have a responsibility for those truly unable to work”, “i dont want anyone telling me what kind of work i have to do”, I can generally unite with.
Other things you say, I disagree with.
“i refuse to apologize for slavery.” I’d like to understand better what you mean by this. You don’t deny that slavery did occur in this country, do you? Do you deny that it had foundational prospects for this country in its formative years and shaped the politics and landscape of freedom up even until today for a segment of people based solely on the pigment of skin? Further, I’d frame it not as a form of apology per se, but more as a form of what do we actually do about such crimes (if you would agree that the forced unpaid labor of a human being is a crime, that is) that were committed. Shouldn’t there be some forms of retribution for such crimes?
“i believe if we try hard, you can achieve whatever brand of success youre after.” I disagree because I think I’ve seen far more examples of poor people who were and always will be poor no matter how many jobs or how hard they’ve worked their whole lives. Case in point: my grandparents are well into their 70s and still have 35+ hour weeks. They’ve worked their whole lives and these are their golden years? I would never consider either of them to be lazy or just looking for “hand outs.” I think this is widespread and very common. I think it’s a mistake to just think idleness or laziness is the reason for poverty.
“i dont wanna have to support anyone who isnt willing to work for their own well-being.” I guess I just think we’re already doing that under capitalism (it’s just less obvious). When I go to work every day, I understand that I’m getting fucked for what labor produce to make the owner of the business I work for even richer. I’m making a fraction of the wealth I actually produce… if anything, every day I work I feel I’m supporting THEM more than me/my family.
“i believe cows were meant to be steak on my plate.” Ha, I’m a vegetarian, so I’ll agree to disagree there. ;)
***
“my mission is to learn, not fight.. myself, i guess this world is big enough for all kinds of people.”
I unite with the desire to learn. We should learn and listen. You’re by no means the enemy of me or the class I unite with (working class), you’re a part of it.
Mike E said
[moderator note: This is a site for the discussion among revolutionaries and communists. There is great value in debating (and demolishing) pro-capitalist views within the U.S. But doing so here in this forum, drags down its intended level of engagement.]
Timo said
Where would the appropriate place for such discussions be? The threads?
Zack said
sigh.
zerohour said
“i fear the current political tides in America are more about ‘gettin back at whitey’ than anything”
White supremacy is so entrenched in our society, that the disproportionate advantages they get in housing, job opportunities, treatment by law enforcement, etc., just seem “normal” so that any attempt to make things equal appears to be taking something away. Well, yes, it is. It’s taking away white people’s sense of entitlement, the false notion that the social conditions in which they exist are purely the results of hard work, therefore if anyone else faces discrimination or oppressive conditions, it must be their fault.
If you take a serious look through US history, you’ll see the ways in which race and class structures have been supported by the US government, and white people never seem too upset about government “handouts” in those cases. To take one example, after WWII many GIs went to college or bought houses with government money, provided by the GI Bill. At the same time, the Federal Housing Administration routinely denied low-interest loans to blacks. Many of these same white people and their descendants are the biggest proponents of that “work hard and you’ll get ahead” myth even while getting government assistance. But the biggest beneficiaries of government assistance are corporations, who don’t pay taxes due to incentives or simply because the tax codes written for them are so complex they are not always easy to enforce. The government support they get far outweighs any for undocumented immigrants, or welfare recipients.
” i accept any immigrant who wants to come here and: speak our language, work hard, not steal from me, not live off welfare.”
Whether an immigrant speaks English or not should have no bearing on their right to decent, humane treatment. This country was built on slavery, genocide and outright theft of land and part of that process was the forcible imposition of English. I don’t expect you to apologize for slavery [and that's a bogus argument, no one is seriously advocating that for white people anyway], but to understand that its effects continue in forms of institutional and social racism, and take responsibility for your role in either perpetuating it, or helping to end it. On top of that, why single out immigrants as people who may not work hard and want to steal from you? They come here to work and often work harder then US citizens at backbreaking labor, with no legal protections or benefits. They get paid subpar wages, and sometimes not at all. Why not look at your fellow white Americans citizens? Let’s take fellow Texan George W. Bush. He was a “C”-average student, failed at every business venture he was ever involved in, and yet became President of the US! Can any average “loser” do this? This racial myopia is typical. I’m sure for every non-white you see as lazy, you probably see just as many white people doing the same thing, yet it would never occur to you to consider white people lazy. In the same way that we can have the Oklahoma City bombing, high school shootings, serial killers, recent shootings at the Holocaust Museum, the killing of three cops in Pittsburgh – perpetrated by white people, yet there is no demand to racially profile, and round up, white people as terrorists and ship them off to Guantanamo or a “black site” for interrogation. By the way, most people on welfare are also white.
Also your views on women are, in a nutshell, wrong.
Women who enjoy sex with multiple partners are not “sluts.” They are entitled to have consensual sex with whomever they want, whenever and as often, something men have always considered a virtue from themselves. The fact that when they do this they have to be subject to a derogatory term is based on the notion that men have the right to define their behavior and regulate their bodies.
This society conditions all of us, men and women, to have a very self-centered, short-term idea of the world, our societies, our place in them, and it leads to counter-productive and self-destructive behaviors. Add to that, the lack of accessible, good education and resources, and the results are never good. That’s not the whole story though. There are also people who do struggle do live lives with integrity, meaning and respect, who want to develop communities, and they often have to do it by challenging the self-image of America that many hold so dear. When people encounter other outlooks and alternatives, that’s when change is possible. One barrier to such change is the myth of the self-made individual. That person doesn’t exist. Individuals are social beings that are capable of becoming something other than what they’ve been acculturated to. We can build a new culture and society based on empathy and mutual respect through collective effort, but we can’t do that if we have a vested interest in believing that behavior is innate and unchangeable.