Criticize Kasama!
Posted by Mike E on February 26, 2008
by Mike Ely
This site has now existed two months — starting last December with the posting of “9 Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian’s Synthesis.”
One measure of this site is in the cold stats: 73,000 total page views over two months. 127 posts. 1230 comments from our readers. Each day, hundreds of people view well over a thousand pages (on average). The 9 Letters have been viewed and downloaded thousands of times. The site is international in impact, content and commentary.
But how are we really doing? Compared to our goals and the needs of the hour?
My personal feeling is impatience: We need to be moving faster. We need more focused and more substantive debate over how to “reconceive as we regroup.” More theoretical analysis of the burning questions posed by the world and the failure of the RCP (and other groups). More use of this site for revolutionary political engagement (starting, imho, with a creative approach to the elections and internationalist work around the revolutions of south Asia)
Where are you at? What are your criticisms and suggestions for Kasama (and the larger project that is unfolding)?
Mike E said
The following remarks were sent by an international reader:
I just looked at the map of the spread of your readership and thought of couple of suggestions that might be helpful:
In most areas of the “third World” access to the internet, where it exist, is mainly based on old cable telephone lines that restrict speed to 9KB or 36KB. In addition to that, political repression makes access to political sites very dangerous and people often go to internet coffee shops to do quick downloads to read later in order to avoid footprint. If you can break the 9 Letters to smaller download size without the bulky photos it might help.
A lot of people who are interested in this site, myself included, are not that well versed in English to know all the latest slangs. People might get put off if they continuously have to go to dictionaries or extrapolate for meaning. If you can address this issue it will help.
Just as an example, I don’t know what “tin ear” means exactly or when the RCP says “parasitically,” it is as derived from the medical or the electronic sense of the word as these would have politically different meaning.
Some of the comments, that of course are beyond your control, are notoriously difficult to understand.
I think the site is excellent (as a work in progress) for content, aesthetics and for ease of navigation.
Blackstone said
I think those suggestions are well grounded. I’m glad it was brought to your attention and mine as well. I too have international readership and sometimes i forget, people are not familiar with all the terms.
Ben Seattle said
Hi Mike,
Here are my views on some strengths of the site and areas where I would like to see improvement:
————————————————–
strengths of site:
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* The 9 letters have gathered together an international community of activists who want to create a movement and an organization focused on the overthrow of the system of bourgeois rule in the U.S. and internationally.
* Most of the posts are from people who have experience in attempting to build revolutionary organization–which creates discussion that tends to be grounded in practical realities.
* In particular, most readers have some knowledge of or experience with the RCP,USA — which gives them insight into (and an interest in) the considerable strengths and the considerable weaknesses of this kind of organization.
* The site recognizes that a diversity of views is necessary and must be encouraged and has done so–and such a diversity of views is represented here. And at the same time there are necessary interventions by the moderator to help promote an atmosphere of respect and listening, reduce unnecessary friction and maintain a minimal focus.
* The site offers a mix of topics ranging from principles related to building revolutionary organization to more general discussions of current events and culture
————————————————–
What we need to do better:
————————————————–
We need practical steps to encourage readers to give stronger focus to the “hard” issues. The site structure and navigation should reflect this need.
The “soft” issues are things that are generally easier to discuss and less likely to be stressful or hot-button issues. This includes posts that are journalistic or historical in nature (including agitation related to exposure of the crimes of imperialism or capitalist rule) as well as more general discussions of topics related to culture (such as videos).
The “hard” issues are related to what our alternative is to the kind of cult (excuse my harsh language) that Avakian holds is the only way forward. We need to be thinking about the creation of a genuinely revolutionary mass organization with the ability to overcome the many problems the RCP will never overcome.
In between the “hard” and “soft” issues there are issues which are intermediate. Criticism and debate over errors of the RCP falls into this category inasmuch as it has features of both. The “soft” side is the process of helping activists from around the RCP understand that there is a better way forward (this includes discussing and/or debating the history of the RCP). The “hard” side involves building focus on understanding what this better way is. Posts related to the revolutions in South Asia can also be either “hard” or “soft” in this categorization, depending on their content.
The dividing line between “hard” and “soft” issues will not always be clear. But I would like to illustrate the problem as I see it and why I believe improved focus and site navigation may help.
I put in a lot of work to write an article titled
How to Build the Party of the Working Class. I was hoping that some readers of this site might read it and have some comments on its strengths and weaknesses. After all, that is what many (or even most) of us are here for–building a party that can represent the material class interests of the working class and lead this class (our class) to victory over the bourgeoisie.
But once I finished the article and wanted to post news of it here–I was faced with the question–where do I post it?
What thread (or section) of this site is the place where readers who are interested in this topic go?
There is no place. Or (equivalently) there are many places (but no clear place–so if you want to find something like this you would need to look nearly everywhere).
So I posted news of my article on the Chegitz thread (ie: “Rescuing Lenin from then Leninists”) which frequent visitors to the site might have noticed if they saw my comment on the left-hand column listing of the 15 most recent comments. I also posted a short notice of my article as something of a postscript to my comment on another thread (where it may have been deleted).
Currently, this site has these major categories listed at the top:
• 9 LETTERS
• HISTORY
• JOURNALISM
• Revolutions in South Asia
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
• About
I would like to see at least one category devoted to the nature of our alternative to the kind of organization that Avakian built.
This could be called “regroupment” or it could be called building a revolutionary mass organization or it could be called something else. It is those readers who are interested in this topic above all else–that I am interested in reaching.
– Ben
RNK said
Well first off, this project is at a disadvantage and has been since it set foot off the ground. While the actual “core founders” may not have been, largely the support for this project comes from the internet, and while the internet is a great tool for communication, there may be a need to secure physical ground in the near future.
Another good step would be “friends”. What is this project’s stance on the RIM? On the Canadian RCP? Other Maoist and revolutionary tendencies in the United States? Outside of this conflict with the RCP-USA, what are the project’s goals (besides the somewhat vague references to carrying out revolutionary work), and immediate aspirations? The development of an organizing committee? Is the aim of this project to gain national strength immediately, or focus on smaller geographical areas to condense the work and focus revolutionary activity and growth?
When the RCP Canada was first realized several years ago it began its existence as Organizing Committees tasked with laying the groundwork for the future party. That was their top priority; organizing support, organizing cadres into something solidified and concrete, organizing work towards this end. This work wasn’t concluded until last year when the party dropped the Organizing Committees “tag” and adopted its true revolutionary outlook and work.
Likewise, this project is in its organizational phase and this is when and where the groundwork for the future must be laid. A practical outlook must be maintained, with an analytical look at what challenges the project will face in the immediate future — the largest of which strikes me as being the difficulty of mobilizing a core of support in a country like the United States, which is both large geographically and heavily populated. What this project needs is to AVOID becoming one of the many discarded internet-based fantasies; while there’s no questioning the power of the internet in terms of communication, there is a question when it comes to resolving issues of stability with an internet-based circle of supporters. This project needs a real, physical face; perhaps a public meeting held in NYC or LA (or wherever is most practical) to converge even a small number of “physically present” comrades to develop a core of “physically present” support.
Whatever the next steps, good luck to you, Mr. Ely, and all those involved in this project. I am very excited about the work being done here; although I do not live in the US, I have always held an interest (and criticism) of the RCP-USA and I must say I am happy with what I’ve seen. A lot of the criticisms I had of the RCP-USA I’ve found mirrored in this project (though much more eloquently than I’m capable of), as well as many more which I feel are of practical use to myself in my own activism.
The Cold Lamper said
RNK raises an important issue, the basic distinction between parties and pre-party organizations. I think we do need to distinguish between having a vanguardist orientation and actually being a vanguard. Simply having the former does not make you the latter (though it is necessary to have the former if you are ever going to attain the latter — we don’t act like socdems/council communists until some arbitrary point where we decide we have enough members and supporters that we can turn on a dime towards Leninism…or do we?)
I think Mike mentioned in passing, in a comment somewhere on this site listing some of the questions that couldn’t be addressed in the Letters (but which do need to be addressed at some point), the history of the transition in ’75 between the RU and the RCP — whether the conditions for declaring a Party were even present at the time. I don’t know what his answer would be (like I said, he was posing this question as something to be discussed), but the subtext I picked up (based not just on this one comment but other comments made before and since) was that he would answer in the negative. If that is the case, could this have doomed the Party from the beginning — the attitude of demanding the masses “relate to the vanguard” before it had concretely demonstrated itself as being a vanguard?
anton said
Mike’s ideas for work around South Asia revolutions and and the elections are good. We need to start doing work off of this site and off of the internet– in the streets– around these issues. This site can be a place to begin groundwork like developing collective resources, themes and agitation with real substance around these issues. News of activities, announcements etc can be posted here.
We should also begin to assess in an ongoing way a wide array of resistance struggles, especially in countries under occupation by the U.S. and its allies.
On the site itself I think it would be good to have different discussions systematically cross-referenced so related discussions can be tracked as new threads start.
It would be good to have an area for regular discussion of epistemology and scientific method.
Finding ways to connect and network off the internet would be good also.
Jaroslav said
I’d like to second the calls to get something going offline. I also have the same impatience which Mike expresses, as he says not only to get going offline but also to get more ‘productive’ in these online discussions. Although the criticisms of us not having a programme are insufficient when trying to use as support for position of saying we can’t criticise anything then & should just shut up, it’s also true that if we are to develop a revolutionary organisation & movement we do need a programme. For a proto-party this could be a proto-programme, but still we need some kind of an organised, scientific, well-thought-out starting point of orientation & method.
As for the site itself, I’d like to see some more category-organisation, kind of like how 2changetheworld.info was; but on the other hand the whole free-flow thing is nice sometimes, & look at how a music video post can evolve into a discussion on a particular political issue besides culture. But still something more structured, maybe some posts which (like this one) just list a basic topic which can then be discussed freely within the topical bounds, as opposed to a specific article which would be criticised or praised. Also some posts/topics which are featured no matter how old they are. Only the 15 most recent comments are highlighted, so especially when the site is more active (which is great!), some issues get neglected early as new ones are moved onto.
As to comments from ‘international reader’. As for the files being too big, I think it would be beneficial to have at least key documents like 9 Letters available as text file for the reasons you stated. As for the language thing, it divides into two. On the one hand if one’s skills in English aren’t so good it’ll be trouble to read English no matter what unfortunately (& by the way ‘parasitically’ has long been used in political writing, including by Lenin). But on the other hand, it would be good to try to avoid some of the more complicated phrasings, not just for our international audience but also for the uneducated & immigrants here; however we should try to stay poetic etc, it’s no good to sound like a first-year English textbook either. Also, when you don’t understand something, don’t be afraid to ask! (Sidenote: anyone learning Chinese at intermediate level or above, don’t be afraid to dive right into Mao, his writings are designed for people who have are completely fluent, but are just learning how to read so it’s relatively simple.)
RNK, you raise a bunch of crucial issues, & I unite with what you’re saying. In terms of vanguard-posturing, I’ve been told numerous types by RCPUSA members that they are emulating the Black Panthers stance of ‘To be the vanguard, act the vanguard’, whereby they think that if they act like a vanguard prior to actually being it, they will nonetheless become it through the act. I never thought that made any sense. As for RIM, it seems that the site has a positive view of it, I know that I do anyway. First of all, obviously RIM is not going to recognise some internet grouping, but also it has no rules against having more than one member in a particular country, & of course no rules against kicking out members that are no longer revolutionary. So further down the line if this develops into something bigger, we should keep in mind that RIM is not belonging to RCPUSA just because it played a key role in founding it. As for Canada, the issue has come up briefly on the site, but one of that party’s more interesting/unique features which is its strategic road for revolution in imperialist country, is not able to be discussed online in any depth for legal reasons. In any case, yes, I think once we get going in an organisational way offline it’s quite necessary to have ‘foreign friends’. As for domestic forces, definitely a key goal of this site is stated as ‘regrouping’, I think this would definitely include other genuine revolutionaries & not just the unaffiliated ex-RCPUSA individuals. To the question ‘Is the aim of this project to gain national strength immediately, or focus on smaller geographical areas to condense the work and focus revolutionary activity and growth?’, I think the latter is a better idea to start, in service of achieving the former.
Big L said
Anton: “Finding ways to connect and network off the internet would be good also.”
I definitely agree that this is needed, and it probably relates to:
‘Is the aim of this project to gain national strength immediately, or focus on smaller geographical areas to condense the work and focus revolutionary activity and growth?’
If there’s going to be a new organization forged, there should be discussion about what constitutes a vanguard? Cold Lamper asks interesting questions, and I think this would be important to hash out to get a fuller understanding – what is a vanguard? what type of vanguard is needed in the US? how does this type of vanguard come about? What are the ideological underpinnings of a vanguard – must it be shaped in 20th century terms like maoism, trotskyism, anarchism, stalinism etc?
Also practically, in addition to the theoretical work which needs to be undertaken to more fully understand the world situation we’re in, what types of practical organizing work should be done in the present to build forces? Do folks think it’s too early for this?
Mike E said
I agree with much that has been said in this thread. A few comments:
1) We need revolutionary organization (not just a website). Obviously.
2) I have no intention of being part of forming a rehash of the RCP. We did not leave a small and impotent group in order to form a smaller and more impotent group that differs only on this or that detail.
3) We do not have an elaborated new synthesis at hand. The RCP is right that we do not have a radical alternative handy in opposition to their failed paradigm. (What we do know, and it is not a small matter, is that their path has proven to be a negative example, with much to sum up and avoid, AND some very positive things to identify and carry forward.) In this case (as is so often true) negation and criticism precedes creation and construction. Many of us have ideas, suggestions, plans for new directions — but there now needs to be a “very presumptuous work” of developing a new road together.
4) For that reason, the organization we need is not (in my opinion) a “pre-party formation” — but a NON-party revolutionary formation that is organized around theoretical work, critical summation, and some key practical projects. This is (as Letter 9 says) a process and a going. We need a network of revolutionaries — one that is relatively broad, open and that is organized around a process of mutual engagement and deep study of our time-and-place. If we just end up gathering a few veterans of the RCP experience, or a few non-RCP Maoist critics — we will have missed the requirements and possibilities of this moment. We need a wider gathering of radical and revolutionary minded people — where many ideas can content and cross-fertilize, in the context of an emerging body of common political practice.
5) Big L writes: “If there’s going to be a new organization forged, there should be discussion about what constitutes a vanguard?” This is exactly right. In my view, history has shown that you can’t form a small kernel group, in isolation, around “the most advanced scientific ideas” and then scoop up the masses like a magnet picking up iron filing. It doesn’t work, it has never worked. It is a prescription for a self-important sect, not an actual growing evolving political organization leading real people toward a real revolution.
6) I want to point out that not only SHOULD we work to form something “off line” — but that work has already started. The 9 Letters and this Kasama site have had an initial impact of starting to gather forces… and lay the basis for a much more sophisticated and developed common political project.
7) We will be developing a broad revolutionary basis of unity and common work. It will not be an elaborate invented program with prescriptive “solutions” for every key issue past and future. It will be a framework for a process (a “going”) where we can learn, listen, study, think, and create — in the process of taking up important political work. We need a center for exchanging opinions, theory and news — and that will be an ongoing web project, acting as a gathering place, a “scaffolding” and as a forum for the ideological work that needs to be done. We will also need to start key active political initiatives — including the one around supporting the revolutions in South Asia (which hold great promise for all humanity, and are in great danger). And we also, over the next time, should pick a geographic area of concentration — to regroup some of our forces, and take up the important work of fusing socialism with working people.
8 ) The key focus for the next year has to be to take up several main theoretical inquiries: on revolutionary strategy, on the nature of our present world, on the summation of socialism in the twentieth century, on the nature of the working class and its historic political role and so on. This will deepen our understanding and unity — and inevitably reveal some new lines of demarcation among the forces who gather.
9) All of this needs to be vetted (debated). And those who are interested should step forward in various ways. I urge you to connect with with this process — and contribute your experience, skills, passion and questions.
YO said
Mike says:
“For that reason, the organization we need is not (in my opinion) a “pre-party formation” — but a NON-party revolutionary formation that is organized around theoretical work, critical summation, and some key practical projects.”
Dude, this is not the most inspiring mission statement. If you’re not talking about leading revolution, then why bother. Listen to what the Afghan and Iranian women say:
“But we do need the support of people in the US! We need the people in the US to fight against their regime while we are fighting against ours.”
They don’t need endless website criticism of everything the RCP does and is (which is what your website does every day), they are calling for people to do more or less what the RCP is doing! In other words, the U.S. government is on a warpath. Is theory (particularly the kind whose main objective seems to be, at this point, tearing down the RCP) and some support work for South Asian Maoists enough? Not even close!
Mike E said
We are talking about leading a revolution. And we are talking about forming a revolutionary organization… but not by the sectification path.
I’m glad you participate, Yo, but your comments often don’t really deal with substance of people’s posts.
We don’t need “endless website criticism of everything the RCP does” — but we do need a deep, systematic communist critique of that experience. That is a materialist summation of practice. The destructive process (in theory as well as revolution) is key to the constructive process. I assume that is obvious to all communists. And those who intend to promote the RCP’s “get rich quick schemes” and mushrooming cult of personality: I suggest you “toughen your scalp.” THIS WIND WILL NOT SUBSIDE.
From now on, the actions and theories of the RCP will emerge onto a landscape where they are subjected to serious Maoist criticism. This is a very good thing of course. This process of criticism will deepen in many ways. And the debate will be available to all — to revolutionary minded people wanting training in communist analysis, to members of the RCP, to liberal observers and progressive forces of all kinds.
Supporters of the RCP can participate actively in this public debate, or they can hunker down and charge everyone around with “unprincipled” behavior, that is their choice. Either way, it will reveal a lot about what they stand for, and what they don’t stand for.
* * * * *
As for how one moves to form new revolutionary theory and organization:
I have been this way before. I went through the process of consolidating and transforming the Revolutionary Union… (which was the precursor organization to the RCP). I watched it closely from its early Bay Area RU days and hooked up with its efforts to become a national organization.
Do you imagine the RU started with a full elaborated program, strategy and ideology place? With a developed vision of what revolutionary work should look like in the U.S.? Where would THAT have dropped from? How would that complex unity have just POPPED into being? Do you think MLM was even its basis of unity at its formation in the Bay Area?
Let’s not be ahistorical or idealist about how revolutionary currents emerge and solidify and consolidate.
Go look at Red Papers 1 — the first national statement of the Revolutionary Union. It was written after the non-Maoist forces left the RU, and still it had a very primitive basis of unity. But it did contain a very sharp (and for many of us, exhilarating!) critique of the various other forces in the field (PLP, CPUSA etc.) It called for forming Maoist collectives around the country — and exchanging information between them. It did not (at the beginning) have a strategic sense… but that did not mean it did not have a strong sense of revolutionary purpose and direction (which is why thousands of us were attracted to it.)
There is nothing wrong with calling for a broad process and gathering of revolutionaries. We should not restrict this process to veterans of just one trend. We need to actually go through a larger process with thousands and tens of thousands of radical and discontented people — as we all learn (and are transformed) by that process, and as revolutionary organization and programs emerge OUT OF SOMETHING REAL, and emerge with real ties to real people.
Our job is not simply to “make people understand” — we have gotten off that preachers soapbox… It is not all there for the taking. We have to start our new work by listening, learning, studying, summing up and sharing. That may strike you as “uninspiring” — but it is a very materialist and very exciting place to be. We didn’t pick this place, it is where have been brought by actual events — and by the failure of past attempts.
Please come talk with us when you have tired of the treadmill of hype, fantasy and mutual blame.
* * * * *
As for “tearing down the RCP”….. hmmm, look, here is the stark fact: That party is over. Done. That party’s leadership has been tearing the remains of that party to shreds. It is (from everything I have seen) slowly crumbling amid increasing isolation — meanwhile INSIDE its shrinking, self-made bubble, the sound and lights are being TURNED UP for the few remaining participants.
No one outside the RCP needs to “tear down” anything. That is not our task or desire. The criticism we level may seem to you to be devastating “attacks,” but that is because the structure is so fragile and flakey.
Maoists say “Flowers fall off, do what one may.” This is an objective process.
What we actually need to do is deepen an accurate, careful, deep, dialectical communist critique of this failed effort. And we need to sharply call out (for the communists now in the U.S.) the rather stark bankruptcy and error of making this cult of personality the defining content of communist work. And for passionate engaged comrades like you, here is a heartfelt suggestion: Step out of that self-referencing bubble for a moment and see what the rest of us are watching.
Any focus on the RCP is by its nature temporary. (As the 9 Letters says) we need to “GET BEYOND AVAKIAN’S SYNTHESIS.”
The RCP was an important attempt at making a revolutionary movement in the U.S. — there is some important theory and practice to learn from. But beyond that, this party is not that big a deal. The bones are picked pretty bare by failure. We need to move on, and make a developing theoretical project that focuses on the main issues before us (and you can look above to see what I, personally, think some of them are.)
Will that process work? No one knows yet. That chapter is yet unwritten. And what you do in that process matters.
But I do have a sense of what we need to fight to accomplish: Communists and revolutionaries need to reconceive as we regroup. This is a new revolutionary beginning amid a world rushing through the rapids of history.
YO said
For the record, I don’t the 9 Letters is a “devastating attack” in any way. On the contrary, I think its main arguments are pretty weak, as I’ve explained in previous posts.
Big L said
“They don’t need endless website criticism of everything the RCP does and is (which is what your website does every day), they are calling for people to do more or less what the RCP is doing! In other words, the U.S. government is on a warpath. Is theory (particularly the kind whose main objective seems to be, at this point, tearing down the RCP) and some support work for South Asian Maoists enough? Not even close!”
I think that there’s something to what YO is saying here: we actually need to be resisting what the US is doing internally and around the world. And I agree that that’s “more or less what the RCP is doing!” if we conceive of what the RCP is doing as incredibly similar to what ANSWER, Code Pink, Act Against Torture, Progressive Democrats of America, and other groups are doing.
But I think that it becomes more complicated as we consider how well all these groups (RCP included) are doing in stopping the US imperial beast. It’s not that these groups aren’t trying . . .
So, do we need new theoretical projects? IMHO, hell yes. But here’s where I think YO may be on to something (even if I’m taking what she/he says in a different direction than she/he means it to go): this theory needs to be developed out of revolutionary organizational practice. New theory that breaks with the dry, procrustean shell that many groups (including the RCP) are stuck in is necessary, but how will this happen?
Sure, part of its development will happen by negating the experience of the past (including the RCP’s) but some of what I imagine will be the richest lessons will be teased out from fresh practice – which is why it’s so important to be putting concrete organizational practice at the forefront of what’s to be done.
I hope I’m not coming off as anti-intellectual in this. I certainly don’t mean that only in a mechanical way will new theory develop out of practice. I just feel (and I may be wrong) that what we’re looking for won’t simply be found by reflecting on the past. We need new organizational experience to draw from, in addition to learning by negative example from groups like the RCP.
So, the question is – how can we do this? And to what extent can this blog play a role in this?
Big L said
And maybe to be more clear (and less mechanical) I should say that instead of, “this theory needs to be developed out of revolutionary organizational practice,”
. . . that this theory needs to be developed ALONGSIDE and as a part of revolutionary organizational practice.
anton said
There needs to be some serious practice. South Asia and taking on whats happening in the electoral arena are good places to start.
anton said
Also supporting G.I. resistance.
‘Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan’ is coming up March 13-16.
for more info and for ways to support this go to http://ivaw.org
Mike E said
On juust one point:
Ben Seattle wrote: “I put in a lot of work to write an article titled How to Build the Party of the Working Class. I was hoping that some readers of this site might read it… but once I finished the article and wanted to post news of it here–I was faced with the question–where do I post it?”
This site has two ways to post: Comments on existing threads (left column) and self-standing posts that produce threads (right column)
If you have an announcement post them as comments within the running commentary on some existing thread.
If you have a new article of some substance — send them to Kasama — so one of the moderators can post them as their own post-and-thread.
we WANT to post occasional substantive articles by a variety of authors. We want to post more substantive and theoretical treatments of the burning questions — and provoke more in depth discussions based on such presentations.
In particular: send us the article “How to Build the Party of the Working Class” with some appropriate graphics, and we will most likely post it (or a major excerpt from it, plus a link to the rest).
Does that answer your question Ben?
Kalash said
it’s cold and early, so i apologize for any incoherency.
i concur with big l, but i’m not sure that mike wasn’t proposing such ‘practical projects’ to occur alongside (and be instrumental in) serious theoretical struggle and synthesis.
what we cannot allow to be done, however, is to just take these ideas and move forward without any attempt of producing critical summations of existing organizations and parties.
i look at it this way: the 9 letters was a big first step toward this critical summation. myself and many others had many unresolved questions which remained unvoiced (and, in a sense, were ‘unexplainable’) until the 9 letters dropped. without that primary work, kasama wouldn’t be what it is becoming today, but because there was a basic theoretical orientation contained within, we now have a growing mass of people calling for a place for practice, contributing to the debate, and generally thirsting for more. we need to broaden that tendency.
i think that with the basic orientation provided by kasama may allow us to pursue some practical endeavors with a sense of unity, but the need for criticism of old and ossifying trends as well as the development of new ones is shapes the character and methodology of our practice, and therefore determines whether it is in the service of the people, or something else….
Chuck Morse said
Hi Mike,
I submit that your appraisal of the RCP will be incomplete until you add the following two elements:
– I think you should complement your critique of the RCP with some self-critique. Most people on the left think that the RCP is a joke (not even a throwback to another era … just a joke) and this raises an important question about you, someone who gave thirty-three years to the group: WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING? It’s bizarre enough to take the RCP seriously, but to give more than three decades of your life to a sect that most people can see through in an instant…. wow…. that’s intense. It would be good if you could explain that.
– You should also explain how the RCP functions. Who makes the decisions? Where does the money come from? How many members are there? What is the turnover rate? What are the backgrounds of the membership? etc. etc. I suspect that you think that divulging such information would be a violation of some revolutionary duty, but it’s not. There is no revolutionary group to project, only silly fantasies.
Mike E said
Chuck:
1) I will set aside your first proposal for another time… though I thought you had already asked me this once, and gotten an initial answer on this site, right?
2) On your second point: As you know, I have no intention of laying bare the internal details, workings and persona of the RCP — even in some cases where i makes it harder for me to document various line questions we are discussing.
On one level, you and I disagree on how to evaluate the RCP (you think it is “just a joke” not a revolutionary group)… ok, we disagree. But can we agree on this: We need a revolutionary movement where we don’t treat opponents casually as enemies — where our current negative summations of this or that grouping doesn’t become a license to treat them literally any way we want — as if they, their supporters and their plans are just dirt beneath our feet.
A movement that can’t respect secrets can never make a revolution.
3) Our decision (in the 9 Letters and since) to voluntarily refrain from discussing the internal life or publish the internal unpublished documents of the RCP is not MAINLY a comment on what we think of THEM, but a comment on what we expect from the revolutionary movement WE are working to build.
4) I want to touch on a specific request you made: “where does the money come from?” I think all readers should be aware that such a request (perhaps unknowingly) crosses some ominous (and legal) lines. The RCP just went through a 9 month public fundraising drive — which (whether it was successful or not) gives any observer a sense of how they seek funding.
But the real point I want to make strongly: There is a long history of the U.S. government using allegations of “money trails” in many ways to attack organizations of very diverse kinds. And obviously in the post-Patriot Act era this has all even intensified — in ways that we should perhaps document and share. Not only should such questions go unanswered, but we should develop a common culture where the raising of such questions is an occasion for mutual criticism, and mutual reminding that we are all moving through hostile territory under hostile eyes.
5) There ARE major issues of organizational line that face the coming revolutionary movement. There is (as you may be suggesting) some value in summing up the experience of the RCP around specifically ORGANIZATIONAL line. But these are not matters of funding, or how many members they now have, or how fact their members are now leaving (all of which I have no real knowledge about, and would not share if I did.) And knowing their funding or membership trends really reveals little about the organizational questions we need to confront.
There are ways in which the whole internal life of the RCP was drained (pretty systematically) of “personal ease of mind and liveliness” and of living “two line struggle.” This has been addressed in a number of places (at the level of line). For example in Letter 7 we write:
There is more to say on this. I think John Steele gets into some of this when he discusses the assumptions within the RCP about how theory and line are developed.
In addition, there have been more recent changes in that already cramped culture: There are ways in which the life of the RCP has been intensely dominated by a new “whateverism” — towards its leadership (and, obviously, one leader in particular).
And this has been explicit: In other words it is said that when a “leader of this caliber emerges” then the nature of organizational life changes, the nature of the two line struggle within the party changes, and the members (at all levels, including top levels) have the singleminded responsibility to “race to catch up with Bob Avakian.”
And there is a “trickle down” phenomenon, where the imposition of “whateverism” toward one leader becomes extended (rather energetically) by leaders at other levels who present themselves as the best “followers of BA” and who act with a disrespect and brusqueness that flows from illusions of genius.
zerohour said
Mike E-
I think the great danger with this way of thinking is that it’s ok to be a snitch if you disagree with the politics of an organization. If you belong to a “revolutionary” organization that is willing to make this information public then that is a joke.
Whatever you think about the Party or any such organizations, it is legitimate security practice not to reveal funding sources, membership data or internal functioning. A political critique might not be “complete” with this information but why would it be improved?
This is reflective of what I consider a fundamental flaw with anarchism, this obsessive focus on organizational form. It’s a mechanical algorithmic kind of politics. If one implements the perfect decision-making method, then one simply has to insert the political problems in at one end [organizational structure], and the perfect politics will come out the other end. That’s why I’ve referred to anarchists as “Lockean bureaucrats” [Locke for the other fundamental flaw - the notion of the sovereign individual].
Chuck Morse said
Mike,
I believe that you’re mistaken to think that the RCP is at risk of being repressed (or, for that matter, “its beloved Chairman”). Do you remember when records of the police surveillance conducted prior to the 2003 RNC protests were released? Did you notice that there was absolutely no mention of the RCP among the dozens of groups that the cops were worried about? Why do you think that is?
But, besides that, how could you possibly edit the party’s paper for decades without knowing how many RCP members there are/were?
Mike E said
I want to talk this through:
1) My point is not simply that this could have repercussions for the RCP — my point is that we need a movement that has certain culture appropriate for revolutionary goals. This means several things: our view of opponents, and our view of the delicacy of certain information.
I think we should embrace the view that there are different contradictions at play: contradictions among the people, and contradictions between the people and the enemy. And that we should handle them differently. Or (as we Maoists say) we should make a distinction between Yenan and Sian (between the camp of the oppressors and the camp of the oppressed). Both of those “camps” are complex and diverse. They even interpenetrate in come complex ways. But there is a distinction to be made and maintained.
I will not treat progressive people shabbily, or casually as an enemy, or expose them to those who are enemies. And this is true completely apart from how they “treat us.” We have been called awful (and untrue) things by the RCP in the last two months in public, and worse in private. One comrade who helped write the 9 Letters was publicly accused by an RCP supporter of “now working with the cops” at a public WCW meeting (to the shock of the WCW members who knew, of course, it was a lie). Such things are wrong. However… how we treat the RCP should be unaffected by any of that.
This is not just about the RCP (per se) — it is about how our movement conducts itself, and how it conducts its disputes.
We should not quickly assigning people to the camp of “the enemy” based on political and ideological difference (which can be quite significant). (In a comradely way) I want to urge you, and others, to reject this approach to various trends of the left.
2) But speaking for a moment, about the RCP per se: I know for a fact that there are many dedicated, thoughtful revolutionaries in and around the RCP. I think that their work can’t simply be dismissed as nothing. And I don’t t think their work (or their lives) should be casually exposed to attack.
3) And further,I strongly feel that it is not for me (or you) to decide (!) whether or not someone is “at risk of being repressed.” Is this really something we can easily know? Based on what insight and facts? Think how arrogant, unjustified and truly reckless such a “decision” would be?
4) And further, your assumptions about how repression happens is very shallow.
I have a rather vivid sense of the history of repression — both from study, observation and personal experience. Generally the system represses people when they start to get a mass influence for radical ideas. (And we have seen this, including at several times in the RCP’s history.)
But that is not the only time — sometimes they pick on people because it serves some larger purposes (like when they picked up and crushed the Rosenbergs in the early 50s, who were just small time players at the margins of events).
5) If the revolution in Nepal makes advances over the next 6 months, are you so confident that the U.S. government won’t hunt or concoct some “domestic threat” to connect with them?
Even your argument that the released police surveillance records didn’t include evidence of focus on the RCP, and so we could assume there (a) wasn’t any, and (b) that there won’t be any. These are unjustified assumptions — if you think about it for even a second. Who knows if they released all the records? Who knows which agency surveilled which groups? Who knows if their priorities that summer are the same as their priorities now? Don’t take it personally, but your arguments seem rather self serving — i.e. as if you just subjectively WANT to open discussion of certain kinds of information, and you then just dismiss any refusal on the most superficial grounds.
6) Finally you write: “How could you possibly edit the party’s paper for decades without knowing how many RCP members there are/were?”
Heh. Here is a simple fact: I was a supporter of the RCP for 38 years. I was a writer for their press for 28 years. I was an editor in the last period (not literally decades). And I have no information of how many RCP members there are or were (at any point) — other than the same educated speculation that anyone inside or out can do based on observation and common sense.
If that is hard for you to grasp: deal with it. And further: I knew, I would not say. Period. I suggest you deal with that too — and think over our reasons.
We can sum up the obvious fact that the RCP is relatively small and that it has been declining for a long time. And we can sum that up without guessing at (or revealing) specific numbers.
Beyond that, speculation or inside information is irrelevant to the line questions — that our movement needs to grapple with.
redflags said
Chuck.
You have no idea what the extent of surveillance and other government activities was during the RNC. Literally none. I have read those heavily redacted files made public by the NYPD, which included nothing from the FBI, NSA, Pentagon or NY State Police.
You have had no discussions with the dozens of full time activists associated with that trend who worked all over NYC in the weeks and months leading up the RNC. I worked full-time on preparing NYC for those protests and was surprised that they fielded far more activists than UFPJ or the Clearninghouse. By activists I mean people who did outreach, not just those who staffed “movement centers” for their friends and cohort.
The consensus of activists you hang out with tells you what it tells you. And in terms of security culture: the idea that you just detail the internal operations of groups you don’t agree with is wrong. It’s actually dangerous.
During the recent Green Scare cases, where the FBI targeted eco-anarchist direct actionists, the MAJORITY of those arrested became snitches. With a lack of physical evidence tying the defendants to the actions they were charged with – it was the snitches who sent good people to prison. Even today, significant individuals (who should know better) still justify the snitching, and provide support and succor to those who did it.
The measure is not what YOU believe to be “legitimate”, but a culture of security that not only refuses to engage in such snitch behavior, but challenges it whenever and wherever encountered.
I think it’s fair to argue that the utterly sloppy, self-involved and narcissistic edge of anarchist philosophy gave rise to a situation where people thought it was okay to snitch people out to save their own skin.
Many groups and trends have come under pressure from the government, from Puerto Rican nationalists to muslims and anarchists. But I have to say that the shameful cooperation the majority of Green Scare defendants should at least give pause before folks casually mock those with the decency to keep the internal affairs of organizations out of the sight and consciousness of the enemy.
Are you aware that under existing legislation, people with connections (real or alleged) to Maoists groups (several of which are on the US State Dept “Terror List”) can be arrested without charge and detained indefinitely? That while they may not be doing it this week, I think there is call for concern.
Or not, since its all a joke…
zerohour said
Chuck -
“I believe that you’re mistaken to think that the RCP is at risk of being repressed (or, for that matter, “its beloved Chairman”). Do you remember when records of the police surveillance conducted prior to the 2003 RNC protests were released? Did you notice that there was absolutely no mention of the RCP among the dozens of groups that the cops were worried about? Why do you think that is?”
You seem to be on a mission to puncture RCP’s sense of its own importance. You’re portraying ALL of their behavior as delusional and irrational. However, their security measures are rational for any organization that is intent on making a revolution. Whether you think they can or not is not at issue.
No one knows when, or even why, they will show up on someone’s radar. When it does happen, they [local PD, FBI, etc.,] will not send a friendly notice alerting you to their surveillance. if you are serious about revolutionary politics in this country, you implement rational security practices from day one. It makes no sense to wait until your members are obviously being monitored, harassed or jailed to start being security-conscious – especially with surveillance technology becoming more silently intrusive. By then, you’re already seriously compromised.
So, when should a revolutionary organization practice operational secrecy? And how extensive should it be?
Ben Seattle said
Hi Mike (and other readers),
Thanks for your reply.
There are two issues here:
(1) Readers need a way to easily find and navigate to the “hard” issues that are directly related to “regroupment” (or the creation of a revolutionary organization or network).
(2) My essay “How to Build the Party of the Working Class” (see comment # 3 above or click my name for the link) examines some of the key principles related to “regroupment” and I would like some of the serious people here to read it and see if it may contribute in some modest ways to our views of the next steps forward.
* * * * * *
On the first issue: At the present time there is no way for readers to easily find the topics directly related to building an alternative to the kind of cult Avakian built (again–excuse the harsh language). Most of the content of this site is related to what I call the “soft” topics that tend to be easier and less stressful to think about and discuss. I am not arguing that the soft topics do not belong here–on the contrary these topics help to keep the site lively and attract readership. But the more serious section of readers who are interested mainly in the hard topics need a way to easily find the hard topics.
The issue of regroupment (or building revolutionary organization) is not just another topic in a long list of other topics (and in terms of site organization and navigation–it should not be treated that way). In the long run it is central to everything else because if we are successful in this–then everything else will follow.
On the second issue: my essay is on the web, complete with illustrations and sidebars, at the link above. There is also a “lite” version on the blog for the Ginger Group (see: http://thegingergroup.wordpress.com ) which might be closer in content and format to what might be posted here. I could email this to you but all the material is already available on the web–so what would I need to email to you? In the future, however, I will make an effort to email Kasama with announcements that might be important.
* * * * * *
For those who have not read my article, Mike says (comment # 9 above):
I agree with Mike’s comment and this is what I argue in my essay on the basis of the history of Lenin’s party. I used to think–back when I was studying the “History of the RSDLP(B)” in COUSML circles–that this was how Lenin built his party. But that is not how it was created.
Here are, in my view, some of the questions to which we need answers:
• How will we create the party of the working class?
• Who will be in it-–who will not?
• How will our party defeat the terrible disease of reformism ?
• How will our party defeat the terrible disease of sectarianism?
• Which tasks are most decisive?
I give my best guesses at answers in my article.
* * * * * *
Also–in reply to Chuck Morse:
Chuck–you asked what Mike (and many others) could have been thinking by being involved with a cult-like group for so many decades when the rest of the left could so clearly see their nature. My conclusion, Chuck, is that you are being one-sided: the RCP was a revolutionary organization and it was also, at the same time, a cult. If you see only half of this contradiction you will never be able to understand what the RCP was. The RCP did (and still does) have a revolutionary side. For example-in mass actions where I live (the Seattle area) I would generally make contact with activists in the RCP or RCYB if there was some tactical issue (for example: a potential police attack or a provocation by neo-nazi elements) in order to coordinate tactics–because they were one of the few organized forces with tactical experience and common sense and in such a situation everyone with experience and common sense needs to come together and sort out tactics. (And I am not–and have never been–a supporter of the RCP.)
The real issue, Chuck, is that the left lacks a genuinely revolutionary mass organization. In this situation, groups like the RCP (half revolutionary, half cult) will continue to thrive. Hence the only really fundamental solution to the problem of cults is to create such an organization.
* * * * * *
Finally–life demands that I go offline for several weeks. I wish I had the ability to participate more at a time when some discussion is moving in the direction of sorting out the issues related to the creation of genuinely revolutionary mass organization. These can be the most difficult issues (as well as hot-button emotional topics) but they are also the most valuable for our movement and I hope these issues will remain front and center for a significant section of the readership here.
– Ben
Chuck Morse said
Do I recommend making information available that could get people thrown in jail? Of course not.
I asked Mike to do the following: “to explain how the RCP functions. Who makes the decisions? Where does the money come from? How many members are there? What is the turnover rate? What are the backgrounds of the membership? etc. etc.”
Pay attention: I did not ask for names, addresses, social security numbers, pseudonyms, employers, the names of relatives, the names of spouses, or other things of that nature.
All the blather about snitching has nothing to do with what I requested.
I have asked Mike to provide a more substantive picture of the RCP–than his highly abstract focus on disembodied “lines”–not to disclose information that could get someone arrested. Those are two different things.
Mike E said
Redflags writes: “I think it’s fair to argue that the utterly sloppy, self-involved and narcissistic edge of anarchist philosophy gave rise to a situation where people thought it was okay to snitch people out to save their own skin.”
I am not that familiar with anarchist philosophy and its various “edges.”
However I will say this: The kind of “turning state’s evidence” you describe in that case, is something that has happened in all kinds of political trends and cultures (throughout history and around the world).
I don’t think it is mainly a function of the anarchist scene — but of individualism in general (the kind perpetuated by this society)… it is “dog eat dog.” And it also happens when people get in “way over their heads.”
And, just to be fair: I don’t think chuck was advocating “snitching” — of the kind that happened in the legal case you are describing, RedFlags. He is not advocating providing information on people who ARE facting charges. He is advocating publishing information on people who AREN’T facing charges — while arguing that they are unlikely to get any unjust attention from the state. It is a different argument.
Chuck Morse said
I’ll just add the following: concerns about security are obviously legitimate in many cases, but they can also be (and sometimes are) used opportunistically to stifle critical discussion.
Who can draw the line between a legitimate and an illegitimate concern? I’m not sure, but I did not request information that would put someone in jeopardy, so that issue is not relevant here.
Mike E said
Chuck writes:
Well, what you say is literally true, Chuck. And that is worth noting.
However if you look at your list of questions, the discussion of “Where does the money come from?” jumps out. It is exactly the kind of thing that has legal implications (as should be obvious to anyone who has watched how this state “goes after” people.)
And your question “Who makes the decisions?” is at best ambiguous. How is that not a possible request for names?
Let me put it like this: You did not make highly inappropriate demands for lists of specific people and their social security numbers. Ok, thank god. But is that our standard or measure?
You did in fact ask some OTHER highly inappropriate questions about funding and decision making (all of which have legal implications, for anyone who has studied U.S. repression and law). The chain of command in an organization and its funding are MAJOR issues in the fabrication of frame-ups (even in a situation, like this one we are discussing, where there is no probable cause of any known crime.)
After all, the one time that Avakian DID face major charges it was precisely on the basis that he was (allegedly!) making decisions connected to various (allegedly!) illegal acts. See?
zerohour said
Chuck -
If you think funding sources, membership numbers and “background” [what do you mean - ethnicity, income level, etc.,?] are not enough for a government agency to compromise an organization, you need to read this book: War At Home. When someone underestimates the enemy as you do, they’re done. Especially in the post-9/11 climate.
Mike E said
Ben writes: “I could email this to you but all the material is already available on the web–so what would I need to email to you? In the future, however, I will make an effort to email Kasama with announcements that might be important.”
Well, here is the skinny.
Yeah, the article is available online in various formats…. but the Kasama site is mushrooming in activity. And the amount of time (just processing posts, comments, spam and emails) is increasing rapidly. This is not a complaint (obviously) it is a good thing! But the simple fact is that we need to share the burden of this work.
I urge EVERYONE to send us all kinds of materials for posting (links to videos, articles on key questions, links to news articles, etc). But to maintain the quality and flow of this site (as it expands) we need to spend our time reading and editing — not mainly working or reworking the html code of lifted articles.
And if you have an article for Kasama to post, it would be very helpful if you would send it in a simple html format (no css, no font coding, no tables) or else a simple RTF format. Put a few graphics with the attached file in the email.
A little work at your end can help share the workload for kasama.
mike e
Jaroslav said
Mike: This is an extremely minor point, but anyway… The correct spelling is Yan’an & Xi’an [ignoring the tone marks however]. I’ve seen you spell Mao Zedong correctly on this site, which I was glad to see. This correct spelling system called ‘pinyin’ was developed in revolutionary China & is a more scientific (the science in this case being linguistics) representation of Mandarin sounds in the Latin alphabet.
paper tigers said
“I asked Mike to do the following: “to explain how the RCP functions. Who makes the decisions? Where does the money come from? How many members are there? What is the turnover rate? What are the backgrounds of the membership? etc. etc.
“I did not request information that would put someone in jeopardy, so that issue is not relevant here.”
At this point, after all the replies that you received, to keep asking your security-risk questions, only points to your inability to process information or your lack of understanding of history. A good book to start with would be “Agents of Repression” by Ward Churchill.
I think that if Chuck keeps asking the same question in different forms, the same method of battling the line behind his remarks should keep being employed.
Mike E said
Jaroslav:
I am moving to pinyin (as you can see). It is part of “stepping out of the bubble” — meaning, I am no longer bound by many arbitrary and often outmoded conventions of the RCP (which included thirty years of rejecting pinyin spellings for Chinese names).
However, sometimes when I’m typing fast, it comes out as I learned it. Thanks for the correction.
Mike E said
Paper tigers writes: “I think that if Chuck keeps asking the same question in different forms, the same method of battling the line behind his remarks should keep being employed.”
To be fair (and accurate), Chuck didn’t exactly “keep asking the same question” — he asked some questions, and then engaged the thread over whether the questions were appropriate.
paper tigers said
Really? I feel that by justifying his question in different ways he just trying to get an answer. By claiming that struggle between lines is abstract and maintaining that no one has the authority to drew the line “between legitimate and an illegitimate concern”, Chuck is trying to not only justify his question but to justify receiving an answer.
In any case, I do think, however, that my error is in assuming that Chuck is just ignoring reality. Or as you wrote:
“Ray Lotta once urged me (as we were working on a polemic together) to “Struggle harder to understand the material basis for incorrect ideas.” And I found that startling at the time — since it was so different from my previous method, which was to assume that people with incorrect ideas “must be” simply ignoring the “basic facts: of any situation.”
Can you maybe expand and elaborate on that comment? How can we “Struggle harder to understand the material basis for incorrect ideas.”?
redflags said
“All the blather about snitching has nothing to do with what I requested.”
It has to do with method. If each person took their own standard of who is and isn’t a “joke” – to be taken seriously, to be given respect and solidarity, etc. – as the measure of when and where to take state repression seriously, more people in yet more movements would end up with the same situation that hit the Green Scare defendants. Sold out by their own supposed comrades based on selfish desire to get by.
Cointelpro isn’t just a word thrown around. It didn’t just targets groups taken seriously by… whoever. Do you take the SWP seriously? They bore a huge brunt of Cointelpro efforts, though never in my estimation were they a serious challenge to the state.
One of the main tactics used was to foment disagreements between people who already disagreed. To turn those contradictions into antagonisms. To give already existing beefs a life of their own and throw people off track.
This is why many groups, particularly those pursuing radical social change (successfully or not) adopted security culture. A culture of operating that would mitigate expected dirty tricks.
Promoting a culture of selective disregard is not wise. It is important exactly, even especially when you think it isn’t. My point about the Green Scare was that they never took themselves half as seriously as the FBI did. When placed under the direct force of the state they folded. Just like that. Good people bore the brunt of those snitches. This just went down, it’s still happening.
When I was a kid in Chicago, I lived near Humboldt Park, the main Puerto Rican neighborhood in the city. Its avenues were covered with the faces of political prisoners wheatpasted on abandoned building and light poles… People who spent many years in jail for not snitching. Some of them were teachers and guidance counselors at the local high school. Many of them had no connection to clandestine activities but would not snitch. What did they think, in hindsight, of the choices the armed wing of that movement made? I don’t know. But I do know that as a movement they stood strong against that repression. I would be a fool not to learn from their example.
I am not a Puerto Rican nationalist. I don’t think nationalism will work as a liberation strategy in general, or for Puerto Rico in particular. I disagreed with many of the choices those affiliated with this movement made. I noticed that most Puerto Ricans explicitly reject independence… and I even heard them mocked by some. But I also know that these people are on the “same side of the barricade” and no matter what I think of the choices they made, right or wrong, I don’t diminish basic solidarity for a second.
My lawyer at that time also represented one of those prisoners, who was run through the torture of the Lexington Control Unit – a prison center designed to drive its captives insane. I learned more about the rot of this system than I cared to know. I can’t shake it.
People have different formative experiences. What that taught me was to stand by people in struggle. To not mock or diminish even those I disagree with, but to respect them enough to engage in struggle, to learn something from people who have tried. This is something we should apply not just to revolutionary nationalists. Or to communists alone. But to all those groups working for egalitarian social change.
Hell, I worked for years to win freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal. Do I respect the teachings of John Africa? Not really. Do I respect their organizational culture? Not at all. But is what I think about MOVE the issue? No. It’s that they won’t kill a freedom fighter on our watch. I don’t think Marc Cooper (or whoever) is the barometer of who should be taken seriously. And even when I think people are more of a danger to themselves than they are to the state – I’ll still do my best to learn, teach and keep moving forward.
I am trying not to let my own regrets shadow the world yet to be.
Ben Seattle said
(1) Mike – -I emailed you material for my article. Let me know if you have not received it.
(2) Re: the discussion on political openness vs. security culture–I have some opinions.
Chuck: you may think that the political police do not care about the RCP–but I know that where I live (in the Seattle area) one of the RCP supporters was attacked (while wheatpasting posters to a telephone pole) by a youth gang member that had had numerous contacts with the police. The person attacked had not gotten into an argument with the youth who attacked him (they had never met)–the youth gang member simply snuck up behind him and hit him as hard as he could in the head with a metal pipe that he swung. The RCP supporter survived–minus a part of his brain about the size of a tennis ball. I saw him months later, after he got out of the hospital–with a rather large concavity on the side of his head. He was able to walk and even talk although his speech was rather slow and slurred.
So these things do happen (and certainly will in the future) and if the good comrades here are firm concerning the needs of a security culture–it does not help to respond to them with ridicule–it will only make you appear to be out of touch and weaken your position.
Having said that I will add that my position is that the needs of a security culture are often greatly exaggerated and used to oppose political transparency. And I believe that political transparency is necessary. I have publicly written about this in various places and have my own (personal and bitter) experience dealing with exaggerated concerns about security culture.
These kinds of issues will be resolved with time. One humerous example of exaggerated concerns about the need to keep a lid on information took place at a public meeting of the Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee (SAIC). I had suggested that the total leaflet distribution numbers be posted on their website (where it could be useful for giving activists an idea of SAIC’s material work and would also be useful for giving SAIC supporters like me an idea of how much money I should contribute to SAIC to pay for a small share of the xerox costs). SAIC turned down my suggestion because, supposedly, this kind of information (ie: leaflet distribution numbers) could be of use to the police or SAIC’s political opponents. The idea that, in a world of rapidly expanding information flow–such basic information as this would be _more_ useful to activists than to the police or to political opponents–remains a foreign concept to most of them.
As I say–these issues will be resolved with time. Mike is light years ahead of the RCP in terms of political transparency. And organizations that cloak everything (including politics) in secrecy–will increasing find themsleves irrelevant. The big issue here is that many believe that an organization should keep its internal disagreements secret. I think the idea is that if the internal disagreements were public–this would make it easier for the state to target certain people or otherwise interfere or intervene. The other side of this equation, however, is that the mass of activists will need to know about the disagreements concerning principles and direction of any revolutionary mass organization which is authentic. Activists will need to know about these disagreements so that they can intervene with their voice, their experience and their passion.
There has already been discussion here concerning how important theoretical work in the RCP takes place at a high level–where there is one supposedly brilliant guy surrounded by a bunch of “yes” men. The inability of local RCP supporters to defend many of the positions of the organization is well-known. From our point of view–there is nothing more we need to know–because our interest is in creating a different kind of culture where the decision-making process on most questions (I am excluding time-sensitive tactical decisions concerning mass actions) takes place openly.
And (again–since I have said this before) I hope that eventually our focus can be on our alternative to the kind of cult that Avakian built.
zerohour said
Ben -
This is a really bad example of your point. How is this using security culture to cloak politics? They simply didn’t want to reveal the extent of their resources. What if they did tell you? Would their politics be different after a certain amount?
The example you gave was not a disagreement “concerning principles and direction of any revolutionary mass organization.” While it is true that one could be overly paranoid, like MIM insisting on using mechanical names like “M15″ rather than more humanizing pseudonyms like “Jane”, I have not heard of anyone in the last two decades hiding their genuine politics behind a claim of security.
zerohour said
I think this is something we should get into more. The CP of Nepal raised quite a stir when it openly revealed serious disagreements within the Central Committee, including a possible political rupture between Prachanda and Bhattarai. Nothing like this had been done before in the history of ML parties for exactly the reasons described above.
I’m not sure I would wholeheartedly agree with Ben, but I do believe that a political transparency is not something we should believe is a settled question. The history of COINTELPRO shows that revealing political differences can have fatal outcomes. The lesson many have taken from this has been not to acknowledge such differences at all. The approach has been secretive and cryptic, according to Malcolm X: “those who know don’t tell and those who tell don’t know.” It would be easy to chalk this all up to paranoia, but The US government has ways of using seemingly innocuous information with destructive results.
So how does one reconcile political transparency with the need to keep an organization intact and its members safe? Can members of a revolutionary organization openly express political differences without compromising discipline or security?
Mike E said
i agree transparency should not be treated as a simple or settled question. The movement needs to be very accessible to the people, and we need to end a practice of using “security” to actually hide the weaknesses and practice of our own movement from ourselves.
All this is is a unity of opposites. And our necesary practices cannot be fixed for all time, conditions or stages of the movement.
At the same time: A movement without secrets cannot possibly be a revolutionary movement.
Ben Seattle said
This is true.
But it is also true that we will never be able to build the kind of revolutionary mass organization which we need if we hide our political differences. (I am not discussing rare cases–such as the disagreement in the Bolshevik ranks concerning whether to launch the October revolution.)
So what this means is that if build the kind of organization that we need–that the bourgeois state will be able to arrest or kill some of us.
But that is a given. We already known that.
We have to consider which is the more serious risk. We need guidance from the mass of activists and from the masses. If we keep our differences secret–then we lose this.
The conclusion that I have come to (on the basis of studying this for a long time) is that losing guidance from the masses would represent a far more serious loss to us than repression by the state.
Guidance from the masses represents our basic orientation. Our basic orientation (ie: an internal factor) is always more important than repression from the state (ie: an external factor).
Aside from (1) time-sensitive tactical information and (2) issues related to organizational security or (3) personal identity and personal privacy–members of a revolutionary mass organization must be free to express their views.
We will have to figure out how to do this without unnecessarily compromising security. Necessity is the mother of invention.
As far as compromising “discipline” — that is another issue. What kind of discipline should prevent a revolutionary activist from expressing his opinion (including his opinion that a policy, principle or person guiding his organization is incompent, hypocritical or corrupt and must be replaced)? The kind of “discipline” that works this way–is the discipline that leads a revolutionary organization down the road to hell.
Mike S. said
This is a very interesting discussion. I’m an anarchist, and an old friend of Chuck’s, but I have to side with the majority of responses so far on this one: building a security culture is an important part of being revolutionaries, and despite all the criticisms I have of the RCP I can’t see that our analysis would be improved greatly by having supposedly authoritative answers from Mike E. to the questions Chuck has asked.
It’s funny, as with Red Flags, my take on security culture has been heavily influenced by my experiences (more extensive than those of RF) with the Puerto Rican independence movement in Chicago. This brings up a few other points that deserve more discussion:
1) In ten years of near-constant contact with the PR movement in Chicago I did sometimes witness the scenario that concerns Chuck, where security culture is used as an excuse to maintain power dynamics. But what I saw a lot more of was an unfortunate corrolary of security culture — crisis culture, in which one crisis after another dominates all organizing efforts, to the detriment of long-term work. I don’t know if the RCP suffers from this or not, but it is definitely something to guard against as the 9 Letters tendency coheres.
2) A variation on Chuck’s question would arise if the RCP finally gave up the ghost and dissolved, as most of its early contemporaries (OL/CPML, etc.) have already done. At that point, there are obviously security concerns for individuals, but the kind of general questions that Chuck asks might be more acceptable because they no longer have any potential to jeopardize any on-going work. I’ve dealt with these sorts of questions as I research and write about the history of the Sojourner Truth Organization, a smaller group with similar origins (the RYM II tendency of SDS) but a very different trajectory than the RCP. STO has been defunct for 20 years, but I still find myself struggling with the question of how much internal material is relevant to documenting their history for new generations of revolutionaries. These are not easy questions because there is a lot that we can learn today from the work (including the internal, organizational work) of past revolutionaries. At the same time, one former member of STO pointedly reminded me that Frederick Douglass criticized the escaped slave Henry “Box” Brown, who mailed himself to abolitionists in order to escape, for revealing his methods; by contrast, Douglass waited until after the Civil War to describe his own escape in any detail.
3) My refence to STO leads nicely into my final point, which was that the group of people cohering around the 9 Letters would do well to read up on groups like STO that differed sharply from the RU/RCP. In particular, I would recommend the pamphlet “Toward a Revolutionary Party,” which was written in 1971 and is thus obviously dated, but nonetheless contains some thoughtful insights. You can read it here: http://www.sojournertruth.net/tarp.html
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Chuck Morse said
Hi,
Transparency and security are doubtlessly virtues for any revolutionary group and, to a great extent, you can only practice one at the expense of the other. As Mike E pointed out above (I believe), it is not possible to figure out in advance which one should–always and in every case–take precedence.
However, this conundrum–though fodder for lengthy online discussions–has little to do with the questions that I posed. I asked Mike to explain: “Who makes the decisions? Where does the money come from? How many members are there? What is the turnover rate? What are the backgrounds of the membership? etc. etc.”
Would it put the RCP in jeopardy if (for instance) Mike stated that most RCP members are white, that most are in their late middle ages or early twenties, that the turnover rate is high, that members play no role in setting organizational policy, and that most of the money comes from an endowment and book sales?
No, it would not put the RCP at risk, but it would help us analyze the group and it’s fate. Examining how things like race, class, and gender impact the RCP, as well as more general power dynamics within it, is very important.
My questions simply do not lead to the type of information that the state uses to persecute people (names, addresses, employers (etc, etc)). I am not asking for such data and I’m not at all interested in it.
I may have confused matters by stating that the government does not see the RCP as a threat, thus leading some to think that I believe that all RCP information, no matter how incriminating, should be made public. That is not my view.
Paper tiger stated that I have been asking the same question over and over again. Although that is not the case (thanks for clarifying that, Mike), I do have an abiding concern and perhaps can be faulted for trying to get it addressed in various ways: I believe that the method used to analyze the RCP in the Nine Letters is highly idealist–focused on “lines” not social relationships–and I would like to see it supplemented by one that is grounded in a historical analysis of social relationships. That is why I posed the questions that I did.
(I haven’t read Mike’s “Linc and Me” yet, but I look forward to it. It seems like it may address some of these issues).
Mike E said
Chuck writes,
i accept that as a fair statement of intent.
I agree that it may not put the RCP in jeopardy if those were the answers I gave –and the reason the RCP holds back such information is mainly (i believe)because the picture they would reveal would be embarassing and damaging. There is one important exception: your questions and “answers” about money issues. Whether you have thought it through or not — any discussion of money flows raises legal issues of taxes, exchanges, disclosures etc. And even if a group gives great attention to legality in such matters, allegations can (unintentionally even) open them up to scrutiny, investigations and “fishing expeditions” (under all kinds of statutes I don’t feel like listing).
As for your specific questions, I have discussed many of these issues in the 9 letters:
Letter 2 discusses “The RCP never succeeded in transforming its racial or class composition — it has not trained or recruited significant numbers of new communists from the proletariat and oppressed nationalities despite all the efforts in that direction.”
Letter 7 describes how “whateverism” has become a basic principle around which this organization is built. It says “What emerges from such methods is a party where discussions are maddeningly confined and ritualized. They generally take place only after positions (or even a whole new synthesis) have been formally adopted. Questions are “opened” so a new orthodoxy can replace an old one, and then discussions are slammed shut again. Throughout that process ready agreement is expected. Real dissent is assumed to be backward (or worse).”
Beyond that i will not (a) speculate on things I don’t actually know (like size or turnover), and (b) not discuss internal details at all (other than matters of line).
The issue you raise of “line vs. social relationship” is something i want to think about before spouting.
ulises276/2 said
I’ve been thinking a lot about the “line” vs. “social relationship” contradiction. It is a real issue. I used to believe that it was the “social relationships” aspect of things which was driving the RCP, that traditions and unconscious and implicit lines were in the lead. That the LINE which was laid over that was actually obscuring what was really going on. I came to this thinking on the basis of the contradiction between Avakian’s espoused line on debate and wrangling, amongst other things, and the actual practice of the Party. At a certain point I realized that the RCP itself does not make any distinction between these two levels of “line”. They are smashed together. If you repeat Avakian verbatim, you are applying the RCP’s line, even if you are using this to silence dissent, and stifle investigation. In other words, for Avakian and the RCP there is only line, and it is rooted in the exact formulations of Avakian himself (insofar as it is the RCP’s line).
In general, I think Chuck’s point here is very important. Unfortunately, it is typically the unspoken lines and assumptions that are in command at any given time. The inability to recognize and analyze the existence of such a subterranean level of line is partially responsible for the practice of “changing” the line in significant ways, and then having the practice come out the same. When we do see such a subterranean level of line explicitly brought into Maoist politics, it is usually in the form of some kind of purity campaign using accusations of dark and shadowy deviations, distilled into some ism (economism, revisionism, adventurism). While sometimes there is something to this, at other times it has had the effect of producing the ILLUSION of total, or near total, agreement of the Line with the practice in pursuit of it.
zerohour said
“Examining how things like race, class, and gender impact the RCP, as well as more general power dynamics within it, is very important.”
I think we could reflect on these dynamics more than we have as they pertain to political formation. I’m just wary of falling into a sort of “demographic determinism” where we look at these characteristics of an organization’s membership [percentage of members who are latino/woman/gay, etc., as if this raw data could tell us anything substantive. While race, class and gender ideologies are obviously important, I don’t think these characteristics can form more than an initial basis for investigation.
However, I do agree that treating line struggle as if it were just some abstractly rational process of discussion and debate is insufficient.
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redflags said
I would agree, I think(!) in a roundabout way by saying that what we are calling “line” actually includes “social relationships”.
Line is not a collection of agreed upon slogans, but an orientation including objective, social base, and the methods and means used to bring any given social base towards achieving agreed objectives.
Line is reduced among far too many activists to a question of semiotics, or the system of signs and references we use (eg slogans, style).
I believe the basis for this assumption that line is merely slogans comes from an often unstated assumption that we’re not really going to accomplish anything in terms of politics.
“Make the road by walking” is a slogan, one that I agree with in essence. But it is also used to say that there is nothing but that road – that there is no final destination. That, in the words of Eduard Bernstein (the first explicit systematizer of what he called Revisionist Marxism) “the movement is everything, the final aim nothing.”
In Bernstein’s mouth, this seemingly democratic platitude was a backdoor argument for socialists to discard attempts to overthrow captialism and fight for a better deal by muting, reducing and ultimately suppressing proletarian attempts to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
In our times, it takes the form of what Doug Henwood, Liza Featherstone and Christian Parenti called “Activistism.”
There is certainly a material base to giving up on politics – that for decades there have been precious few breakthroughs or victories. We have generations with no experience of revolutionary states, and an attendant cynicism that makes complete sense.
On way of fighting that cynicism is to literally embrace a narrowed horizon where we “fight” and “resist” but never (NEVER!) attempt to actually overturn the political order. We can mobilize people to resist, but the moment any claim is made beyond the most narrow and immediate consent of the exact people involved, this “activistism” sees nothing but authoritarian repression.
It’s quite conservative, truly prevalent among the gate-keepers of the non-revolutionary left – and people are continually trained in this way of looking at things.
Chuck surely knows what I’m talking about.
Speaking personally, the (seeming) refusal of the RCP to play that Sisyphusian game was what kept me in their periphery.
But I think they have accepted it, only in a more cartoonish and even less productive way.
They invert this lefto-conservative acceptance of the “politics of the real” with an impossiblism that can not get over its own sectarianism – even when mass struggle does break out.
Instead of immersing themselves in, and participating alongside the movements of today (think SLAM, now think SDS), they will approach those movements insisting that people adopt their own increasingly surreal Avakianism.
Or: “The final aim is everything, ignore the man behind the curtain.”
This movementism on one hand, which is far more pervasive, and sectarianism on the other are the Gordian knot we’ve been bound up as communists (and revolutionaries of all stripes) for far, far too long.
THAT is what we need to break through, because as a choice on the left it will not get us beyond the impasse we face.
Quorri said
Redflags says:
“Instead of immersing themselves in, and participating alongside the movements of today (think SLAM, now think SDS), they will approach those movements insisting that people adopt their own increasingly surreal Avakianism.”
I’ve been thinking ’bout how to truly build a mass, revolutionary movement and it seems likely that it must happen with this “immersing” in and “participating alongside the movements of today” that you speak of.
Still, it seems so sticky and like it might drown out the most correct line to just kind of mash in with everyone who wants something different than we have now…. How do you keep a correct line whole? How do you win others over to a correct line without seeming like you are just trying to co-opt their efforts? It’s all very muddy and unclear to me….
Mike E said
Yes, Quorri, exactly. It is where we need to focus — both in theory and practice. There is much to say on this, and the “unmuddying” of that is both a creative intellectual process and a process that is resolved in struggling through the actual choices within practice itself.
Redflags says: “Instead of immersing themselves in, and participating alongside the movements of today (think SLAM, now think SDS), they will approach those movements insisting that people adopt their own increasingly surreal Avakianism.”
At some point, it would be useful to hear a summation of the opportunity the organized communists threw way in CUNY’s Slam struggles. Here were hundreds of emerging radical-revolutionaries, often with deep ties among oppressed communities (in NYC and beyond), and the RCP was incapable (conceptually and practically) to worth through that, to bring forward waves of new communists (and more, transform their own organizations “links to the masses” much more broadly). I think that opening was relentlessly, blindly and rather arrogantly pissed away by those leading the RCP (nationally and in NYC).
I would love to see some real debate over what was and what might have been. Cuz after all, rare though such opportunities are, similar things do reoccur.
saoirse said
Re: SLAM
I think it would be fruitful to discuss the role of revolutionaries, rev. orgs within SLAM (at Hunter and as a city wide coalition of student grps). The RCP were certainly physically there at times while there politics affected many in the movement.
Anon said
Thing is… do we U.S. communists HAVE a correct line to keep whole?
Mike E said
My opinion: We have not yet “charted the uncharted course.” There is a body of work to do — based in part on extensive previous experience (both positive and negative), but mainly based on new investigation of many kinds. This movement has been running on self-deception for a long time — and the first step is to stop breathing the fumes.
We are fighting to initiate the much-needed new theoretical project, and also initiate areas of practical work that we can already identify and unite around.
Quorri said
We don’t yet have a fully developed line but it is obvious that a line is developing, yeah?
Excitement…. :) Hope.
land said
In our area we are at the point that a significant number of movement people are following the line struggle between the RCP and Kasama.
I have asked different people if they know the Kasama site and a number have said yes. Many people are part of organized groupings most who have somewhat respected the RCP in the past while opposing MLM. Stalin and democratic centralism come up as what they have criticisms of. Support Lenin but not Mao.
There is interest in Cuba and Venezuela.
There is some support for Mumia but there has always been a gap here. At this time the main support comes from the black community including the youth in the cultural arenas. There are some deep feelings here. One woman performer has this song “there’s no sunshine when he’s gone.”
The question I have is what is the work needed to “chart the uncharted course”. And what is the relationshiop between the much needed new theoretical projects and areas of investigation.
I have noticed that on the website people talk alot about the 60′s, the Panthers, a very important part of our history.
We need more debate on today. The Georgia article by Michael Ely is good on that. I sent it around because there is alot of debate on this.
Just heard a conversation going on between two black men about McCain’s choice for VP and they were talking about why Mccain had to choose a younger woman because he needed to appeal to younger people.
These are the conversations. The election talk is everywhere.
People need to know about Kasama.
One suggestion is make posters of the Kasama flier with a large
website address and get them posted in good places.
On the Hunter question:
I do not know why the RCP accomplished so little at Hunter. This would be good to sum up.
Was it only the focus on BA? The surreal Avakianism? The RCP has taken on religion at the same time saying “when a leader of this caliber emerges.” Aside from what is meant by “this caliber” it has the ring of something you might say on Easter.
Students are kind of a tough crowd these days. They are not apathetic but they really do not want to hear the same old thing.
I think that is why a number of students have gravitated to 911Truth. Or Ron Paul.
There is also a huge gap in knowledge around the Mao revolutionary years and all that means for revolutionaries today.
Or doesn’t mean?