Kasama’s Answer: Revolutionaries Need to Fearlessly Debate and Regroup
Posted by Mike E on October 20, 2008
the world needs fearless debate among communists
The RCP is publicly accusing the Kasama proect of being counter-revolutionaries and of helping police destroy revolutionary organization. We have posted this new statement by the RCP, entitled: “What is Counter-Revolution?“
In keeping with the RCP’s current style, they mention no names, but clearly this is intended to smear people who created our Kasama site, and also smear the many people who post here.
We urge everyone reading this to speak out against the false charge and its disturbing subtexts.
Four questions:
1) What thinking person can look over our Kasama site and believe this is a launching pad for “vicious attacks” on communists and for police activity?
2) Can we allow this kind of accusation to once-again poison the political culture among revolutionaries and progressive people?
3) Will the RCP publicly assert that this new charge of”counterrevolutionary” is not intended as a justification for violence against their critics?
4) Will the RCP find some appropriate means of sharing specific evidence of their unsubstantiated charge that their organization’s security is being harmed?
Points on Substance and Line:
- RCP’s new statement rests on a self-serving belief: that any serious critique of the RCP’s new synthesis is a “vicious attack” on humanity’s best hope. And further that any such attack is objectively “counter-revolutionary.” This argument arises from the RCP’s defining view that “Avakian is the cardinal question” — i.e. that their Chairman Bob Avakian and his theoretical views are the dividing line among communists between revolution and revisionism. Communists who reject (or even question) Avakian’s view are viewed as despicable revisionists — i.e. counterrevolutionaries mascarading as communists.
- There is a escalating progression in the RCP’s accusations over the last few months: Initially they argued that the Kasama project was unprincipled, revisionist, economist, dishonest, opportunist and so on. Their new charge of counterrevolution is a leap. The earlier claims of opportunism were wrong— this new charge is a further radical rupture with reality.
- In words the RCP (and this statement) upholdthe need for principled discussion of key line questions among communists. But, their assertion of this had gotten more and more threadbare. Their leadership wants to command “germanic appreciation” as a precondition of engagement.
- Now, there is a disturbingly 1930s character to the RCP’s ideological trajectory. This flavoring is new for them, but old for the communist movement. The RCP’s application of Avakian’s theory of “solid core” has led to an approximation of the old Comintern striving for a “monolithic party.” Now, they charge their critics with being counterrevolutionaries and wreckers. They claim that their critics should be isolated and shunned. All of this recreates the discredited approaches of the 1930s, where one line of communism tried to enshrine itself as a state religion — and treated criticism as heresy. All of this goes against the well-known methods of the Maoist movement in analyzing line differences among communists.
- This new RCP Statement suggests there is something fundamentally wrong (and suspicious) about any criticism of the RCP that does not simultaneously offer a complete opposing counter synthesis. The problem of this argument should be obvious. Kasama is understaking a serious project of developing a road to revolution in the U.S. — including by summing up the contributions and errors of the RCP. The fact that we aren’t freely inventing a counter-synthesis (from the air, from our heads, out of old formulas) is not an indictment. It reflects our criticism of Avakian’s superficial methodology. We hope to forge a communist road forward, and that will take new practice, new ruptures, new thinking and time. The criticism that communists have not yet “charted the uncharted course” is a criticism that applies to the RCP as well as to us.
- A disturbing thing: The charge of counter-revolution is the argument that these line questions among communists are no longer “contradictions among the people.” We urge the RCP to make a clarifying statement that they don’t intend such things as a threat of violence.
- There is a second disturbing element in this disturbing document: it includes an early attempt at police baiting. This statement charges that Kasama’s public forum for revolutionary politics is helpful to police agencies and freelance reactionaries. The implications of this are obvious: If your debate with the RCP is not conducted on their terms, in their channels, with sufficient “germanic appreciation,” you may be accused of serving the police and the state. This is an absurd charge that people should strongly reject. It is an attempt to create a climate that would be poisonous and disasterous for any serious revolutionary effort.
- The RCP writes that our polemics and our site “fosters a climate where people think it is OK to publish and broadcast lies about people, to ask about people’s whereabouts, to speculate and gossip about the role of different individuals, and try to provoke people into responding to this level of discourse.” As everyone can see for themelves: Our polemics were written with painstaking attention to accuracy. Our site has prevented any discussion of the location or role of particular individuals. We have systematically removed any comments that hinted about such things, particularly the location of Avakian. No one from the RCP has ever contacted us to complain about specific postings. In short, we believe this charge is simply untrue. Having said that, we invite the RCP to inform us (using appropriate private means) of specific ways their organizational or personal security is being undermined. We will, of course, take quick and principled action to respond to prevent any damage to their organizational security.
- For many years, the old CPUSA routinely argued that anyone who opposed them was helping the police or the CIA — a charge that they leveled at Maoists (and the RCP itself) more than once. Avakian and the RCP used to fiercely oppose such methods.
- The Kasama Project has not responded in kind to the RCP’s escalating hysteria. And we will not respond in kind in the future. We intend to engage our differences with their current views on the high plane of two-line struggle. We consider the RCP to be sincere revolutionaries who have made singificant contributions. And we are eager to give no opening to cointelpro-style inflaming of political difference.
In fact, the RCP’s new statement is another rather sad act of self-exposure and self-deception. And it continues a bullying tone that is intolerable among revolutionary and progressive people.
The RCP has a line, a method, and a deepening isolation that they do not want critically discussed. and they seek to deflect critcism by attacking their critics. Their attempts to suppress criticism simply will not work -neither among their own membership nor among communists regrouping around Kasama.
We encourage everyone reading this to seriously critically study the RCP’s charges and speak out.
Nil said
I believe “bad-jacketing” is generally used to refer to that practice specifically when undertaken _by_ the police, who know that the people they are accusing are NOT police collaborators, but put out rumors that they are anyway. That excerpt from _Agents of Repression_ backs up this meaning–they’re talking about the COINTELPRO _doing_ the bad-jacketing.
I’m reasonably confident you don’t in fact mean to imply that the RCP is “bad-jacketing” in this sense, that is, imply that it’s the _RCP_ that are police collaborators. That would just get ridiculous, your whole point is that we should avoid accusing people of being police collaborators without good reason.
You might want to avoid that particular phrase applied to the situation.
Mike E said
We are talking about police baiting within the left — accusing people of being police agents when there is no evidence (and even when it is obviously not true.)
We certainly do not mean to imply that the RCP are somehow police-affiliated. If you found thisconfusing, Nil, others might have too — to we have followed your advice and removed the term “bad-jacketing.” We now use term “police baiting.” Thanks
TellNoLies said
At a certain point, it seems to me, the assessment has to be made of how valuable it is to continue to engage the RCP and whether it has become distraction from the larger theoretical and organizational tasks.
I understand that there are several purposes served by this engagement. They include: the always important task of summation of experience in building a revolutionary organization, acting as a pole of attraction for people still in or around the RCP, and of course the need for recent refugees to work through the implications of their breaks. I also understand the need to respond strongly to charges of the sort the RCP is making here (even if they don’t have the guts to say who they are talking about). But it also important to recognize the rapid degeneration in the RCP’s discourse that this latest attack represents and to consider the ways that being drawn into this fight degrades our project here and contributes to it becoming a “small moon circling a dead planet.”
There is a tendency when romantic relationships go bad for the dumped to stalk the dumper even after reconciliation is obviously impossible, if only to pick fights. The dumper often indulges this sort of dysfunctional behavior for the same reasons the dumped engages in it — real feelings of attachment and loss. The relationship was a source of meaning for both parties and it is difficult to imagine life without it. In general, in my view, it is the responsibility of the dumper to make the clean break and to say to the dumped “its not about you, I just need some space so I can grow, and maybe we can be friends in a year or two.” Historically, Marxism-Leninists have not been particularly receptive to psychoanalyzing their own processes of political development, (and I concede that the above is more on the level of Ann Landers than Lacan) but I think a little attention to this dimension of things might help people see more clearly what needs to be done.
anton said
“3) Will the RCP publicly assert that this new charge of”counterrevolutionary” is not intended as a justification for violence against their critics?”
Mike–
I think this question is inappropriate and harmful. I’m on my way out the door– will post more thought out detail later.
Mike E said
TNL writes:
What I draw from your comments is this:
If we view our polemics with the RCP as a POLITICAL matter, our actions make sense.
If we view our polemics with the RCP through the metaphor of a traumatic romance metaphor, our actions seem disfunctional and a waste of time..
hmmmmmm. I propose that we take the first approach — and view these things as a political matter.
* * * * * *
Joking aside:
Here is how I think we should approach all this:
1) I think we need to understand that the polemic with the RCP is not some “squabble between two small groups on the U.S. left” — it is a part of a much larger line struggle that has emerged among communists internationally. Our polemic with the RCP is a part of an international attempt to have communism shed a heavy weight of lingering dogmatism.
2) In that light, the issue is not “heal and move on.” I think we need a spirit of “the wind will not subside.”
The issue is to “carry the line struggle through ruptures to synthesis.” Not for personal satisfaction (i.e. no romance metaphor) — but to extract what can be extracted from the experience and the line struggle.
We need to help make the opposing views clear and understandable — to the many thousands of people who are watching (and who are coming from very different places). We need to make our (small but real) contribution to the line struggle that is happening on an international scale.
3) In many ways, we have just started to grapple with the meat of the RCP experience — we have not yet made a summation of their attempt at proletarian base areas in the 1980-90s (nickersons, cabrini green), and we have really not engaged the whole question of whether it was a mistake to form a mini-party like the RCP in the 1970s (and if it was a mistake, what SHOULD communists have built pending a real party?) We have not yet summed up Clark Kissinger’s legacy to the left — i.e. the series of mass initiatives that led in creating, and that were (in many ways) among the RCP’s most important visible manifestation. (I have often wondered what Clark is thinking, as the cult of Avakian dismantles and spits on his life’s work — but perhaps he will get a chance to tell us one day).
4) To be clear: Communists OUTSIDE the RCP do not need to “race to catch up with the Main Man” — i.e. to treat his every new utterance as some world-historic object of study or debate. The RCP’s recent work is rather dull retread and seems increasingly irrelevent even to the RCP’s own project. So I am not proposing that we feel compelled respond to each huge new “historic” talk — which will inevitably arrive every few months from now on.
5) On the contrary: (as several people have pointed out) the RCP is a) imploding before our eyes, b) functionally irrelevent, c) sinking below the critical-mass horizon for a national organization, d) probably unable to launch new national initiatives on the scale of NION or WCW or R&R, and d) an increasingly pathetic presence to progressive people. Barring some “rising tide that lifts all ships” the RCP is not on a healthy trajectory.
For those reasons, it is not so much an “ongoing engagement” with the much-diminished RCP (of this moment) that we need, but a more long-term, stepped back, critical summation of their theory and practice at its best.
5) Here is my view: We have a presumptuous work to undertake.
I think the Kasama Project (as a communist organization) and this Kasama site (as a broader revolutionary forum) need to engage the key line questions and events of our time. these include (in the first place) “charting the uncharged course” for the socialist revolution we want to accomplish. As we proceed, the RCP will be (more and more) “In our rearview mirror,” even while at appropriate times, their experience and line will be part of the raw material for “reconceiving as we regroup.”
TellNoLies said
I agree. I understand where the question comes from, but there is nothing in the RCP’s recent words or deeds to suggest that this accusation will lead to violence. Its really about policing the reading habits of their own members and we should not allow ourselves to be baited into framing this in any other way.
LS said
There have been assertions made by various commenters at different times that Mike sums up neatly here:
Here I’m mostly interested in Mike’s points A and C. I don’t live in a place where the RCP has a real ongoing presence, so while this seems likely to be true (clearly they have lost some supporters and members who now participate here), it is impossible for me to judge to what degree it is true that they are imploding or sinking below a critical mass to maintain a national organization.
If they are in fact imploding or falling apart, at some point I think we would see concrete manifestations of that which would be obvious to all — things like reducing the frequency of publication of the newspaper, closing bookstores, or losing an ongoing presence in some cities. I don’t think any of that has happened yet, has it? The newspapers and bookstores are tasks that one could assume require a significant amount of people power to maintain. If we see faltering there, then I would say it’s beyond dispute that they’re in trouble. As for political relevancy that’s another question. But if they can continue to publish two weekly newspapers (English & Spanish) and maintain bookstores in multiple cities across the country, I would hesitate to say that they are organizationally below a critical mass to continue to function, because they seem to be continuing to function at a higher level than quite a few other U.S. left groups (which isn’t saying anything about their political relevance, but it does say something).
irisbright said
LS
Hasn’t the newspaper been bi weekly for a few months now?
It goes Aug 24, Sept 7, Sept 21, Oct 5, Oct 19.
But it doesn’t say they are ‘special issues’.
irisbright said
I think it is harmful that we have been objectively lumped in with police agents, the military, and fringe elements like the Minutemen and the KKK; we are literally dangerous–aiding the state and, as an RCP sympathizer posted, ‘endangering the lives of cadre and leadership’. Readers are also told to shun us.
That, I think, is where the threat element of their statement comes in. They are elevating things to that level.
anton said
# A disturbing thing: The charge of counter-revolution is the argument that these line questions among communists are no longer “contradictions among the people.” We urge the RCP to make a clarifying statement that they don’t intend such things as a threat of violence.
# There is a second disturbing element in this disturbing document: it includes an early attempt at police baiting. This statement charges that Kasama’s public forum for revolutionary politics is helpful to police agencies and freelance reactionaries. The implications of this are obvious: If your debate with the RCP is not conducted on their terms, in their channels, with sufficient “germanic appreciation,” you may be accused of serving the police and the state. This is an absurd charge that people should strongly reject. It is an attempt to create a climate that would be poisonous and disasterous for any serious revolutionary effort. ”
The RCP is making an ideological/political point in calling (unnamed, i.e. Kasama) people/groups counter-revolutionary, basically telling people who may be checking out both sides that the line struggle is antagonistically polarized and that they should have nothing to do with Kasama. There is no action of any type advocated, suggested or implied in the piece except in the negative sense of have nothing to do with listen to etc the unnamed critics. They are drawing a real sharp antagonistic political and ideological dividing line– nothing else. They are fully within their rights (in principle in the sense of their political autonomy)as a group to advocate this.
“This statement charges that Kasama’s public forum for revolutionary politics is helpful to police agencies and freelance reactionaries.”
While the essence of this charge is not true, police agencies and freelance reactionaries will certainly use whatever they can find on such a forum to their advantage if they can. In terms of my understanding or cointelpro, a lot of what they did under that program was “false flag” operations, some of which have been alluded to on these threads. Also there is a history of taking public statements completely out of context and using them as a basis to go after people. This may have been done (I’m not sure) on the basis of police agencies planting for instance the media. People need to keep in mind who has the real capacity for organized violence in this society (hint: it’s not small left groups).
I think the urging of a “clarification” puts the RCP on the spot in a very bad way. Their basic premise is that people should have nothing to do with Kasama. This clarification thing sort of pressures them into addressing their critics on terms they would plausibly see as bogus. A failure to respond makes them look bad in a way in which they are not– and can provide a pretext for the real counter-revolutionary forces to do bad things.
Politically this urging of clarification sort of reminds me of way issues of violence and required denunciations thereof are used in bourgeois politics to de-legitimize and distance various forces.
Jaques said
Along the lines of some of what Anton was saying, the following basic point can’t be overstated:
*Whether or not it is anyone’s specific intent,* the bourgeois state–the motherfuckers behind cointelpro; the sifting through of tens of millions of emails; scores of coups and wars of aggression over now hundreds of years–these people are served in their efforts to gather information on revolutionary activity, by the kind of speculative gossip that finds its way onto a site like Kasama.
That’s point one, and it’s directed at people who post on this site but aren’t administrators of it or active partisans to the Kasama Project.
Point two:
Mike Ely and Co. are not stupid. They seem to be many things that I don’t agree with and find very unsavory, but they are not stupid. I have to believe that they have considered the implications of running a website that is a frequent forum for unsubstantiated musings about topics which they (all the more so to the degree they have in fact had a history with any organized revolutionary groups) know full well are intended to be treated with the utmost care and restraint.
Mike E said
Jacques:
I don’t think you and anton are saying the same things at all.
But, more to the point, help us here. Draw out your mysterious claims: what are these “topics that…are intended to be treated with utmost care and restraint.” And where have “unsubstantiated musings” done any potential damage.
This site is moderated. Reactionary trolls, suspicious questions, discussions of illegal acts, are all routinely and systematically eliminated.
Lets put it another way: I ran the 2changetheworld site for the RCP. This site uses almost the identical methods and guidelines for moderation that the RCP’s site used (since i developed those guidelines for the RCP.)
Please point out where they are wrong?
I perceive your statement as making two (incorrect) arguments:
First I think you are objectivelyarguing that there cannot really be (a) political polemics, (b) public discussion of revolutionary experiences, (c) open interactive forums in general — unless they are conducted under the complete control and censorship of the RCP. It is an argument that they must control all discussion of themselves and their history.
Second I think that all your talk of “Mike and Co are not stupid” is a (rather familiar and disturbing) insinuation that we FULLY INTEND whatever “damage” our site does — i.e. that we know such a site is damaging and we intend this damage.
These claims you are making are false for many reasons. And I welcome the chance for all of us here on kasama to consider them (seriously) and answer them.
The simple fact is that the RCP has rejected accountability. Internally the leadership is completely unaccountable to its membership — and always has been. Members are kept in the dark about the most basic details (and even controversies) of their own movements — hiding isolation, failures, and more. Polemics by others are demonized or ignored (and certainly only very very rarely shared with members).
And so when somethng lively and uncnesored emerges (outside the party) — i.e. Kasama — it upsets the apple cart.
* * * * *
It is true that the police agencies watch and learn. And that they exploit openings.
But that doesn’t just apply to Kasama — it is also true of baseless charges made by the RCP. Isn’t it true that it has served cointelpro efforts when revolutionaries lightly called each other “pigs.”
Why don’t you think through the implications of your own attention to the presence of “the third man in the room”?
* * * * *
A kid says the emperor has no clothes.
The emperor rages “you threaten the whole kingdom.”
Well, everyone heard the kid.
And that means the charade is just over.
N3wDay said
Anton,
From what I’ve read of the RCP’s published documents they usually denounce the use or threat of the use violence against reactionaries (which according to them includes Kasama). Having never been in the RCP or never having exposure to many of it’s members I have no reason to believe otherwise. However, I urge you consider the objective implications of their statement and what they lead to, regardless of the party leaderships subjective intentions. (I don’t think it’s worthwhile to speculate on the subjective intentions, I agree that asking the RCP to clarify is a difficult demand to fulfill, and asking that should have been done behind closed doors first).
The article charges us with encouraging discussion about the party – on our part that is it’s line, command structure (as in no real democracy, vertical etc), and how they work with intellectuals, etc. and it speculates on what our real intentions are (supposedly wanting to destroy those who are trying to change the world by any means necessary).
Then the logical development of that is the comment that appears no more than one below your’s Anton. Jaques makes the assertion, “Mike Ely and Co. are not stupid…” Here he/she asserts that by encouraging discussion of the RCP (ANY aspect of the RCP as long as it’s negative) automatically leads to people sharing dangerous emails with each other (which we can neither confirm nor deny except among our membership), which to Jacques includes what the article charges us with, meaning discussion using particular individuals names, locations, exposure of sensitive materials etc (therefore by having a website that criticizes the RCP we are knowingly encouraging people to share sensitive info). After all we are nothing but “parasitic critics” trying to destroy the RCP. So based on Jaques circular logic we are actively aiding police in order to destroy the RCP. That assertion isn’t a huge leap for those who are buying what the RCP is writing about us, and Jaques has to draw that conclusion if he/she can’t actually find any public material on the site to justify the RCP’s claims, but none-the-less is wedded to the organization and still wants to agree with the line they have presented.
The result is Jaques police baiting us! This is poison for open and transparent discussion of anything revolutionary. The RCP have committed a grave error here.
Now if we are open counter-revolutionaries (basically informants) intentionally feeding information to the police that could result in people’s lifelong friends and comrades dying, being imprisoned, or hurt in other ways, how will that assertion result in us being treated? At best shunned, despised, and isolated by anyone who buy’s that utter bullshit, and at worst other things could happen.
The RCP drew a clear line in the sand months ago. But this took it to a whole new level. Before I just thought they were being childish. Now I think exactly what KaFrank said. If the RCP doesn’t clarify how we act in the ways they are asserting, then they are being incredibly irresponsible and helping poison the environment of our movement. It shouldn’t be left to people’s overactive imaginations to find ways to justify what RCP is asserting here. They should be completely clear about what they mean and what the implications of what they are saying is, otherwise it leads to statements like that of Jaques. (Unless of course the RCP has no plausible way to justify the article, except through insinuation).
Jaques has no proof nor reason to believe what he asserts beyond the, frankly, baseless and damaging speculation on the part of the RCP which has emerged and developed since the release of the 9 Letters, climaxing now.
Iris said
Anton,
You ask good questions. They certainly gave me pause. But I think the issues here are:
1. The security risks offered by struggle between two Left groups have been exacerbated by the particular charge of counter-revolutionary, put out by the RCP. This means we are no longer in struggle, in the eyes of the RCP, but ‘enemies’. As they said, we are objectively ,’actively aiding the state’ and putting the lives of their cadre and leadership in danger. This kind of rhetorical escalation does not reflect reality and is dangerously irresponsible. If someone (like the KKK or the Minutemen) is a counter-revolutionary who endangers your life, alternate methods of ‘dealing’ with them, of defense, are suddenly justified. This is very serious and not “something to play at”. I suppose they have the ‘right’ to do this, but it doesn’t make it any less dangerous, wrong or unprincipled.
2. The Kasama project has never counted or treated the RCP as enemies, and in fact have engaged in principled 2 line struggle. No one has found evidence on our website of gossip, speculation, or other security risks nor have we encouraged such behavior. I don’t think the Kasama project has ever or would ever condone flinging such dangerous labels upon comrades so carelessly.
3. You acknowledged that the security risk charge is essentially false. You go on to say that agents of the state would use public information on this forum to their advantage. Here I have to reiterate that I agree with you, in essentials. That the RCP is not our enemy, the state is our enemy and our central antagonist. But speaking of COINTELPRO, I must say that the more open and honest an organization is, and individual activists are, about disagreements the safer we are and the less at risk for agency interference. When a left organization issues an un-authored statement calling an unidentified (but nonetheless obviously identifiable) organization ‘counter-revolutionary’, they have created a COINTELPRO dream.
4. As for what you said about putting the RCP on the spot for clarification; I thought your comparison to bourgeois politics was interesting and I didn’t think of it that way. I still think that the burden of “clarification” is on them. Revolutionary individuals and organizations, especially in the US, are precious. The threat from the state is very real. To put the label of ‘counter-revolutionary’ on another communist group publicly and without presenting evidence is seriously damaging to the prospect of building a real revolutionary movement in the US.
5. The tone of the ‘glossary’ piece and the personal nature of their engagements so far (including a distorted fixation on Mike Ely as an individual, not a member of a project) supports a request for clarification on what exactly they mean to say (besides directing people to literally shun the Kasama project) by putting such a statement out publicly.
Overall I think an atmosphere of calm, openness, and clarity is needed at this time. De-escalation around such events is also key to security and effective political work.
To Jaques:
As Mike said,
“Draw out your mysterious claims: what are these “topics that…are intended to be treated with utmost care and restraint.” And where have “unsubstantiated musings” done any potential damage.”
Like I said, not being clear (within reason) serves to obfuscate needed conversations on security, freedom of debate, and substantiating charges like the one the RCP has leveled. Such openness combats state interference and confusion. As someone new to the movement, I find such finger wagging implications as “You should know better” extremely frustrating, mysterious, and unhelpful.
Iris said
Also, I feel the implications of their opening line, “revolution is serious, it is not something you play at” is quite disturbing. It has a “you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into” feel to it. While it is on its face true, it takes on new meanings when directed toward persons they know are veteran revolutionaries, Mike Ely, Bill Martin, and others in the project.
Jose M said
I think that this is so revealing of the death of the RCP. They are so scared of their cadre, and what Kasama represents, that they print ridiculous bullshit (to be nice) in order to dissuade potential revolutionaries, their cadre, and others from engaging with Kasama.
If I had any illusions before (when i worked with them) that these people meant anything in the political terrain, well, i need to slap myself. Its hard to think that a man I used to respect so much for bringing me to revolution and communism (mr. avakian) is now printing things that run counter to maoism and what making revolution (and principled line struggle) really mean.
But i think there is a bright side to this. To me, and to others working within kasama, this is an opening to move beyond this and to what is really important, “regrouping as we reconcieve.” We can now say, “they have officially gone nuts, and we should begin developing our independent road and methods. starting now.” I like that.
transprog said
I know that a lot of this discussion centers mainly around the RCP, but do people find that similar criticisms could be made against other communist or otherwise socialist groups? Meaning that problems criticized about the RCP may possibly be endemic to much of the Communist left?
redflags said
Revolutionaries need to fearlessly debate and regroup. That’s the title of this, if not the focus of the discussion. There’s a much bigger we than Maoists in America. (laughing out loud).
I think the RCP’s problems are different from the broader issues in the radical left. There are similarities, and general small group dynamics, sure. But the particularities of the group are real.
TRANSPROG: What do you as endemic to the communist left as you’ve experienced it?
transprog said
I think the word endemic is a little too strong upon second thought. But the discussion of how the RCP controls information and knowledge especially that of their own members caused several memories of previous interactions with other groups to surface in my mind. I’m kinda a theory nerd and I like to discuss it with other people. Yet I often find myself talking to communists (but also anarchists and others)who have never read any theory or only that which is published by their specific party.
In addition there’s the level of debate between organizations. Reading histories of previous revolutionary struggles shows that factions and different parties have always fought, but these struggles were different then they are now. Mostly these differing groups would still work together and the dialogue was basically respectful. The problem today can be called the ‘sectarianism’ problem. But I mean this in two ways. First there is the obvious problem of real sectarianism. Secondly there is the problem of (falsely) accused sectarianism as a means to avoid real debate. By this I mean some groups react to any criticism by not addressing the issues offered but rather call the one person or group sectarian and leave it at that. Whether or not the criticism is sectarian is not as important as to how the accusation of sectarianism without further debate simply does away with any potential for the development of ideas.
I found these problems in several groups (ISO, Sparticist, SWP, CPUSA among others). I’ve met members of these groups who did know theory, yet they also were higher up in the organization. As they say ‘knowledge is power’ and theoretical knowledge seems to be used to reinforce the hierarchies within parties. Interestingly I’ve met several former members who after reading and studying theory outside of the control of the party, actually left the party. So maybe there is some real fear on the part of the groups. But what does this say about the theoretical basis of these parties?
zerohour said
Transprog -
I just wanted to throw something out that I think relates to your point. It seems to me that when we discuss Avakian’s dilettantism or his “recoil” factor when attempting to delve more deeply into theory, we are seeing something that I also think is endemic to the left: the need to posit an Other. This is why so much analysis from Marxist groupings seems so truncated and unsatisfying, they are mainly concerned with tracing absolute lines of demarcation so they dismiss potential points of contact and even shared undercurrents with other leftists, and yes, sometimes even the bourgeoisie. One notorious historical case of the latter has been the once-shared assumptions between socialists and capitalists on the benefits of industrialism. That’s not to say that there aren’t real differences and that they can, or even should, all be traversed, but that an awareness of overlapping beliefs or sentiments should never be far from our thinking.
Dogmatic revolutionaries [is this a self-negating phrase?] can never concede that there might be actual benefits in bourgeois democracy that the masses might not want to give up, or that religious beliefs contain utopian elements that also form some of the grounding of socialist ideals.
My thinking on this is far from worked out, but I think a political theory based on polarization as a principle [for there to be a discrete "us" there must be a discrete "them"] cannot constitute any real way forward.
TellNoLies said
Zerohour,
I think that is a very insightful comment. It is, of course, politically neccesary to draw certain lines of demarcation in order to wage actual struggles, but there is a powerful tendency to confuse this practical neccesity with how the world actually looks. So-called “bourgeois” democracy, for example, is not some pure platonic expression of the class interests of the bourgeoisie, but is rather the result of much more complex historical processes. Left to its own devices, the bourgeoisie is not particulalry democratic. Liberal democracy is rather the result of the bourgeoisie’s need to form alliances with various other classes (professionals, peasants, etc…) in the course of its own revolutionary struggle against feudalism. This has played out differently in different countries with resulting variation in the character of bourgeois political rule from country to country. (A very useful read on this, BTW, is Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World.) Grasping the ways in which certain democratic rights and norms are conquests of struggle by the oppressed groups is, I think, critical to getting out of the mechanical “tool of the bosses” sort of analysis that dominates too much “revolutionary” analysis. Of course these democratic rights and norms ARE constrained by and subordinate to bourgeois rule, but this must be understood dialectically as a contradictory and dynamic relationship that is constantly producing cracks and opportunities for radical or revolutionary interventions.
Mike E said
I want to make plans for an extended discussion of democracy on this site. We are about to publish (in a few days, I hope) a critique by Pavel of Avakian’s recently published essay on Jeffersonian democracy. From what I have seen, there will be much to debate in Pavel’s analysis — and I hope it can spark, begin, prepare our much larger exploration of the issues of bourgeois and socialist democracy (and forms of dictatorship).
The issues raised here by Zerohour and TLN give a sense of things that should be explored. And, of course, the Nepali Maoists claim that it is possible to have a “new political mainstream” that replaces the old society’s “old mainstream” — and that this new mainstream can (and in their view must) include competitive elections by competing parties (i.e. revolutoinary parties in the spectrum and framework that defines the new mainstream).
There are also issues of “bourgeois democracy vs. fascism.” And “bourgeous democracy vs. proletarian democracy.”
Zerohour writes:
I think there are two very different levels to this (having to do with fascism and socialism).
In regard to fascism: Fascism makes a difference. When key existing standards and rights of bourgeois democracy are gutted, the ability of people to organize, resist, conduct revolutionary politics and even just think are deeply affected. This has, in fact, be recognized by many people (including by some pretty dogmatic people). The heart of the question is really “what do we do with that?” Some people have turned this fact into a whole strategic concept (and as the justification for a non-revolutionary politics). For the CP, fighting the “ultra-right” is permanently at the centerstage of their politics — i.e. they justify their completely reformist and rather mainstream-bourgeois politics by acting as if the ascendency of fascism is (permanently) THE issue in every election, in every moment.
In fact, in 2004, it was not wrong to raise the spectre of fascism in the U.S. The government was virtually a one party state. The emerging rightwing majority on the supreme court had essentially stolen an election for the republicans. The U.S. government was launching one huge offensive after the other — warrantless searches, torture, internal militarization, centralization of police with JTTF, on and on. And there was (within that0 a growing virulance, arrogance and power of the religious right (as one component of the ruling republican “coalition”). This was real, and it was not wrong to point that out.
It was not wrong (imho) for communists (like the RCP) to tactically focus on “the Bush regime” — and seek to mobilize mass resistance to these escalating moves (which I argued was “fasciszation” at the time, while I was in the RCP, in opposition to the party leadership’s increasingly simplistic analysis that Bush = Hitler.)
What was wrong were several key elements in the RCP’s analysis:
a) that the democrats were incapable of coming up with an opposoing program
b) that there could be no “pendulum swing” (it is correct to say that such “swings” are not inevitable, but it is mechanical to rule them out.)
c) It was wrong to imply that actual theocrats (dominionists of the extreme kind) were in the assendency in the bourgeoisie (and in the White House) — which was never true.
d) It was wrong to imply that the theocrats were making a specific grab for power, had a chance of short term success, and that their plan required a permanent and fundamental shift of the U.S. polity to a Christian fundamentalist theocracy. (While this is the dream of some forces, a thin sliver of the politics, it was extremely overblown to act like this was/is the driving dynamic of bourgeois politics)
e) the view that only the communists could lead a reversal of the theocratic offensive (and in particular that polarizing society “around Bob Avakian” was key to preventing fascism.)
As for socialism:
I think that countries have a political culture that will influence the forms of socialism. I imagine that in a socialist north america, there will be jury trials — both because that is a fine way of vetting evidence, and because people here see that as a guarantee of fairness. In other countries (france for example or china) the jury system never took root, and there has not been much demand for that as a form of decisionmaking.
I think we need to grasp the differences between bourgeois democracy and socialist democracy. It is not so much that there are “actual benefits” in bourgeois democracy (over socialism!) — but that there are advantages to bourgeois democracy over fascism.
For socialist democracy (i.e. the forms that socialist dictatorship should take) there will be forms adapted from the past, and new forms created in the revolutionary process (i.e. as there was in France with the commune form or in Russia with the soviets, in China the dazibao big character posters, and sending leaders “through the gate” of popular examination, and three in one committees, etc.)
Ironically, the RCP has labeled Kasama “bourgeois democrats” — before kasama has even had its discussion. In the 9 letters, we simply left these controversies out — because they were not at the heart of our critique of the New Synthesis, because they required more study and struggle, and because there were important statements made internationally that needed critical investigation. Such things have not bothered the RCP…. they are quite willing to label us “bourgeois democrats” before we have developed or articulated a position. The problems with that method of labeling (and of highly mechanical assumptions of what “people will end up saying and doing regardless of what their intent is, or what they are actually saying or doing”).
But while their treatment of Kasama is silly and transparent — Avakian’s theories on democracy are not so simply dismissed — and there are important things he says (in K. Venu and elsewhere) that should be taken seriously.
Avakians K. Venu polemic is (essentially) a defense of the one-party state. The RCP has since then made a lot of statements that THEIR vision of that state will include a constitution that is binding on them (except when they decide it is not), that it may include contested elections for some posts (though they have never accepted the ideas of competing parties), that it will have generalized right to speech and protest etc. (except when political crisis requires that they reverse that) and so on. But, in essense, despite the caveats, they are advocating a one-party state — with broad “elastic” alliances, and broad spaces for protest, criticism and independent thinking.
I think we need to look at that….
On one level, i think the RCP’s own culture makes it impossible to believe that there would be much “elasticity” in ANYTHING they lead. And their approach to the critical engagement of the 9 Letters, Bill martin’s essays and more gives a sense that REAL engagement and critique is outside their framework.
But i think we should separae Avakian’s ideas from the pathologies of his specific organization.
In K. Venu he makes a valuable critique (for example) of the question of “popular will,” and in many places he delves into the problem that what people want (what they vote for or demand) may not actually represent what they need (on many levels). You can’t run a planned economy from the factory floors or directly from some syndicalist workers parliament — because the complex and changing decisions of a socialist economy require very specialized organs as well as popular debate and decisionmaking.
So there is complexity here, and different conceptions on the table, and a real creative exploration to be had.
Eddy said
Mike wrote:
Indeed, it extends their instrumental view of people as a ‘means’ toward an end of a supposedly revolutionized society (without actors). It is a view that is bass-ackwards on many levels, not the least of which is that it imagines society as supra-human and dismisses the reciprocal interaction between the individual and the group.
There is no agency in their future-world; there is no dialectical social practice.
Jose M said
Eddy,
would you mind expanding more on what you mean?
I actually think that, regardless of how the RCP as a party operates, we need to stress the need for active dissent and the fostering of critical thinking towards the world and the socialist state itself. I think that Avakian is correct here, even though it doesnt manifest itself in their practice.
What makes you say that they view the masses in an instrumentalist way?
Ka Frank said
In “Evaluating the Cultural Revolution in China and its Legacy for the Future” (March 2007), the MLM Revolutionary Study Group gets into the relationship between the leading communist party and other forms of mass organization, including competing political parties:
In my view, a multi-party democracy is not THE crucial political mechanism for staying on the socialist road or for avoiding capitalist restoration (as the CPN(Maoist) contends). It should be viewed as one possible organizational vehicle for a wide variety of ideas to contend among the masses and for determining the way forward towards communism.
TellNoLies said
It seems to me that the experience with one-party states argues powerfully against them as a model for the sort of open struggle that we seem to agree is neccesary for the development of socialism. The historically oppressed classes simply can not learn to rule in the absence of open contestation between opposing lines. “The advanced” is not a stable or easily identified category either. To imagine that a party composed of “the advanced” today will not, in the absence of external competition, ossify and become invested in a certain configuration of forces, goes against what the historical record shows.
There are obvious dangers in a multi-party model and I don’t pretend to know how to deal with them except to confront them as they arise, but I am unclear what the other organizational models might be.
N3wDay said
Jose,
What Eddy (if I’m understanding correctly) is pointing out is that there is no dialectical relationship between the people and the party. It’s the party (composed of most likely small clique of oligarchs) directing, and the people’s role is to act on those directions. An entire society run based on the RCP party structure, a few at the top have all the power, and the people’s role is to ‘send us your comments’ (to the black hole). Unless of course the party needs to direct a ‘cultural revolution’ (more like Dengs role in the hundred flowers campaign).
When he says the people are used instrumentally and have no agency he means that the party simply bends people to it’s will without giving them any choice (or very little) in the matter. The over emphasis on the problems of popular leaves no place for the people to build a new world.
In other words the party revolutionizes society while the people watch.
n3wday said
I’m sure someone will call that a crude distortion, but that’s what i get out of reading ‘dictatorship and democracy’. if someone cares to challenge it i’m all ears and happy to learn.
Eddy said
Jose M wrote:
The formulation of ‘solid core with elasticity’ only alludes to a relationship, and the description of interaction is at best vague. If practice is the test (and what else could be?), the elasticity describes population groups (whatever the class composition) being attracted and then leaving (worst cases: repelled from) the orbit of that solid core.
The elasticity does not refer to a reciprocal process of knowing; that understands knowledge as synthesized through social practice. In such a framework, the actual relationship between ‘doing’ and ‘thinking’ is not atomized (e.g. with some assigned as ‘doers’ others arrogating ‘thinking’ to themselves).
In highly stratified societies, such as capitalist societies, there is an enforced division of the group as a whole. And, as far as decisive social decisions go, some are ‘thinkers’ (the ruling class) and the rest are the ‘doers’ (the exploited and subaltern strata). But that is the enforced dysfunction of capitalism and other class societies.
In reality, knowledge does not proceed from the ruling class, it proceeds from broad social practices which the ruling class then expropriates. (c.f. Mao’s thumbnail sketch was ‘production, science and class struggle’, which I suggest we should take as three examples and not an exhaustive summary).
Where are the sources of technical advancements and scientific experiment? From where do expressive aesthetics arise? How is the language re-created? Obviously not within the board rooms of Wall Street banks.
So, back to my point. I don’t see evidence – within the recent practice of that organization – that recognizes ‘the masses’ as contributing to and being active participants in synthesizing the knowledge necessary to make revolution and then revolutionize society. In fact, the ‘synthesizing’ is claimed by a few.
True enough, knowledge-formation proceeds unevenly within any group of individuals. But the dialectical relationship provides the basis for the knowledge formation to effect the entire group and become shared practice (and on, and on).
Broadly in class society, again, this is not enabled, it is suppressed. And in fact, knowledge is treated as another commodity (‘intellectual property’), and those who come to ‘own’ it are cited as specially-qualified. But on a macro level, it is the optimal experience of cognitive development and of learning (e.g. such as a teaching/learning process).
The Party (and every ‘conscious element’) has an essential role to play in popularizing synthesized knowledge, but they also derive that knowledge from the social practices of the people. So, as the Chinese comrades used to say, ‘when you bring Marxism to the working class, you are bringing it home.’ They did not mean that the masses have arrived at a Marxist viewpoint spontaneously, but that it has proceeded from and serves to help the masses to cognitively rationalize social practices.
Otherwise, the masses have no cognitive role.
Mike E said
There are many points raised here, and I can only quickly deal with one of them: On the form of political life under socialism.
I think that socialist societies will inevitably have different state forms — but that they will also be inherently shaped by their nature as new revolutionary institutions emerging from capitalism and the extreme polarizations of revolution.
For that reason, I am very skeptical of any notion of a model — but think we have to think in terms of both the objective dynamics of socialist transition, the creative inventions of the revolutionary process and also (to some extent) the existing political experiences of that particular society.
It is not an accident that the Soviet Union reproduced a highly centralized state — the dynamics of Russia (as a huge sprawling multinational facing attack across arbitrary borders) has historically generated such a state. I believe the Soviet Union could have, potentially taken a different route — toward a more genuine federation of republics or possible a more vibrant system of popular Soviets. But in fact, there was a set of powerful particular factors that pressed forward what emerged: the revolution had a minority base of support, largely in the main urban areas among the industrial workers and progressive intelligensia, and a large part of the most conscious worker-communists were killed in the bitter civil war. The revolution was left in an economically desperate with a large and often conservative peasant majority. This deeply shaped what emerged.
I think it would be wrong to assume that this particular form is a model for socialism generally — though we can learn much from a study of its challenges and dynamics (which do include features that will emerge generally.)
There is a tendency among communists to declare that initiatives they take and innovations they propose are “universal” — i.e. that they are prescriptions for communists and revolutionaries everywhere.
For example: multiparty democracy under socialism.
I am willing to tentatively accept the idea that it is possible to have a competitive multi-party electoral system under socialism. For example, Nepal has a wide array of radical and leftist currents that might mature into parties competing within a new mainstream. And it appears the Nepali Maoists believe that their own emergence as a broad popular leading force with great legitimacy is an important conditions for creating such a new mainstream. (Though some of its “communist” parties, like the UML, are not in fact radical or revolutionary, but have emerged as pillars of comprador capitalism itself.)
But I would be very reluctant to assume that such a vision is “universal” — that it applies in all countries.
Just to give a simple example: In Europe, India and Nepal, elections (when they happened) were held using a relatively common form of multiparty parliamentary systems. It is a form that has some root in some parts of the world. But it is hardly a universal tradition, and is hardly applicable in all countries (let alone a model for the socialist period in all countries). The U.S. has a history of competitive elections but using a party system that is hardly “multi” — where the body politics (the old mainstream) was polarized into two parties that compete for the center, and who therefore are often slightly modified iterations of each other. I have trouble imagining a socialism in the former U.S. that adopts anything like that, and also have trouble imagining a future socialism that would adopt anything looking like European forms. That is because of the decentralized nature of the country, the centrality of the need for liberation of minority nationalities (who are often dispersed geographically), and so on.
A socialism in the U.S. would have to have a very innovative form — as big a break as the Soviet councils were from Tsarism. I can’t imagine a communist movement in the U.S. adopting (in advance) a call for a “multiparty competitive electoral system” as THE form that we would advocate for socialism. The people haven’t spoken yet on these matters, and I imagine they and we together will cook up something quite new.
* * * * * *
Ka Frank writes:
Like Ka Frank, i do not believe that this vision of multiparty competitive elections is the long-sought solution to the problems of capitalist restoration. Capitalist restoration will be defeated in practice, through struggle, under a variety of conditions. Restoration will be posed in many different ways. And the source of capitalist roaders within the revolutionary process is not mainly the “degeneration” of former revolutionaries — and the solution is not merely the constant review and criticism of the masses (however important that obviously is). The emergence of capitalist roaders is rooted in the nature of the socialist transition process — where there objectively exists different “roads” that society can travel — some leading to higher forms of socialism toward communisms, and others leading back deeper into the world capitalist system.
And it is possible to see the allure of capitalist restoration in the arc of the Deng restoration in China — i.e. there are forces who might look at the modernization and development of china since 1976 and think “that was quite fine.” And, in fact, there are such forces speaking within Nepal’s political turmoil.
Finally, just on this issue, I think it is worth pointing out that Avakian’s view of opposing capitalist restoration is remarkably devoid of any reference to the cutlural revolutions, continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, or other innovations pioneered by Mao. In Avakian’s earlier work (like “Mao’s Immortal contributions,” the book called “Loss Legacy,” and so on) Avakian popularized Mao’s conception of the socialist transition period. But since Avakian has been articulating his own synthesis, in open rupture with Mao, the emphasis has been on policies of the state and party, rather than on wavelike mass revolutionary upsurges of the people. His recent work is (imho) remarkably devoid of a sense of continuing revolutionary upheaval and struggle under socialism.
And again; I don’t think any particular form of socialist state is “universal” — and I don’t think innovation in forms will solve the question of restoration.
There is a fairly universal sense (both among communists and among the people themselves) that future socialism will need to be much more open than the Soviet Union ended up becoming — less of a grim police state and more of a scene of public debate, criticism and innovation.
How that will happen (given the often difficult conditions of recovering from the polarizatins and devatations of revolution and civil war) is something that can only be solved in the concrete — in the course of each particular revolution, and by relying in large part on the creative work of revolution and the people to fashion new institutions and processes.
zerohour said
All revolutionas are, by nature, experimental and risky. Rupturing with established precedent produces unexpected circumstances; the greater the rupture, the more unpredictable the results. Revolutions are also context-bound. How they will develop is based on each nation’s unique internal factors and relationships to the world system. As such no perfect analogies are possible. Historical experience should not be looked to for answers, but for ways to help us pose better questions.
In hindsight, many decisions seem to make sense; but just because something seemed to “work” does not mean they were necessarily the best of all available options, and even if it was for those instances, it may not be for others.
After overcoming key threshholds, like the overthrow of a state, revolutionary parties may not be able to meet their popular mandate, they may lose the support of the masses and turn completely revisionist. Is it prudent to exclusively rely on the party to correct itself?
The traditional relationship between party and masses has best been captured by Fidel Castro’s premise: “within the revolution, everything, without, nothing.” In a literal sense, everything is already within the revolution if one lives under a socialist government. The notion that mass organizations should be created and led by the party means that independently created mass organizations are “outside” of politics unless they can be integrated. In such cases, supervision and critical evaluation of the party must proceed on the party’s terms. The danger is that those on the political outside, if they are honest revolutionaries with substantial disagreements, can eventually be lumped in with those on the real outside: reactionaries and imperialists.
So how does a party deal with the potential danger of revisionism? How do they facilitate forms of popular supervision? Should all mass activity be within party parameters or should there be many independent formations that the party must relate to? Should the party hold referendums on its right to rule, even if it potentially means losing state power? If a revolutionary party cannot secure hegemony among the masses, why should it hold on? If it betrays its own purposes, how do the masses hold it accountable?
These, and other complex questions can’t simply be unlocked by a master key: what would Mao do?
I agree with TellNoLies, we must be attentive to the dangers in a multi-party system, but is the potential alternative better? Retaining power without mass support? Socialism [i]despite[/i] the masses?
Mike E said
One more point:
I am very reluctant to accept the idea that there is one “model” that we can call “the one party state.” Or as some french Maoists called it “the party-state.”
I think that there was quite a bit of diversity in previous socialist societies.
Russia’s socialist state of the 1920s was not the same “one party state” as in 1933 or 1935 or 1950.
the Chinese state (under Mao) was not the same as the Soviet state — for all kinds of reasons, including both that china is a very different country, and Mao’s approach was very different (as the collectivization movements, the cultural revolution and 10 major relationships show.)
There is a piece of historical mythology (promoted, for example, by many strains of trotskyism) that there is a single “stalinist” form and model and mode of rule — and that this was simply replicated (i.e. that once you understand your views of Stalin, you have a ready verdict on Mao, or Ho chi minh, or Tito, or Kim Il sung or Honecker…. because they are all, supposedly, “Stalinists,” and essentially devoid of particularity or uniqueness or development.)
I don’t think we can assume one form applies everywhere, and I don’t think we can assume that one form WAS adopted everywhere.
* * * * * *
One further point on the question of “making multiparty competitive elections a universal principle”:
I think we have to grapple with the relationship of popular will with revolutionary policy.
Votes can legitimize (or delegimize) a policy. they can indicate corrupt tendency and expose hidden problem. Contested elections contribute to transparency, and they are an arena where policies are vetted in ways that can raise consciousness (or lower it!)
There are other forms that do these things too (as the storms of the GPCR showed).
But we do have to grapple deeply with the fact that revolution is a complex road, and that there are many moments when the whole process risks running off the road, or has a low ebb of popularity. You can’t run a revolution by taking popular votes at every point – you can’t win a war if every moment, every setback, every bitter winter, is to be contested. (The danger faced by Lincoln in the presidential election during the U.S. Civil War is an example.)
But the fact is that the people don’t always know what they need (or want). And a system of easy and constant recalls is a sure way to destablize any revolutionary process that has major adversity.
this is even true in non-revolutionary struggles that involve sacrifice. Anyone who had participated in (or led) a difficult strike (where workers are really suffering from no money and police attack) knows that there may be moments when you don’t want to risk a majority vote…. or you want to hold your strike votes in public at rallies (not by secret mail-in ballot).
Put it another way: No BOURGEOIS electoral system allows people to vote (over and over again) whether to have capitalism or not. There was no plebicite in the U.S. on Jim Crow, or right to work laws, or NAFTA. And it is hard to imagine a socialist system where its very existence should hinge (over and over again) on the uninterrupted support of an electoral majority.
Many struggles (including revolutions) are often rooted in the deterimination of a militant, relatively conscious and sizable minority (a revolutionary people, for example) — while the outcomes of universal voting as a measure of support tends to hinge on the momentary moods and understandings of the relatively intermediate. One of the key problems of the Soviet revolution was that such a conscious core was exhausted — first killed in the civil war, then swamped by the NEP, and finally paralized by the use of state punishment for dissent. It made it difficult to maintain the forward motion of revolution, or to develop new, conscious, active successors for that cause — the use of harsh state means for resolving political problems produced a situation where those state means became (more and more) the only ones available.
To me: the struggle to maintain and expand the revolutionary people (through ups and downs and difficulties) is key… not so much the competition and exposure of competitive elections. (Though, to be clear: I am not arguing against competitive election and think they need to be part of the form of the revolutionary political system. Though note: competitive elections is not exactly the same thing as multi-party competitive elections.)
I think it is a positive thing if (and when) a revolutionary process is able to generate a stable majority… but that is not a given. And it is certainly not a given that such a majority can exist at EVERY STEP ALONG THE WAY. some initiatives of revolution will be controversial and only understood by a minoirty at the beginning. I don’t think that each advance of revolution should hinge on the approval of a mechanical electoral majority IN ADVANCE — to insist on that is to insist on handing power back over to the oppressors.
* * * * *
Zerohour writes:
My question is a different one: what happens if you DON’T turn revisionist, but the “support of the masses” inevitably fluctuates?
It would be a tidy world if the ebbing of support always meant that you were on a bad path. If that were true, then constant elections WOULD BE a great antidote to revisionism.
But believing that is precisely believing in all kinds of democratic illusions… and negates mao’s point that truth is always first in the hands of a small minority.
Mike E said
Zerohour asks:
I can only turn the question back to you zerohour: What if the masses don’t want revolution, but prefer capitalism or just peace (at some point in the process)?
Well, on some level, if a socialist movement doesn’t have powerful support it ultimately cannot continue and will fail. That is a reflection of the maoist understanding of “mass line” — i.e. that the masses are ultimately the makers of history (or else revolutionary history doesn’t get made).
But I think all of this need to be broken down because none of it is monolithic: “the masses” is not monolithic, what they “want” (or don’t want) is not fixed or monolithic, what they are offered as “the revolutionary road” is not fixed or monolithic.
when “the masses” (in 1921) were exhausted, hungry and angry after years of world war, revolutin, deprivatin and civil war — Lenin wisely stepped back, and created a program (called the New Economic Policy) that focused on regenerating the economy using capitalist markets. “The masses” generally were about to overthrow the Soviet government (in what some called “the third revolution”) and it was only by a mix of retreat and suppression that the socialist revolution was saved.
And we can see the results when a “revolutionary people” is exhausted by events: the growing political passivity of the advanced (in Russia by the 1930s and even more by the 1950s and in china by the 1970s) played a powerful role in the rise of counterrevolution.
But in answer to Zerohour, two other points:
1) There is no simple “the masses” — they divide out. the polarizations of revolution and war will churn those divides. There will always be “advanced, intermediate and backward” (seen from the point of view of revolutionary advance) — and who is advanced will change (including in generational ways).
So i am saying, EVEN IF YOU HAVE A STRONG BASE OF SUPPORT, among sizable sections of “the masses” — which is (i believe) a prerequisite for revolution at each point — that even then, regular universal national elections, as a form, privilege the intermediate over the advance, and if viewed too mechanically, the existance of elections can prevent needed advances (which may not postponable until a majority concensus is revealed).
You can see that privileging of the intermediate. In every U.S. election they say “the bubba vote” or the “security-terrified soccer moms” are the “key demographic,” the deciding swing vote. I have always wondered in frustration, “How come it is never hip Latino twentysomethings that get courted as the key swing vote?” How come overworked middle-aged black women are never “the key demographic” to court and flatter? I mean, wtf?
It is because this system is set up that way. And by its nature, the U.S. electoral system magnifies and glorifies the illusions and prejudices of many of the least conscious sections.
elections in capitalism are not really the core of power — they are much more a system of legitimization of the policies of the ruling class, and they are a means of training the people in the logic and frameworks of “the old mainstream” (whose choices are defined by the constraints of capitalism and feudalism).
And I think that even under socialism, it is an illusion to think that “elections guarantee popular power” — because of the inherent contradictions of how power and policy are developed and adopted. Even under socialism, elections may help expose flaws, depose the corrupt and legitimize (or delegitimize!) the revolutionary process. But let’s not think it is THE solution to the problems revealed by our precious previous revolutionary experiments.
Caleb Pink said
Excellent discussion!
I’m going to make a few brief points:
I agree with Lenin (and communists in general) that the issue is not one of democracy or dictatorship, but the relationship between the two.
It strikes me that the essence of the revolution, the point, is to establish a dictatorship of the oppressed, but more importantly of the creative elements of society. Marx equates these creative elements with labor, but I think (coming off of what Eddy said in #29) that the very process of social cognition is a creative process that, like surplus value, is expropriated by the capitalist class.
Our vision is to put the expropriated in command of society. In other words, whether in terms of knowledge, or in terms of more material production, we put the “productive classes” at the center of political rule, instead of being ruled over. I think the democracy that we want lives their, and I think THAT democracy must be imposed, at least for a time.
The question of imposing such a democratic society leads to the question of what kind of state is going to be used, what form? [As an aside, all of this brings up the relationship between the Law and social relations, both in terms of how laws (broadly conceived) are developed, and in terms of how they can form the boundaries of what is socially allowable.]
As Mike points out, there is no singular form. But I would like to make explicit that in saying this we cannot then limit ourselves to the conception of the state as either one-party, or multi-party. And I would like to go further in saying that the question of elections is meaningless in relation to the larger question of the form of the state. By which I mean that elections determine nothing except the very narrow formalities of reproducing governance. The democracy AND the dictatorship reside elsewhere. The democracy is in the legal political struggle (broader under revolutionary rule, and much more confined under bourgeois rule, both with respect to its limitation of politics generally to the mechanism of formally reproducing their governance, and in the sense that elections AND the actual governance are decided by bourgeois power-broking), and the dictatorship serves to limit political expression and social development to that legality. Overemphasizing elections is like confusing the gears for the machine, or worse yet confusing the gears for agency.
I think we should reason from the substantive side of what we are trying to produce. If we need to build a specific form of dictatorship/democracy, the dictatorship side of it should conform with the democracy side of it, within the boundaries of historical context. We want a dictatorship of the exploited not in superficial terms, but on the basis of what is being exploited in the first place. And what is being exploited is the ability of humanity as a whole to create knowledge and production, as well as its ability to rule its own creation.
In this sense, I question the conception that Ka Frank has put forward. I do not believe that it is necessary for the Party to directly lead mass organizations for them to be a part of a socialist society. I think that really is enforcing a specific state-form that can be very problematic, and can disrupt the very thing that we are aiming to impose. The essential problem is the division of society into agents and subjects, not in the sense of individualistic agency, but in the sense of the agency of humanity as a species being artificially divided against itself. And a problem with the fused party-state (to the extent that it is not called for by material conditions) is that it reproduces this division, in some ways even exacerbates it.
I think the masses need an apparatus that can condense the issues that arise on the revolutionary road and pose them to the masses. Within that struggle over road I think the Party must serve the role of mobilizing the masses to continue in the direction of revolutionizing social relations (and so of course the Party would “directly lead” some mass organizations), which inherently requires that the masses take more and more responsibility for the rule of society.
In fact, I don’t know that the Party, whether as a one-party state, or a multi-party state, should be considered as the essence of the social dictatorship that we want to produce, or as its guarantor, at all. I think the Party, much like Mike’s point on the State, has been different things at different stages, and in fact should be. I believe that the WITBD Party was a tool for overthrowing the State. I believe there was a rapidly transforming Party in the context of the Civil War. And I believe that there was a qualitatively different Party established with Stalin’s ultimate victory.
I don’t endorse all the particular developments of the Party through the history of the Russian Revolution. I do endorse the idea that you need a different tool for different political contexts and different conjunctures. But the relativity of form is related to the revolutionary goal. It would make no sense to take up either the Chinese or Soviet state-form without looking at why they chose those specific forms, that is, what conditions either constrained them in terms of pursuing the revolutionary goals of communism, or allowed them to push further than previous societies.
In this light, when looking at our own conditions, I press upon people the need to consider the possibility at the outset that we will not face the kinds of constraints that the Chinese and Soviet revolutions faced (with regard to socialism), and therefore we should consider pushing further than they did in terms of establishing a state-form. At the very least, we should not limit ourselves by assuming that past formulations are all that is ever possible. In other words, I think the goal posts have really moved down field of where they were when China stood up, and we need to deal with that in determining how we are going to establish the rule of the exploited and pursue the development of a stateless, communist society.
This is, at least, the case for communists in the United States. On the other hand, in a place like Nepal the goal posts really haven’t moved much.
With regard to the CPN(M), I think it bears repeating that their particular discussion of a multi-party state socialism should not be confused with the current multi-party state of which they are a part. If in fact they are arguing that the two are the same, then we have a problem because the multi-party form is not operating within the confines of the dictatorship of the oppressed and exploited, but under a different dictatorship. The theoretical danger, is that in allowing that multi-party democracy is a possible form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and allowing that electoral politics can be a field of revolutionary struggle, we lose sight of the need and the goal of establishing the dictatorship of the oppressed and exploited at all. That is, we may confuse the statement that such a multi-party state socialism is possible, with meaning that the CPN(M) in fact have it, or are ruling on that basis. And we might further make the mistake of asserting that we may ourselves gain such a “socialism” by winning a significant minority stake in Congress.
With regard to the party-form, particularly for the overthrow of the state and the seizure of power, I think that WITBD and State and Revolution are essentially correct (and much of what is correct about them is how they contradict each other), but I put an emphasis on the need to not take Lenin’s discussion of the newspaper literally (as if newsprint is the only revolutionary medium), and the need to take a deeper consideration of his (mostly implied) discussion of the differences between legal marxism and revolutionary communism (where I think the electoral question becomes somewhat illuminated).
On the other hand, I think there is a real contradiction between the popular view of the relationship between the Bolshevik Party and the mass organizations (particularly the Soviets), and the actual revolutionary moment. Some argue that but for the Party the masses would never have revolted, though it is just as true that but for the masses’ rebellious mood, and their organizing as distinct from the Party, the Bolsheviks would never have been able to initiate the insurrection, AND but for the rolling crisis of Russian society (which included many rebellions that had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks) exacerbated by WWI, the conditions allowing for either a revolutionary party, or a rebellious people, would not have been met.
One could say that the causation here is more complicated, and I think that State and Revolution is an expression of that to the extent that it leans heavily in favor of a state that is not one and the same with the Party. That is, in WITBD you have an argument that is very negatively disposed to democracy, and argues implicitly, if not explicitly, for the rule of an elite, while in State and Revolution the position has shifted significantly.
Caleb Pink said
heheh, not so brief.
anton said
Two comments:
1– On the issues I raised earlier on the “question” and “urging of clarification” around violence in the initial post– I still think these are wrong and harmful. There is a particularity to this issue which people may not grasp, and which I feel runs counter to the intent and general thrust of the rest of the post (which I find quite good). What’s wrong is that the ‘question, urging’ seem to imply an allegation that violence might be “on the table” so to speak. This is not true and very wrong. It could potentially be an opening for false flag provocateur type things. Also, what has been posted along these lines could be seen by the system’s “law” enforcers as an opening. Or both. I strongly urge that this be reconsidered.
2– Now that I’ve got that out of my system, the discussion as it has developed on democracy, socialism etc — The contradiction between popular will and moving society forward is itself a very moving thing. Specific advances in a revolution will present people in society broadly with new freedom and necessity. For instance land reform in China and the abolishment of landed estates in Russia. Just think how the U.S. would have developed differently had land reform been carried out in the South on a significant scale after the U.S. Civil War. A whole different dynamic would have been set in motion. I think there is room for elasticity in working through this contradiction. Another issue in looking at elections and political parties is what is the relation to society of the governing bodies to which people are being elected, which Lenin went into in “State and Revolution”. A third is the relation between a united front in winning state power and subsequent political struggle.
I think a good basic orientation going through this as long as there is class society is “raising the bottom up”.
I don’t think it will do for the party as such to be running the state/government as a one party state for reasons which I’ll go into later. One I’ll raise now is that this arrangement constrains the Party from going into opposition, where that might be called for. It is very complicated and bourgeois democratic models absolutely will not cut it.
nando said
Anton:
You are assuming that Kasama is inventing something when urging clarification — but that is unfortunately not the case.
The RCP statement had the effect of whipping up an air of antagonism among some of their supporters. And it is reflected in the words some of them now speak. It would be helpful if the RCP would make it clear (internally for sure) if they do not intend this.
anton said
Nando–
I think the key issue is the potential of an opening for the state.