Morse & Ely: Kicking Open the Doors of Maoism
Posted by Mike E on August 9, 2008
The following exchange emerges from the discussion of Akil Bomani’s post on the RC4 tour.
Chuck Morse writes:
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.
* * * * *
Mike Ely Responds:
I think there are a number of things that need to be said:
First, I think we can say that major revolutions in the last century were led by Marxist, Leninist and Maoist ideology (which I see as developments of each other). Summing these events up will be an ongoing process — as our perspective on the past informs our view of the present, but our experiences in the present also inform our summation of the past.
And further, i think that if you scour our beautiful blue planet for revolutionary developments and courageous attempts at uprisings you (over and over) find Maoists in the mix — because that ideology and political movement combines dreams of the most radical revolution with a real determination to carry out those dreams in practice (and because, i believe, MLM is an extremely valuable basis on which to start a revolutionary project.)
Second, I think there have been times when Maoism has been highly attractive among the people. In the sixties, it emerged (unmistakably) as the most revolutionary ideology in the most revolutionary period of U.S. history — and that was (as you know ) a world wide phenomenon (for many, very good reasons).
Third: I think the failures of the RCP to get traction among the people is a complex thing to unravel — and it is important to unravel it because (whatever else) the RCP deserves to be seen as one of the most important, persistent, diverse and lofty efforts to generate revolutionary movement in U.S. history.
Fourth: Chuck writes:
“I must take exception to the recurrent assertion that the RCP and Avakian have done great things in the past.”
You are welcome to take exception, and defend it. But I largely agree with Akil when he says
“Avakian has certainly made very valuable contributions to the field of Marxism.”
And I agree with, Zerohour when he 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.”
You say:
“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).”
Obviously, this is not a short discussion.
But (leaving aside the discussion of the RCP’s “great work”) I would like to list some of the contributions of Avakian within the framework of Marxism and the existing international communist movement.
a) Avakian started a process of “charting the uncharted course” that (i believe correctly) criticized and broke with a whole rightist legacy that dominated the left (and the communists) through U.S. history. It is a legacy soaked in the worship of american patriotism, bourgeois democracy, tradeunionism, and all the sacred cows of mainstream liberalism. This was not his achievement alone (it was a huge component of the 60s generally, of SDS, of the Panthers, and more) but he did fight for this and seek to push it forward.
b) Avakian fought for a view that started “from the whole world first” — and argued (and still argues) that successful revolution in any part of the world has to be seen as a base area for the world revolution (rather than subordinating revolution everywhere to the defense of existing socialist countries and their foreign policies.) this too is not his view alone — but he has raised this in important ways (within the framework of communism, and breaking with the framework of both stalin-era communism and third world nationalism of various kinds). and I believe he has correctly unraveled many of the implications of this (in ways no one else has done). I say this while having some critical things to say about his conclusions, and having ALREADY SAID some sharply critical things about Avakian’s own current retreat from internatinalism.
c) I think Avakian made a huge contribution to modern Marxism by fighting for a view of Marxism-as-a-developing-synthesis.
This has been a huge break with religiousity among communists (that has its most influential roots, again, in the Stalin era.) and it was a beginning effort to reaffirm (recapture) the dynamic, critical and experimental nature of marxist inquiry. We have much farther to go, and (unfortunately) Avakian’s forces have now (ironically) reclaimed a religiousity of their own (once it was decided by BA that his own tentative, fragmented, flawed synthesis was *THE* new synthesis needed for our times). but this does not change the fact that his fight for the very concept of synthesis has been important (overall) as a starting point (for the very process he is now, in some important way, obstructing.)
There are more things to mention, but these are raised off the top of my head.
Fifth: I think we need to make this assessment of Avakian, even while pointing out that he has hardly been alone (in the Maoist movement internatinally, or among revolutionaries generally) in making contributions. and while also pointing out that there is much to learn from others (internationally) who have beenthinking about these problems and taking the road of revolution in the real world. And unfortunately the “info diet” approach adopted by the RCP (more and more) has left many communists and revolutionaries with a startlingly impoverished knowledge (or even acquaintance) with revolutionary thinking and experiences around the world.
Sixth: I think it is important, even as we make very sharp and systematic criticism of Avakian’s synthesis to identify ways that he “opened the door” for the process that we need (even if he often didn’t dare to come through those door.
And further: it is rather cheezy (and untrue) to suggest as Chuck does,
“that RCP critics here are mainly trying to protect themselves from claims of RCP bashing.”
And I’m sure you (Chuck) will acknowlege that when step back and look at the situation: The ex-RCP forces posting here are hardly on the defensive, or flinching from the implications of our own analysis. And everyone knows that nothing will “protect” us from claims of “RCP-bashing” — because ANY serious criticism of the RCP produces an intense and hostile response.
No, we raise the question of the RCP’s contributions and Avakian’s contributions because they exist — and because that kind of a materialist and accurate assessment helps us accurately identify what the REAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS are. And if (in the final analysis) you and I don’t ultimately agree on what those problems and those solutions are (for the revolutionary movement) then at least our discussion of these things (including here) contributes to the clarity of the issues.
Seventh: chuck writes:
“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.”
I think this is overdrawn — and one sided. the experience of the RCP is far more complex (in ways indicated in the 9 Letters, and in ways I won’t elaborate here.)
But you then go from “one-sided” to simply false when you say:
“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.”
In fact the undeniable weakness and persistent impotence of the RCP has happened even while Maoism internationally has rebounded from the huge setback suffered in China 1976, and while (rather obviously) you can’t possibly argue that Maoism (generally and internationally) has been simply a failure (not after Peru, India, Nepal, May 1968 in France, the Panthers, the Philippines, the Cultural Revolution etc.)
In closing Chuck writes:
“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.”
Ok, GREEN LIGHT, lets do it.
* * * * * *
Excerpts from the 9 Letters to Our Comrades
finally, I’d like to add a few excerpts from the 9 Letters to Our Comrades as an initial contribution to an assessment of Maoism:
From Letter 1 “A time to speak clearly”:
Without overstating an analogy, revolutionary communists need to undertake a “very presumptuous work.” It requires working through problems, not treating them as dark secrets. We too have reasons for caution. Our disputes take place within reach of a ruthless enemy. Yet, we need to deal with difficult truths about our movement, experiences and beliefs.
A very presumptuous work.
Even the most revolutionary forces have been lagging seriously. In the thirty years since Mao’s death, there has not been another communist revolution, and a whole generation has grown up without revolutionary societies. Communism is not contending within the deep channels of the world’s politics, culture or thought. International efforts to regroup communist forces have not overcome long-standing fractures. As rapid changes rework this planet, there have rarely been parallel innovations in communist understanding and work.
The experience of the last century has convinced many that communist revolution has been a failed dream. And yet, rising from every corner of life, weighing on the brain like a living nightmare, there it is: the horrifying suffering of people and the mounting crimes of this system.
Faced with these challenges, revolutionary communism is dividing into two around us. Or to be more precise: Events are revealing how much this movement already exists as two, three, many Maoisms. Several distinct conceptions now contend among Maoists. [4] There is sharp struggle over how to make the breakthroughs we need in both communist theory and revolutionary practice.
From Letter 4: Truth, Practice and a Confession of Poverty:
There is real glory and continuing value to Maoism, as a body of thought and as a movement for liberation. As a distinct international trend, it was born during the 1960s in raging opposition to both the global rampages of the U.S. and the suffocating gray norms of the Soviet Union. Maoism proclaimed “It is right to rebel against reactionaries,” and gave new life to the revolutionary dream. It said “Serve the People,” and promised that no one (not even the communist vanguard) would be above the interrogations of the people. A loose global current congealed from many eclectic streams, and it included many of the world’s most serious revolutionaries. There have been important and heroic attempts at power — in Turkey, Iran, India, the Philippines, Peru, Nepal and more. There were important revolutionary movements of 1968 that included Maoists in France, Germany, Italy and more. There was real ferment around the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and then at times around the RCP in the U.S.
But since Mao died in 1976, this Maoist movement has not been a fertile nursery of daring analyses and concepts. A mud streak has run through it. Even its best forces often cling to legitimizing orthodoxies, icons, and formulations. The popularization of largely-correct verdicts often replaces the high road of scientific theory — allowing Marxism itself to appear pat, simple and complete. Dogmatic thinking nurtures both self-delusion and triumphalism. In the name of taking established truths to the people, revolutionary communists have often cut themselves off from the new facts and creative thinking of our times.
Letter 9: Traveling Light, Coming from Within
Mao said there is no need to inoculate ourselves from ideas. We must dare to go through things and come out the other side. [124] Maoists, following Mao in this, have to leave the comfort of reassuring illusions and misplaced authority. We have to confront that here in the U.S. we have neither a vanguard organization nor the theoretical breakthroughs we need.
The Maoist project centered on the RU/RCP never really “took off.” It never took root as a leading representative of the oppressed (other than in the most abstracted, self-defined sense). After grappling with this contradiction from many sides, this party’s leadership has now consolidated itself around a course that is a particularly sterile response to long-standing problems. This is concentrated in the adoption of “Avakian as the cardinal question.”
Throughout these letters I have been forced to repeat the words “real,” “actual,” and “living” — over and over — because so much of communist project here in the U.S. has been fantasy draped in fine words.
“When Mao’s Red Army abandoned their early base area, they carried with them all the hard-won apparatus of rebel state power: they brought archives, printing presses, factory equipment, rolls of telephone wire, furniture and more. That baggage cost them dearly in lives, when the heavily burdened column faced its first tests of fire. They then simply left off the boxes and machinery of their old apparatus. What they kept was that material that made sense when integrated into their new mode of existence. They were traveling light. They were ready to improvise, live off the land, and fight.
The analogy to our theoretical moment: We need to discard ruthlessly, but cunningly, in order to fight under difficult conditions. We will be traveling light, without baggage and clutter from earlier modes of existence. We need to preserve precisely those implements that serve the advance, against fierce opposition, toward our end goal. We need to integrate them into a vibrant new communist coherency — as we thrive on the run.
Not a remake of the RCP.It is a great creative challenge. We don’t need a remake of the RCP, but better. The theoretical knife must cut deeper than that. There needs to be negation, affirmation, and then a real leap beyond what has gone before. We need a movement of all-the-way revolutionaries that lives in this 21st century. Not some reshuffling of old cadre, but the beginning reshuffling of a whole society.
We need to take up a great new project of practice — while applying and developing our theory.”
N3wday said
Note: This comment was repeated on a different thread before realizing this was the more appropriate place for it.
Chuck,
Can you define what you percieve Maoism to be (obviosly not every detail but the major defining aspects)? What doctrinal issues specifically are you referring to?
redflags said
Anyone could, conceivably, defend any doctrine. Perhaps the difficulty you’re running into with the apparent lack of stirring, histrionic responses is that (I think) many of us here are more interested in finding the melody of our times and not merely conforming to the narrow spigot of doctrine as such.
When Stan Goff wrote his farewell to all that, to Marxism as a doctrine, it’s what I think he was getting at as well. We don’t need a revamp of a doctrine.
Communism is an intention. Revolutionary is a assessment that these fundamental changes cannot simply grow up in the margins of what exists – but must overturn the state (and, of course, the whole state of affairs).
As socialism developed, many different class forces claimed its turf. And many different, often sharply antagonistic trends have used “socialism” to define what they were. From fascists to anarchists to social democrats to Baathists to folks like us have seen the sense of socialism, but in sharply different meanings.
Communism is the specter that haunts capitalism. It is the implicit tendency that can only become real through conscious activity among the oppressed. Over and over, as socialist movements and societies have burst from the margins to the center – they have been forced to choose roads. Forward to communism, or not.
What may appear as one movement superficially, has never been. And over and over it has split at decisive moments. Sharply and even violently. Think Marx’s break from utopianism, anarchism and LaSallean types of reform.
Or Lenin’s break from the (imperial) socialist orthodoxy of Kautsky (and proud revisionism of Bernstein).
Or Mao from the dead end the Soviet Union had become, and China’s own sadly ascendent capitalist roaders.
Over and over these roads have diverged. Nor is it a neat narrative, with black hats and white hats so easy to distinguish. Trotskyism, for instance. Or the return of non-revolutionary anti-authoritarianism and other varients of autonomism. Or the Chavez types of the world.
Revolutionary communism, rather than the specific (and highly contested) parameters of Maoism or MLM, is a more accurate take on how we are proceeding – and I think far more fruitful for engagement and promotion. Rather than attempting to show how a doctrine does or does not have “universal applicability” or similar, semi-scholastic questions – we should go forward to a beginning.
No one became Maoists in the United States to carry out Protracted People’s War in the countryside, to drive the capitalist roaders from the leadership of “the party” or in the orbit of Avakian and the RCP to toady around for favor from the Chinese state and the monsters running it today.
Rather, in the aftermath of the 1968 moment, Maoism provided a generational way of leveraging revolutionary, anti-revisionist and communist sentiment into coherent political forces.
Now, we could argue – and I would – that Maoism as such is more of a halfway house than a completed work. And in the course of the struggles that defined this movement and ideology, we can mine some very rich lessons for revolutionary intentions and communist goals.
We know much more about class struggle under socialism – that it is real and not simply a matter of sabotage or foreign agents. We have learned to go “lower and deeper” among the people, and clarified that the emancipation of the oppressed is the responsibility of the oppressed themselves. Mao’s theory of the mass line is indispensible for a proletarian revolutionary movement. The Maoist theory of People’s War is, in short, how popular revolutions can actually happen in large parts of the earth. And where communist armies have fought since Mao’s death, chances are they were Maoists. Though even here, in the acute differences between the Communist Party of Peru and the comrades in Nepal, India, Turkey/Kurdistan and the Philippines – we see sharp differences that, as the Nine Letters noted, there are already “two, three, many Maoisms.”
I think this is why you dismiss Maoism as a doctrine much more readily than I suspect you would Mao’s actual contributions. One note here worth mentioning: Mao never himself claimed to have made a Maoist leap, and in his lifetime Maoism was called “Mao Zedong Thought.” As with Lenin and Marx, the ism came later.
I love Mao. He was a great one, a revolutionary and a communist. He was a materialist who applied dialectics in a living way to the real world he inhabited. It was no play acting or betrayal. Socialism in China was not able to outlast him. And in that place is where we will find lines of investigation, contemplation and advancement.
We aren’t trying to “do it over and better”. We are, in truth, starting from here. We don’t need to search out the ideologically authentic(!) and view the world from the bottom of any doctrinal well.
That all said, I think your utterly stark assessment is wrong. Here is a movement that has managed to push against a very strong tide, when many others gave up and went home or even switched sides. To call one of the few flags in the field a simple failure because we don’t live in a socialist world is short-sighted, and accepts the peddlers of doctrine for the process of revolution. Mike was right in that where we’ve seen revolution, we’ve seen these forces quite often in the mix. Because they were not always so doctrinal, and doctrine is itself much of your target – don’t cut the our communist feet to fit those categorical shoes… even if we have far too often done it to ourselves.
Chuck Morse said
(I wrote this response before seeing N3wday and Redflag’s posts)
Hi Mike,
Thanks for opening up this thread. It pleases me to know that this site is such a good forum for tackling these complicated issues.
I’ll say a few things in reply to your comments.
First, you point out the Maoists have played an important role in various uprisings and revolutions throughout the last century. That’s obviously a fair assessment, but celebrating the legacy and embracing the doctrine are two different things. Indeed, it is still not clear to me what part of the Maoist doctrine you still uphold. I tried to pose this question to N3wday in the discussion of the RC4 tour when I asked: “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 would be really interested in your reply to this.
Second, I will respond to your assessments of “contributions of Avakian within the framework of Marxism and the existing international communist movement.”
Ely writes: “a) Avakian started a process of “charting the uncharted course” that (i believe correctly) criticized and broke with a whole rightist legacy that dominated the left (and the communists) through U.S. history. It is a legacy soaked in the worship of american patriotism, bourgeois democracy, tradeunionism, and all the sacred cows of mainstream liberalism. This was not his achievement alone (it was a huge component of the 60s generally, of SDS, of the Panthers, and more) but he did fight for this and seek to push it forward.”
My reply: it’s not exactly clear to me what you mean by “charting the uncharted course” or, why you use quotes here, but I assume that you are referring to the break with the American Communist Party and pre-WWII communism generally. If that is what you are talking about, I think it is a mistake to argue that Avakian played an important role in that development. As you say, it was a “huge component of the 60s generally” and, indeed, none of the dozens of activists from that period that I’ve met have indicated Avakian’s importance in that context. And, likewise, not one of the dozens of 1960s memoirs that I have read have indicated that he played an important role in the turn from pre-World War II communism. Clearly he had a powerful impact on you, but he seems to have been totally marginal otherwise. He was barely mentioned in Max Elbaum’s Revolution In The Air: Sixties Radicals turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che, where he should he have been a leading character according to your description. You also may get a sense of his impact by searching for his name on Google Books. Try this search.
Ely writes: b) Avakian fought for a view that started “from the whole world first” — and argued (and still argues) that successful revolution in any part of the world has to be seen as a base area for the world revolution (rather than subordinating revolution everywhere to the defense of existing socialist countries and their foreign policies.) this too is not his view alone — but he has raised this in important ways (within the framework of communism, and breaking with the framework of both stalin-era communism and third world nationalism of various kinds). and I believe he has correctly unraveled many of the implications of this (in ways no one else has done). I say this while having some critical things to say about his conclusions, and having ALREADY SAID some sharply critical things about Avakian’s own current retreat from internatinalism.
My reply: This is a strategic point, but in my view it is a platitude that has little significance when coming from someone whose party never had any influence.
Ely writes: “c) I think Avakian made a huge contribution to modern Marxism by fighting for a view of Marxism-as-a-developing-synthesis. this has been a huge break with religiousity among communists (that has its most influential roots, again, in the Stalin era.) and it was a beginning effort to reaffirm (recapture) the dynamic, critical and experimental nature of marxist inquiry. We have much farther to go, and (unfortunately) Avakian’s forces have now (ironically) reclaimed a religiousity of their own (once it was decided by BA that his own tentative, fragmented, flawed synthesis was *THE* new synthesis needed for our times). but this does not change the fact that his fight for the very concept of synthesis has been important (overall) as a starting point (for the very process he is now, in some important way, obstructing.)”
My reply: the concept of synthesis (developing or otherwise) is something inherited from a kind of crude reading of Hegel and its use in this context is not significant. Indeed, for Hegelians, Marxist and otherwise, all facts and ideologies are “developing syntheses.”
Ely: Sixth: I think it is important, even as we make very sharp and systematic criticism of Avakian’s synthesis to identify ways that he “opened the door” for the process that we need (even if he often didn’t dare to come through those door.
My reply: Could you elaborate on this? What has he opened the door to? Frankly, it seems like he’s mainly responsible for a lot of disillusionment
Ely: “And further: it is rather cheezy (and untrue) to suggest as Chuck does, “that RCP critics here are mainly trying to protect themselves from claims of RCP bashing.” And I’m sure you (Chuck) will acknowlege that when step back and look at the situation”
My reply: my apologies if I mischaracterized yours or anyone else’s intentions with this statement. I actually thought that I was being generous by attributing some strategic, political motives to those who testify to Avakian’s importance.
Jose M said
Chuck says:
“The idea that the industrial proletariat will be the agent of revolution? The emphasis on the peasantry? The celebration of Stalinism?” I would be really interested in your reply to this.”
I don’t want to replace comrade newday, I just want to add my thoughts on this.
For me, the most important aspect of maoism that I embrace, and see as indispensible as redflags does, is its methodology. The mass line, serve the people, etc., are all the truly beautiful things that we should all uphold, and maoists are known for implementing in practice.
Another thing is the theory of cultural revolution under socialism with the understanding the capitalist roaders manifest themselves within the communist vanguard who attempt to push forward lines and policies that obstruct the socialist process. I think this is universal, and can and will happen in any nation that is in a revolutionary movement or society as a result of the contradictions of the old society. It is happening in Nepal as we speak. Within the party there is a line struggle between those who want to continue the compromise and pursue a ‘peaceful road’ against the rev. communists who see this process as a transition of the overall struggle to achieve a radically new state power.
The things I dont feel as compelled to uphold in maoism’s legacy (but will do if i feel the necessity too and feel it right to at any given time) is his position on Stalin, the “three worlds theory”, and other such things that are not a primary aspect of his overall methodology (as if the mass line, serve the people, concrete study, fuck dogma, etc).
Joseph Ball said
Dear Mike
If you think Avakian really made a contribution to revolutionary thought, why are you trying to undermine it by setting up your rival party?
Certainly there are things to disagree with in Avakian’s thought such as McWorld vs. Jihad. But what are your contributions to Marxism going to be Mike? Let’s be clear, whatever disputes may exist, Avakian has contributed to Marxist thought and the cause of world revolution. I have seen no evidence that the party you are trying to set up can develop anything like a revolutionary line. I don’t believe the political line you promise will never advance much beyond bland generalities and left-liberal sentimentality. The only thing that will be solid in your line is trade unionism and reformism. I really think you are engaged in wrecking activity. Recognise that you stayed in the RCP so long because you actually NEEDED Avakian’s leadership because, whatever your talents as an activist and a newspaper editor, you actually needed someone to help you clarify your political line. Maybe you weren’t always listened to as much as you should have been but your response to that has been disproportionate and unwarranted.
Jose M said
Joseph, are you an RCP supporter?
Just wondering.
nando said
I don’t think people should have to label themselves or be labeled in these discussions. Let’s just deal with each other’s arguments.
zerohour said
Chuck –
I agree with Mike, a fuller assessment of RCP’s work would require more time and deeper collective summation. “Great” may have been a bit hyperbolic, but I stand by my point that it was valuable work worth defending.
As I understand your argument, RCP’s work is a failure on one level, because of RCP itself, but RCP’s problems are not its alone. Rather they derive from more fundamental flaws in Marxism [-Lenininsm] itself, so they were doomed to fail regardless of their best efforts. Please elaborate on this.
More importantly, I’d like to hear more about what how you understnad success, and, if you feel so inclined, how anarchism has achieved this, where Marxist-Leninists have failed.
Joseph –
You have no basis for any of your accusations and it’s sad to see your comments degenerate to the level of RCP-like invective. It is Kasama’s perspective that RCP is wrecking itself, and is beyond any likelihood of rectification in the near future. Any attempt at such an effort would be time-consuming, when our time would be better spent developing a revolutionary communist trend appropriate for our conditions, with a vision genuinely rooted in the lived experience of the masses. This will require much struggle, and there are no guarantees, but it’s better than struggling with an organization bent on self-sabotage. If you think such work is “disproportionate and unwarranted”, perhaps you can provide a better reason to go down with a sinking ship than “go with the devil you know.”
It’s obvious the that 9 Letters has had an impact, RCP has published several responses to it already. If we have had any traction at all, it’s because our critique resonates with the experience of many over the years [for some, decades] who have worked with RCP, in some cases very deeply. To call the 9 Letters and the Kasama Project “disproportionate” should give anyone pause. Over the years, RCP has been virulently attacked by other groupings who have years of experience, consolidated lines and numbers greater than Kasama. If you believe that a “left-liberal” “trade unionist” “reformist” organization can wreck RCP with “bland generalities” perhaps you should re-think their viability.
zerohour said
Chuck –
“He was barely mentioned in Max Elbaum’s Revolution In The Air: Sixties Radicals turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che, where he should he have been a leading character according to your description.”
The Revolutionary Union, under Avakian’s leadership, was discussed and Elbaum credited them with setting the terms of debate within the New Communist Movement with Red Papers 1. This was no small achievement in the left following the break-up of SDS and the confusion among revolutionaries at the time.
This discussion would be more fruitful if you focused more on understanding RCP’s history rather than looking for reasons, even trivial ones, to tear them down.
Chuck Morse said
Zerohero,
For the purposes of the discussion here, I think it is enough say that the RCP failed according to its own stated goals (which, as it happens, is exactly what I said). Do you disagree with my assessment?
It is true that Elbaum devotes a fair amount of attention to the Red Papers 1, but the subject of this thread was/is Avakian. Elbaum scarcely mentions him and no one outside of RCP circles argues that he has made a notable contribution to Marxism. Do you think he has made a significant contribution to Marxism?
I am not sure why you ask about my ideas on anarchism, given that they have nothing to do with this thread. However, if you are interested my views, please feel free to check out my (very modest) writings on my blog at http://www.negations.net. Or, if you’re interested discussing anarchism more broadly, you can find plenty of opportunities to do so (online and otherwise).
Nando said
On the practical side: I think the verdict that the RCP made major and often creative political efforts, and that it did at times seem to show the beginnings of beachheads (LA 1990s…), is a context within which we can understand the larger failures.
This was not a “nutty” endeavor. It was not worthless on its surface. It was, quite the contrary, one of the very few serious efforts in U.S. history to actually create a revolutionary movement (and in that, i think it deserves consideration on a par with the IWW, or the CP, or the Panthers, and perhaps one or two other projects).
The RCP had considerably less success at building a base for itself and its politics than any of those other efforts — and i think that needs to be unraveled too.
But in many ways, what we have left from the past is experience to sum up. Simply dismissing past experiences as worthless (the experience of socialist countries, the experiences of earlier communist movements, and also the experience of serious anarchist movements in places like spain) is to literally throw away something precious — something very hard won, something we desperately need.
On one of the issues: “charting the uncharted course”
The RCP correctly pointed out a number of things: First that the earlier communist movement (specifically the comintern) had not solved the strategic questions of how to make revolution in an imperialist country. they had developed a series of strategies (that I won’t review here) but they were disastrous (each in its own way).
Second, that each revolution breaks the rules that seems certain from previous revolutions. (this is expressed in the last chapter of “Mao’s Immortal contributions” — an important work by BA in the 1970s). This is quite opposed to a widespread view that each revolution succeeds by closely adhering (“persevering”) to the rules deduced from previous revolutions.
Third: in the later 1980s, the RCP deepened this somewhat (in part under the influence of Gonzalo and the PCP), in the adoption of their formulation “October revolution, yes but…”
In particular they started grappling with the fact that the U.S. (a stable bourgeois democracy ruling much of the world) is not nearly as fragile as the Tsarist autocracy (an obviously moribund, and quite inflexible system that had lost much legitimacy). In particular they started exploring the fact that revolution in the U.S. was unlike to take the form of “kicking through a rotten wall.”
In a place with a discredited, besieged and fading government (the Tsar, the Nepali monarchy, a foreign occupation like the Japanese in china) the initial revolutionary efforts are able to develop an extremely broad united front — involving very widely disparate forces with (temporarily) a common immediate enemy. In the U.S. — with far higher methods of cooptation, so-called “political reserves,” proven ability to make adjustments, a flexible system of replacing individual rulers without automatically de-legitimizing the system itself etc. — conditions are simply, well, different.
The fact that the RCP approached all this with the slogan “October Revolution, yes but…” underscores what i think will prove to have been their problem: They (and here I mean Avakian, of course) raise these problems, “open the door” to the discussion, but over and over frame it in a way that tightly limits the discussion and even (deliberately) rules out some of the options to be considered.
Specifically: It was important (in the early 70s) to point out that the U.S. was not a likely terrain for protracted peoples war — and in the split with the line of protracted war in the U.S. (put forward by the Venceremos facton of the RU), the Weatherpeople at one point and the Black Liberation Army wing of the Panthers — it WAS correct (even essential) to affirm that the U.S. had a unified national market and a very strong central state (unlike semifeudal countries) and that it was therefore impossible to develop self-standing liberated zones within the borders of the U.S. over a long period of strategic defensive.
And similarly it was correct to point out that it is unwise to “go over to a war footing” with the U.S. government outside of extreme crises in which the government itself is paralized in many ways.
However to affirm this as the “October Road” imposed a specific model, and a very specific view of how revolution happens (including a view of armed insurrection followed by civil war) — in a way that is very mechanical, and that assumes a high degree of typical motion. It greatly UNDER-estimates how different the U.S. is from Russia 1917. It over-estimates universality and underestimates particularity.
So, yes, on the point of “charting the uncharted course” — the RCP (and Avakian) made some important contributions (especially if your framework is the existing international communist movement), and yet, looking back, we can see at the same time this pattern of correctly “opening the door for discussion” while forcefully excluding important possibilities from considerations.
I also want to assert that it IS important to see the framework of the international communist movement as valuable. Yes, some of these ruptures are ruptures with the dogmas of the Comintern and its modern followers. Yes, other people in the world were never that influenced by those dogmas. But it is important that there is such an international communist movement — it exists, it has long gathered many of the world’s most important and determined revolutionary forces, and there is real value to the framework of revolutionary communism (as it has historically evolved) despite the very problems we are sticking our fingers into.
Nando said
Chuck writes:
Clearly the RCP failed according to its own stated goals. No one can possibly dispute that. All that is needed is to document their stated goals (over and over through the last thirty years). Their overall goal was to “prepare minds and organize forces for revolution,” to “create public opinion and seize power.”
The RCP (with the distortion that marks all their recent polemics) says that we are merely charging that “they failed because they didn’t seize power.” But, that is not true.
Their failures include a long series of intermediate goals (building political base areas, creating “conveyor belts” tothe party, “take marxism-leninism home to the working class,” and more recently create a favorable repolarization of society between the Christian Fascists and the forces grouped around Bob Avakian.
So that part of your assessment, Chuck, is not controversial here. And is (in fact) and important part of the 9 Letters to Our Comrades (starting specifically with letter 2).
But it is the first part of your assessment that is disputable:
“I think it is enough say that the RCP failed…”
It is precisely NOT enough to say that.
to dig into that a bit:
American pragmatism has a very simple measure: if something works it is right. If something fails it is a loser and should be discarded.
This is an ideology that emerged in a country that had few setbacks, lost few wars, rose through conquest of much weaker peoples, and exploded on the edge of industrial technology toward being a world power. It is a simplistic, and very American way of looking at things.
but in fact, in our world, often correct things fail for a while.
It is possible to be on a correct path, with correct understandings and yet lose — simply because at a particular conjuncture you had less force than your determined enemy.
So our method has to be toward the RCP (but also other experiences we examine in the history of communism and revolution): identify how this trend fared, what it accomplished, where it failed…
Determine the causes of the setbacks: how much was objective conditions? How much was errors — in these sense that there were decisions made by the “conscious forces” that they could have handled differently? How much of what they did was quite fine and should be learned from?
* * * *
To get into some specifics of the RCP:
It has been important to point out the failures bluntly (in the beginning of Letter 2) precisely because the RCP has played a shell game with its own supporters. they have NOT dealt with any of this “open and above board” — but used a method of secrecy, information diet and misdirection to keep their supporters from summing up even the most basic facts about their own movement.
How many of their party supporters understand what happened to the attempts at political base areas in the 80s and 90s? How many understand the relatively steady decline in party strength over its whole history (i.e. that its biggest day was the day it was founded, and its smallest day was probably yesterday)? How many have a clue of the gridlocked state of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement — or the isolation of Avakian within that movement? How many have a sense of just how limited the circulation of their press is?
So to even start an accounting of this movement — its strengths and weaknesses, its contributions and failures — it is necessary to blast away the cloud of nonsense, the hype that propels people from one faltering campaign to the next.
But the purpose of that is precisely NOT to simply dismiss it all — but to gleen as much as we can from the experience, and create conditions where we can (carefully and collectively) identify insights into how to take the revolutionary road.
This is a break with the American pragmatic approach to setbacks. And it recognizes that (unfortunately) learning from failure is a necessary condition of the oppressed — because so much of the history of oppressed people is (as Mao wrote) “fight, fail, fightagain.”
* * * * *
A brief comment on the discussion of Elbaum:
I was there through all the period Elbaum discusses. I thought the opening of his book (the first third) was a useful sketch of the tens of thousands of radicals-who-became-communists in the late sixties.
But his book (especially the rest of it) is a self-serving polemic — where he removes any facts that dont fit his thesis, and exaggerates many things that do fit his thesis.
Elbaum was not part of “the new communist movement” — his political current was a “back to the old CP” caucus that was (basically and almost from the beginning) OPPOSED to forming a new and revolutionary movement.
And so, let’s not (not for a single second!) take his deeply flawed and very onesided account as some kind of truthful history of all this. Almost everything I saw that was of value in the RCP was missing or distorted in his book.
Chuck writes “the subject of this thread was/is Avakian. Elbaum scarcely mentions him.”
Well that fact means zero to me, and it should mean zero to you.
Chuck writes:
“no one outside of RCP circles argues that he has made a notable contribution to Marxism.”
Actually this is factually mistaken. The Nepali Maoists (who are teetering on the edge of seizing power) have repeatedly pointed out that the works written in defense of revolutionary communism (in the face of the coup in china and the horrific reversal of the world’s main socialist country) played a key role in regrouping the world communist movement, and in their own particular path toward revolution and power.
They say this while having (as Kasama does) sharp criticisms of Avakian’s “new synthesis” — but they do, always and consistently, acknowledge the importance of the advice they got from the RIM, and (in various ways) acknowledging specifically the work of Avakian in that.
And his work then was, in fact, an important contribution to the defense of the revolutionary heart communism — and it did include elements that were new and important in their own right. (I.e. as Avakian himself says: you can’t just “defend” marxism from capitulation without also developing it in some key ways.)
Looking forward to everyone’s further remarks on all these matters!
josetheredfox said
Joseph Ball writes:
“Recognize that you [Mike Ely] stayed in the RCP so long because you actually NEEDED Avakian’s leadership because, whatever your talents as an activist and a newspaper editor, you actually needed someone to help you clarify your political line. Maybe you weren’t always listened to as much as you should have been but your response to that has been disproportionate and unwarranted.”
The statement above reminds me of the colonial imaginary embedded in the poem, “The White Man’s Burden” by the English poet Rudyard Kipling (1899). Following the linear modes of production, Mike Ely “NEEDS” to be taken by the hand like a child (or like “third world” nation that is “underdeveloped”) because they cannot survive on their own. They “need” us.
Actually, part of this colonial thinking/practice suggests that ‘one stands on their own ground’ while you are actually standing on someone else (usually, the periphery) and then trying to mask the colonial relationship.
I’m sure Mike Ely made contributions to revolution as “an activist and a newspaper editor” (i take it this was dis by Joseph Ball?) but the thing is that, like in many revolutionary conjunctures, crisis + danger creates opportunities. I say fuck it, if the relationship is abusive/coercive, break away.
Green light.
besos revolucionarios, j.p.
Joseph Ball said
Just to clarify, I am not an RCP supporter because (i) I don’t live in the USA (ii) I don’t support McWorld vs. Jihad and (iii) my other work would not leave me with the time to join any party.
I have tried to be ‘nice’ about Mike Ely’s little venture in the past but now it is shaping up to be a major problem.
Someone asked why a ‘reformist, trade unionist’ party would be such a threat to a revolutionary party that had the right line. This is a rather ahistorical statement. By the time I had finished listing all the reformist, trade unionist parties that had undermined revolutionary struggle, both in the imperialist world and the Third World (ever heard of the UML anyone?) the evening would have long finished and the dawn chorus would be ringing out.
Reformism is popular because it is easy and it seems logical (why go through all the sacrifice of revolution when you can improve things gradually instead?) Bob Avakian has been trying to make revolution in the richest country in the world. Faced with such a hard job, it’s not surprising that some of his ex-supporters want to go off and take the easy route of becoming trade union officials or joining other reformists groups in order to ‘be with the people’.
OK, there’s no way this trade unionist line will be enough to destroy RCP-USA. But it can take away some activists and undermine RCP-USA’s potential to sustain current activities. Also, its always a problem when you have people putting themselves forward as Maoists or communists who just divert people into wasting their time on reformism. Organisations like ‘Kasama’ can provide a trap for the unwary. Yes, RCP-USA can recover from this kind of split, I’m sure, but do the people really deserve another set-back on the road to revolution caused by yet another attempt to divert revolutionaries into reformism?
nando said
Ok, joseph, I’ll bite: Take a moment to explain your constant (and unsubstantiated) charge of “trade unionist and reformist.”
at least on this site and its discussion, casual labeling won’t get your very far.
Nothing about the 9 Letters or the Kasama project calls for tradeunionism of any kind.
And if you want to argue that Kasama is a reformist project, dig into it. Where? How? On what basis?
You can start, perhaps, with a critique of the actual public statement now being widely circulated by Kasama — one which is (i think) clear on some important and basic things.
So, take a moment, and explain your claims.
******
Also i believe that your resurrection of the Stalin-era term “wrecker” is relevant. Then (and now) it is a way of attacking political opponents by making charges about their motives (not their line). It is part of the stalin era confusion of objective and subjective — and it is part of that periods sloppy and destructive culture of accusing all political opponents and dissidents of simply being agents of capitalism.
Jose M said
Joseph Ball,
I see no evidence, other than your own seemingly unwarranted opinions, that Kasama is reformist, or is even on that path. We have always maintained that Kasama is a “communist project for the forcible overthrow of existing social conditions” (or something like that). How is that reformist?
What makes you think this?
I understand, and so does Kasama, that the RCP and Avakian have for a long time been the only serious communist pole in the United States.
One of the main reasons Kasama was formed was because the RCP can (in reality) no longer recover from what has been their downfall (for many years). Its not as if the RCP needs us to become destroyed, theyve been doing that due to their current methods, way of looking of themselves, BA, and the people for a long time, a long process (that many have just begun to see due to the RCPs cover up).
Zerohour does make a strong point that if a ‘liberal, trade unionist’ organization can defeat the RCP (and defeat is not something Kasama is looking for, that defeats the purpose of our mission) then it shows its weak leadership, method of dealing with outside criticism, and weak popular support (if any at all).
Are we reformists because we “want to be with the people”? If we wanted to be with the people for its own sake, to fight for their immediate living conditions, I would call that reformist, because reformist it is. But to strive to create a new “communist coherency” that can seek roots into the oppressed masses and lead them in rev struggle is not reformist at all. It is to strive to, and work towards, what is critically necessary at a time like this, and to make revolution (something the RCP has ignored, in terms of not summing up their failures to learn).
Chuck Morse said
(I wrote this in response to Nando’s posts at 9:54 and 10:18 (not his very last one at 1:17))
Hi Nando,
Thanks for the post. You raise many interesting questions. I will reply.
But, first, for the sake of clarity, I want to point out that I did not introduce a pragmatic standard of truth into the discussion. I stated (above) that “[t]he RCP has been a complete and utter failure according to its own stated goals (and others, too, of course.).”. . . I pointed to criteria other than the RCP’s advisedly there, although I do think it is helpful to begin from the disconnect between the RCP’s stated goals and its actual results in order to (hopefully) lead the way to an imminent critique of the experience.
With respect to that experience, I would not encourage anyone to dismiss the history of the RCP or, for that matter, any group. On the contrary: evaluating the experience is valuable. What matters to me is how we do so.
Obviously it is important to establish historical referents, but I think you are mistaken to claim that the RCP “deserves consideration on a par with the IWW, or the CP, or the Panthers” (if, by this, you mean that it was/is was of comparable significance). Think about it: at their respective highpoints, the IWW, the CP, and the Panthers mobilized tens of thousands of people (in the CP’s case, hundreds of thousands); threw the social order into real crises; and had deep roots among some of the most oppressed populations in the US. The RCP, on the other hand, has never been able to mobilize more than a few thousand (at the very most), never threatened anything, and never had significant popular roots. Clearly the group had an important impact on you, but that’s a different matter. In any case, the IWW, CP, and Panthers are in a totally different league.
I appreciate your enumeration of what are, in your opinion, Avakian’s contributions to Marxism. Before I reply, I want to ask you about a linguistic convention that makes it somewhat difficult to respond to you (and one common among people who are, or were, in the RCP’s orbit): the tendency to constantly put political ideas in quotations. You did this repeatedly in the two posts above (“charting the uncharted course”; “October revolution, yes but…”; “open the door”; “October Road”; “take marxism-leninism home to the working class”; “you can’t just “defend” marxism from capitulation”). Sects have rhetorical strategies to protect themselves from scrutiny and critique (Avakian’s tortured prose being a good example), but what about you? Why can’t you state your ideas more forthrightly?
Ok, having said that, I will point out that your list of the RCP contributions is purely negative: it broke away from the existing Communist bloc countries: it grasped that the old models of revolution are inadequate; it realized that the US is stronger than some thought. . . These are all negative points–yes, Marxist-Leninism-Maoism was inadequate in various ways–but where are the positive contributions? What unique perspectives or insights did it offer?
And, besides, the break from the old, Soviet-style communism was ubiquitous in the American left and around the world in the 1970s and there is no evidence to suggest that Avakian was in any way an important factor in this development.
And how can you celebrate Avakian as a model for innovation when the RCP’s response to actually existing, Soviet Bloc communism was to point people back to Lenin, Stalin, and Mao (that is, against “revisionism”)? Do you really believe that that is forward thinking?
Where exactly do the Nepalese Maoists argue that Avakian made an important contribution to Marxism? Could you provide a citation?
With respect to Elbaum, I don’t think his (or your) sectarian commitments in the 1970s have any bearing on the veracity of his reading of the RCP. If you disagree with his claims, why not tell us which ones and why?
… whatever the history of the RCP may or may not have to teach, it is my opinion that the experience should be framed in far more critical terms than those indicated by you, Nando.
nando said
Chuck writes:
It is true that the IWW, CP and the Panthers had in their heyday a deeper impact on politics and had far deeper roots than the RCP ever did. However the idea that we should simply judge the “league” of experiences by that measure is a bit of what i was (loosely) calling a pragmatic approach.
We can’t boil down our summations to the old american adage “If you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich.” (I.e. how can you be considered a serious revolutionary attempt if you never “lit the sky” in a massive way?)
I was making a category of “serious attempts at making a revolution.” And I think at various times in their development this was true of the groups I mentioned (just as it is NOT true of many other groupings we can mention). And I mean serious both in the sense of intent, protracted effort, quality of specific projects, etc. not just overall objective impact.
and there are other standards: by most measures both the IWW and the Panthers were really “flashes in the pan.” They got large very quickly, captured imagination in some key places, and then essentially disipated (in part because of the severity of the repression, but not mainly for that reason.)
I also think that we need to consider and examine why a serious attempt at one particular time (Wobblies before WW1, CP after the Russian Revolution, Panthers in late 1960s) gets traction, while a serious attempt at some other time (i.e. the RCP was formed as the 60s collapsed) faces sterile decades ahead.
Chuck writes:
Yes, it is a struggle to develop a common language — and i guess it is an inherent problem/task during the emergence of a new process (regroupment and reconception).
Just to be clear: I put quotes around certain things mainly because I am quoting something/someone. These are not my ideas per se, but mainly phrases developed specifically by the RCP to encapsulate its verdicts. So “Charting the Uncharted Course” is the public title given to the excerpt from a Central Committee report of the RCP in 1979 — and is a key concept and verdict developed in that report. And “October Road, yes but…” is a key concept of the RCP around how to view the forms and mechanics of actually seizing power — i.e. they affirm the model of the October Revolution as a “road,” but argue that it will inevitably have distinctive characteristics in every country, and particularly within the U.S.
I mention those concepts (and give them in quotes) precisely to allude to markers well known by students of the RCP, to make clear which concepts, decisions and summations I am talking about.
The Kasama polemic with the RCP itself is still ongoing — because there are many people in and around the RCP still seriously and honestly struggling to sum up what has gone wrong with that party, and what should take its place (as it spirals off into its sad endgame).
And some of that close-quarter polemic must (by its nature) refer to very specific concepts and episodes in the RCP’s history — not because they have lots of universal importance, but because they have importance for people who have been through that specific experience. That’s why we need to reference (and explain) the RCP’s specific jargon.
I’m not against all jargon. Revolutionary politics does need (as Badiou for example emphasizes) to “name things” anew. It is part of every great rupture in the hegemony of the status quo — but this does not happen by a small grouplet joisting its rather arcane jargon onto the people (while self-importantly insisting that its eccentric phrasing and wording is somehow indispensable “scientific terminology.”)
Having said that, your straight question deserves a straight answer: I think all of us around Kasama are deeply committed to finding a clear and new way of speaking. It is part of shrugging off the dead hand of the past, and giving the revolutionary movement a fresh start. It is part of completing the criticism of the old communist movements “classicism” and dogmatism (the treatment of its own texts and pronouncements as quasi-religious truths).
I think much of the terminology used by the left (and especially by communists) is isolating and exhausted (i.e. it is drained of popular meaning, so that it only has juice for those schooled in its particular assigned meaning). I think we need to make a serious and protracted effort to find new ways of speaking — without discarding the actual concepts and insights of Marxism that are indispensable for what we are undertaking.
Chuck writes:
I don’t agree. Every negation involves an affirmation. Every new affirmation requires negation.
There is a great deal of negation that has been needed around the international communist movement. And Avakian certainly did a share of that (in regard to the trade unionism and American patriotism of the old CP — but also more…..)
Now, decades later, it may be hard to recapture how new some of that was. (Essentially, the old patterns of the 1930s were often being offered to us as solutions to the emerging problems of the 1960s — the worst kind of “fidelity to the fidelity”! And Avakian fought that deadly deception. William Z. Foster Thought was for a while quite a wind that competed with revolutionary thinking.)
I think that every break with specific concepts of older Marxism was part of the creation of new insights. My argument is that in Avakian’s case they are often partial and overly cautious. They tend (even as they break with some of the most hardened dogmatism of the past) to cling to an overestimation of universality, and retreat from an ongoing engagement with the particularity of our road. (The old late ’20s communist rejection of “American Exceptionalism” overlooked the “Exceptionalism” of all revolutions in all countries.)
I think that on a number of things Avakian brought forward new things — I think his view of synthesis is distinctive. Certainly his view of the global process of revolution is distinctive and his approach to “socialism in one country” is distinctive, and certainly his defeatist approach to World War 2. And so on.
Now, I have to assert that I don’t have some quick, pat, tidy assessment of all that. I agree with the overall Kasama point that there has to be a PROCESS of “reconception” — one that requires new collectivities, new investgations, debates, and also layers of new practice.
so I don’t intend to make a pocket summation of everything now — it would be premature, and it would inevitably prove wrong in the end.
but I do think there was much there worth thinking about — and anyone who has investigated the theoretical work of the RCP (which is essentially Avakian’s work) knows that there was a real attempt to get up on a high plane, to look at matters deeply, to make some breaks that were needed in quite entrenched communist verdicts, and to probe for new solutions to some old problems.
The fact that this was not carried through all the way, and the fact that this was not carried through to correct solutions, means that we are here together talking about it.
Chuck writes:
Without being flip here, I am tempted to answer simply by saying “yes.”
but to be more serious for a second: The RCP never mainly pointed people “back.” that was exactly the point of “charting the uncharted course” — the assertion that there were not pat models or simple formulas in the communist past, but that the revolutionary process needed to be seen as an “uncharted course.”
I think we need to look closely at the two great revolutions of the last century (Russia and China) — where almost a third of humanity was profoundly stirred in unprecedented ways. Not in order to “go back to that” or to pick up models (in some simplistic way) but because these are experiences with profound revolutionary processes happening in real life (not in utopian schema, or apriori principles).
Also, let me remind you that as the RU/RCP was forming — there was nothing “back” about Mao. He was a CONTEMPORARY figure, in the present — and leading the rather unprecedented and (imho) soulstirring cultural revolution. Never before in history had millions of people actually come into motion in a struggle that so directly combined issues of immediate power with the explicit question of what their road to communism should be.
Chuck writes:
There are a number of places where the Nepali Maoists discuss the contributions of RIM and RCP to their very founding as a party determined to make a revolution (i.e. in the early 1990s). It is in key documents of the Worker, and are posted on the South Asia Revolution site. I don’t have time (right now) to dig up the particular passages, but they are certainly both sincere and justified. And they are made now in a way similar to our own discussion — to put their own rather sharp disagreements with Avakian into perspective.
Perhaps someone else can dig the specific quotes up, or (if not) i will try to do it.
In general, Avakian’s book (Mao’s Immortal Contribution) is one work that went around the world — certainly among communists. It had a profound impact on regrouping Maoists after the setback in china — and is widely regarded (as anyone who has spoken to Indian or Turkish Maoists can attest). Part of the impact is that this explanation of mao’s work is not a passive one — merely reflecting what Mao himself said or did — but is the beginnings of this process of making a new synthesis (out of the earlier forms of Marxism-Leninism) and out of the very ways that Mao is discussed and summed up.
Chuck writes:
I think the last two thirds of his book are a rather conservative slander of revolutionary politics disguised as a history. It does to the new communist movement what Todd Gitlin did to SDS — write a history to attack and distort the key revolutionary currents that emerged.
As for telling which ones and why… I agree with you that needs to be done. I thought it was incredibly short sighted that the RCP didn’t do so when the book got out (and was building its undeserved reputation). It is a sign of the RCP’s insularity and utter lack of nimbleness. If I ever have a free month, I will put together a review that will lay all this bare. but for the moment, heh, we are necessarily more focused on the immediate future than our own rather-distant past.
Chuck ends with:
Sure I imagine that is true, chuck. but i don’t think you should underestimate how critical my approach is (or, as letter 9 says “how deep the theoretical knife must go.”) And you should not overlook that our framework is developing — because this process of summation is not simple, or quick, or solitary.
Iris said
I actually agree with the bit about quotations. This is one of my serious peeves with the R paper. When they were publishing about Horowitz they referred to his tour as “Islamo-fascism Awareness ‘Week'”. This ‘week’…” I mean the most innocuous straight-forward shit is always in quotes, sometimes in a non-sensical way that just implies mocking tone.
I know none of the commenters here meant it in a slogan-y way. I suppose that if one is to discuss RCP methodology, one has to use their weird slogans. But as an outsider interested in exposing and summing up the RCP’s past and current lines and practice, shouldn’t we be exposing and defining their usage of slogans and words for their common meanings–for example, their definition of economism seems to be more like what is commonly called pragmatism.
“charting the uncharted course”; “October revolution, yes but…”; “open the door”; “October Road”; “take marxism-leninism home to the working class”; “you can’t just “defend” Marxism from capitulation” These mean nothing to me, except what people who are in the know tell me they mean. It is sort of dis-empowering and discouraging at times, and as I have desperately been telling cadre, the way you write reflects your methodology and approach.
If Kasama wants to chart a new revolutionary road, ‘movement speak’–the RCP having some of the most intricate, esoteric and confusingly bizarre I’ve seen in my small experience–needs to be discarded to some degree. I really agree with Chuck on being straight forward, and I mean it as a n00b, a sincere newcomer.
I really don’t want to continue this tradition (which is jarring to the outside reader) of making political concepts into cumbersome slogans, ‘mouthful sentences’ (see, if I wasn’t familiar with the RCP I would read that and say WTF??) and stupid buzzwords. It is intellectually dishonest on some level, and really corny to people (especially youth who have no familiarity whatsoever with the communist movement–which is, of course, nearly all of us). My first impression is also this: for a movement who wants to dispel the myth of mindless automatons, the way to do it isn’t to make slogans and get everyone to take them up. Sigh.
Iris said
oops, instead of pragmatism i meant to type ‘populism’.
josetheredfox said
Nando writes:
“but I do think there was much there worth thinking about — and anyone who has investigated the theoretical work of the RCP (which is essentially Avakian’s work)…”
thanks for your informative reply to chuck. i learned a lot. deveras.
i do however want to problematize this notion that the theoretical work of the RCP “is essentially Avakian’s work”. there is obviously some truth to this but…
how did avakian’s work become “his work” if it were not for the field reports that cadre wrote and sent in, the research that comrades did for CC and was then later incorporated by the Chairman, the book summaries that were prepared by Rev Books folks, this and much more, the shitwork that comrades did/do to make the condition of possibility for “Bob Avakian”?
i protest the summation of this intellectual division of labor.
nando said
First, I agree with your distaste for “scare quotes” used to mock innocuous things in a snide and contentless way. It is a way of de-legitimizing shit you don’t like, without bothering to actually expose it. we should not do it. And I don’t believe (in the main) we do that here on Kasama, right?
* * * * *
but then Iris writes:
I think all work should be as accessible as possible. And I agree that “the way your write reflects you methodology and approach.”
But do you really mean to insist that your personal comprehension should be a standard and measure for what everyone else can say? Why your comprehension? Why not argue that we should understand that most proletarians have trouble reading, and insist that our discussions here be confined to what they can readily understand without background training?
You often note (correctly) that you are new to these issues and disputes, that you are unfamiliar with the (rather long and textured) history of the RCP, its theory and practice. Well, that is fine, of course. And it is not your fault. In fact there is no fault involved.
But then, as the RCP gets pulled into two, and as its long history and record gets explored and debated — do you really mean to insist that nothing can be said (in a capulized way) unless it is immediately accessible to you, or to someone as unfamiliar as you?
I think that would really be to demand an impossible standard…
* * * * *
Let me point out Iris that almost *every* discussion is accessible to some and closed to others.
Must every discussion in hip-hop be made accessible to every person in the country?
Or (to give another example) go back and read your own post, and ask yourself “aren’t there millions of people in the U.S. who could read my post and not have ANY idea what i’m talking about?”
Don’t you use obscure in-groupy acronyms that you assume most of us will get (RCP, WTF)? Don’t you casually use “esoteric” terminology (pragmatism, populism) that are a closed book to people unfamiliar with them? (How many people reading this can define pragmatism?)
We have created a Kasama Thread glossary — so that we can link odd terms to explanations. Let’s all work to put little known terms there — and encourage others to help define them.
* * * * * *
My argument is this:
A great deal of our polemic with the RCP is largely a polemic directly engaging that party’s various supporters who actually DO HAVE considerable familiarity with its verdicts and jargon. and for that reason, much of it has to include (or refer to) the language and history of the RCP.
The 9 Letters often used the language of the RCP — but it was ALSO conscously written with a style and accessibility that presented an obvious-if-implicit challenge to Avakian’s self-indulgent and obscure forms of expression.
And meanwhile: our OTHER work of analysis, investigation and theory (which is facing in a different non-RCP direction and audience), needs go further, and aspire to a new and radically different language.
In other words, i think it is inevitable that a site like this will have articles (and language and assumptions) of different kinds.
* * * * *
There is a rather consolidated (and often anti-intellectual) line associated with identity politics that assumes that high-level theoretical discussion is MADE difficult by choice — that it is simply a device for elitist exclusion, and that EVERY discussion COULD be made accessible to virtually everyone if we so chose.
I think we need to engage that line theoretically, and help reveal why that isn’t so. Many (even most) topics at the highest level of creation, debate and engagement (physics, political economy, history, military tactics, emotional distress, psychology, medical trauma and so on) are by their nature difficult and REQUIRE background training to even enter.
To take an analogy from physics: Go read a physics journal. Much of it is incomprehensible to you (and me!) Now why is that? Is it simply elitism on their part? Is there some OTHER WAY they should discuss their specific disputes that is more empowering for you? what would that physics journal look like if it was rewritten to guarantee that the admitedly unschooled and unfamiliar were empowered?
Then go read the somewhat more popularly-written Scientific American: Some of its articles I understand. Others I don’t. does that mean that some articles were made accessible by elitist authors and some were deliberately made obscure by gentler authors? Not usually. It generally has to do with MY familiarity with various parts of the discussion.
Another example: Badiou is famous (among philosophers) for writing with accessibility in mind. He insists on principle that philosophy should be written for everyone. This does not mean that his works are easy. and the fact that they are hard to grasp does not mean that he didn’t strain for clarity and accessibility.
Is Karl Marx’s Capital a monument to esoterica and elitism — because its opening chapters are so difficult to read? On the contrary, I think he made a very difficult topic AS ACCESSIBLE AS POSSIBLE.
Now these are just analogies of course — but they point out the inherent problem we are discussing.
* * * * *
to be clear yet again: I think that we SHOULD bend over backwards to make our discourse widely accessible. I think we should aggressively root out self-isolating jargon that has no real purpose.
but I also think that the requirements of theory (and of SPECIFIC DISCUSSONS) will always (inherently and necessarily) involve different levels of access.
Now, if I had the time, I would footnote every allusion I make. (I could write a one page explanation of “charting the uncharting course.” and a one page explanation of “october road, yes but…”) And there are times when that is appropriate. But there are also times when that would make the argument less sharp and accessible FOR ITS MAIN AND SPECIFIC AUDIENCE — who do not need to be reminded of the meaning of key concepts and episodes that defined their lives.
If someone makes an allusion to William Z. Foster, and you don’t know who he is, and there was not room in that comment for a whole side discussion explaining who Foster was — then you can go to wikipedia and look him up like everyone else. You *should* go learn who he is, and you shouldn’t insist that every mention of him from now on include yet another capsule explanation (in case someone new just walked in through the door).
None of us want “CUMBERSOME slogans.” But we do need clever ones.
None of us want to repeat Avakian’s “mouthful sentences” (and they are mocked for good reason).
But…let me break this down: Here (in some of these threads) we are attempting to critique and analyze the ALREADY EXISTING slogans of the RCP. Chuck asked what were the contributions of Avakian — and in A CAPSULE WAY, I listed some of them (alluding to whole books and speeches and debates where they are elaborated).
And you are criticizing me for even mentioning them (within quotes). How do i point to them (or critique them) without mentioning them?
* * * * *
As we really form a movement, prepare to seize and transform a society, lead a state in an ongoing process of revolution — is it possible that our discussions will ALL be accessible to “youth who have no familiarity whatsoever with the communist movement”?
So how do we resolve that contradiction?
First, I think we strain to make our discussions as accessible AS POSSIBLE.
Second, I think we make special efforts to raise the level of understanding of people who have not (yet!) seriously or deeply thought about communist transformation of society. We need articles, books and study movements that BRING PEOPLE UP TO A THEORETICAL LEVEL where they can understand and engage this issues (and help transform the debate itself).
Third, and i thnk this is very important: I think we need to wage a conscious struggle, especially among the youth, for an understanding of THEIR NEED to fight for theory, and to fight to raise their own level of engagement with theory (including the history of the revolutionary movement in the U.S.)
Encountering a discussion that zooms above your head is often a moment of frustration (one we all have had), but it should also be a spur to deepen your own understanding — including by studying that discussion closely and raising your quesitons candidly. Insisting that it all be rewritten for your benefit may not solve the problem or serve the larger goals of our cause.
Our movement (overall) MUST be accessible to people coming in off the street. And the RCP was not. but let’s not think that means that every discussion and every polemic can (or should) be understandable to every person who wanders in, or even to every sincere and interested person who arrives with little preparation.
nando said
Josethefox writes:
I think you are raising a very important and rather profound question of “where do ideas come from?”
In other words: Take the major works of someone. Let’s use Avakian as an example: take Conquer the World, or Mao’s immortal contribution. Do you think that those works (and their innovative elements) mainly were made possible by the specific practice and reports arising from the grassroots of his party?
The fact is they weren’t. Avakian sat down and studied the history and experience of Mao and the chinese revolution in order to write Mao’s immortal contributions — he brought in a lot of the sensibility of the 1960s (which was rooted in the practice, broadly, of millions of people)… and so on.
There were obviously reports and high level discussions. In one of the RCP’s analyses of this process, it was pointed out (for example) that one comrade wrote a high level analysis of hua guo-feng’s speech to the confeence to “learn from Taichai” and summed up that Hua was calling for a counterrevolutionary purge. (This was far from obvious from a superficial read of that speech, and it was before the 1976 coup happened.)
such reports and analyses do arise from a party. And further more when an author goes into a library and “reads up on a topic” he/she is synthesizing and learning from the works of others (and those others ARE making a contribution to the final product).
The roots of a work (especially if it has correct elements) are ULTIMATELY in actual human practice (largely seen). But (as Althusser points out with great power) “ultimately” is never an actual moment in the process. You never stumble onto the moment of causation where the ultimate source is there as the immediate source.
And really, the work is correctly identified with the person making the synthesis.
Marx did rely on ricardo, and Owens, and Babeuf, and Hegel, and especially Engels, to write his works. but aren’t they really in important and essential ways HIS works, not theirs?
I think it is factually true that the theoretical work of the RCP has been, in the main Avakian’s work — he formulated it, he synthesized it, he excoriated and forbade those elements that he did not approve. Even if he did this through a process that (obviously and necessarily) involved the study, digestion and critical assimilation of the work of many many other people.
[And a note on my discussion with Iris: Here I allude to the Marxist philosopher Louis althusser and Babeuf to make a point, and give the interested reader a place to go learn more. But is that wrong? is it humiliating and disempowering for those who have never heard of Althusser and who don’t “know what i’m talking about here”? Or is it an occassion for them to go to amazon and dig up his books? Or essays on his books?]
joseph ball said
Evidence for Mike Ely’s trade unionism and reformism is as follows.
The fact that Mike now states his opposition to every effort by RCP-USA to find an alternative course following the break with trade unionism in the 1980s.
Nostalgia about trade union past in letter 4 (the bit contrasting the new and old Mayday covers of Revolution). Mike distances himself from ‘workerism’ here but not trade unionism.
Mike talks about fusion of party activity with working class struggle, does not say how except by using vague generalities, then says this tradition of fusion was lost in the Stalin era (Stalin in The Foundations of Leninism correctly advised against efforts of communists to win over reformist trade unions and social democrat parties in favour of a purer revolutionary activism. This was in contradistinction to the views put forward by Lenin in the last years of his life-see ‘Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.’)
Mike does not go into the issue of how imperialism has created a labour-aristocracy which has rendered the unions agents of the imperialist system. Such ideas are much discussed by Avakian, indeed they are very important in his thinking about America’s class structure. If Mike is trying to come up with a class analysis of the USA prior to setting up his new party, why doesn’t he even go into this? Why does he keep talking about the US working class, while hardly even considering the ‘elephant in the room’-the way the US working class is bought off with imperialist super-profits?
As Mike’s nostalgia about the RCP-USA’s trade union days shows, he harks back to this era and wants to reject the analysis of the labour aristocracy in the US that led to the abandonment of the economist line by the RCP-USA. He doesn’t say this in so many words, as this would go against every teaching of Leninism. But this is the clear implication of Mike’s line.
Jose M said
JB:
I want to let Mike answer these claims on his own, but I do have some things to say.
How does the way Letter 4 is posed show that he is nostalgic about the RCP’s trade unionist past? I believe it is more of a contrast of what was then, and what is now, and what that really means.
Are we supposed to know how to fuse our politics with the working class? Is there a set formula on how to do that? This is one of the main criticisms that Kasama makes. We need to overcome such sterile thinking in favor of a new revolutionary, collective discussion precisely on, how do we make revolution in the US? Tactics? Strategy? We cant and should not solely rely on what Lenin and Stalin said, we need to build our theory and movement based on what we are living in.
I think Avakian is correct in his overall assessment of the class structure of the US, particularly the stance on trade unions and the part of the working class that is “bought off” by the imperialists.
But the process of uncovering how this ‘fusion’ can come about cannot be fulfilled by Mike coming in and saying “this is how we should do it”, and, although I am sure he has an idea as to how it should not and should be done, this is one of those crucial and important theoretical questions that need to be a result of our “reconception”.
I think what you think (or expect of Kasama) is that we will become a new party, diff from the RCP only in name but similar in that we shall have our own verdicts on every question imaginable in the history of our movement. That defeats the purpose, and is against what Kasama seeks. What we seek is to “reconceive as we regroup”, that is reconceive all the burning questions of revolution in a serious, collective manner, and regroup with other radical forces into a serious rev movement. But we cannot and will not become a “chip off the old block” (as mike says) because it defeats the whole purpose (and needs) to make revolution.
Should Kasama and Mike come out and put out such verdicts as the one you propose (trade unionism, parasitism)? Or should Kasama seek to broadly unite interested radical forces to reconceive how we can do this? What is the correct method and how will it lead to our needed rev movement? I think what Kasama puts forward is correct (reconceive as we regroup).
btw, simply because Mike does “not say how” our politics need to be fused with the working class, this does not make him a reformist, it means that we need creative discussions on this to come up with answers that do reflect reality, not old verdicts.
does he state opposition to every new effort by the RCP? or is he saying that the failure of the RCP to sum up their past efforts (to learn) as Mao did in his base areas (not that avakian has any), has led to the quagmire the Party finds itself in?
Your entire claims against Mike are not supported by real evidence at all. I really think you should think twice before you make comments that seriously dont reflect what mike thinks, or kasama, for that matter.
STB said
I think you hit the nail on the head Joseph. I’d also like to add that the whole way that Letter 1 opened up started from and gauged the RCP through this sort of line that you’re talking about.
Mike E said
there is really not a lot to say to Joseph’s charges, other than that he is deeply uninformed about the 2-line struggle within the RCP, and my views in particular.
Joseph, in his superficial way, saw that the RCP accuses us of “economism,” and must assume (in his superficial way) that this is because we are inclined toward tradeunionism. (After all, historically “economism” has been tied to an overestimation of the importance and political potential of the workers’ economic struggle.) But Joseph has missed an important development here: In the self-invented universe of the RCP, the term economism has now mushroomed wildely in scope and meaning — aggressively being tilted at almost any creative organizing of political struggle among the people — so that now any communist who (as part of all-sided communist work) dares to even speak about “a culture of organizing” or of listening to the views among the people, or building movements of resistance around key political issues is “economist.”
As for Kasama: there is no trend toward tradeunionism in our politics. Joseph cant find any, cuz there isn’t any.
Joseph writes:
This is (once again) factually mistaken.
we have not stated our “opposition to every effort by the RCP.” In fact, I have stated my opposition to their ABANDONMENT of some, and their lack of summation of most of those efforts (from May Day 1980 to Nion, to the Mumia Movement and beyond).
In the 9 Letters, we wrote about the importance of the RCP’s attempt to build revolutionary base areas in the late 80s and 90s. (See “letter 2 A Gaping Hole instead of Partisan Bases” in particular.) And we expressed our frustration that those efforts were abandoned in city after city with no real summation (either to the cadre or to the people more broadly).
We have, in fact, expressed support for the break with trade unions in the late 1970s — and I personally played a role (however small) in that process, both practically and theoretically.
For example, Kasama recently a rather extensive historical/theoretical article i wrote for the RCP in 1980 called “Slipping into Darkness” which is a critique of the trade unionism of the old CP during their more revolutionary period. I can’t imagine Joseph read my actual views on this… because if he had, he could not claim what he does.
Joseph claims to see “Nostalgia about trade union past in letter 4 (the bit contrasting the new and old Mayday covers of Revolution).”
This claim just shows that Joseph is confused about what that May Day 1980 poster represented — since it was not associated with trade unionism all (but emerged from a campaign that was the antithesis of tradeunionism.)
Joseph writes:
This passage is confused to the point of being gibberish.
We don’t say anything about “this tradition of fusion was lost in the Stalin era.” I don’t believe in traditions at all (whether in our movement or in larger society. And we did not make this a criticism of the political strategies of the Stalin era (though there is much there to criticize, as I infact do in the “slipping into darkness” article).
In fact, a sharp distance from Stalin’s strategies for imperialist countries is something that I would have in common with the RCP… in contrast to Joseph Ball who is infatuated with the policies of the stalin years.
Joseph writes:
“Mike does not go into the issue of how imperialism has created a labour-aristocracy which has rendered the unions agents of the imperialist system. Such ideas are much discussed by Avakian, indeed they are very important in his thinking about America’s class structure.”
This (again) is both confused and wrong. We in fact discuss the RCP’s view of “going lower and deeper” in the working class, and that party’s summation (after the 1970s) that the stratification of the U.S. working class made the industrialized workers one of the LESS revolutionary sections of the class. This is something I agree with.
Joseph writes:
“If Mike is trying to come up with a class analysis of the USA prior to setting up his new party, why doesn’t he even go into this?”
In fact, I suggest Joseph read John Steele’s early discussion of the theoretical project of Kasama — where we have identified the need to look at both the structure and stratification of classes in the U.S., and their potential for making revolution.
Joseph Ball writes:
Iris said
Nando:
Thanks for such a long and thoughtful reply. I recall a long debate, largely between you and Gangbox. I can’t recall the thread, but I do remember Gangbox (sorry, Gangbox, if I characterize your approach incorrectly) taking basically the quasi anti-intellectual line you lay out above. I certainly don’t oppose specialized language, and that is partly why I poked fun at myself on the term ‘mouthful sentence’.
My post was pretty muddled, and encompassed an emotional (angry!) reaction I have when I see ‘scare’ quotes in R and slogan/political concept quotes–which are two different things, neither of which I see occurring on Kasama. I also thought 9 Letters to Our Comrades did a great job with footnotes.
I should have divided my reaction to the RCP quotes and slogans and my thoughts on specialized language and accessibility into separate concepts.
I think my initial irritation with RCP slogans–and their heavy and superfluous use of quotation marks–rang artificial and forced to me when I first started reading the paper. I feel that the more time I spent with cadre, the more I trained myself to change my standards for writing quality, clarity; to view agit prop differently. If something left a bad flavor in my mouth, like those Christian Fascist posters in the paper, I passed over it. I said, “This is communist work. It is important, and your petty criticisms are of little substance.” To be fair, some of my criticisms were petty, or not at line level, or came from anti-communist views. So when I began the 9 Letters, which was hidden from me by cadre until I happened to get a flyer at a NS event, I felt able to make criticisms that I self-censored before. The Badiou concept you mention, ‘naming anew’, feels forced and corny if it comes from a group who is so obviously trying to promote their leader as a Mao (the silver book, big character posters) but in stark contrast has no influence and weird ‘out-of-it’ feeling, a sort of generation gap, working against it. Like Mike says, the slogans of this party have never made a connection with the people.
I was incorrectly mixing my frustration with the RCP, and my local cadre, and a desire to see something better from Kasama.
So this quotation business–my post came from more from the stand point of emotionality, and the visceral reaction provoked by a long vendetta against the RCP’s quotations (lol). Am I “criticizing [Nando] for even mentioning them (within quotes). How do I point to them (or critique them) without mentioning them?” Of course not. I apologize for coming off that way–I completely agree that specialized language is often necessary and that many people, including myself (who was privileged in my college attendance), should be willing to do the legwork, not grind a discussion to a halt with cries for footnotes.
You said “But do you really mean to insist that your personal comprehension should be a standard and measure for what everyone else can say? Why your comprehension? Why not argue that we should understand that most proletarians have trouble reading, and insist that our discussions here be confined to what they can readily understand without background training?”
Again, I really wish I could recall that thread where you debated this issue with Gangbox. You asked these very questions, and it was a great discussion of these contradictions. Now I won’t pull this thread off track any longer, but will end by saying I don’t think that Kasama uses slogans or quotations in the same manner as the RCP, and that I agree with your response to my post.
Linda D. said
While there is so much going on with this post, I would like to address my comments to mainly Iris and what she raised about jargon, knowledge, etc. In some ways I can relate to what she was saying, but have come to some other conclusions. (BTW–before Kasama, had never heard of many people referenced, e.g. Badiou, Althusser.)
Can’t remember exactly where the comments were, but one comrade was suggesting that we offer up a synopsis before getting into the post. I completely disagreed with this way of thinking and said so. The problem is, if you have a synopsis before the actual post (and this is not to discount some disclaimer by K. —that’s different)—who is making the synopsis? Are you not sapping any strength out of a potential debate or polemic by summing it all up like Cliff Notes? Are you not doing a disservice to the writer of the post or article? With a synopsis, wouldn’t we be selling participants on Kasama short, as if they don’t have the ability to compare and contrast different lines, summations, etc.? I think so. And in a way, a synopsis is somewhat analogous to what Iris is proposing.
Nando said: “There is a rather consolidated (and often anti-intellectual) line associated with identity politics that assumes that high-level theoretical discussion is MADE difficult by choice — that it is simply a device for elitist exclusion, and that EVERY discussion COULD be made accessible to virtually everyone if we so chose.
“I think we need to engage that line theoretically, and help reveal why that isn’t so. Many (even most) topics at the highest level of creation, debate and engagement (physics, political economy, history, military tactics, emotional distress, psychology, medical trauma and so on) are by their nature difficult and REQUIRE background training to even enter.”
On the other hand, I can’t agree with Iris more about time-worn jargon, simplistic dogmas, rhetoric and sloganeering, etc. when we are talking about something as complex as revolution, Marxism, etc. As I was reading over the different above comments, immediately thought of Das Kapital and what a hell of a struggle that valuable work is to get through; understand the concepts, wade through some archaic language, etc. And not just when I became a revolutionary in my youth, but even today it is a challenge.
And then Nando raised Das Kapital as example. “Is Karl Marx’s Capital a monument to esoterica and elitism — because its opening chapters are so difficult to read? On the contrary, I think he made a very difficult topic AS ACCESSIBLE AS POSSIBLE.”
But I think there has to be some distinctions made—when are we solely sloganeering, or speaking in tongues, or are even gimmicky—and the flip side, being so erudite that a hell of lot of people have no idea what one is talking about? By way of positive example, I think “Charting the Uncharted Course” is actually a very precise concentration, in its title alone, of new concepts, new paths forward. The content of that document is obtuse at times (from what I can remember) but at the same time, a positive introduction to developing things further, and for a fairly wide audience to struggle over.
Nando said: “to be clear yet again: I think that we SHOULD bend over backwards to make our discourse widely accessible. I think we should aggressively root out self-isolating jargon that has no real purpose.”
Well to me, “Charting the Uncharted Course” was not some self-isolating jargon or discourse, but posed something that a lot of people could sink their teeth into, albeit on different levels. But that piece challenged a lot of the automaton-think, whether or not it came from the “think tank” of the RCP (i.e. B.A.)
Then Nando added: “but I also think that the requirements of theory (and of SPECIFIC DISCUSSONS) will always (inherently and necessarily) involve different levels of access.”
And I think Nando is right. And I don’t think we should ever be afraid to ask questions if we don’t understand something, or some reference!
Where I will take slight issue with Nando is his aversion to “anti-intellectualism.”
This is contradictory because, often times a hierarchy develops and supposed “non-intellectuals” are snubbed from the other side. A whole chasm develops between “leadership and led,” theorists and cadre. I don’t see this happening on Kasama at all—o contrario…in fact, everyone is encouraged to participate in theoretical struggle, no matter what your position, your knowledge or experience. But it is somewhat understandable that “anti-intellectualism” would be a trend, and the intellectual seen as some elitist.
Growing up in the U.S. (with all its class, racial, gender, etc. divisions) gives some substantial reasons why lots of people appear to be anti-intellectual, or anti-theoretical, or just want some simple answer to complex questions. I will give you two examples from my own experience, and how, at times, I still have feelings of trepidation about weighing in on some of these discussions.
When I was in high school, and very rebellious—although my rebellion was more like “Rebel without a Cause”– I was tracked. Tracking became a convenient way for the educational system to weed out rebels, as well as lower income students. You were the ones who took wood-shop, home economics, and the like because “obviously” you weren’t college material. (They went to such an extreme with me that I ended up in a thing called “Social Adjustment”—where I was to spend a few “periods” out of the school day, doing nothing but actually having a great time with my fellow “juvenile delinquents.” Said “JD’s and Pachucos” were also mainly poorer whites and Latinos. Hmmmm…) But the effects of “tracking” are deep on the psyche of those tracked. And most (including myself) end up thinking they are “know nothings” but are at least “street smart.” I hardly ever attended high school—cut classes all the time. But here’s the irony—if I wasn’t at some baseball game, or aimlessly driving (“cruising”) around with some friend, I had a favorite spot to go to—up on a hill in L.A. where I was reading Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, J.D. Salinger, Stendahl, Upton Sinclair, John dos Passos, Gorky, etc. because as un-intellectual as I came to believe I was, I have always loved to read. And I have always, like Iris and many others, been curious and inquisitive about ideas, philosophy, art, life, etc. but just never thought I could ever be part of formulating any of those ideas, etc. To show you how extreme the effects of tracking were on me, except to go to some wild protest against the war in Vietnam, etc. for a long time, I was afraid to even step foot on some campus because I figured the students and professors were the smart ones.
And I have always had an aversion to mathematics and the sciences—the excuse, that side of my brain doesn’t function. But I think my aversion is more a fear of delving into things more scientifically, because in my generation “girls” didn’t have to know or study math or science—although you were supposed to be able to keep count the amount of “bobby pins” you stuck in your hair.
In other words, the capitalist system (besides keeping people illiterate) works you over physically as well as mentally and psychologically, and that “anti-intellectualism” trend doesn’t just come from nowhere.
Years ago I had a big disagreement with an editor on the RW. There was an article written “summing up” the movie “Apocalypse Now.” My summation of this editor’s argument was that the RCP was continuing to break with “center of gravity”, economism, etc. and instead published an article that to me was so convoluted and erudite, that I couldn’t see how most people would have a clue as to what all the references, etc. were. “Apocalypse Now” is really based on Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”—and even having read Conrad’s tome, I still didn’t understand the article. But in retrospect, do think that it was a good thing to raise the level of discussion, and not simply take some Siskel/Ebert “thumbs-up, thumbs-down,” and then tack on some revolutionary slogan or dogma. And in retrospect, while I think the article should have been written in a slightly more popular style, I think I was wrong to just automatically want to lower the “bar.”
None of us knows everything, nor does one individual have hegemony over ideas, philosophy, thoughts, theory, analysis, et al. I see Kasama as a collective effort, and for all of us in that collective and with that collective spirit, we need to raise our own personal “bar”. And as part of that, we should also, as Nando said:
“And meanwhile: our OTHER work of analysis, investigation and theory (which is facing in a different non-RCP direction and audience), needs go further, and aspire to a new and radically different language.”
None of this is an easy task—and the answers are not “there for the taking.” But I for one am very glad Iris raised these issues, because I think in a ‘roundabout way it reflects our own transformation in the revolutionary process.
cassiusghost said
This was one wonderfully important exchange that I missed during my self-imposed exile of late. I had to comment and commend those for the back and forth on these issues. Thank you.
Jose M said
wow, really awesome story, Linda, thanks for that.
It’s nice to see that you high school and youthful past led you to be an artist (correct?) and a communist, when most others I assumed went the route of gangs, drugs, and jail.
Chuck Morse said
Hi Nando,
I think your response to Iris was unfair and, frankly, a little condescending. As far as I can see, she did not ask for ideas to be “dumbed down,” but simply for minimal standards of comprehensibility to be applied. And I find it somewhat reprehensible that you, who has decades of experience, would reply to her (an admitted newcomer) by lecturing her about the need to humble herself before all the complicated ideas floating around out there in the big, bad world. I think that was a poor choice on your part. She should be applauded for trying to cut through haze of nonsense that surrounds the RCP and many influenced by it.
Obviously, it is correct to use quotations when citing an essay. No one would–or has–disputed that. The problem emerges when you cite essays as if they were fully formed political positions. This is a source of weirdness in your writing and an indication of the fact that you take the RCP far more seriously than it merits.
Consider these two examples, which I randomly culled from your posts above: “the RCP deepened this somewhat . . . in the adoption of their formulation “October revolution, yes but…” or “However to affirm this as the “October Road” imposed a specific model”.
In these cases, you are (evidently) referring to essays but you do so as if they are fully formed positions. Indeed, it appears that you regard RCP declarations are premises or statutes. This is why you did not say something like “in the adoption of THE FORMULATIONS ARTICULATED IN THE “October revolution, yes but…” ESSAY” or “However to affirm this as the APPROACH IDENTIFIED IN THE “October Road” ESSAY ”. … The slight changes that I made to these sentences indicate a critical distance that is normally absent from your comments.
There is also a tendency to use weird buzzwords. For example, instead of discussing and debating ideas with someone in order to come up with a position–which is what most of us do–you “wrangle with” and “dig into” “two lines” in order to formulate a “verdict.”
Now, does this jargon (wrangle, verdict, etc.) add a level of complexity to the discussion? No. Does it clarify anything or introduce new insights? No, it does not. What it does is signal to readers that you live in a universe in which the rules of political discourse are totally different than that apply to the rest of us (one in which Avakian is a “leader” who has made “great” contributions).
In fact, I read the Nine Letters as an attempt to turn the weird world of Avakianism upon itself–to out Avakain Avakian–which presupposes the legitimacy of that weird world as a point of departure and forces you to use all sorts of strange rhetorical conventions. The Nine Letters would have been clearer and much more powerful if you had applied a class and/or race analysis and/or gender analysis.
So, I think Iris was quite right to bring up the question of comprehensibility in the way that she did. Obscure and marginal sects that don’t really want to build a movement express themselves through obscure and marginal and alienating jargon. As she said, “the way you write reflects your methodology and approach.”
Joseph Ball said
In reply to Mike’s post regarding my questions for him-
In Letter 2 Mike clearly disagrees with every line that the RCP-USA adopted after 1980 by arguing they were all failures.
In 1980 the party was turning itself away from seeing the middle strata of embourgeoisified, unionised workers as it base-which is its current position, so why does Mike see a picture of a male worker in a hard hat as a great emblem of a bygone period?
‘Slipping into darkness’ upholds the idea of uniting with trade union struggles in order to lead them to revolution-see the summation at the end of the article. This is a hopeless strategy in an imperialist country and will just lead to outright trade unionism with only a thin veneer of revolutionary rhetoric. I have spent 20 years in the UK watching this happen and I sincerely doubt it’s any different in the US.
Mike argues that he never says anything about the tradition of fusion being lost in the Stalin era. Look at footnote 30 to Letter 3 where Mike is talking about the abandonment of the fusion of the party with the working class movement which he ascribes to Avakian…and then to Stalin:
‘This is a distortion that grew over the 1920s, and reduced the living experience of the Bolshevik party to a dogmatic set of universal formulas, structures and forms.’ [unless of course Mike is ascribing this ‘distortion’ to Lenin’s leadership in his final years, which I doubt, but I’m willing to be corrected.]
Of course, Mike could clear up the whole matter by upholding in his next the post the outstanding leadership of Stalin and reaffirming that he was 70% correct in his thought and actions. What’s your thinking on that Mike?
If Mike really does share Avakian’s view on the labour aristocracy in the USA why did he react so badly to Avakian’s analysis of the complicity of the American people in America’s imperialist rampage? It’s not enough to affirm the existence of the labour aristocracy in a ritual manner and then ignore its existence when analysing every concrete question, which is certainly Mike’s approach.
Again, nowhere is Mike going to say outright ‘I support a trade union approach’ but when you add all the evidence together it’s pretty compelling.
Mike E said
Joseph’s comment is confused.
In fact they were failures, and this is true whether someone supports the policies or opposes them.
Joseph writes:
I suggest that you go read what Letter 2 says again:
This passage CRITCIZES as “lingering workerism” (i.e. economism and tailing of tradeunionism) that this symbol is a male figure in hardhat. BUT the letter nonetheless makes a different point: that in 1980 the party was focused on the revolutionary actions of the workers (and the advanced among them), while by 2007, the party is focused on the quasi-religious adoration of its core members gazing on the word “leadership.”
Joseph writes:
As you can see from Joseph’s own quote, our footnote and letters said nothing about Stalin here. Elsewhere we point out that the 21 conditions of the comintern were associated with Zinoviev (who headed the Comintern when they were imposed), and the rightist policies of the mid-twenties were associated with pro-Bukharin forces (in the U.S. those alligned with Lovestone). This is discussed, by the way, in the article “Slipping into Darkness” which we have posted, and which I suggested that Joseph read.
Joseph is certainly free to believe that all the communist policies of the 1920s can be pinned on Stalin — but in fact they were not, and the main ones we are criticizing were associated with Zinoviev or Bukharin. The “third period” policies that start after the knocking down of Bukharin inthe late 20s IS a set of policies associated with Stalin… but that is another matter and not the issue here.
Joseph is simply confused about the historical issues, and he rather crudely distorting what the footnote says.
Joseph writes:
Joseph confuses two completely different things:
(1) The U.S. working class is stratified. This is obvious and indisputable. And it is not just the minority labor aristocracy of skilled workers that has privileges that produce conervative politics. In the U.S., for many historical reasons, the relative privilege and “crumbs” of imperialism have an influence far beyond the labor aristocracy alone. And, in fact, there are many more distinctions and stratifications than just “labor aristocracy.” The summation of “going lower and deeper” was a summation of the political problem of the middle strata of industrial workers (hardly just the much smaller stratum of skilled workers know as “labor aristorcrats.”)
(2) but to understand that there is stratification in the U.S. working class is hardly the same thing as charing the middle classes broadly with complicity and crimes simply because they did not turn out for a set of demonstrations Avakian was organizing. His ranting about iPhones has little to do with “labor aristocrats” (who are not inclined to buy iPhones, obviously).
Joseph is simply (and rather deliberately) confusing two very different things — his fascination with hating the labor aristocracy, and Avakian’s recent rants against the non-active middle classes.
And what underlies Joseph’s confusion is his own MIM-like insistence that the WHOLE working class in the U.S. (and other imperialist countries) is bought-off and reactionary. I.e. he equates the stratification of the working class with criminal complicity with imperialism — that’s his confusion, not ours.
In other words, line for line, Joseph’s post is completely confused: confused about what we say and believe, confused about the historical and political issues.
Jose M said
J Ball says:
“If Mike really does share Avakian’s view on the labour aristocracy in the USA why did he react so badly to Avakian’s analysis of the complicity of the American people in America’s imperialist rampage?”
Because things are not so simple. Like he has said, it is wrong in both principle and method to blame the people of conspiracy in imperialist crimes, and def deviates from a central Maoist tenet.
Where is our responsibility as communists to take communism to the masses? Is it now the responsibility of the masses? Of course not, we cannot underestimate or undermine our responsibility in this. That is why we are here – to transform and lead the people, not to condescend them.
There is complicity in the US, but it is more complex than Avakian makes it out to be, and there methods of dealing with it are incorrect as well.
Jose M said
ah my bad, i wouldnt have replied had I seen that mike had already done so
Mike E said
why? your comments count too! I should perhaps not be so quick to respond if it might discourage others.
Jose M said
no, that’s not the thing, please respond.
I say this in relation to these comments because they are directed explicitly towards you, and so I think you should answer them and clarify things.
but it doesnt discourage me from commenting at all. ill add my two cents where I see fit.
Mike E said
nah. I think there is a deliberate tactic of RCP supporters to point everything at me.
As if the 9 Letters were a “one man show,” as if this site is just my personal blog, as if there is not a larger collective Kasama project.
Just because someone chooses to direct comments at me personally, does not mean that the rest of us should accept that framework.
we are in the middle of a major 2-line struggle that crisscrosses the whole international communist movement, and has implications for revolutionary people far outside the networks of Maoists. We can’t let them treat all this as some personal grudge-match by Mike Ely.
So post, even when it is addressed at me.
Joseph Ball said
I don’t want this to turn into a game of tennis either. But I’m fascinated by Mike’s comments on Stalin. If Mike really does think that Stalin rescued the Bolsheviks from being a ‘dogmatic sect’ by upholding the correct line, then I’m willing to stand corrected. Perhaps if Mike was to indicate here that he upholds Stalin’s revolutionary line, upholds Stalin as an outstanding leader and as 70% correct in his thinking and actions, some of my ‘confusion’ would be laid to rest.
On the class structure of the US. I’m at a slight disadvantage here because I know a lot more about the class structure of the UK, than the US but I think there are probably some similarities. In the UK, you have a very large white collar middle class, a small percentage of well-paid manual, industrial workers (about 10% of the workforce) and about 25% of the working age population who do relatively low-paid, menial tasks or are on benefits (our social security provision is much more widespread for working age people in the UK, though most of the benefits are fairly low by the standards of First world incomes.)
Among the 25% you may find some classically exploited or impoverished proletarians or lumpen-proletarians (who I would argue we should regard as progressive in an imperialist country). Obviously, this sets a trap for the unwary. Some of these are doing low-paid jobs as starter jobs to get work experience before going onto other things. Some argue that if you have a low-paid job but your (in majority of cases male) partner earns more then your class status should go by your partner’s earnings but I think this is incorrect for fairly obvious reasons.
The large middle class and the well-off industrial workers (the majority of the workforce) are bribed by imperialist super-profits. This is not MIM’s line as they tended to argue that the 25% were bribed too, which in my experience of the UK is not really true. Avakian sometimes implies that he very broadly agrees with some aspects of this analysis but I really can’t speak for him on the matter.
Yes, the large middle class are complicit in imperialism’s rampage. They vote for the parties that carry it out, for one thing. Because they are not fully conscious of the links between their wealth and imperialist atrocities they do tend to mount a very soft opposition to war-which we should certainly encourage. But year on year they vote for parties that support atrocities, arguing-often quite explicitly when challenged-that they have to think of their own economic interests ‘Yes, the Iraq war was bad but Labour is paying my child benefit [universal in the UK]’ ‘Or I know the Conservatives supported the war but my taxes are too high and they’re offering to cut them’, I have been here many times, believe me when arguing with these people. Unless we get to the roots of the problem we won’t get anywhere and I am afraid that ‘complicity’ covers the situation fairly well. Rejecting this line does indeed lead all the way to economism and trade unionist approaches.
Quorri said
Joseph Ball says:
“Because they are not fully conscious of the links between their wealth and imperialist atrocities they do tend to mount a very soft opposition to war-which we should certainly encourage. But year on year they vote for parties that support atrocities, arguing-often quite explicitly when challenged-that they have to think of their own economic interests ‘Yes, the Iraq war was bad but Labour is paying my child benefit [universal in the UK]‘ ‘Or I know the Conservatives supported the war but my taxes are too high and they’re offering to cut them’, I have been here many times, believe me when arguing with these people.”
I have never met these people… I promise. My view of complicity and my defense of those I deem non-complicit (though they may participate in electoral politics or just shop and play video games instead of thinking) would be far different had I had many interactions with people who actually try to defend their complicity with claims of promoting their self-interest….
Anon said
Joesph Ball, are you a part of MIM? I didn’t think so, but am not sure.
Mike, were you trying to discredit him as being associated with MIM? It seemed to come off that way a bit. Just curious.
Nando said
Discussion here should obviously not work by discrediting by association. It is a matter of line.
However, no one thinks or claims here that Joseph is with MIM (or even that their lines are identical on most matters). MIM doesn’t exists and it was based in the U.S., while Joseph Ball is a wellknown activist from Britain. And their politics are rather different.
But to help people in the U.S. situate Joseph’s politics and arguments — it is worthwhile to point out that Joseph (like MIM, and also like some other forces) thinks that the WHOLE working class in the U.S. is bought off. this has (obviously) some implications for what you think is POSSIBLE in countries like the U.S. and Britain. My understanding is that (also like MIM) Joseph thinks that revolution in the world can only come out of the formerly colonial countries.
So there are similarities between Josephs arguments and political arguments that some people here are more familiar with.
Joseph Ball said
I think MIM would be turning in its collective grave if it could hear people asking if I was part of it. I don’t mind questions about party affiliation because I haven’t got one but I am not sure it’s really a good idea to keep asking Maoists what party they belong to. Let the line speak for itself.
I’m very flattered to hear the description of myself as a ‘well-known activist’ from the UK…if only.
I don’t think the whole of the UK or US working class is ‘bought off’, although the majority is. I don’t think revolution can only come in the colonial countries. My advice to Third World Maoists, however, is ‘ACT like revolution can only come in the Third World’, i.e. reject this line that revolution needs to spread to imperialist countries so they can ‘help’ the struggling Third World revolution. Apart, from anything else revolution is a lot more LIKELY in the Third World, at the moment. Maybe they don’t need me to tell them that but I think a lot of First World revolutionaries need to understand this.
It remains our duty in the West to try to make revolution. This will be led by the minority of genuinely economically exploited workers. Others will be brought in under this leadership during the struggle (and its worth looking at what RCP-USA has to say about this in their new constitution-though be clear that this is NOT their line, its mine). During and after the revolutionary struggle there will also be struggle between labour aristocrats and the minority of genuinely exploited proletariat, I would imagaine. If the former win, you would just get the kind of ‘national socialism’ that Arghiri talks about, which in the modern world would just amount to open reformism, probably. If the genuinely exploited proletariat win, they would probably need to unite with the Third World masses in some form of federation or alliance that would reorientate the economy away from exploitation of the Third World and undermine the political power of the privileged strata.
Members of the privileged strata of the working class (or the big middle class, however you look at it-we need to do more analysis here) can be encouraged to join the revolution by working on the contradictions that exist between them and the capitalists (e.g. it is possible that they are still subjugated by the capitalist system-they may suffer alienation and so on-we need to analyse more here- although they’re well-paid for it, also they suffer from the insecurity prevalent in the capitalist system, issues to do with the rise of Fascism in some countries, the oppression of women is also a vitally important issue).
So there’s the my line, I hope it clarifies things and you can all stop asking me what party I belong to!
Anon said
Nando and Joseph, much thanks for the clarification.
Mike E said
Thanks for laying out these important questions of line, Joseph. I heartily agree that it is “line not author” that matters. (And similarly it is line not “organizational affiliation” that matters.)
It is certainly more helpful to deal with your views directly, rather than discussing them by analogy (“he is like MIM but…”)
I don’t know that you are “well known” in britain, but I do know that your VIEWS are well documented and known to those of us who follow that kind of thing.