Revolutionary Communist 4 Tour: What the Heck Was That?
Posted by Mike Ely on August 7, 2008
By the Revolutionary Formerly Known as Akil Bomani
In 2005 the RCP launched a campaign aimed at rallying African Americans around communism and, in particular, around Bob Avakian. They called it the RC4 tour (Revolutionary Communist 4). It consisted of four African American speakers: Carl Dix, Joe Veale, Clyde Young and myself (or as I was known at the time, Akil Bomani).
The tour was a colossal failure as it was fraught with messy contradictions from the very start. While there were a myriad of reasons (even many I may not be aware of) for its ineffectiveness, I will elaborate on what I saw to be some of the main issues.
No roots in the African American Proletarian Communities
The RCP had very little political influence and connection (if any) to the African American communities it was trying to reach. We entered the communities as outsiders attempting to proselytize the inhabitants to become followers.
Too much of the campaign depended on the sudden spontaneity of the African American masses to be drawn to four African American revolutionary communists. (I believe the Nine Letters spoke to this tendency of the RCP in general and referred to it as idealism and volunteerism).
If there had been extensive, constant and vibrant political work taking place within these communities, and the RCP had actually had a relatively definitive presence therein, then possibly spontaneity would have been in our favor. However, any political work within these particular communities had either gone stagnant, was very marginalized or did not exist at all.
As a result, organizers in the different areas were forced to desperately scramble at the last minute to gather immediate ties to attend speaking engagements –which averaged somewhere between 25 to 50 people, most of which were not African Americans. The intention had been to gather hundreds.
A movement rallying any group of people around a revolutionary ideology simply can’t be imposed from the outside. It has to emerge from within. For this to happen, revolutionary forces have to already be strongly entrenched within these areas and politically engaged with the people. This apparently was not the case for the RCP with regard to the RC4 tour and their lofty aspirations for it came crashing down on the pavement of material reality.
On the Defensive from the Beginning
As a result of the overall Culture of Appreciation/Cult of Personality around Bob Avakian, the tour was inadvertently framed as a testimonial of why four Black revolutionaries chose to follow a white leader and further, why it was ok for other Blacks to follow this white leader. Whether or not this was the intention, it certainly was a driving element within the tour.
While the complexities of race relations involved in leadership deserve heavy theoretical attention and political struggle in many cases, here the fundamental problem lay in the Cult of Personality around Bob Avakian. The excessive efforts to defend Bob Avakian’s legitimacy as a leader to Blacks (many of which who do not a have a clue as to who he is) turned the topic away from the necessity of strong revolutionary communist forces in Black communities to an Avakian promotion campaign. The Cult of Personality push by the RCP had its own problems—many of which are pointed out sharply in the Nine Letters—and when intertwined with the objectives of the RC4 tour, these problems only thickened.
In particular, the artificial and self-declared “specialness” and “irreplacibility” of Bob Avakian as a leader has absolutely no bearing in a community of people who have never heard of him or had any engagement with his party.
This leads back to the previous point: There were no active political roots within these areas. Therefore, Avakian has no “track record” (for lack of a better word) among them to back any claims made by him or his party members about his indispensability as a leader to them.
Again, given the contradictions of race relations in the U.S., it is largely an unavoidable issue when it comes to leadership. But a leader of whatever racial orientation has to both have a connection to the community he/she intends to claim the ability of leadership over and actual “substance” (the dignity of actuality) to reinforce his/her claims of competency.
Thus, we could tout as many slogans as we wanted about his “irreplacibility”, but without evidence, we were defending an empty argument.
Pioneers or Puppeteers
Avakian has certainly made very valuable contributions to the field of Marxism. It was in fact his works that started me along the revolutionary road of communism. Further, his party has made very valuable contributions over its lifetime and I am grateful for what I’ve learned through my affiliation with them.
However, within the context of the RC4, I couldn’t help but to feel as though we were being used as front men or spokespersons within the Black community to connect them to Bob Avakian.
It was obvious of course that racial orientation was a significant factor in creating the team of speakers. I don’t think there was anything in particular wrong with that. We all had direct experience and history within the Black community and were seen as relatively advanced revolutionary communists, and these latter aspects more than anything were probably the more principal reasons we were chosen.
The problem was that this tour was too much structured as Avakian’s cult of personality gateway into the Black community. As a result, RC4 members were made out to be Black representatives of Avakian and his party. This approach basically was saying two things:
1) “it’s ok to follow this man because we’re Black like you and we do” and
2) Avakian needs certified Blacks to talk to other Blacks to get them to accept his cult of personality.
The problems here are quite evident.Altogether, race relations in the U.S. often complicate revolutionary politics. (They can even complicate mainstream politics as we see with the Obama circus.) They can cause unfortunate barriers between groups whose objective interests lie in their unified struggle against common enemies. For any revolutionary force to be effective in helping groups realize this common interest, they have to have active political roots within their communities and engage the daily affairs and struggles of these groups and not simply come from the outside making unsubstantial claims using “representatives” of those groups to reinforce those claims.
Linda D. said
Not to say that there aren’t a multitude of posts on K. that are important, but this post by Akil and the one “On Nepal: What Should we do?…” are to me pivotal in deepening our understanding of rev., mass line, theory and practice, etc. and for our work in both the present and future.
Am not responding to Akil’s post in particular right now because I want to reread it and absorb it.
Inicio said
As someone who saw one of these events put on, I would like to reinforce everything that has been written here. I could not believe that after several weeks of relatively intensive work “among the black masses” that this program would have gone off with so few participants, and so few of them actually from the community in question. It was a shocking proof of the lack of experience in speaking to the masses specifically about revolution, as well as proof of a shocking lack of living connection to these crucially important communities.
I had always been given the impression that Watts and South Central were areas of relatively strong RCP support. Something which was explicitly communicated by the RCP over and over again. The most recent example given of connection to Watts was the Mobile Shaw pamphlet, which was also the most bizarre and straight forward delivery of the Cult of Personality that I had seen up to that point (referring to Avakian as “our only hope“).
But what was more shocking to me was seeing Clyde Young stand at the lecturn for around an hour repeating,WORD FOR WORD, Bob Avakian’s opening comments from the Revolution DVD, and then adding on, WORD FOR WORD, Bob Avakian’s comments regarding Bill Cosby. It was also strange that this charade (and there is no better word for it) ocurred without any notice that Clyde was directly repeating the words of his “leader”. It was presented as Clyde’s contribution to the discussion.
Shortly after this embarrassment, the RC4 tour silently left the scene. No official summation was given to people who had participated, but unnofficially a summation did make the rounds… That the reason the black community did not respond to the RC4 tour was because of an attachment to religion, even more so than nationalism.
The focus on the way in which the Cult of Personality has distorted discussions with the masses is interesting and important, I think. It was not only around the RC4 tour that the theory of connecting to the masses THROUGH Bob Avakian proved to actually alienate the masses. In my own experience the point at which a lot of unity was lost with middle forces was the point at which we began pushing the Cult of Appreciation on these people in place of a discussion of revolutionary values, theories, and plans.
Quorri said
This reminds me of the book Invisible Man, by Ellison. There is that part toward the end when that revolutionary communist party gets him to be a spokesperson and he’s really into it, really into making change, until he realizes that they are not actually all about making change and they just used him to get the black community behind them because he was black, too. It’s pretty interesting….
I kept thinking while the character was doing all of this work for them, “when are they going to ask him about his experiences, get him to connect all this theory back to his life and his experiences, and really help him see the big picture?” But it was more about putting on a racial show than helping people re-invent their world.
Mike E said
Akil was described by the RCP this way:
This article by Akil (“Losing my Religion”) mentioned above used to be available on the revcom.us site (http://rwor.org/1237/losingreligion.htm). It has since been expunged.
Also removed was the RCP’s report from the LA RC4 event: http://revcom.us/a/010/rc4-hts-los-angeles.htm
Little explanation has been given, inside or outside the RCP.
A year later, there was this notice (Revolution #53, July 16, 2006):
Iris said
I googled the promotional flyer for the RC4. There’s a ton of “urban””slang” in “quotation marks”. If I was a kid who picked that up, I would say, “Whaah???”
I live in the most segregated city in North America: Detroit. So many neighborhoods here look like they were bombed. But there are massive barriers to getting people on board, besides religion.
Should a communist party, going straight to the basic masses–religious, xenophobic, nationalist masses–START by talking about Avakian?
leftspot said
For anyone who may want to read those expunged articles, thanks to the Internet Archive you can still find the “Losing My Religion” article here: http://web.archive.org/web/20061013163820/rwor.org/a/1237/losingreligion.htm and the “RC4 Tour Hits Los Angeles” article can be read here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070503204008/www.rwor.org/a/010/rc4-hts-los-angeles.htm
Mike E said
another expunged piece by Akil:
From the Streets of NYC: Thoughts on How History Is Made, by Akil Bomani, September 19, 2004
http://rwor.org/a/1252/how_history_is_made.htm
J.B. Connors said
In the George Orwell book, 1984, it was the Ministry of Truth that was responsible for going through libraries and removing all references to unpersons and rewriting the historical accounts to line up with the new facts. The RCP has tried to make Akil disappear — and has used a new policy of shunning against anyone who opposing the inflationary expansion of Avakian’s cult of personality.
I have to say, the fact that Akil’s expunged writings are still available in the vast sea of the ‘net today is to me a bit of a tickle. It’s hard to wipe things out in this century, create an unhistory, unless you have state power, and possibly not even then…
When the RC4 tour was announced, i remember being so thrilled at the thought and i was excited to promote it. To hear what Black revolutionary communists had to share of their thoughts and experiences. Then the promo of Avakian ate it up. Then the RC4 tour vanished. I didn’t find out what happened until after I left the party. I am happy that Kasamsa is living place where we can reconceive as we regroup. And I am glad to remeet Akil here.
Libertarian Lurker said
JB writes: “In the George Orwell book, 1984, it was the Ministry of Truth that was responsible for going through libraries and removing all references to unpersons and rewriting the historical accounts to line up with the new facts. Akil disagreed with the cult of personality, and that was intolerable.”
I’ve actually been learning some interesting things from this site, so don’t take this the wrong way…..well, actually, my Trotskyist friends would probably point out the exact same thing, so here you go —
Isn’t what happened to Akil and his involvement with the RCP, on a smaller level, not much different than Trotsky being airbrushed out of old photos and, even more extreme, other Old Bolsheviks getting bullets in the back of the head? A thought-experiment — what would have happened to Akil in Stalin’s Russia if he stepped out of line? Would that have been any different in the alternate universe where Bob Avakian was running the show in the U.S.? Stirring the hornet’s nest, I know, but it seems like an obvious point to me.
Dadaist said
This is all very health stuff…I was a supporter of the RCP and I too, was so happy to see the RC4 lanched and had great expectation…but as things would have it, the exposure of the contradions came to a head and thus, served as a vehicle of awakening.
FOr sometime I had a gut feeling that something was not right…but could not place my finger on it and the prestiage that the Party and Avakian carried made it even more difficult to see the light, the truth….I just found this site and look forward to visiting it to find out what direction will develop….
Linda D. said
Akil Bomani’s post is loaded with things we can learn from. Have only read it twice, and upon reading it a 3rd time hope to get into more specifics. Also am anxious to read Akil’s “Losing my religion.”
But I just clicked onto the Archive, “RC4 hits L.A.” etc. that Leftspot found (thanks L.S.). And here is an opening paragraph that I think reiterates what Akil summarizes:
The RW/OR: “Stirring controversy wherever they spoke—on the airwaves, in house meetings, and at a full panel discussion at Cal State Dominguez Hills—the RC4 kicked off their visit here, bringing straight to the people the compelling vision of the communist revolution developed by Bob Avakian.”
Besides all the hyperbole, “bringing straight to the people THE COMPELLING VISION OF THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION DEVELOPED” (!) “by Bob Avakian.” omg.
A mouthful, wouldn’t you say?
Most who have had any experience with the RCP wouldn’t have any dispute with what Akil B. laid out. His experience has been repeated over and over, and over many years. But the RCP has reached new heights with their insistence on B.A. as THE savior, and their extreme rendition of Cult of the Personality/Cult of Appreciation. I would go so far as to say that not only has Akil’s writings and contributions been expunged, Marx, Lenin and Mao have pretty much been expunged from the RCP’s literature, propaganda, et al.
But–Akil says: “The RCP had very little political influence and connection (if any) to the African American communities it was trying to reach. We entered the communities as outsiders attempting to proselytize the inhabitants to become followers.”
and obviously ultimately followers of Bob Avakian.
I think their line and practice is ultimately cynical and if you scratch the surface, they are contemptuous of not just in this instance the African American community they were speaking “truth” to but contemptuous of the people in general. The fact that Bob Avakian sent 4 of his African American soldiers into the Black community because he’s white, is a separate but important issue. But from what I have read it’s as if the African American community is some blank slate that the RCP can doodle on and create, and reiterate, their own opportunistic aims. Unfortunately the African American community has been so inundated with a bunch of yak yak, from all sorts of quarters, that I would say many, who are even revolutionary -minded, are sick of the whole lot of condescending saviors. But if the likes of the RCP goes into the community–suddenly–without having any ties, without really being involved in the struggles that people are waging (I think this has more to do with them (the RCP) not having hegemony over those struggles and they would have to contend with different forces and lines), and are strictly “outsiders” this is a further example of their contempt and cynicism. (The “tour” is almost analogous to sending in the 4 “Wise Men” who derived their wisdom from the Chief Wise-Guy. And by some miracle, the 4 Wise Men (now down to 3) are going to bring a new religion to the community from outside and from above. This is not only ludicrous it is sheer opportunism.)And in typical RCP-style–while touting this tour as “stirring controversy” (this hyperbole obviously directed toward the rank and file of the RCP because who else would believe it, nor care?), when things didn’t pan out–just erase it all and move onto the next “brainstorm.”
One N.B. to Quorri: re Ralph Ellison and “Invisible Man.” (We could also use Paul Robeson as example of what you were referring to.) But both Ellison and Robeson (even on an international level) were involved with the CPUSA, and while the CPUSA wasn’t above strutting out their members or sympathizers “of color”–have to admit that they were–at certain important junctures–involved in the struggles of the Black masses. (I’m not talking about their political line, but just the fact that in many cases, they were not strictly “outsiders” and often times on the front lines.) Three examples come to mind: Willie McGee, SNC and the Scottsboro Boys.
Linda D. said
Whoa, just read Akil’s “Losing My Religion.” Hope others who haven’t yet read this piece do so. The opening part, about his mother (who was really have a nervous breakdown) reminded me of one of my all-time favorite poems–Allen Ginsberg’s “Kaddish”–basically about his mother, Naomi, who was suffering in many ways similar to Akil’s mother, and for similar reasons.
But “Losing My Religion” is a living example of a process of development and consciousness coming from Akil’s life experience. And I thought it very ironic when he said,
“But reading Preaching From a Pulpit of Bones inspired me to do something that religion in general denounces, think critically. So I expanded my research; I delved deeper into Marxism, and perused the bible further for myself to deconstruct all of the paradigms it had for so long instilled into me and so many others.”
Yet his critical thinking and criticisms of the RC4 Tour, etc. was treated as some sort of blasphemy.
Nando said
JB writes:
LibLurker writes:
Liblurker: no reason to walk on eggshells here. No one will freak out over the mention of the criticism of the communist movement.
LibLurker:
To put this in some kind of context: Maoists are historically different on this things from Stalin-era, and (overall) the RCP has been considerably better than most Maoists.
In the late 1930s, when Stalin executed many leaders of his own party and government, the Maoists of the communist party of China reportedly met (in their rural base areas) and decided never to use similar methods in their own struggles. And (what is an extension of the same line) the Maoists in china never used the political police as their main leg in combatting internal political opponents. And their policies were radically different from Stalin’s USSR on the use of execution of political opponents among the people.
On the question of viewing leading political opponents: Mao’s supporters (the so-called Gang of Four) had an analysis of “where do capitalist roaders come from” (i.e. people who emerge WITHIN the communist movement who reprresent and promote capitalist politics.) And rather than the Stalin view (that they were simply agents of capitalists and foreign powers who had wormed their way as infiltrators into the ranks of the revolution), they put forward an analysis of “from bourgeois democrats to capitalist roaders.”
to make this long story short: they held that revolution was a complex process, with stages and turning points. People often sign up for one stage, one process, one set of contradictions — but then have differing reactions as the struggle moves forward.
As the Four said: People join up in one context and then sometimes say “this is my stop, this is where I get off.”
This is especially acute in countries like China (or Nepal) where the early stages of the rev process combine agrarian revolution, “modernization”, revolutionary anti-feudal changes with anti-imperialist revolution. And then, when the revolution moves into its higher, more deeply socialist phases (social transformation of family, work, communalization, broading control from below etc.) people sometimes hold back, and “take the capitalist road.”
this is even true in a country like this when people join the rev in one period (say a period of upsurge and broad mass activity) and then have difficulties when the revolution goes through long rough patches. Or some embrace marxism when its approach seems “clear” to them, and feel rootless and confused when Marxism (like all scientific analyses) reveals deep contradictions, unsolved problems, and new dilemmas.
On the RCP: Avakian has personally (and I think correctly) argued that we should be beyond an approach that says that the previous political contributions of current opponents need to be airbrushed away. Did Lin Biao make contributions during the revolution, and even during the early phases of the Cultural Revolution? Yes.
In his memoirs, Avakian makes a point of giving space to the contributions of Label Bergman, a veteran of the old CP who played a role in winning BA to communism and in forming the RCP. Label later became a key pointman in a group that split the RCP in the late 1970s over tradeunionism and their support for the Hua/Dengist coup in China. so Label was not “airbrushed out” — and this is (i believe) an important method for communists to adopt.
(Though I have to say that Label’s partner Mickey Jarvis WAS kinda made invisible in those memoires — though I suspect, in all honesty, that there is a less positive to say about him.)
So, overall, I would have to say that (on paper) the RCP has taken a better stand on exactly this question that other communist forces (historically or even internationally) — who tended to treat their own internal opponents as utterly sinister and suspicious.
Having said that, there is a remarkable regression going on around the RCP over these last few years — in particular in regard to the Kasama Project and the “9 Letters to Our Comrades.”
First, there is a whole climate around the RCP that seems to resurrect an old (almost 1930s) aura of a monolithic party. On paper, the RCP upholds “solid core with a lot of elasticity” — but in practice, their view of discipline has cranked itself more and more tightly into a grim not. Unable to rely on their own cadre to VOLUNTARILY put forward the new lines on “Avakian as cardinal question” or on the eccentric offensive against Christianity per se, there has been more and more open reliance of clampdown, scripts, constant criticism, and limiting public statements to fewer and fewer voices.
And as part of that, the response to the 9 Letters to our Comrades has been spittle-laden, vindictive and crudely distorted in a way that DEPARTS from the history of the RCP, and from Avakian’s own long-standing approach to polemics. Their response to the 9 Letters have been highly personalized (starting with character assassination of the main author) — in a way that seems alien compared to this same organizations treatment of, say, Bruce Franklin, or Marv Treiger, or Label Berman, or even D.H. Wright — who were figures in previous lines struggles.
Part of the reason is that this party has no justice on its side in these disputes. Its arguments are threadbare — and their own political landscape is filled with self-inflicted land-mines, places where they dare not tread, where they dare not speak truth, where they simply cannot air their real views and dilemmas.
LibLurker wrote:
I think that one of the attractions of BA’s New Synthesis (aobut five years ago when it started to be articulated) was its strong stress on the need for “vibrant debate” in future socialist society — including providing space for even genuine reactionaries to express their views (and publish their books). I think generally among serious communists it is clear that we need a new society where people have greater political freedom than in this one — and we need a movement trained to handle, lead and grow through genuine public debate and critical examination.
So that side of BA’s writings were really welcomed… I know of quite a few people who “came back” to sympathetic support (and even political life) through their excitement over these development.
But who can miss the “disconnects” (as they are called in the first of the 9 Letters) — where this party calls for vibrant debate but is completely incapable of participating in one!
Every supporter of the RCP who eagerly engaged the ideas of the 9 letters (whether on this site or any other) was tracked down by the RCP and told to stop it (even when they engaged from the stance of SUPPORTING the RCP). This party doesn’t want a real engagement. It can’t handle it.
so, in answer to your question, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that this party in power would not have tolerated the 9 Letters. They immediately argued that SOME questions and interrogations of their party are legitimate, but SOME are inherently illegitimate and should not be treated as worth of discussion and open debate.
Their response to the 9 letters was to tell their own supporters to ignore them, to not read them — across the country they did this with the same words “this is not worth the time to read”” (suggesting another script). They focused their claims on the charge that the 9 letters were “unprincipled” (creating a special category of arguments that can be dismissed without dissection.)
And anyone who has read the two formal polemical responses by the RCP (the first from their writing group, and the second from their “Reader” number one)… can see for themselves (even from the opening sentences) how this method continued.
* * * * * *
It is worth noting that it is the Kasama project that has consistently held to the principles and methods once upheld by the RCP and BA.
In the 9 letters, the RCP and BA are subject to sharp criticism but they are also repeatedly (and correctly) described as sincere revolutionaries. Their contributions are repeatedly acknowledged and upheld. Similarly, Akil (in the post above) makes a point of pointing to contributions he believes BA has made.
This approach is correct and important because it corresponds with the truth. And it refuses to descend into a comic book view of opponents — a simplistic and misleading black-and-white universe where “if you are not with us, you are sinister and irredeemable.”
The method of the communists around the Kasama Project stands in sharp contrast to the approach of the RCP today.
Quorri said
nando says: “It is worth noting that it is the Kasama project that has consistently held to the principles and methods once upheld by the RCP and BA.” and “The method of the communists around the Kasama Project stands in sharp contrast to the approach of the RCP today.”
I second that notion :D That’s why I hang around with y’all :D
Jose M. said
I posted this article on Revleft, in the Politics section. A small discussion has started around it already.
A thing to note about how RCPers responded was that the first thing they said was that it was “very very economist”. What the fuck?
To me, economism really has a meaning. It really is a wrong tendency within the ICM. But when you start using it for everybody that disagrees with you, and then, after you are clearly proven wrong, you still use it, you have a serious problem.
Akil is obviously an experienced and dedicated revolutionary. Not that this makes him correct automatically, but instead of writing off something so important and revealing, engage it and talk about it.
I really dont mind debating RCPers, as long as they present some real substance besides the usual shit that we are ‘opporunist, economist, revisionist.’
Kasama will hopefully become something concrete (i can see that it is starting to take off in a good way) while the RCP will continue their garbage about us, and tell people they are the vanguard. They will not change their politics, but they will lose people (Akil is another one to the list).
revleft said
Link to the discussion at Revleft:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-communist-4-t85921/index.html?s=03f796916f6c3b3d53f84b3a30665005&
karla said
akil’s anecdote reminds me of what happened when building for and putting on the biko lives! festival in the south bronx in the mid ’80’s… i could not fathom, after a huge anti-apartheid rally in central park on june 14 — filling the great lawn — and for the remainder of the summer going to what were dubbed at the time as the “biko projects” in the sb, and building for the event, how absolutely paltry the attendance was at the culminating festival, which was comprised mostly of white downtowners. that is, despite the bases of unity w/african americans in the nyc ghettos and beyond around poverty, racism, solidarity w/brothers and sisters in what was still formal apartheid in south africa, and the objective need for rev., there was still only a handful who attended, and actively built for biko lives! the points raised in this thread about coming in from the outside was so obvious and, evidently, has never changed. however, as much as i disagree w/the rcp’s m.o. (esp. the cult of personality), it’s not clear that such a lack of connection and base among the black masses is for any lack of trying.
saoirse said
Karla would you mind talking more about the Biko Lives Fest. I have never heard of it before. was it an party organized event?
karla said
Biko Lives! was a festival held in early September in the South Bronx from about 1985-1990 that honored the late South African hero Steve Biko. Building for this event was a major focus of the RCYB for several summers and the work was centered around the Hub in the South Bronx. Although that area of the city was certainly poor, what I saw didn’t match the thick descriptions of dire poverty that dominated the RW. Folks were always out shopping on the weekends, some youth attended the community colleges in the area, and people (yes, some lumpen proletarians) were going on about their lives. Biko Lives! was vehicle used by the RCP to carry out its central task (create public opinion/seize power) by attempting to influence the masses around its line by celebrating the great, uncompromising leader, Steve Biko. After months of building for the festival it was unfathomable to me that so few people from the neighborhood came. Of course, this was 20 years ago, but the discussion of “coming in from the outside” rings true –in 20/20 hindsight — here too. The question is why such low turnout? Why were so few (if any) drawn to the RC line? Was the festival tailing in nature??
Linda D. said
Hola José…and José says:
“AND TELL PEOPLE THEY ARE THE VANGUARD…” Therein lies PART of the rub. Saying it doesn’t make it so! Obviously. But if that is what your cadre is super indoctrinated with, it doesn’t leave much room for real struggle, debate, et al. within the organization itself, with other progressive or revolutionary-minded people or orgs., nor the people in general. It’s a faît accompli.
And what makes me particularly “molestia” with the RCP is, their summations of anything they might be peripherally involved in, or even initiate, are so one-sided and such hype, that no one can learn anything about errors in line, or errors committed in practice in taking out the line. At minimum this is not only opportunistic, but does a great disservice to all those who are sincerely trying to make revolution, build a new society, etc.
But like the RCP blames the masses for a lot of their failings, I don’t blame the RCP cadre for what I think are its leadership’s failings, and arrogance. In other words, on the IPod post, the RCP accuses people of being complicit with the enemy–(although there is one commentator who doesn’t agree with that portrayal of the RCP’s line). Well, I think we have to ask ourselves–if someone in the lower cadre of the RCP is trying to carry out leadership’s line because they hope it is correct, or haven’t much else to compare it to, does that automatically make them complict? in terms of the RCP en todo?
Many–certainly not all– on Kasama have had direct or indirect experience with the RCP, and many of us have come to a different understanding and a questioning of their line (in general and in the particular). But I think it is a further error to just lump everyone together because I would bet, just like some of us, there is questioning and doubts amongst their rank and file, as we speak.
It has always struck me as a positive thing that Kasama in the 9 Letters says “to comrades.” And I don’t think, if you read the Letters carefully, that this was just somehow an attempt at being polite. Instead it set the tone in putting out line struggle in a way to encourage real and principled debate over issues and line that are important to many, and didn’t automatically assume that those participating in the debate were some already formed vanguard. Know what I mean?
Jose M said
as a quick note:
that thread was made at the time that I was an RCP supporter. My username is Rawthentic.
I am no longer such, obviously.
Anon said
Wow… just wow.
This whole censoring out Akil’s pieces really strikes the whole new synthesis tenant of “allowing even the most reactionary to publish books with state sponsored funds” because “we can learn even a bit of truth from them” as totally fucking hollow as shit.
Just wow.
Thano Maceo Paris said
I really appreciate this discussion and I wanted to weigh in briefly here. I’m African American and when I was 15-16 I was fortunate enough to get some exposure to line and politics of the RCP through a close friend. I really think that the question put forward by Karla is correct:
“it’s not clear that such a lack of connection and base among the black masses is for any lack of trying.”
“The question is why such low turnout? Why were so few (if any) drawn to the RC line? Was the festival tailing in nature??”
Tammy said
Thank you Karla for your observations.
I was involved in organizing for many events and programs over many years, until about 10 years ago. After most of them I’d feel disappointed that the event had failed to attract the number of people we’d hoped, or to live up to inflated expectations in some other way. But during summation meetings, these failures were never acknowledged.
I quickly learned to shut up about it, because I would be chided for not taking seriously enough the great “significance” of the participation of those who did show up or of the event itself.
Following one event for the 10/22 Coalition, after which I asked, “Why didn’t the masses come?” I was told, “They did, in the form of their representatives: us.” My heart sank. Really, it’s come to that? — We’re the substitute for the masses and that’s okay now? Shortly after that, I gave up on the RCP.
There was a consistent, stubborn refusal to look at reality, and thus no real way to fix the problems. We couldn’t talk openly about it. It was so frustrating. This happened in several places where I worked, so I know it was widespread. It was as though our desires and willpower would create reality. Our assessment of events was always that we were successful, but only because we kept adjusting our definitions of success after the fact.
I know that I was sincere, and every comrade I ever worked with certainly seemed sincere. With almost no exceptions, they were incredibly dedicated and hard-working people. It seemed that a culture of denial and inflating the Party’s importance was coming from above, and if we complained we would be seen as pessimistic or negative. I was not a leader, and for a long time I assumed (hoped) that the REAL discussions were happening above my level. After a long time I guessed they weren’t.
This is my first post to Kasama, after reading here for a while. Thank you to all the participants. I hope that here we can always be as open and courageous about dealing with the problems and the painful truths about how hard it is to make revolution, as I wish the Party had been all those years. It’s the only way it can possibly work.
Rev D said
I witnessed some of this ‘outsiderism’ of the rcp over 10 years ago in Michigan. The police were particularly brutal at that time in our city and a group of us signed on to participate, organize, and promote the October 22nd “National Day of protes against police brutality, repression, and criminalization of a generation” in its first year. We spent countless hours in the communities most affected by the brutality not just as ‘outsiders’ as some in our group were members of those communities.
We didn’t just promote ‘the day’ though. We made legitimate relationships and compiled resources (mental health, substance abuse, housing, welfare) for those that needed and requested them. Then we assisted them with any paperwork those resources required.
We continually informed a couple detroit rcpers of our progress and they said they wanted to come up about a month before the ‘day of action.’
Keep in mind that our organizing didn’t involve a political line per se. the original members of the group did have revolutionary expierance, but we chose to show that a different world was possible through our actions instead of force-feeding a political line. Not the case with the rcpers.
We brought them to the local homeless shelter where we had become familiar faces. They both had a stack of the revolutionary worker and attempted to have conversations with people about how the police were the tool of this capitalist system. They didn’t get a positive response from anyone for a number of reasons and a couple got very upset once finding out that they were communists.
We were astounded and told them that their approach would not work in our conservative city. In hindsight their approach wouldn’t work in any city.
These ‘lumpen’ were dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues and were not in a position to discuss marx, lenin, or mao.
The rcpers left a couple hours after they arrived and fortunately our work continued long after the ‘day’.
i think the rcp needs to study and ‘wrangle’ with the work of the black panther party who were also maoists. They not only pushed a line they backed up their words with actions (free breakfast, sickle cell anemia testing, etc. )
Until they do that they won’t ever have a strong base of support with the disenfranchised.
And oh yeah, our day of protest was attended by hundreds of people most of whom were poor and people of color.
Oscarix said
I was sad to see that Akil Bomani wrote this piece for the Kasama website, and further saddened that the piece was really not very deep. Akil can think much more deeply than this, and I hope he will in the future as he broadens his summation of his time supporting the RCP. However, despite the limited nature of the piece, Akil does raise substantial line questions.
Given that the Kasama website moderators are keeping this piece at the top of the front page despite the fact that newer material has been posted to the website, I think it is safe to infer that the moderators believe that the piece and the discussion surrounding it is important.
It is sad to see Akil once again being used in such an opportunist manner.
Riffing off of Akil’s piece, a number of people have raised a number of anecdotes about the RCP’s failures in coming at organizing efforts ‘from the outside.’
So, given the importance the moderators are placing on this piece, and the general character of the discussion taking place around it, would it be safe to infer that the Kasama project and its participants, or at least many of the people ‘talking’ on this website:
a) believe that communists should mainly focus their work on long-term base building efforts, even if that entails social service agency type activity and not talking about communism in order to build up the base?
b) think that anecdotes about failed forays into mass work can usefully substitute for an overall analysis of the RCP’s mass work over the years?
c) think that the RCP’s mass work and base building efforts universally found no resonance with the masses?
d) think that the RCP’s work overall yielded demonstrations with no mass character?
e) think that those organizations that have dedicated themselves to ‘slow and patient’ base building have yielded, overall, more positive results in the struggle for communism than the RCP’s approaches have?
Mike Ely once vigorously fought all these ideas. Tooth and nail even. Yet now he is strangely silent as a preponderance of comments which are clearly gradualist and economist fill up his blog.
One might begin to infer that the RCP’s description of Mike and his fellow travelers’ trajectory is correct.
areaman said
Oscarix:
Your method is revealing. You don’t discuss any of the line questions raised (the reasons the RCP’s roots among the people are so fragile, and the impact of the hyped avakian cult of personality on political work).
Instead you dis akil for being shallow, imply he is being used, suggest it is wrong to appear on this site, and say that most people commenting are so rightist that Mike Ely should be denouncing them.
everyone is accused of sleeziness. Everyone is wrong. the whole thing is sordid — and you never get into the line questions.
This is not politics, oscarix, it is method of distraction and misdirection.
Let’s apply Maoism here: dig into the content of the two-line struggle. Seek truth from facts. compare and contrast the different analyses. Compare the assertions of various forces with the evidence of reality.
and please leave the character assassination and insinuations at the door.
N3wday said
Oscarix,
Perhaps you can write a response that outlines what is missing from Akil’s essay? That would be much more helpful than simply saying ‘it’s not deep’.
What’s opportunist about this? Is any criticism of the RCP posted here opportunist? Please clarify.
I don’t think allowing a few comments without an immediate rebuttle is any sort of betrayal on the part of Ely. He is one of the main ‘forces’ heading up the Kasama project which involves 3 different blogs and ground work. I think it’s quite unfair to assume that him not responding to these comments or the ones made by Joseph Ball on a different thread recently indicate anything but him being busy. One of the nice things about this site is people are free to say whatever they want and discussion is allowed is occur without strict moderation. That doesn’t mean this is the only way debate should occur. But the fact that it exists sometimes, proves nothing.
Also don’t assume because of the general direction of a thread that it represents the collective feelings of the readership of this blog. The vast majority of the readers never post and the ones who do certainly do not have a unified political line.
To respond to your points.
a) believe that communists should mainly focus their work on long-term base building efforts, even if that entails social service agency type activity and not talking about communism in order to build up the base?
No. If look back over the post you’re critisizing here you’ll notice the author makes a passing reference to the panthers and that as a model of organizing. They certainly weren’t silent about the need for connecting revolution to people (even if the author apparently was). Although there are obvious things to critisize the panthers about (no clear political line etc) the point s/he was making was that moves need to be made to build trusting relationships between a vangaurd and people (whether the tactics s/he outlined is correct should be up for discussion). Obviously keeping silent on the issue of revolution is not the answer, I agree, but you one sidedly pointed that out to try and level a false criticism at the Kasama project, rather than just the individual posting. It’s better you address individuals and ask them to clarify their political line, and not assume their association or non-asscociationw without asking. I don’t even know if Rev D considers her / himself to be a communist.
b) think that anecdotes about failed forays into mass work can usefully substitute for an overall analysis of the RCP’s mass work over the years?
Which anecdotse are you talking about? The issue of the RC4 by Akil, which there are clear line issues involved with or the personal anecdotes of those commenting afterword (which have conflicting and agreeing points with the article)? Do you think the Kasama Project considers their comments section after articles to be penetrating analyses of the RCP at every point?
Should a collective summation be made into the efforts of the RCP at mass work? Sure, but that’s a long process that will require quite a bit of sifting through personal anecdotes.
Do you think collective personal anectodes are no help in creating a valuable summation of mass work over a number of years?
c) think that the RCP’s mass work and base building efforts universally found no resonance with the masses?
I don’t think anyone has said that. These are anecdotes on individual efforts, not universal summations. I believe O22 has done quite well for itself at some points. I’ve heard the Mumia campaign had many bright spots as well. I’m sure there have been others on top of these.
d) think that the RCP’s work overall yielded demonstrations with no mass character?
Refer to the above response.
e) think that those organizations that have dedicated themselves to ‘slow and patient’ base building have yielded, overall, more positive results in the struggle for communism than the RCP’s approaches have?
I think the left has generally failed at connecting people with revolutionary politics. Something we need to fully explore (something that certainly can^’t be done by a few people in a few months). I think many people on this site have had the most experience with the RCP and feel they are in the best position to discuss the work of that group rather than others, although I have seen a variety of trends offer ideas here.
karla said
what does it mean, “as a preponderance of comments which are clearly gradualist and economist fill up his blog?”
is it not safe/reasonable to share personal experience and ask questions about how to sum them up?
forgive me, but isn’t the issue of building deep and strong ties among the masses critical if we ever hope to overthrow this rotten system? and isn’t the fact that the rcp has come up woefully short in this regard in spite of decades of tireless work by dedicated and sincere comrades worth getting into?
how is that “clearly gradualist or economist?”
i appreciate that akil has the courage to share his feelings and first hand observations about what was such an important yet failed campaign. seems to me this is all in the interest of getting at “what the heck was that?” in order to move forward.
inicio said
Oscarix asks if he may infer that the Kasama Project “think that the RCP’s mass work and base building efforts universally found no resonance with the masses?”
I don’t think you can infer that, but I do think that your method of guilt by association betrays a further method of assuming a whole range of characterizations (generally revisionism), based on the RCP’s written responses to the 9 Letters, and then desperately searching for evidence to back up those assumptions as the “evidence” is rather paper thin in the RCP’s responses. In other words, it is apriorism dressed in a passive aggressive tone.
At any rate, and I certainly don’t speak for Kasama as a whole, while I think it would be incorrect to describe the RCP’s mass work as universally (throughout its history) finding no resonance, it is very clear that the turn towards organizing mass work through the promotion of Bob Avakian’s Cult of Appreciation has been a universal flop.
And of course this is what is at issue here. It is that in the absence of the ability to develop revolutionary communist work that is capable of connecting with the masses, the RCP has simply cut that out of their project and become a promotional apparatus for Bob, even turning this promotion into a cardinal question thus conflating revolutionary work and revolutionary theory with the Cult of Appreciation.
areaman said
I think communists need to have a discussion of how a true revolutoinary base will be built. Just accusing others of “gradualism” avoids the discussion.
also it is a sleight of hand: Gradualism is wrong if you think that you can “gradually” reform capitalism into something better.
But there seems to be an implied opposition to “long-term base building efforts” — what is wrong with long-term base building efforts? If you think a revolutinary base can be built quickly, make your argument. If you think that long term base building INHERENTLY leads to reformism, make your argument.
I suspect that the revolutionary forces face a long term effort to build, mature and lead a revolutionary movement with deep roots. I don’t think it will happen in a “telescoped way” from a small isolated radical group with a few hundred core supporters (in a complex country of many nationalities and over 300 million people).
the RCP has gone from talking about havint 10,000 organized ties in each city to implying that any discussion of numbers (n real life summations) is inherently capitulation. they have gone from planning to have major core base areas in each city, to mumbling that their small circles will come to power “in a telescoped way.”
so let’s actually talk about what it will take to build a base for revolution, to “come from within” (which the RCP itself advocated in the 1980s).
karla said
Indeed, Inicio. The Cult of Appreciation has become a (further) wedge between the RC movement and the masses it purports to (be qualified to) lead. It’s striking to see comrades who have devoted many years of their lives in the service of making revolution, only to be discarded as “opportunists,” “economists,” and the like, for raising substantive issues such as this.
Why won’t the RCP usher in the school year with a bold Avakian tour to campuses across the US, so the masses can see and hear him in person? Promoting CDs of his rambles is absolutely RIDICULOUS (bordering on the embarrassing), especially b/c leaders are important and need to connect directly with those searching for a revolutionary pole!
They won’t launch a national Avakian Speaks (in the flesh) tour b/c of “security reasons.”
What is that?
Is it ok for the C4 tour to put themselves at risk but not the Chairman himself?
Or would losing Avakian be akin to what happened to the PCP when they lost Gonzalo?
Tammy said
Oscarix, citing past difficulties and failures isn’t the same as coming to the sweeping conclusions that you list. Putting those words in people’s mouths is cheating at discourse.
If you’re going to say it’s economist and gradualist to even want to discuss the fact we often failed to get the results we wanted, then how can we figure out how to do it right?
inicio said
Tammy,
The RCP already knows how to do it right, thanks to the leadership of Bob Avakian. Their inability to get the masses to follow them is a result of the masses themselves failing, not the RCP.
I truly wish that the above statement was only a joke.
Pitching Way Inside said
Oscarix says
“Given that the Kasama website moderators are keeping this piece at the top of the front page despite the fact that newer material has been posted to the website, I think it is safe to infer that the moderators believe that the piece and the discussion surrounding it is important.”
I’m not a moderator, just a reader, so consider this a readers response.
I first noticed the article on Monday 8/04. Since then it has generated a lot of responses, about 35 now. Maoist’s and I phones first posted 8/05 has 16 responses. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tehran? has 8 responses.
I think it’s safe to infer that the readers of this site think this discussion is important. I think it’s safe to infer that oscarix is inferring that this discussion is unimportant, and is trying to stifle it.
Ironic- oscarix’s comment has “added fuel to the fire” and kept the discussion and the comment’s going. The RCP is totally oblivious to this medium of 2+ way discussion, aren’t they? Goes right over their pretty little heads, huh?
I suppose that’s why oscarix places the word “talking”- in quotes. Conversations and discussions- where people talk back, disagree, debate, “wrangle”- are a bit unfamiliar in some circles.
Oscarix also says;
“Mike Ely once vigorously fought all these ideas. Tooth and nail even. Yet now he is strangely silent as a preponderance of comments which are clearly gradualist and economist fill up his blog.”
So my question is- how do you know this? From the articles in Revolution and the RW that are signed by Mike Ely? Isn’t your inference that you have some kind of “insider information”?
And let’s look at Mike’s method- of allowing a discussion to take place that includes many different opinions (even gradulist and economist ones). Should these opinions be censored in the discussion- is that the inference?
And Mike Ely has not been silent in this discussion, has he? There are 2 posts here which have his name. That’s one more comment than oscarix at this point. Exactly who is remaining strangely silent?
SHHHHHH- let’s not even talk about contradiction.Shut up- and let’s not say anything about Nepal. Oscarix- is that what your inferring
Linda D. said
Akil says:
“Avakian has certainly made very valuable contributions to the field of Marxism. It was in fact his works that started me along the revolutionary road of communism. Further, his party has made very valuable contributions over its lifetime and I am grateful for what I’ve learned through my affiliation with them.”
I don’t think Akil was simply being magnanimous in stating the above. What he says is true. And over the life-span of the RCP, within the org. itself, there have also been fierce line struggles waged, splits, et al. and within that a sharpening of the lines of demarcation. Often, these lines struggles brought forward some new, fresh and forthright revolutionary forces. Seems to me that historically this is part of the dynamics of most revolutionary-communist organizations. I am not saying that the RCP always conducted purely principled struggle, and that the leadership who “won” weren’t above name-calling, personal attacks, etc. but in the main, there was an effort to dig deeper into political line differences, and there was a greater attempt to open up these line differences to people not necessarily members, but on the fringes. (Of course the latter was not just to have a more open-ended discussion (which is more characteristic of Kasama) but to win people over to what became the dominant line in the RCP.)
We can all give examples of how the CPUSA became totally revisionist, and the effects of Browderism vs. Wm. Z. Foster, etc. etc. And although the CPUSA at certain junctures had a membership in the thousands, with deep connections to various sectors of the people, were involved in mass struggles and promoting same, it was their bankrupt political line for the most part that lead to their demise. And any members, especially during the ’50s and ’60s who were critical of the dominant political line were ostracized, expelled, or eventually left the CPUSA because there was no room for dissension or differences over line or struggle over errors, both in theory and practice. Ironically a few of those dissenters went onto help form the Progressive Labor Party, etc. and even the RU.
While BA and the RCP have made important contributions in the past, and those same contributions can be learned from for any future movements, organizations and/or parties that may develop, the path they are on now–and have been for some time–(mainly their exaggerated focus on the Cult of the Personality, i.e. Bob Avakian, and Cult of Appreciation), deserves constructive criticism. What was once a vibrant vehicle for revolution in the U.S., has become a stilted, rigid, dogmatic, sectarian organization, that refuses to engage in criticism/self-criticism. I think the leadership of that org., as evident in much of their practice, thinks they are above criticism. By all appearances, it looks as if they are strictly into promoting BA and their party, otherwise they would welcome principled criticism. The “party” has become the final aim.
I am going to restate something I said before within these comments because I believe it is still relevant:
“…AND TELL PEOPLE THEY ARE THE VANGUARD…” Therein lies PART of the rub. Saying it doesn’t make it so! Obviously. But if that is what your cadre is super indoctrinated with, it doesn’t leave much room for real struggle, debate, et al. within the organization itself, with other progressive or revolutionary-minded people or orgs., nor the people in general. It’s a faît accompli.
“… And what makes me particularly “molestia” with the RCP is, their summations of anything they might be peripherally involved in, or even initiate, are so one-sided and such hype, that no one can learn anything about errors in line, or errors committed in practice in taking out the line. At minimum this is not only opportunistic, but does a great disservice to all those who are sincerely trying to make revolution, build a new society, etc.”
zerohour said
What’s notably missing from this discussion, as pointed out by Inicio, is RCP’s own summation of the RC4 tour – at least a public one which can be evaluated and perhaps even challenged by other participants in the work. Sadly, the party has a history of building mass struggles, often at a high pitch, only to stop the work and shift gears without explanation, much less a serious strategic assessment.
The silence with which they greet their failed efforts is in stark contrast to the zeal with which they promote them.
This is not to say that RCP has not done great work, nor that they are mainly responsible for the failure for revolutionary politics to take hold – just the opposite. They have done some remarkable work, esp. around Mumia and in the post-9/11 period. At the same time, The US bourgeoisie has an immensely powerful ideological apparatus in the form of schools, media, public relations, entertainment, etc., so it’s not surprising that there is widespread ignorance and/or misunderstanding of revolutionary, and communist, ideology among the masses. In many cases, there is just outright hostility.
So, based on decades of experience, how does RCP sum up their mass work? How has this affected their ideas of revolutionary strategy? They haven’t produced any analysis of their particular campaigns, but I think their summation is reflected in the New Synthesis, an idealist orientation in which revolutionary communist politics isn’t built, it’s conjured.
Iris said
Is a piece solidly analyzing the specifics of the new synthesis in the works? I feel that the 9L refers to it, but a good refutation or discussion–one that someone like me, who is new to revolutionary communist theory and culture, can understand? i have read the discussions of the NS events, but alot of the comments are in ‘movement speak’, referring to things in the context of the ICM that i only partially understand.
The RCP answers the “Is avakian a cardinal question” inquiry with a slippery answer about the NS being a cardinal question. All i remember from the even as very significant are things that would only be compelling to someone who doesn’t know that much about communism, like me! The question about summing up failed mass work is related to the NS, right?
Iris said
‘even’ is ‘event’.
Chuck Morse said
Though I suspect that RCP critics here are mainly trying to protect themselves from claims of RCP bashing, I must take exception to the recurrent assertion that the RCP and Avakian have done great things in the past.
For instance, Akil says that “Avakian has certainly made very valuable contributions to the field of Marxism.”
And Zerohour says: “This is not to say that RCP has not done great work, nor that they are mainly responsible for the failure for revolutionary politics to take hold – just the opposite. They have done some remarkable work, esp. around Mumia and in the post-9/11 period.”
These assertions are simply not accurate. Avakian has not made a single contribution to the field of Marxism and the RCP has not done great work (including around Mumia and the post-9/11 period). The RCP has been a complete and utter failure according to its own stated goals (and others, too, of course.). This fact, which is probably painful for many of you to acknowledge, needs to be a premise of any serious discussion of the RCP.
Karla indirectly points toward some of the reasons for this failure when she states that the “lack of connection and base among the black masses is [not] for any lack of trying.” Of course, her statement is universally applicable: the RCP does not have–and has never had–popular support anywhere and this, as she suggests, is not for a “lack of trying.” Indeed, the RCP has been trying–very, very hard–for more than three decades.
So, why has it failed then? This is not primarily because of Avakian. It failed principally for doctrinal reasons: that is, it is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization and, as such, embraces ideas about history and society that have no bearing on the world that we live in. Sorry, but the RCP would have failed even if it didn’t have such a nutty leader.
It would be good if this site promoted critical discussions of these doctrinal issues or, minimally, direct people to the critical dialogues that have been taking place for the last eighty years or so.
N3wday said
Chuck,
Can you elaborate? Preferably on another thread where this sort of discussion has already been initiated, so this thread doesn’t get derailed (not that it in many ways hasn’t already).
What sort of doctrinal reasons (your comment is quite vague)? If these shortcomings are the blame then why is there no anarchist movement (I assume when you point to the shortcomings of Maoism, because you are an Anarchist, you believe Anarchism addresses these problems)?
Perhaps you could start a discussion on the Kasama Threads site? (unfortunately it has far less readers, but you can post any topic for discussion there). Or as I said before perhaps if you are aware of a thread on this site that has already started on the topic you want to address you could post there and we can start a discussion.
If that occurs, I would appecriate it if a mod could move our comments there.
zerohour said
Iris-
Yes, I believe that the New Synthesis is a result of an internal summation of, and implicit critique of their mass work. It’s emphasis on theory over practice, promotion of Avakian over concrete strategy, inflated sense of novelty over genuine creative thinking provides clues as to how they sized up the errors in their past work – not enough promotion of Avakian among the masses, and the cadre were not deeply entrenched enough in his theory.
Here is DMC Ulises’s notes from the New Synthesis event in NYC in March:
https://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/more-unofficial-notes-getting-avakians-synthesis-and-getting-beyond-it/
There are three here dealing with different aspects of the RCP Response:
https://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/john-steele-on-rcp-response-the-broken-spiral-of-summation/
https://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/sam-s-the-strawman-within-the-rcp-response/
https://mikeely.wordpress.com/category/authors/zerohour/
Are there specific questions you have in mind?
karla said
Not sure,N3wday, why or how you can assume that Chuck is an anarchist… but your question about doctrine is a good one.
Chuck, your point about the RCP failing even w/out Avakian is well taken. Years ago, the Cult wasn’t nearly as in the fore of the work as it is now, yet there was still a huge disconnect. But I’m not convinced that was because promoting communist revolution was incorrect. In fact, I think it was and still is the only way humanity can move forward. However, we do need to understand the RCP’s inability to sink deep roots among the proletariat, as well as other sections. And their inability to admit this. And in some ways, I think that the specter of overthrow — even by those who need and want it — is seen as idealist and impossible, given the current objective conditions.
All that said, where are we going with this? This site is a relief but where is it leading? Many on this thread and elsewhere on K have pointed to the sincerity and hard work of many supporters (and leaders) over the years. How can we regroup? What would that look like? I realize these Qs are not necessarily appropriate to pursue in this thread, so I hope we can reconvene elsewhere and dig in.
Oh, and as far as protecting myself from claims of RCP bashing, well, let’s just say that while I am utterly disillusioned and angry with Leadership on many levels, I do think the group — the only one that I am aware of that is actively calling for revolution in the US (even though I agree it is falling short on its RIM responsibilities) — has raised many people’s sights toward the possibility of a better world. One where collectivity and not competition would be the basis for social organization. Unfortunately, its current line is doomed and this site seems a promising place to figure out the next steps…
onehundredflowers said
Karla –
FYI: Chuck Morse is a self-described anarchist. Click on his name and it will take you to his website.
But you raise a good point, we have to remember that not everyone on this site is familiar with each other’s history nor the history of our various debates.
“All that said, where are we going with this? This site is a relief but where is it leading? Many on this thread and elsewhere on K have pointed to the sincerity and hard work of many supporters (and leaders) over the years. How can we regroup? What would that look like? I realize these Qs are not necessarily appropriate to pursue in this thread, so I hope we can reconvene elsewhere and dig in.”
You can raise these points here: kasama threads
Nando said
Karla asks:
The answer must be that this site is leading to an organized rev project that can go deep among the people, win support and help prepare people to emancipate themselves.
This site is an effort of Kasama, which is a new communist project seeking (beyond a critique of existing left trends) to regroup revolutionaries and undertake new revolutionary work.
Where is it leading? To revolution. Otherwise, what would be the point.
N3wday said
Sorry bout’ that. I’ve been part of, and lurked during discussions with Chuck on this site and the Red Flags blog(if I’m not mistaken) in the past numerous times.
I’ll try and be more clear and not address people like everyone knows each other.
karla said
Oh, Nando. Silly me. It’s leading to revolution. I’m so used to enduring the long-winded harangues about the need and basis for R without getting into the HOW, especially in these times, that my question was, I admit somewhat rhetorical.
Is this site, then, the main forum for undertaking the new revolutionary work? Is how this work manifesting public knowledge?
For me, and I know for many others, frankly, the issue is much more practical than the theoretical at this point. While I think some folks are good at and enjoy philosophical dialogues, many others, such as myself, are interested in getting into the nitty gritty of what this road will look like. In these and the times ahead. That’s not to say that the philosophical isn’t important, and in many ways principle (although I bet the RCP may have alienated/turned off many over its almost exclusive focus on this). But, the practical is what cries out as needing lots of discussion.
And sorry, but what thread, specifically, should this discussion go under, anyway??
Nando said
newday: the way to get more viewers for kasama threads is to create interesting threads there, and mention them here.
But i think we can, should perhaps make Chuck’s comment its own post right here on Kasama Main… and get into it. I think he raises questions that deserve consideration — not just knee-jerk “answers” that affirm old verdicts, but that step back and look at the questions fresh, in light of reality and experience.
I have my views, and my own questions — but won’t get into them here. Let’s create that post, and dig in there.
N3wday said
Karla,
You can make your own thread on the site Nando pointed to.
N3wday said
Sorry, I meant the site OneHundredFlowers pointed linked.
Chuck Morse said
I’ll understand if the moderators move this comment to somewhere else although, in my opinion, it is relevant to this thread. . .
My arguments are as follows: first, that the RC4 tour’s failure to achieve public resonance is merely another instance of the RCP’s much more sweeping failure to build any popular support. Second, that this failure is primarily a consequence of doctrinal inadequacies (not Bob Avakian’s “leadership”).
N3wday asks what doctrinal issues I am referring to. That is certainly a fair question, but I have to turn it back to you: other than a general commitment to revolution and emancipation, what part of Marxism-Leninist-Maoism do you embrace? The idea that the industrial proletariat will be the agent of revolution? The emphasis on the peasantry? The celebration of Stalinism?
Frankly, none of the tradition’s precepts seem tenable to me.
In fact, I think that the RCP is smart to push people to talk about Bob Avakian and, by doing so, has probably postponed its demise by some years. . . A more substantive discussion of politics and ideas would reveal its bankruptcy, whereas consistent discussions about Avakian assure that nothing of substance gets addressed.
N3wday said
Chuck,
Your post does indeed have relevance to this thread. My worry was that it would become an A vs C discussion, which would most likely belong somewhere else.
You pose some big questions. Before I respond I need some sleep and some time to think this through.
Jose M said
chuck,
I embrace Maoism as a guide to liberation.
Maoism stresses that revolution must be waged according to social conditions, not dogmatic verdicts. of course the proletariat in China could not physically lead all of China to socialism, it was not possible. But what was possible, and did happen, is that the line of the proletariat was in the leadership in the CCP.
The “emphasis on the peasantry” was the outcome of the near decimation of the CCP in 1928 by the Kuomintang, and also an understanding that the peasantry constituted 80% of china at the time.
i dont think that the failure of the RCP to build any real support is simply due to BA’s leadership. It has more to do with their methodology. But it is not due to some inherent glitch in Maoism.
If you disagree, which I am sure you do, then bring up why. I know we can expect to hear from you that china was never socialist because the proletariat “did not lead” china (not true), “class collaborationism” (again, incorrect on several levels), along with the fact that Mao supported Stalin (critically).
josetheredfox said
I agree with Chuck’s comments as I have made these myself, to the RCP and to others in the movement.
Sometimes folks listen and other times they don’t. I’m glad to see that folks here are more open. I know and work with Chuck, he is a comrade who has/is doing important work (specially in full-filling our internationalism with our comrades in the Spanish-speaking world).
Let’s dig into these points, seriously though. (A debate on Anarchism vs. Communism, perhaps?).
peace to the villages, war to the palaces, jose.
Jose M said
i would love to dig into communism vs anarchism. We can dispell a lot of misconceptions (try to, at least).
War to the palaces, but without the correct line, it is meaningless.
tooscarix said
Oscarix,
When you said:
”
So, given the importance the moderators are placing on this piece, and the general character of the discussion taking place around it, would it be safe to infer that the Kasama project and its participants, or at least many of the people ‘talking’ on this website:
a) believe that communists should mainly focus their work on long-term base building efforts, even if that entails social service agency type activity and not talking about communism in order to build up the base?
”
Does the RCP believe Kasama follows statement a? If so, why does the RCP believe that?
N3wday said
Discussion explicitly for anarchism and communism here – http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=203
I’ll post a bit later in response to chuck^’s question on this thread.
N3wday said
Chuck asks,
“other than a general commitment to revolution and emancipation, what part of Marxism-Leninist-Maoism do you embrace? The idea that the industrial proletariat will be the agent of revolution? The emphasis on the peasantry? The celebration of Stalinism?”
I’m going to have to be fairly brief for the moment.
I think the idea of the industrial proletariat leading a revolution in the a service based economy would be a rather silly idea, the same goes for the peasantry. Jose’s comment about Mao’s analysis of the China at the time I agree with. He worked with the conditions presented to him against Communist orthodoxy in order lead a successful Communist revolution. That I embrace.
Also I don’t think Mao really ever upheld much about Stalinism except in words (why he did this, I don’t really know, there’s a lot of debate around that question). He was a quite outspoken critic of Soviet Russia from very early stages of the Chinese revolution and acted on that all the way through it. I don’t know about the whole 70/30 thing. I don’t know if Mao even believed that.
There are things I agree with and disagree with during the Maoist period. Am I an orthodox Maoist? Not really. There are some here who would be better to talk to about that than me. I draw inspiration from moments in the cultural revolution, the process of collectivisation (the better parts), and the before mentioned methods of Mao’s analysis of the conditions of China. Do I see a place for authority in future revolutions? yes, and I also think anyone who is serious about making revolution should study the Maoist period. Do I think various practical aspects of it can be pasted over the U.S.? Not really.
Do I think the RCP employs ideas from Maoism such as the ‘mass line’ correctly? No. I also think many of the theoretical ideas of the RCP, I think I’ve heard them referred to as ‘benevolent despotism’, have almost no appeal (for good reason), and may have been appropriate for a highly underdeveloped country like China, but aren’t applicable here. I think those ideas + dogmatism + plus bad methodology + personality cult = a group that will never lead a revolution in a developmentally advanced contry in the 21st century.
I know this is pretty general, but to be honest I haven’t worked through a lot of things, and I don’t have a lot of answers. I know what’s been tried hasn’t worked, and we need collective analysis and action to determine where to go from here.
I hope this doesn’t appear to be a ‘cop out’. I will be happy to try and answer any further questions if they are specific.
Do others believe the problem of the RCP lies in Maoism or it’s application? What ideas are no longer applicable, does the RCP still employ them?
gangbox said
“I think the idea of the industrial proletariat leading a revolution in the a service based economy would be a rather silly idea…”
So, N3wday, who do you think will lead the revolution then?
Beyond that, the stratgeic position of industrial workers has nothing to do with our size or proportion of the population, and everything to do with the fact that the exploitation of our labor creates the surplus value that enriches the capitalists and makes the whole society run.
Russia had a tiny industrial proletariat – and yet and still they led the greatest working class revolution in history.
It’s not about size or proportion, it’s about strategic position.
And even on the numerical size question, America has a huge industrial proletariat.
Factory workers alone number in excess of 16 million – add in the 10 million construction workers and 5 million transportation workers, you’re talking about a huge contingent of folks.
Add to that the fact that we’re at the center of the productive process, the fact that the society would come to a screeching halt without our labor, and the fact that historically we’ve always been the heart of organized labor – now you can see why I would say that we are precisely the folks that will lead the revolution in America (if it ever happens).
Jose M said
In a country like the united states, not only should the proletariat be the leading force, but the main force as well. it is the most oppressed sector, and the largest as well. I dont think that anyone can deny this fact.
from black proletarians, to latino immigrants, they need to be the backbone of the revolution.
but, as it happened in china, the proletariat did lead the revolution as well. why? because its ideology was at the fore. it was represented both physically and ideologically within the CCP.
Lets take a look at nepal. is the proletariat leading the revolution there? I believe it is, because it is its ideology that is driving forward the process of the nepalese revolution. What if the CPN-M shifted to a bourgeois line? Does that mean it couldnt be a bourgeois revolution because the bourgeoisie are not physically within the party and leading it? No.
to continue, the proletariat is the leading fore in nepal, both ideologically and physically. it is very different than what occurred in China, because the CPN-M was never decimated from its position in the urban areas, and it has large support in these areas as well.
N3wday said
When I said industrial proletariat I meant it narrowly defined. In the sense I believe Chuck meant it.
What I was trying to say is that class composition has changed and will necessarily include in large numbers other types of workering class folcks (and those unemployed) as part of the leading body. This wasn’t meant necessarily to exclude the industrial proletariat as part of that body. Zerohour recently wrote a post here – http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=139&st=0&#entry1410602 – that explains why Marx chose the industrial proletariat at the time he was writing about Communist revolution.
Just as an example I’ve read some articles recently discussing the commercialization of the university and how ‘low level’ professors are being treated as expendable labor, being circulated through universities for short periods of time at low level positions then being replaced, being denied old priveledges such as tenure, benefits ect every step of the way. Pay dropping lower and lower year by year. Will these academics ever reach the level of exploitation required to fit into an a highly oppressed class? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not (maybe even probably not). My point is that labor composition is changing rapidly and I think our definitions of the forces with explosive potential cannot any longer narrowly defined as ‘industrial proletariat’, and probably shouldn’t be our main focus. There were historically specific reasons Marx chose that as the primary class capable of making revolution.
Yes, the industrial proletariat made revolution in Russia. But russia in 1917 was far different then the U.S. is today.
N3wday said
Another interesting thing is one of the main groups that work in the minimum wage service sectors (fast food joints, low end restaurants, marketing research etc) are women of color, very often single mothers. A common myth among middle and upper level economic groups is that the primary composition of these jobs are high school and college students.
N3wday said
And now I digress… Sorry.
Iris said
Zerohour–
I was wondering specifically about Avakian’s claims to an ‘epistomological break’. It has been said by many that how much of his work is actually new is vastly overblown, in particular his claims about class truth, political truth, ‘inter-penetration of the superstructure and consciousness’ (??) (etc)–these are attributed to other people, like Althusser and Lucaks and Gramsci. What specifically are those ideas? Were they really already developed? I’m trying to answer these questions myself, but I’m really starting at the bottom of the pile of Marxism here, lol.
I am also curious about more detailed refutation of the RCP Response(!!). Their _defense_ (p 28) of how the RCP has supposedly dealt with actually making revolution in the U.S. (especially after reading Manuel R Chavez Lopez’s critique of the utopianism of the SRS campaign in Spark) in particular.
Mike E said
I agree that there is much to learn from unraveling their arguments — and there has been some ongoing work around key issues (epistemology, truth, their charges of economism, their charge of capitulation etc.)
I am particularly intersted in hearing key parts of their response you would like to see more refutation of. Perhaps we should develop a Kasama Thread discussion of which parts to dig into.
TellNoLies said
Marx’s identification of the industrial proletariat as the agent of revolutionary change was based on a combination of considerations that included its role in the production of surplus value, the disciplinary effects of mass production, and its then presumptive development as a majority class. Different considerations come forward at different moments in Marx’s writings and we should be careful in assuming greater conceptual stability than actually exists.
There has also been a lot of water under the bridge since then that should compel us to review all this. The failure of the working class movement in the face of the First World War, the shift in the center of revolutionary activity to then mainly agrarian countries like China, an increased appreciation of the role of (often unwaged) reproductive labor and work in the sphere of circulation, along with actual changes in production (the emergence of so-called immaterial labor as increasingly central to value production) all point to a much more complex process than the one Marx advanced. The biggest producers of surplus value today are probably not building planes but rather designing software. That doesn’t mean the industrial proletariat shouldn’t still occupy a critical place in any serious strategy for revolution, but it does mean we must be ruthless in our rethinking of all this.
The rap about “proletarian ideology” being in command in China and Nepal must also be looked at very critically. This has always seemed to me a spurious claim intended to legiimize those revolutions within an unnecessarily rigid framework of Soviet Marxism. The characterization of China’s peasant revolution as “proletarian” may have been a politically neccesary ideological formulation within the context of the Soviet-led ICM of the time. Applying it now to Nepal, however, unnecessarily compounds the assault on conceptual clarity.
(Similarly, the minority character of the Russian proletariat, along with its physical obliteration in the Civil War and its antagonistic relations with the peasantry, should be understood as powerfully connected to the profound problems that emerged in the Soviet Union.)
None of this should be taken to imply a rejection of the importance of class struggle or even of the ultimate importance of proletariat (even if our image of it needs to be modified in light of actual changes in the processes of value production). Marx may not have predicted all the twists and turns of the 20th century, but on a world scale the relative weight and strategic location of the proletariat is several times greater than it was in his day. Which is all the more reason that we should not be fearful of discarding overly mechanical formulations about its power or metaphysical claims about proletarian ideology without an actual proletariat. What we need is a contemporary concrete analysis of concrete conditions that recognizes the real complexity of the society we live in, not the knee-jerk defense of old formulations.
redflags said
The rap about “proletarian ideology” being in command in China and Nepal must also be looked at very critically. This has always seemed to me a spurious claim intended to legitimize those revolutions within an unnecessarily rigid framework of Soviet Marxism.
This is worth digging into. Or, as was raised by a couple of people during the Kasama gathering in New York, the political formulation “dictatorship of the proletariat” needs to be problematized… and especially the “proletariat” part.
Putting it another way, proletarian ideology (as it has been formulated among anti-revisionist Marxists) is different from a better kind of worker-ism…
Our duty is to destroy the proletariat, not proletarianize the world.
TellNoLies said
The relationship between supposedly objective class interests and actual class consciousness is a complex one. I believe that the proletariat does have an objective interest in not being exploited and that this can only be accomplished through class struggle leading to communist revoluton and that this ties the interests of the proletariat to the interesst of all humanity in escaping the horrors of capitalism. But that little nugget of orthodoxy should be the beginning, not the end of a process of social investigation that attempts to grasp in all its dynamic complexity the actual relations between the actual particular class structure of global capitalism in the present moment (and in its likely development) and the actual outlook of the proletariat. Pat formulations that declare this or that party the possessor of genuine proletrian ideology obstruct rather than advance the pursuit of revolutionary theoretical clarity.
Jose M said
tellnolies, thanks for the commnent, this is one of the things that i am very eager to learn about.
do you think that it is incorrect to say that proletarian ideology rested within the CCP? Or in the CPN-M? Why?
do you refer to me when you say that we should avoid “metaphysical” claims about proletarian ideology w/o a proletariat? If it is, then what i mean to say, is, in relation to china, the proletariat was represented and its line was at the fore of the party. Is this incorrect?
shouldnt the correctness of a party’s ideology be based on their policies and lines, not if there are actual proletarians in the party (although this is important for several reasons)?
for me, the question here is not if we are leading the proletariat to revolution, or the workers are striking (although this of course is important), but if the ideology of that class is the leading one. i think this is the pivotal question.
i agree with redflags comment about proletarian ideology as opposed to worker-ism. it is something that i have thought about and debated over a lot. Workerist philosophy ultimately resides within a trade unionist conception of class struggle and the world.
im trying understand everything youve said in your last two comments a bit more clearly.
TellNoLies said
I don’t want to fetishize the class composition at the expense of its political standpoint, but I think there is a problem when an overwhelmingly peasant army under the political leadership of radical intellectuals is characterized as having a “proletarian ideology.” This is not to say that there wasn’t an important relationship between the ideology of the CCP and the project of proletarian revolution, only that said relationship is neccesarily a more complex one than such a characterization allows.
Actual living revolutionary movements/parties/organizations and their ideologies do not, and probably can not, have an unalloyed class character. Pretending they do does violence to our ability to analyze them critically. They inevitably contain within themselves some of the antagonisms of the society they seek to transform. In the case of China, the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of that country meant that the CCP became a pole for a broad alliance of class forces and this inevitably informed the ideology of the organization (and not just the thinking of those who would be later fingered as capitalist roaders). Despite its formal identification with the international project of proletarian revolution, the ideology of the CCP reflected the objective weakness of the Chinese proletariat vis a vis other classes (the peasantry and the national bourgeoisie) and, importantly, this accounts for their success. Trying to stuff the resulting orientation into the category of “proletarian ideology” was (and remains) a move to put it beyond criticism when criticism is precisely what a proletarian orientation demands. Mao’s important recognition that class struggle continues under socialism was a step in the right direction in confronting this difficult problem but in many respects I would argue it didn’t go far enough.
I don’t know where exactly it is that Mao advances the proposition that the the democratic revolution in the colonized countries is transformed by the fact that it is occurring in the “era of proletarian revolution” (represented by the Russian Revolution) but I think that formulation became a problematic cover for all sorts of contradictions that, while probably unavoidable, needed to be confronted more forthrightly.
Linda D. said
TellNoLies (and others):
I have several questions, and want to reiterate these are real and not rhetorical questions and am not playing the “devil’s advocate”:
TNL: “The biggest producers of surplus value today are probably not building planes but rather designing software. That doesn’t mean the industrial proletariat shouldn’t still occupy a critical place in any serious strategy for revolution, but it does mean we must be ruthless in our rethinking of all this.” PLUS YOU SAY:
“I believe that the proletariat does have an objective interest in not being exploited and that this can only be accomplished through class struggle leading to communist revoluton and that this ties the interests of the proletariat to the interest of all humanity in escaping the horrors of capitalism.”
How does this relate to the world (industrial) proletariat, in other words, that the former concentration of a U.S. industrial prol. and its labor has been “outsourced” to other labor forces in other countries. And what constitutes labor for the majority of the U.S. working class? While I think there is a large section working on an assembly line in the computer/electronics industries, they are not the ones designing say software. Where are the other (and probably the majority of) proletarians? What is proletarian ideology these days? Does it get down to simply that the prol. in the U.S. doesn’t want to be exploited anymore? therefore….
TNL: “…an increased appreciation of the role of (often unwaged) reproductive labor and work in the sphere of circulation, along with actual changes in production (the emergence of so-called immaterial labor as increasingly central to value production) all point to a much more complex process than the one Marx advanced.”
Could you explain the terms you used, e.g. immaterial labor, or say “(often unwaged) reproductive labor and work in the sphere of circulation,” as I don’t understand what that means.
After trying to understand some of what you said it seems to me that a big problem is, that the class distinctions and contradictions are more obtuse and hidden these days. And some “class consciousness” is even harder to come by. What I think this points to is having a firm internationalist stand, outlook and ideology, the proletariat and its allies, while waging rev. struggle within their own country, seeing themselves as part of a worldwide class in opposition to capitalism, imperialism and even semi-feudalism.
zerohour said
Iris –
Here’s Avakian’s so-called “epistemological break”: “This rupture actually began with CTW [Conquer the World]. CTW was an epistemological break—we have to go for the truth, rather than hiding things, etc.—a whole approach of interrogating our whole history.” It’s from here: http://revcom.us/a/1262/avakian-epistemology.htm. What does it mean for someone to think that telling uncomfortable truths is a major breakthrough of earth-shattering importance?
Obviously, from the way they’ve deleted Bomani’s writings, they can’t even meet this abysmally low standard.
The term “epistemological break” was popularized, but not created, by Louis Althusser. For Althusser, such a break signifies a qualitative transformation in the way the world is perceived, although for him, Marx only achieves this in his later years. For a good summary, check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Althusser#The_.27Epistemological_Break.27.
It’s sad that Avakian would adopt this term for such a banal idea – one that has been held by other thinkers for centuries.
If you want to continue this discussion, I started a thread here: http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=206
gangbox said
The American Proletariat, by the numbers
These statistics are for the year 2000, and are from the Bureau of National Affairs
Agriculture – 1.7 million
Mining – 531 thousand
Construction – 6.3 million
Manufacturing – 19 million
Transportation – 4.4 million
Communications and Utilities – 2.8 million
Wholesale Trade – 4.5 million
Retail Trade – 20 million
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate – 7.5 million
Services – 32.6 million
Federal Government – 3.2 million
State Governments – 5.2 million
Local Governments – 10.4 million
As you’ll see from the stats above, the total American industrial proletariat (Mining + Construction + Manufacturing + Transportation + Utilities and Communications) is in excess of 33 million workers.
More importantly, the root of all domestic corporate profit in America is in the exploitation of the labor of these workers.
Remember, as per basic Marxist theory, value added by labor is the only source of profit.
In other words, the engineer who designs a piece of software didn’t create the profit, the work of the electronic factory worker who made it did.
That’s what makes industrial workers strategic, no matter how many or how few we are.
Without our labor, the society comes to a halt – we make or break revolutions… you can start a revolution without the industrial proletariat, but you can’t finish one without us.
And, of course, most great social upsurges start with the working class anyway – see Poland 1956, 70, 76 and 79-81, or Hungary 1956 for example.
Industrial workers can also stop major social movements too, because of our social power.
Just look at the role the Chinese National Railroad workers and the factory workers of Shanghai played in 1967 – their general strikes and combat against the Red Guards brought the Cultural Revolution to a screeching halt [“The Stalin School of Falsification Revisited” P 38 – 40]
To conclude, while other sections of the working class (and the proletarianized sectors of the petty bourgeoisie – non tenured grad students at universities ect) will no doubt participate in a workers revolution, it will very much be (and I hate to say it this way but it’s real) cabooses pulled into action by the industrial proletariat’s locomotive.
TellNoLies said
Linda,
The matter of software gets at both your questions. A relative handfull of software designers and coders can produce an enormous amount of surplus value by virtue of the practically free and limitless reproduction of their product. This is an example of what Hardt and Negri (and others) call immaterial labor — forms of production that involve the manipulation of information, ideas, emotions, etc… more than the production of tangible objects, and that tend to utilize distributed networks in their production. While the vast majority of producers in the world are not engaged in this sort of labor, its share of overall value production is steadily rising. One of the key points Hardt and Negri make is that what makes the immaterial labor force important, like the industrial proletariat before it, is not so much is numbers, but its strategic location at centers of the greatest value production. One of the interesting things about this whole dynamic is precisely the fact that it is so easy to “outsource” these high-value-producing jobs to places like India almost as soon as the jobs themselves are created. Now, because these jobs produce so much value it is possible for the workers who perform them to demand much higher pay than other workers while still being exploited at a higher rate overall, but this in itself is by no means a new phenomena in capitalism.
Reproductive labor refers to all the work that goes into producing and reproducing workers, whether that is the domestic or emotional work of spouses, or the work of education and socialization performed by teachers, priests and TV producers. Some of this work is paid, but a great deal of it occurs without compensation in the home. The work of circulation refers to the work done advertising, transporting, and selling things that keeps them moving out of factories and that is neccesary for the realization of surplus value (that is to say the transformation of commodities into money) that can then be reinvested. Marx privileges the production worker as the real producer of surplus value, but low and no-wage reproductive labor and work in the sphere of circulation are both conditions for first the production of and then the realization of that surplus value. In the period of Fordist mass production, Marx’s privileging of the production worker was validated by the economic and political might of the industrial proletariat, but with the breakdown of Fordism the potential of other sectors of the workforce (and actors like students and homemakers outside the traditional definitions of the workforce) seems more significant and the sort of privileging we see in Gangbox’s analysis seems less sustainable, though again we should not confuse a tendency with an accomplished fact and the old-style industrial proletariat still retains considerable weight.
I hope that makes things at least a little clearer. I don’t claim to have a handle on all the implications of this, but I do think these are things that need to be addressed by anyone seriously talking about revolution in the 21st century.
onehundredflowers said
“Despite its formal identification with the international project of proletarian revolution, the ideology of the CCP reflected the objective weakness of the Chinese proletariat vis a vis other classes (the peasantry and the national bourgeoisie) and, importantly, this accounts for their success.”
I think what needs to be brought out here is that the CCP actually had extensive experience organizing the industrial working class, before the strategic emphasis shifted to peasant mobilization. During this time, Mao and others were gaining valuable experience among the peasantry with the Kiangsi Soviet. The role of the working class, and definition of proletariat, would be sources of contention throughout the party’s history. Their claim to “proletarian ideology” wasn’t just a compensatory move or a need to establish continuity with communist tradition but reflected an ideology forged out of some hard-earned, and often tragic, lessons.
TellNoLies said
I probably bent the branch a little far if I suggested that the only basis for the claim was compensatory. But I think the most important lesson of the CCP’s experiences in Shanghai, whether this was stated explicitly or not, was precisely the objective weakness of the Chinese proletariat which constituted no more than 2% of the country’s population at the time of which an even smaller fraction were engaged in industrial production. The organizational accomplishments of the CCP amongst the workers in the 1920s was phenomenal, but this also revealed the objective limits of making the proletariat the social base of a revolutionary movement in China at the time.
It is always important to remember that the version of Mao’s “Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan” that appears in the Selected Works was edited to include obligatory references to the leading role of the working class decades after its initial publication. In its original we see Mao’s heterodoxy much more sharply and I think that is a much more faithful representation of the thought that actually guided the CCP to victory..
Linda D. said
Just want to thank 100 Flo’s, TellNoLies and Gangbox for their above commentary. While it appears that you 3 have some differences, you have offered up some clarity, and made it easier for some of us to compare and contrast over burning questions. Also think the “Theoretical Project” launched by K. will add much to our understanding and even debate.
Like TNL said: “I hope that makes things at least a little clearer. I don’t claim to have a handle on all the implications of this, but I do think these are things that need to be addressed by anyone seriously talking about revolution in the 21st century.”
So, while I will definitely be pondering all that you have laid out, would like to stir up the cauldron a bit more. What do you think about the RCP’s “analysis” of the “real proletariat”?
Quorri said
Linda, do you have links to that RCP analysis?
Linda D. said
¡AUXILIO! Found a few articles but not really addressing what I am referring to, and hope Mike can be more helpful.
http://rwor.org/a/chair/uflp/ba3.htm
“Who Feeds Whom?”
and http://rwor.org/a/chair/flp/ba4.htm
“Unite All Who Can Be United”
My question was more about: During the 80’s the RCP came out with an analysis of who were the REAL proletarians–and as I remember it, their summation was that the real proletariat of “today” are concentrated amongst the lower strata, and specifically among the oppressed nationalities, more specifically African Americans.
And further–The “real” proletariat was “our” base for making rev.
Chuck Morse said
I find it interesting that no one is defending Maoism here (except for Jose M, whose views are cartoonish). This leads me to ask: how could the RCP have possibly succeeded if it is and was premised upon a fundamentally indefensible doctrine? That would seem impossible to me (even if Avakian weren’t such a nut).
Gangbox, I’m glad to see factual data brought into the discussion, although I think you have misread Marx’s proposition. When Marx identified the industrial proletariat as the agent of revolution, it was not only because of its physical proximity to the foundations of the economy, but also because of its centrality to an overall social process in which human beings (que laborers) were becoming conscious of their true, transformative powers. In other words, it was not only the strategic importance of things like mines and railroads (etc) that made the proletariat the agent but also, and more fundamentally, because that class–and that class alone–was situated to learn fundamental truths about human potentialities and build a world based upon them. This is why its interests were universal. Of course, the proletariat’s strategic and philosophical-historical import are related in Marx’s work, but they are distinct too.
For instance, if a group’s practical importance to a revolution was the sole criteria, then we could legitimately describe people like the holder nuclear codes, flight controllers, and even hackers (etc) as the revolutionary agent, despite the fact they are not industrial proletarians by any stretch. Obviously Marxists would not make such an argument (and I’m not suggesting that you are), but I think that such untenable conclusions would be consistent with your formulation.
As an aside, people who work in mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, utilities, and communications are not all proletarians (even according to the most elastic definition). These categories include managers and owners as well.
Mike E said
Moderator note: Chuck Morse’s comment here and an extended reply from Mike Ely are posted as their own thread.
N3wday said
Chuck,
Can you define what you percieve Maoism to be (obviously not every detail but the major defining points)?
Jose M said
Chuck, if you think my views are “cartoonish”, you do it without ever engaging maoism or explaining how wrong it is.
Notice how I dont begin by calling your ideology “anti-communist”, “pure fantasy”, or “irrelevant”, I actually want to get into this.
So, if you think that maoism is “indefensible” or “cartoonish” get into why, because as far as I am concerned, it is the only relevant guide to liberation out there (india, nepal, philipinnes).