Bill Martin: Dear Professor Badiou… About That RCP Assault
Posted by Mike E on April 7, 2009
This post finishes a new series of Kasama essays by five writers — touching on interrelated themes: The London Conference on Communism, the theories of Alain Badiou, the reclaiming of communism, the revolution in Nepal, and the polemical engagement with exhausted forms of dogmatic Marxism. We urge our readers to set aside the time for them.
Dear Professor Badiou:
About the RCP Assault on Alain Badiou, Philosophy & (Ultimately) Communism Itself
By Bill Martin
Before we say more about this RCP polemic (“Why Alain Badiou is a Rousseauist… And Why We Should Not Be“) the first thing that needs to be said is that its guiding principle is:
“Who needs this shit? Bob Avakian has the New Synthesis, and that’s the end of the matter. Either get on board with that or you’re going down the wrong road.”
The second harsh thing that needs to be said is this polemic is an act of stupidity and irresponsibility against communism itself.
It is also an act of stupidity and irresponsibility against philosophy, theory, and critical thought. And we need to understand better how an act such as this, in being such an act against philosophy, etc., is an act against communism.
None of this, absolutely none of this, has anything to do with whether the polemic (or Bob Avakian) is right and Badiou is wrong on any particular point.
Neither should we get caught up too much in taking the polemic as setting any kind of agenda for the discussion of Badiou’s work and the ways that this work might help us in reconception and regroupment. There are plenty of good commentaries on Badiou’s work out there that do not deign to only, finally, notice the work of this outstanding philosopher and “post-Maoist” of our time when it comes time to knock him down, and with no appreciation whatsoever for the openings that he has created.
It may seem insignificant, or far less significant, to discuss this polemic, or Badiou’s philosophy, much further in light of the even more recent discussions around Nepal (basically, the Nepal material coming a couple of weeks after the polemic). But there is a sense in which this is all of a piece, the piece being not BA’s New Synthesis, and, furthermore, other things lighting up the sky, such as the Idea of Communism conference, and developments in Nepal, and, for that matter, the fact that the Bush regime was “driven out” without the central role being played by Bob Avakian (BA), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), or World Can’t Wait (WCW), and none of these things are foregrounding the New Synthesis, either. The narrow world of the RCP is closing in upon itself even further, and there is an inability to ask why this happening; instead there is an essentially conservative, capitulatory reaction.
This polemic ought to make those of us who care about the future livid.
It’s just worse-than-worthless stuff when all you can do with contemporary philosophy is to jump out with a polemic that is motivated by no kind of actual intellectual or even political curiosity. Not all of us find Badiou’s ideas exciting, important, and even exhilarating, but some of us do (and I do). But what is more at stake is that the perspective behind this polemic is one where that would not even be a possibility, it is ruled out in advance. And that is deplorable, and it should be called out for being the complete crock of shit that it is.
As for lessons that we ought to learn from this, among those of us who are looking for the next steps in Marxism, and even the next steps in Maoism and post-Maoism, I want to take this moment to state this in a sharp and harsh form. Not everyone here is going to be convinced by my claim that we still have much to learn from Immanuel Kant. Not everyone here is going to be convinced by Badiou’s philosophy, and its sense that we still have a good deal to learn from Plato, Spinoza, and Rousseau. But for the people who simply dismiss this idea, that we still have much to learn from philosophers who came before Marx, these people in essence are dismissing the communist project.
Avakian’s Away With All Gods! is a fantastic display of contempt for intellectual work, an approach proudly defended in the recent excerpt of a talk by BA (“On the role of communist leadership …”) where he defends his “methodology” of self-referencing and talks about all of the books that he has read. This polemic on Badiou furthers this contempt.
I’ll just put things very simply: communism is good, and nothing good can come from such an approach, whether this approach is applied by the RCP or by other know-nothing, anti-intellectual “socialists.”
But I will save the larger development of these arguments for other posts. Among other things I will argue that “enough of Badiou is right” (and that we communists would be very irresponsible in not taking up these ideas), while I also have some questions for Badiou on points where I disagree with him or perhaps simply do not understand him.
One reason why I will save these arguments for other posts and other topics is that I think our main response to this polemic ought to be,
“Dear Professor Badiou, we hope that you will not think, if you even happen to see this RCP Polemic, that it represents the views of all revolutionary communists in the United States; unfortunately, however, the main trend of Maoism in the U.S. has come to this sorry state and dead end. Fortunately, there are some ideas in your philosophy that will help us understand this point of saturation and even ‘disaster,’ and we also are open to exploring your philosophy, and the theoretical work of others, in attempting to forge a path beyond this impasse. Thank you for your outstanding contributions.”
Rearguard and Ugly
One assumes that this polemic was put together by a writing group; I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though I bristle a bit at the fact that it is put out there “anonymously,” that seems a bit smarmy to me. The timing of the thing is clearly meant to be coincide with the Idea of Communism conference, where Badiou was something of the centerpiece, though of course there were other important thinkers there as well. What an ugly thing to do, and what a rearguard sort of “contribution” to this whole scene. I have not yet heard any reports of the presentation that Raymond Lotta made in London at the time of the conference, does anyone know if what was presented was some version of this polemic? Again, very rearguard and ugly.
When I had my massive argument with the person I have previously referred to as a Leading Party Member at the end of May 2008 (as described in my first Kasama post, “Going forward from here”), I continually challenged this person to just come out and say that the history of philosophy prior to Marx is basically worthless, and that philosophy outside of the narrow MLM/BA canon is worthless. I was begging this person to come to his senses in terms of basic intellectual integrity. This polemic, unfortunately, is some kind of answer on these issues.
Certainly one could say, “they know not what they do”—or, again, to put it harshly, they don’t have a bloody clue.
But BA and the remaining members of the RCP, if they weren’t just sycophants to begin with (for it is very clear that the idea that “Communists are rebels” was dropped from the program some time ago), have willfully placed themselves beyond the possibility of getting a clue. I have respect for what some of these people used to be, and I still have some (sentimental perhaps) hope and wish that some of these people will break with their present, ever-deepening impasse, but perhaps those who have remained have just decided that all they know to do at this point is to go down with the ship.
As a general point, and in the context of some of the study some of us have recently undertaken on the work of Louis Althusser, we might discuss further whether the “polemical mode” is a good way to carry forward work in philosophy or in other intellectual endeavors. Ironically, Badiou defends the role of polemic, and he cites Kant in this. I recognize that sometimes it is necessary to engage in a “war of ideas” (polemos is the Greek word for “war”), and certainly I think it can be good to present certain ideas with a certain “edge.” At the very least, however, one might think that there is something wrong with the initial engagement with a major figure taking this form, starting with a typically ridiculous title of the form, “N is an x, and we shouldn’t be that.” Again, deplorable.
This polemic, however, is not only an initial engagement with Badiou, it is the first extended engagement with any major figure in the history of philosophy or contemporary philosophy in many years. This in itself is a statement on philosophy.
The term, “engagement,” is used loosely here, especially as the whole point of the polemic is to ensure that people who probably hadn’t even heard of Badiou until quite recently are inoculated against any impulse toward actual engagement with Badiou or any other major figure in philosophy.
This is also the whole point of the labeling (“Rousseauist”) in the title of the polemic—since we especially know there is nothing to be learned from any philosopher before Marx. Furthermore, how can there be an engagement, when the whole approach is “shut it down,” rather than “open it up”? Again, it is a very conservative reaction, and indeed it is also merely a “reaction.”
While I’m laying it on, let me characterize the foregoing in two further ways:
First, if you have to jack yourself up to believe that you are really the only person or group putting forward the only really new and revolutionary synthesis, then you will get into a mindset where, frankly, you wouldn’t be able to recognize something new and valuable even if it bit you on the ass. Indeed, other new things will appear merely threatening.
Second, one place where Bob Avakian is a lot like Stalin, and less like Marx, Lenin, and Mao, but also a lot like other trends of economistic Marxism, is in viewing the whole history of philosophy as one big pile of crap. Again, this is represented very well by the fact that Badiou is now being discussed with people who only recently heard of Badiou, by people and for people who wish they never had heard of Badiou. It is simply orthodoxy and economism, and we would do well, even those of us who don’t want to spend much more time discussing Bob Avakian or the RCP, understanding how this is the case and what sorts of dynamics lead in this direction.
Asked To Engage He Who Does Not Engage
With this polemic, we are once again being asked to engage with he who does not engage. There are two related points to be raised here, as concerns how the rest of us who are attempting to reconceive and regroup should proceed.
First, I think there is a real question of “standing” that ought to be addressed. For one thing, it is clearly the point of this polemic that it doesn’t really matter what Badiou thinks, or what he has to offer, or what questions he opens up; the real deal is that BA has laid down the new science, there for the taking. Now, whoever wrote this polemic did a little more homework than BA generally does (which isn’t saying much, and there is more to this than just a long list of books one has read), but the point is the same: Badiou is wrong because Avakian is right.
But this leads to the second point:
If Badiou is wrong, he is wrong in his many systematically developed books, and in his systematic, rigorous, and expansive written work (this is a repetitive way of making the point, but I not only want to make the point, I want to rub it in).
If BA is “right,” he is right in his mostly non-systematic, non-rigorous, self-referential talks. I used to think this was acceptable (though not preferable) up to a point, when there seemed to be a context for it, a Maoist current that was opening itself up to learning from many sources.
To the extent that was ever a reality, it was shut down, and then one finds oneself going back to works such as the Democracy book and others from that period, and asking why we should spend any time with them when there are other works by figures such as Sartre, Althusser, Derrida, and Badiou (and many more) that give us more than enough to do.
So, now, it seems we need to have a discussion of the ideas of Badiou. And, for that matter, especially thanks to the ideas and provocations of Badiou and Zizek, here is the possibility for breaking through with the idea of communism! Who should get a seat at the table of these discussions? On what basis would we say anymore that BA or others from the RCP have anything to contribute? The way that they think they can just come into debates where they have made no substantive contribution and have shown no ability to learn from others (and to apply the “John Stuart Mill principle” and all of the stuff that at least looked good in those Skybreak essays) looks to everyone else to be simultaneously silly and authoritarian. Nothing good can come of this approach—and, again, communism is good.
For our part, let’s do engage with others and give them a good reason to engage with us.
Needing to Reconceive and Regroup
Simply in recognizing that revolutionary communism needs to reconceive and regroup an advance has been made.
The RCP reached a point where, in order to continue to make a contribution, it needed to make a fundamental advance, and it was not able to do this. The main reason for this is objective, in the sense that they were working from within a paradigm that was played out. But there are some subjective factors as well, which shaped the inability to break with an exhausted paradigm. In grappling with the “communist hypothesis” we need to go further in understanding these dynamics.
My point, regarding intellectual work, is that there is a model here that has to be negated—and I frankly wish that some of the people who post at Kasama would go further in negating this model. Certainly we don’t want to shut down the enthusiasm anyone, anyone whosoever, might have for contributing to the theoretical project. At the same time, we need to be able to carry forward theoretical work on a high level, informed by contemporary developments and analyses.
I still think there is something to Engels’s formula of the most advanced “socialist” experience—under which he also included syndicalism and utopian communitarianism, philosophy, and political economy, just leaving aside the French, German, and English parts; what he called “English” was for the most part actually Scots, anyway!
This is a hard nut to crack, it’s not clear that it’s ever really been done. We need to think more about why it might be significant that BA and the RCP did pretty well, and sometimes very significantly well, with at least some aspects of the “French” and “English” parts of this work (the summing up of experience and political economy), but for the most part very poorly with the “German” (philosophical) part, and indeed worse than poorly for the most part, seeing the work of historical or contemporary philosophers as mostly something against which to erect barricades. The present barricade, and its circumstances (where the polemic against Badiou is in some sense also a polemic against the Nepali Maoists), is again representative of foolishness and irresponsibility and a merely reactive mindset, but we would be remiss if we don’t take this opportunity to learn some lessons about methodology and the role of philosophy in anything that might really be a new synthesis.
Not a Deep Enough Break
By way of conclusion, we might spend a moment with at least one little part of the polemic, the part that sets out three possibilities for the next wave of revolutionary activity.
“What are the correct and incorrect lessons to be drawn from the rich experience of this first wave of socialist revolutions? What is the framework for the new stage of communism, for going forward in this project for the emancipation of humanity? Is Marxism, communism, still valid as a science? In the most fundamental sense, the question comes down to this: can you make revolution in today’s world, a genuinely emancipating communist revolution—or is that not possible, or even desirable, anymore?
“As described in Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA there are three main and essential responses to this moment.
“First, there are those who religiously cling to the experience and theory of the first wave of socialist revolution of the 20th century—not summing up problems and shortcomings, not moving forward, but circling the wagons.
“Second, there are those who reject real scientific analysis of the contradictions of the socialist transition and distance themselves from the unprecedented breakthroughs in human emancipation represented by the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. They look for inspiration and orientation even further back into the past–to the 18th century and the proclaimed democratic and egalitarian ideals and social models of the bourgeois epoch and to theorists like Rousseau, Kant, and Jefferson. In some cases, they discard the very term communism; in other cases, they affix the label “communism” to a political project that situates itself firmly within the bounds of bourgeois-democratic principles.
“Third, there is what Bob Avakian has been doing. He is not only the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which has its sights set on the revolutionary seizure of power and the radical transformation of society, but is also a visionary theorist. Since the defeat of the Chinese revolution in 1976, he has been applying himself to the challenges of making revolution in today’s world, acting on the understanding that communist revolution is the only way out of the madness and horror that is social existence on this planet. (pp.2-3)”
Let’s take this in the order first, third, and second; in other words, first the dogmatists, then BA, then Badiou.
The problem is not really that there are a lot of people out there simply clinging tenaciously to the Soviet and Chinese experiences (or Cuban, Algerian, etc., for that matter). The way this first category should have been framed is that there are many socialists who sum up the first wave of proletarian revolutions as showing us that it is a mistake to try to break with an economist perspective, and that what we need instead is a better worked-out version of such a perspective.
I’ll deal with these questions at length in a discussion of economism, but let us say that we know this perspective well in the interventions here at the Kasama site, most eloquently developed by Carl Davidson and most systematically developed in the work that Carl repeatedly recommends, that of David Schweickart. I know Prof. Schweickart fairly well, he is not a dogmatist, in fact he is a very sophisticated thinker—and I want to add that he is, in my experience, a kind and caring person. I could see some of his economic models as playing a helpful role in a socialist society, but, again, I will take that up at length in my post on economism. But the point is that Prof. Schweickart is an avowed utilitarian, he affirms many John Stuart Mill principles.
Apart from discussing these issues more directly, the main point is that BA’s New Synthesis doesn’t really break with it.
In terms of continuity and discontinuity, the NS is more continuous with the experiences of the first wave (as is said directly in the polemic: “principally continuity”), and it doesn’t give us enough that is either new or a synthesis. Again, I would say that BA was up against an objective arc or trajectory and its exhaustion, and up against certain subjective factors, including a certain anti-intellectualism and intellectual laziness hiding behind a shallow critique of “academic niceties.”
If BA really had a new synthesis, he ought to be able to enter into fruitful conversation with others who are also attempting to forge ahead, but clearly he is not able to do this. Instead, he clings tenaciously to what he knows or thinks he knows, and after awhile it is all so swirled up in a sea of self-references that no one ought to consider what is coming out of the process a “theoretical project,” quite apart from academic niceties.
More to the point—because I do think Avakian is a smart guy, that’s not what’s at issue—is a certain habit of mind, reinforced over many years of experience in the RCP, and many decades of experience in the ICM, that prides itself on narrowness in the name of materialism. Not to get all psychoanalytic or even new-agey here, but there is a pathology to grabbing too hard, and there is a need, for the sake of both materialism and emancipatory projects, to let go a bit.
It has been pointed out to me by Kasama Project people who were closer to the RCP than I was that this mindset is also linked to failure, and that it represents a kind of capitulation:
“If we can’t do anything else, we must at least promote the work and leadership of Bob Avakian well.”
Is Our Needed Synthesis a Philosophy or a Science?
Once again let us underline two questions about science, or perhaps three.
What would Marxism be as a “science,” especially given how much science has been done since the time of Marx? (Incidentally, it is important that, among the figures mentioned in the polemic that Badiou is “going back to,” we do not find Georg Cantor; perhaps this will be found in a subsequent installment of the polemic, but surely this would complicate simply summing up Badiou as a “Rousseauist”?)
What is “science,” exactly, and does it give us everything, in every way, that we need for revolutionary communist theory and practice? For example, are there real ethical questions, and is there a science or a purely scientific mode of inquiry that gives us the answers to such questions? What about questions of art? Is art a substantive part of the human experience and possibilities for liberation and flourishing? Can questions of art and aesthetics be sorted out in a purely “scientific” way?
Lastly (among these questions), and the only point in having to say this once again is that the RCP keeps putting it forward as if they are really saying something, you don’t get to science, systematicity, rigor, or vision by declaration or fiat. There have been many insights over the years from Bob Avakian and the RCP, and some good historical analysis, some of it even pathbreaking, and some good work in political economy; I don’t see the point in minimizing these things, though they meant one thing in the context of an organization and activism that had some vibrancy to it, and they mean another thing in the context of an organization and leadership that was not able to make the necessary transition to a new level of theoretical and practical activity.
Does anyone doubt that the reason for “science and vision by declaration” is that this whole “new synthesis” hasn’t really come together?
Furthermore, and perhaps again to wax a bit psychoanalytic (superficially so, I realize), isn’t this the real motivation for tearing Badiou down, that BA doesn’t really have the new synthesis, combined with an abiding faith on the part of BA and those who remain in the RCP that only BA could have it.
Thus this dismal, grind-it-out-to-the-verdict, prooftexting and cherry-picking polemic against Badiou. This should make us angry, livid even, but it is also just sad.
However, even while we are correctly expressing anger at this stupid irresponsibility, let us underline one methodological point that needs much more discussion, and again it has to do with philosophy.
In the final analysis, is our Marxism, or better our revolutionary communism, our needed new synthesis (or even simply our new patchwork or “crazy quilt” of analyses that speaks to the way the world is today) that is going to help us radically change the world, a philosophy or a science?
We need science, we need scientific work and many avenues of scientific investigation (in other words, we need not only science, we need the many different sciences, plural)—does anyone really dispute that? But do we need art (and, again, the many different fields of artistic endeavor, and even the many fields of art theory and criticism)? Do we need love? Do we need politics, especially where the emergence of a true event in politics is something in the manner of an intervention, one that is essentially (if also in some sense not “absolutely”) underdetermined?
We could have a very fruitful debate around whether these are the only categories where events are possible, and so on, though of course we won’t have any such discussion in the case where our only interest in Badiou’s philosophy is to shut it down. Badiou’s work does a great deal more to help us with these issues than does chanting the mantra of “science” with very little (if any) real science to go with it.
The larger point is that the core of a truly new synthesis needs to be philosophy, not “science,” and, if you do it the other way around, you will not only be anti-philosophical and dismissive of the contributions of philosophy and philosophers (including, ultimately, the philosophical contributions of Marx, Lenin, and Mao — because, once you have the new science, you can kick away the old science), you will not understand the contributions of science in the proper context, either.
Bad Methodology
In the paragraph that goes more directly to Badiou, we see the usual use of the term “like.” This betokens very bad methodology. “Theorists like Rousseau, Kant, and Jefferson,” as with other non-helpful groupings such as “postmodern philosophers like Derrida” (or is it like “the Derridas”?), is just a way of not having to do some philosophical work and grapple with ideas.
Of course, it all works fine if we’ve already got the assurance that no thinkers before Marx have anything to teach us, and especially no philosophers since Marx have anything to teach us if they are outside of the narrow MLM/BA canon.
Anyone who has read Badiou knows that he hasn’t distanced himself from the Bolshevik Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, or Lenin or Mao.
Indeed, some of his ideas are very helpful for understanding what it might mean to say that these contributions are “saturated” and that it is time for a new synthesis, without setting aside a basic fidelity to these experiences. There is still a difference between what can be carried forward in our present efforts, and that which was not revolutionary to begin with.
As for analyzing the experience of the first wave, sure, I have some questions for Badiou’s particular claims and his broader framework, but there is a lot to be learned from it, too—just as, for instance, there is a lot to be learned from Sartre’s analysis of the Stalin period in Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 2, and in the remarks on “survivals” in Althusser’s For Marx and Reading Capital. And there is a lot to be learned on this point from Mao’s Critique of Soviet Economics and Avakian’s Conquer the World?
But isn’t the point that we need all the help we can get in understanding the horrible mess that socialism became under Stalin, and that people of good will should come together on this work? We need to understand better why it is significant that this polemic contains not the least bit of good will.
The approach of this polemic instead reminds me of those so-called “Christians” who are mostly concerned with identifying the people who are going to hell, and I can’t help but recall BA’s bizarre piece on how “most of the time, even communists aren’t communists.” He didn’t mention himself in that regard, and the implication is that, all alone in this world Bob Avakian is the one communist who is a communist all the time, and he is the thread by which communism hangs in our time. It should go without saying that, if you begin with such a standard, no one else is going to measure up. But then you find yourself saying “we” shouldn’t be “Rousseauists” to people for whom the question means nothing, because it is ruled out in advance that there might be some reason to read Rousseau today. Nothing good can come from this.
It’s silly, anyway, to mainly identify Badiou with Rousseau—for the crime of thinking we might still learn a thing or two from Rousseau (and as if Marx didn’t)—when he is most often identified with Plato and the fulfillment of a certain “dream” of Plato by Cantor and the development of set theory and the idea of infinity.
How Badiou’s view that “mathematics is ontology” could be materialist or Marxist is an interesting question. It’s a question that I’m still trying to understand myself—and when I encounter some of these very smart people who are working in a concentrated way in Badiou’s philosophy, or, for that matter who have worked in set theory and mathematics more generally, I ask for their help in getting some insight into this question.
One important point is that W. V. Quine (no Marxist, for sure!) argued that sets have to be accepted into ontology because sets are necessary for doing scientific work. However, one thing that I would say is materialist about what Badiou is doing here (and Quine for that matter) is that his proposals open many questions, whereas Avakian’s half-baked, fragmentary, positivist, “truth is correspondence with reality” line not only shuts down questions, that is its aim.
We can argue with Badiou’s ideas, that’s part of what makes them materialist. There’s no arguing with BA’s crude notion of truth, with which he is “intoxicated” (as he put it), that’s what makes his theoretical enterprise “idealist,” and not in any good way. There is nowhere to go from there, and the people who are persisting in this line are indeed going nowhere.
Is Badiou a “Marxist”?
Well, members of L’Organisation Politique, of which Badiou is a leader, are referred to as “Modern Marxists.” It’s true that Badiou’s Marxism might be called one of “pure politics,” as Slavoj Zizek puts it in The Parallax View. Badiou’s rejection of economism goes so far as to reject the whole language of “interests,” a language that motivates most of what calls itself Marxism, including that of Bob Avakian. But wouldn’t we want to engage with this argument in a non-sectarian way, especially if we are interested in a non-economistic Marxism?
Is Badiou a “Maoist” or “post-Maoist”?
Bruno Bosteels makes a convincing case for the latter in his article, “Post-Maoism: Badiou and Politics.” Certainly Badiou continues to refer to various points in his philosophy that he takes to be “profoundly Maoist,” and his philosophy gives us a philosophical basis for both retaining a fidelity to Mao and the experience of Maoism and for recognizing that “it is absolutely necessary to invent a new political discipline.” This last is from the conclusion to an interview with Tzuchien Tho, conducted for the 2007 publication of The Concept of Model, in English translation, almost forty years after its original publication in French; the entire interview is very good, but of particular significance to our present concerns is this concluding section, where Badiou goes from discussing mathematics as ontology to answering the question, “Is there a Maoist theme there?” Badiou responds, “Yes, Maoist in a very deep sense.”
But again, the point is not simply whether we agree or not at every point with how Badiou develops these themes; there are many, Maoist or otherwise, who would take issue with the analysis that follows Badiou’s affirmation of a very deep Maoist theme. However, the real question is this: beyond Marxism or Leninism or Maoism, Badiou is working toward a renewal of the communist hypothesis. If we care about communism, we need to engage productively and critically with this work. Why would we not want to do this?
Nickglais said
I feel that the problem of the RCPUSA is that they are dealing with Badiou has if he was an enemy in the movement and he clearly is a Maoist comrade even if some of his views are clearly mistaken. Letters to a Comrade would have been a better style of polemical discussion with Badiou.
It is precisely on the point of how to conduct a two line struggle that Nepalese comrades lead the way and demonstrate that the Party concept just like other Marxist concepts are still developing in the 21st Century and also paradoxically refute Badiou’s anti Party arguements by their dynamic practice.We should be learning from this and not dismissing it as the RCPUSA do.Read Bhattarai article on Party building in Nepal Revolution-Problems and Prospects
The two line struggle has been institutionalised in the Nepalese Party and there can be serious debate amongst comrades. Matrika Yadav by resorting to personal abuse placed himself outside the Party and reflects the old wrong headed style of two line struggle which the communist movement has had enough of.
Prachanda in particular has been criticised by the Party and in particular by Comrade Kiran and dressed down by the central committee on at least one occassion I know of.Just what I expect of a democratic centralist party but rarely see !
The ease of mind in the Party which Mao was so keen on has been taken seriously by the Nepalese Maoists and it gives them enormous strength.Ignoring such questions cost the communist movement deeply in the 20th century.
I welcome this discussion on Badiou and find your comment about Badiou reducing ontology to mathematics problematic but helpful has I have wrestled with Being and Event and still don’t know if this is the right direction or not but welcome the opening up of this philosophical space.
I want Badiou and Prachanda and Bhattarai sympathically criticised and initially welcomed the RCPUSA polemics but now have to conclude they are not up to the task has they are locked into past mindsets.
Critically engaging with these three is vital for 21st Century Communst development and here the RCPUSA by provoking us has done a service.
josetheredfox said
Bill Martin writes:
“For one thing, it is clearly the point of this polemic that it doesn’t really matter what Badiou thinks, or what he has to offer, or what questions he opens up; the real deal is that BA has laid down the new science, there for the taking [the point of the RCP polemicis]: Badiou is wrong because Avakian is right.”
“The approach of this polemic instead reminds me of those so-called ‘Christians’ who are mostly concerned with identifying the people who are going to hell.”
Many years ago, while in grad school, I read Kai Erickson’s “Wayward Puritans: A Sociology in the Study of Deviance” (1966), a study that examines how the Puritans maintained social cohesion through discourse/power. In this work, Erickson discusses and analyses the ways in which the Puritans not only disciplined and punished those who deviated from “community standards” (e.g., “witches”) but also, how they policed themselves. Erickson develops this theory, what he calls, “the theory of negative self-identification” to suggest that the Puritans where obsessed with identifying themselves by identifying what they are not.
Many years, after I left the Party (I was a “close supporter”), I still struggle with this puritanical-RCP internalized pan-optican.
Today, I still believe in revolution, only I’m a little bit more humble and more open to different possibilities. “Be humble amongst the people and vicious against the enemy,” the Young Lords used to say. Sometimes its funny how much one can learn from those folks (and their ideas) that one has prematurely labelled as “non-communist”…
The few folks left in the Party are losing their grip (practically and theoretically) and this “polemic” is a sign of it. I agree with Bill Martin, its kinda sad, in a way.
palante, young tiger.
AndreiMazenov said
As a historian, one thing that has always annoyed me about the RCP and its supporters is one of the things that Dr. Martin points out: they seemed to think (unconsciously) that history “began with Marx”. What I guess I’m trying to say is that the RCP has a problem with looking at the broader framework of ideas. The fact that a Marxist (or post-Marxist) philosopher quotes a pre-Marxist philosopher or engages with progressive ideas that arose before Marx (such as Badiou in his examinations of Rousseau and St. Paul) just seems plain impossible to them, and that even LOOKING at them is falling back on bourgeois ideology. (I myself, during my own time within the RCYB, was looked at as odd for my interest in Locke, Rousseau, St. Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.)
RCP supporters seem to often forget that Marx (and progressive revolutionary thought in general) did not just “drop out of the sky” in 1848- there was a legacy of egalitarian and revolutionary thought that came out of things like the great French Revolution and even the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1848. Would we have “Workers of the World, Unite!” if we hadn’t had “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite”? What of the “Social Contract”?
While I am certainly not as gah-gah over Badiou, I find criticizing him on that basis to be rather sad. It is also pathetically hypocritical, especially because for years Avakian has called for Communists to learn from everything and everyone, even non-communists: that was one of the things that supposedly made him so “great” and “innovative” compared to other Communist leaders. Huh. Could’ve fooled me…
Adrienne said
Finally took the time to read Avakian’s polemic, and I must agree with you and John Steele.
It’s pretty damn pathetic in its glaring lack of intellectual curiosity, and in its utterly dismissive stance towards all of Badiou’s work. Even the title is an attempt to inform his followers that they needn’t bother themselves with an exploration of Badiou’s ideas. (Ideas which are exciting, clearly creative, and yes, frequently baffling, IMHO.)
Indeed, it appears as though Avakian is actually stating that in order to remain in good standing with himself, his followers shouldn’t and mustn’tread Badiou at all.
When reading that polemic I gathered many of the same impressions as I previously have when reading pieces that have been linked to here in Kasama to some of Avakian’s other writings, and just recently to his piece on Jefferson. As with that particular piece, I also found this one to be factually shallow, dismissive, and to be perfectly blunt, either terribly uninformed, or perhaps willfully dishonest.
While I know really very little about the RCP, it appears that the party expects everyone to “engage with Avakian” even when he (or they?) are obviously doing an exceedingly poor job of gathering information, articulating opinions, and engaging with others.
Rather than continue to engage further, I believe I’m much more likely pass from now on, thanks very much.
I have to assume that it hasn’t always been like this within the RCP, or with Chairman Avakian? I say that because I recognize that many people posting to Kasama were with the RCP for years, and to me seem far too bright and well informed to have withstood this kind of “intellectual” output for too long a time.
Perhaps what I’ve written here comes off as too harsh, or seems somehow unprincipled. I don’t mean for it to. However, I do feel the need to be honest.
Andrei wrote:
Odd?! Then, I must be similarly odd… :^)
AndreiMazenov said
Yay, I’m not the only Atheist who willingly amuses himself by reading Catholic mental gymnastics.
Tell No Lies said
So do I. Ad Gentes is a fascinating document on the problems of decolonizing consciousness.
jon said
this is revisionist propaganda. the new synthesis is a qualitatively higher stage, one day we will be talking about Avakianism. Avakian has synthesised the experience of the International Communist Movement, and taken it to a higher stage. intead of getting with this, you are attacking it. if you are not with the new synthesis, you are on the wrong track. this is true, look at nepal.
n3wday said
Jon,
Instead of asserting we need to “get with” the new synthesis, why don’t you make an argument as to why we should? What about the new synthesis do you see as valuable?
Why is this piece revisionist?
What about Nepal?
Jon, do you really expect to win people over by telling them what to think (as opposed to debate)?
Carl Davidson said
Anyone can make assertions. Making arguments is a tad more difficult. Making good ones even more so.
jon said
there is not much point arguing with people whose sole interest in life is running down avakian. why? from nepal to US, revisonist are united in knocking avakian. for a brillaint answer to anti avakianism in nepal, see the latest 2009 letter from rcp to nepal. Bill Martin is just a confused intellectual, who needs god. but avakian rightly said that nepal is now revisionist, and he was right about vennu and peru. you should engage with Avakian because only avakian has synthesised the experience of the ICM. nepal is just a footnote in history.
Tell No Lies said
N3wday and Carl,
I think Jon is engaged in an intentional parody of the RCP, that is to say snark, and that y’all got played. The tip off is: “One day we will be talking about Avakianism.” Well played, Jon.
jon said
also, you guys would be nothing without Avakian. Avakain can be compared to Marx, Lenin, or Mao. Prachanda path has now been dropped in nepal, gonzalo thought is finished, only Avakian keeps the true revolutionary line.
Gary said
Now, I was just asking myself, among other tasks, “Where can I find a brilliant answer to anti-Avakianism in Nepal?”
Thank you, Jon!
Seriously—these comments of yours strike me as valuable in perhaps expressing what’s being said among those “talking about Avakianism.” Martin’s “just a confused intellectual, who needs god”? Nepal “just a footnote in history”?
You intervene in a thread of sophisticated discussion of Badiou to defend a beleagured Bob Avakian in wooden phrases concluding (defensively) “there is not much point arguing with people whose sole interest in life is running down avakian”. But please continue to argue and participate.
Tell us more of how you, or people who continue to support the RCP, are seeing the Badiou question, now that the RCP has decided to make it one.
nando said
Perhaps you are right, TNL. But it is hard to tell, because the RCP has put itself beyond parody.
However one interesting passage in Jon’s comment is this:
Perhaps Jon can explain precisely what Avakian said that was right about Peru?
Green Red said
Hi Jon,
Thanks for bringing a coffee rush into this discussion.
also, you guys would be nothing without Avakian. Avakain can be compared to Marx, Lenin, or Mao. Prachanda path has now been dropped in nepal, gonzalo thought is finished, only Avakian keeps the true revolutionary line.
I’m trying to imagine. While Marx was an atheist Jew and Lenin was a bold, bald Russian revolutionary and Mao was of course, Chinese, still Avakian can be compared on the basis that all above mentioned happened to be male human beings.
On the You cannot be without Avakian, please listen to U2 song…. the revolutionaries of the world will live, With or without Avakian, with or without Avakian, … and he gives his speecehs away, and he gives his books away, and he gives, and he gives….
Thanks for the daily cracking us up Jon…
Back to buiz now!
Jose M said
Nepal will be a footnote in history? Who’s history, Jon? In the RCP’s case, “history” begins with Marx, epitomizes in Avakian, who, btw, will probably never even be a mere footnote. I mean, besides some communists in the U.S. and abroad, who the fuck knows who BA is? Prachanda and the Nepali Maoists have a base of millions, rooted in amongst the working people of Nepal.
As a communist, I believe that whether Nepal successfully makes the transition to socialism or clearly and obviously turns revisionist, it still won’t be just a footnote. It will serve as an invaluable lesson to revolutionaries around the world, as the Chinese and Russian experiences have.
But, you can keep playing catechism all you want. It only proves us right and makes you look sad (in a funny way).
Tell No Lies said
Nando too now? C’mon. The second post is even goofier than the first. “Only Avakian keeps the true revolutionary line”? You think this guy is serious? You are all being taken for a ride. My money says its an anarchist (Chuck?) with a very dry sense of humor seeing how far we will stoop to engage. Apparently pretty far.
cwm said
It’s not me: I’m innocent! (and, in fact, I *never* post pseudonymously here).
But I must say that I’m glad to see that the discussion of the RCP’s pretensions has been reduced to a debate about whether or not they are a deliberate or unintentional farce.
Ah, progress…
Chuck Morse said
That’s very funny… my screen name somehow became “cwm” in the very post that I mention that I don’t comment pseudonymously. Well, cwm is me, Chuck Morse (and I’m not sure how or why the screen name changed).
patrickm said
Perspective drawing is in my experience very rewarding (and not being an artist I find it very difficult). The key question is deciding where you ‘stand’ and yet that’s the easy part. As with the above photo the stairs can then be made to ‘appear’ because the artist’s eye level determines a horizon and the centre of your picture is where you get depth to the vanishing point. You then follow rules that work back from that point in 360 degrees. It is, once you have established your point of view (POV), a quite mechanical process so that if you work in pencil and have plenty of time even a non artist can do useful work and a recognizable project emerge. Yet for many thousands of years the simple rules for perspective drawing were not known.
The same applies to constructing an argument that is recognizable as a valid argument. The rules are not ‘Eurocentric’. Once a POV is established there are workmanlike activities to attend to. It really should not concern us who discovered the rules of perspective drawing when our job is to draw something that has never existed before and it really is invalid to throw around terms like Eurocentric when we address issues that flow from class struggle.
Where capitalism came into being so POV’s on capitalism came into being. Where the proletariat came into being is where a proletarian POV came into being. Intellectuals could stand in these shoes only after they had come into being. That’s not Eurocentric that’s reality.
Of course the RCP is beyond parody!
But several hundred years after capitalism arose we have multi racial proletarian crews running ships built by other proletarians carrying cargoes made by other proletarians being delivered as aid to an almost non industrialized African country being attacked by pirates AND YET we have people thinking themselves proletarian revolutionaries supporting the pirates (rather than lamenting the fact that we proletarians do not have any red navies to protect them). We have ‘proletarian revolutionaries’ not supporting the bourgeois run navies protecting proletarian sailors in their place of work!
That degree of foolishness is not surprising but then we have a deadly silence descend from the leadership level of Kasama. For very good reasons liberalism is resorted to in the face of this concrete issue. If it gets out that revolutionaries support bourgeois navies doing exactly the same task as would a red navy where will that lead to?
Mike E said
either skillful satire, or a politics off the brink?
I have thought (over and over) that they have moved beyond parody. Their supporters now literally repeat scripts (and are trained to ‘say the words’) even to the extend of standing before street crowds and reading articles from a newspaper at passers-by. A galloping symptom of their new methods is a deepening inability to speak — freely — about the issues and even their own views. Jon’s terse put-downs and assertion of doctrine in one or two lines is rather typical — and it is a style that arises from loyalty-by-faith and deep suspicion of independent formulation. (Avakian: Don’t explain me. Don’t con-text-ual-ize me. Just say the words.)
And as their theoretical level and creativity has suffered (under the numbing weight of enforced whateverism) their public interactions have deteriorated. Avakian’s recent defense of his own self-referencing (I said it right the first time so why not repeat it?) and his defense of a sad and shallow dilletantism (i read books, lots of books, and articles too) — have moved beyond parody.
YOu may think each post by Jon is “goofier than the first” — but, honestly my own quivering political sensor can’t tell if it is real or not.
nando said
hmmmm. Patrick is another of the “last superpower” neo-cons (that peculiar stream of rightist-patriotic Australian maoists who are now so openly pro-US and pro-war). Like his co-thinkers he starts with what seems like a discusson among radicals and suddenly veers yet again into a raw defense of the armed might of our ruling imperialist states:
There are arguments to be sharpened against the logic of pro-war republicans. And the debate and repudiation of rightwing views can be of value. But I raise again whether we want get distracted (in each thread) by having to explain (to these closed and arrogant minds, over and over) that glorifying the imperialist militaries and rejecting ecology are not things we want to spend time on here.
I personally have zero interest in their arguments, and i say we boot them.
Tell No Lies said
Chuck,
To be fair to the RCP, if its a deliberate farce, its not on the part of the RCP. I still think its a joke. Here’s why. First it seems pretty clear that RCP members are prohibited from visiting let alone participating in the discussions on this site. How precisely that is enforced I don’t know and a surefire method for driving out the even remotely intellectually curious. I suppose it is a possibility that “Jon” is simply violating discipline or that he is one of the few people remaining on their periphery who actually subscribes to the Avakian worship but isn’t under discipline. But it smells like a hoax to me. The caricature of the robotic repetition of assertions of Avakian’s greatness is just to overdrawn to be real. Its like those slightly stilted scenes of sign-shaking “protesters” in movies. They get a lot of the details right but it ultimately lacks authenticity.
Green Red said
Dear Tell No Lies comrade,
Re: “…it seems pretty clear that RCP members are prohibited from visiting let alone participating in the discussions on this site. ”
i cannot count the numbers of direct/indirect rcp-ite friends of a sort stating to me that i am being “recognized”, etc.,
While supposedly prohibited, but in reality maybe they are much more into reading things with regret since well, seems losing comrades is painful enough but seeing a few/some/many of them presenting an open minded and, un-scholsatic group of folks who appears to be more into really seeking out solution, than sticking to their own little circle’s pride and legacy, is more than painful. Inward it is shameful and outward masked with loathing.
Nevertheless, in the long run an element or two of their postitive contributions will be recalled positively. I still wish them well and hope, someday, better sooner than later, Mr. Avakian will write another book to negate his own past and boom, eliminate their cult of personality, re evaluate the “revisionism” within the party and, all tilting at revisionist windmills and Don Quixote syndrome will be over.
After all being revolutionary is the hopeful element of the hopeless philosophers.
josetheredfox said
on “jon” i would say: let’s not feed the troll(s).
chuck, i’m glad it wasn’t you who made the comment, cabron! ;)
not to suggest anything here, but let’s just remember the tactics used by the other side to create and exacerbate confusion, division (at times deadly), and frankly, waste our time.
cheers, j.
jon said
Avakian was right about peru because he said that the party were following a revisionist line after the gonzalo capture, many did not believe, but he was right. the same for nepal, the party is following a revisionist line and Bob Avakian has pointed it out. without Bob Avakian these things would not have been pointed out, just like you guys are so deluded about nepal. all i can say is thank goodness for bob avakian!
Rosa L. said
AndreiMazenov said:
Let’s not fool ourselves with Avakian’s call to learn from everything and everyone who produces a truth. For Avakian and the RCP there are limits about who to cite positively or who to consider someone one can learn from. For them, to cite positively a right wing thinker or to recognize that an anti-communist right winger might have some truth that we can learn from is less of a threat than positively recognizing someone they consider a revisionist.
The logic is as follows: a right-winger is a right-winger and it does not create confusion among the masses if one recognizes when they might be saying something true. But since a revisionist claims to be a marxist, for RCP this creates confusion about who and what is a real marxist.
Avakian and the RCP will never cite positively anyone they consider a “revisionist” even if the so-called revisionist might have some truth in what they say.
Their underestimation of peoples’ intelligence is such that they will not consider accepting any truth coming from, nor citing positively, anyone they consider a “revisionist” because they are afraid this might derail the masses from the “correct” communist perspective put forward by the new messiah Bobby Avakian.
The positive recognition that Bill Martin is doing to some of Avakian’s work is something that Avakian nor RCP will never do about Bill’s work. Once you are in the camp of what Avakian and the RCP call revisionists, you cannot be cited positively because in their perspective the masses are so “ignorant” and so “bourgeoisified” that they might be tempted by evil and be incapable to appreciate the truth of Messiah Avakian to “emancipate humanity”. Thus, let’s not fool ourselves.
The whole openness that Avakian claims about his re-envisioning of communism in the 21st century, including encouraging dissent, is only extended to a few right-wing intellectuals. People they consider revisionists are not included in this openness and are going to be censored, enjailed and, who knows, even executed.
Avakianism is a Stalinist interpretation of maoism or a depuration of the advances of maoism to take us back to the limits of Stalin. The tolerance of RCP and Avakian about dissent and freedom of speech under socialism will be extended and tolerated within certain limits to only a few right wing intellectuals that do not threaten the gospel of Avakian. Anyone who dares to explore critically with MLM ideas under socialism (or before socialism) that does not fit within Avakian’s gospel is going to be censored, incarcerated or executed if they ever have an inch of state power. If you have any doubt, look at their treatment of dissent within the MLM camp.
Look in their webpage how they treated Mike Ely, or just read their document on Badiou that Bill very well criticizes in his essay above, or check how they treated Nepalese maoist leader Bhattarai. Bhattarai’s article “The Question of Building a New Type of State” that they criticized so much in their long essay in Revolution or in the letters to the CPN (Maoist) is dismissed without a single serious citation or any serious extensive discussion of the content of what exactly Bhattarai is saying in the text! RCP accuses Bhattarai of saying things that are not said in Bhattarai’s text. Just compare what Bhattarai said in this article to what the RCP is saying Bhattarai said.
They just throw labels at people they consider revisionist without any serious analysis of their arguments. RCP accused them all of revisionist and/or counter-revolutionaries without any serious examination of what is exactly said in the texts.
This has gotten to extremes such as dismissing Badiou as a “revisionist,” even though he does not identify himself as a marxist. So, they are so ignorant of the work of Badiou and so threatened by his ideas, that they even called “revisionist” someone who is not making a claim to be a marxist.
Moreover, Alain Badiou, one of the major living philosophers of the 20th century, is dismissed by RCP as a “revisionist” based on one article without any serious consideration of his major works (ex. Being and Event ) or his most recent major work (The Logics of the World).
consider this paragraph on page 12 of their polemic:
And they applied that label again at one of the RCP’s recent polemical events, where a friend of mine reported to me that it was said clearly and loudly by the spokesperson for the RCP’s view: “BADIOU IS A REVISIONIST.”
Here RCP shows their real face: irresponsible charlatans. If practice is the criteria of truth, RCP bourgeois irresponsible practice of dismissing people’s critical work based on the fact that they disagree with them or that they simply do not take seriously Avakian’s gospel tells you more about the kind of “authoritarian state capitalist society” (disguised as socialist) that they envision than any of Avakian’s promise of encouraging dissent.
No matter how many times RCP screams to the contrary, they will not tolerate any dissent that is coming from within the MLM camp.
Avakian’s arrogance is such that he thinks he can fool people with a so-called “new synthesis” that is not back-up by any serious theoretical work at the level of Marx, Engles, Lenin or Mao. However, Avakian’s half-cooked re-envisioning of communism is so limited in terms of what needs to be done and proposed for the 21st century, that RCP will never be taken seriously beyond a couple hundred people.
A secularized Christian-like sect that replaces Christ with Avakian is not going to go that far in making revolution in the United States. RCP political practice demonstrates over and over again this problem. They are going no-where and the more no-where they go, the more they go crazy accusing anyone who does not cites Avakian: revisionist and/or counter-revolutionary.
If Avakian and RCP would ever have an inch of state power, we should have no doubt about where Badiou, Mike Ely or Bhattarai would be….
jon said
but badiou is an idealist philosopher, and so is not a way forward. further, nobody would even know bill martin if not for the book with avakian. why didn’t bill criticize then? thanks to avakian people are talking about bill martin and kasama, but without bob avakian you’d be nothing. the new sythesis is the way forward. revisionists cant accept that and come out with all kinds of idealism, mormonism like bill martin etc. if you guys have given up on revolution, on bolshevism, then you should just admit that. you are all mensheviks.
nando said
Jon, let me break down your remark a bit, so that you can perhaps see the absurdities you are saying:
This statement is full of embedded assumptions. First, you imply that people can only make a contribution if they show “a way forward.” But lots of people make contributions (in philosophy, science, literature, comedy….) without being political figures who show “a way forward.” What a very narrow world you would in habit if only the people who show “a way forward” avoid condemnation.
The idea here that a person as person is “a way forward.” Your rejection of Badiou (as a person) for not being “a way forward” — assumes that people can embody “a way forward.” And, of course, the unspoken assumption here is that there IS “a way forward” and it is embodied in another person. (I.e. Bob Avakian.) So showing interest in a thinker other than Bob Avakian is wrong — it is essentially heresy. And it is heresy, not because Badiou is wrong on a, b or c; not because he has nothing of value to say — but because it threatens the core (unspoken) assumption of your statement: “I am the way, no one enters the kingdom except through me.” The religiousity of your response to a radical philosopher speaks for itself.
Also the simple division of thought into materialist and idealist (and then on that basis the mechanical rejection of all “idealist” thought as wrong) is something that you can’t just assert, you actually have to argue through. For example, Hegel is considered by Marxists to be an idealist thinker. Is there nothing of value in his thought? Did his thinking not contribute (in a huge way) to forging “a way forward” — in the early 1800s and then again in lenin’s studies of 1914? Think about it, Lenin HAD marxism in his hands. And yet in 1914 he went back and studied Hegel, precisely to forge a way forward. Can you see how impoverished your mechanical logic is?
Jon writes:
It depends on how you define “nobody.” I was in the RCP, and I only knew about Bill Martin and about Zizek because they appeared in the “Conversations” book with Bob Avakian. But that is a sign of the narrow little ghetto I had been confined in.
If you step two paces outside that imposed bubble — the world looks different. Lots of people commented on the Conversations book only because Zizek published the intro. I suspect the reason this book got a serious publisher (and the Zizek introduction) is because Bill Martin is known — not because anyone knows Bob Avakian.
In fact, reality is exactly the reverse of what you believe. Avakian’s books are published by self-publshing vanity press, and don’t get read or sold (outside of the very narrow circle of supporters and those they can personally reach). Bill Martin’s books are actually published by academic press. Avakian was riding on Bill’s coattails, not the other way around.
This is a more mixed statement. And more difficult to unravel.
First, there was general interest when the 9 letters critiqued Avakian’s synthesis. Many people came to check it out for very different reasons. Some were interested in avakian and therefore interested in a serious critique of his work. Many people had never taken Avakian’s Synthesis seriously, until they encountered a serious critique. So it went both ways.
I believe at this point, things have changed quite a bit: Kasama’s audience (which has grown steadily over the last year) is not mainly drawn by the 9 Letters (i.e. the 9 Letters get steady downloads, but are at this point a secondary draw). The main interest on Kasama is its discussion of communist reconception — i.e. people are interested in communist thought that is not locked up in a small room with Avakian’s musings.
Look for example at the discussion of Badiou we have focused on over this last week. This is a discussion that has interest quite independent of the RCP — and engages a “reboot” of communism quite distinct from Avakian’s argument for “mainly continuity.”
So (obviously) the initial interest in kasama (when the 9 letters were published a year ago) was sparked by its critique of Avakian. However now, a year after Kasama was set up, your statement is mainly not true.
Well, clearly, IF someone had given up on revolution, then they should admit that, and explain it, and be open to struggle around that conclusion.
But your logic equates support for Avakian’s synthesis with upholding revolution — which is a linkage that is extremely sectarian and unjustified. Many people around the world have not “given up on revolution” — but have serious (and principled!) disagreements with Avakian’s synthesis.
I think you should step back and take a new look at the reality you are commenting on. You have embraced a very mechanical logic based on faulty premises.
Koba said
If you feed the trolls after midnight they become gremlins.
Tell No Lies said
Okay, maybe Jon is serious. The crudeness of his “arguments” still suggests a caricature, but his persistence suggests that this may actually be what the RCP has to offer. I suppose Nando’s patience in deconstructing them is to be commended.
I just want to make one point: The proposition that Kasama would be nothing without Avakian is ridiculous. I was never in the RCP and except for a very brief involvement with WCW was never even remotely in its orbit. I treated the RCP more seriously than many of the people I did political work with, read its press occasionally and tried to relate to it in a non-sectarian manner, but most of the conclusions in the 9 Letters were views I had come to on my own a long time ago. When I first heard about the “New Synthesis” it struck me as a healthy development in the thinking of a group that I saw as pretty seriously trapped in its own bubble. The critiques of previous socialist revolutions were hardly groundbreaking, but they seemed to represent an opening that I thought deserved support. Unfortunately my reading was mistaken and the “New Synthesis” marked the beginning of the RCPs descent into an even more cult-like existence than before.
I was attracted to Kasama precisely because it seemed to represent a real break with all that was dogmatic, cult-like, and just plain wrong headed about the RCP. More than that rather than a tepid advance within the bubble world of Avakianism it put forward a critique of the RCP’s theory and practice that offered many insights on the problems of the revolutionary left more broadly (and yes there is a much broader revolutionary left than the RCP and its periphery). Instead of proclaiming its possession of the “New Synthesis” it put forward a process for developing one.
Given its origins, the attention given here to critiquing the RCP and Avakian is probably a neccesary evil, but it is in my view increasingly a distraction from the real work of “reconceiving as we regroup.” In other words, insofar as Kasama is not realizing its full potential it is largely due to peoples understandable need to process their experiences in and around the RCP and to critique Avakian, activities which undoubtedly cause many people who might otherwise be attracted to Kasama’s larger project to continue to watch from the sidelines. The sooner we leave the arguments with Avakian behind and start really digging into reconceiving communist politics for the moment we are living, the sooner I think we will begin to attract the participation of the many people out there who are hungry for revolution but understandably reticent to involve themselves in a project so closely and recently identified with a cult-like sect like the RCP.
jon said
if Avakain is not the revolutionary leader of our age, then why do the iranian and afghan maoist parties uphold his line? also, badiou, zizek Kasama etc are attempts to bypass the ground breaking new synthesis, a qualtitately higher stage of MLM. in this the mensheviks always unite. Also Avakian has philosophically refuted Karl Popper, Derrida, and now Badiou. it is not surprising that right opportunists from all around the world are united in attacking avakian, such as in the red star (most ably answered in the letter to the cpn maoist of 2009) as well as on kasama, and the line of their attack is that the rcp is like a cult. however, this is not true. Avakain has made important breaks in philosophy, science and many other areas yet instead of engaging with Avakain, you attack his work.
jon said
Avakain has also made big inroads with the black community in the US and Avakain should be regarded as more important for the black community than Malcolm X because of his sceintific analysis of what happened with the Panthers thereby showing that MLM- new synthesis is the way forward for all of humanity.
Paul L said
Jon,
I’m willing to wager that quite a few more African-Americans have heard of and even respect Malcolm X than they have of Bob Avakian. Avakian is certainly not the only human being who has presented an analysis of what happened to the Panthers (although I’m sure, based on my experiences with the party over the past couple of years, that they want to convey that misimpression). While I was definitely only on the peripherals, trying to educate myself on what the “new synthesis’ was, I never really got it, despite 6 months of weekend classes, reading all the RCP publications and listening to the MP3′s (twice). It was suggested more than once that in order to understand, I had to keep re-reading and re-listening, but, as I observed in a friend, this only created a mindset where positions were repeated by followers word-for-word, phrase by phrase, with apparently little or no understanding beneath the surface of those words. In truth, I DID find Akakian’s talks to be fascinating and actually agreed with about 80 percent of them, which drew me to continue. But his words were continuosly presented as sacrament, and were consistently used in informal conversations to punch home a point. (Example, “as Avakian says…”. Yes, the RCP is criticized as being a cult, but when the chair is elevated to a position more important than the ideology, and that said ideolgy MUST be correct because the chair says so (because it MUST be true if Avakian says it so, and therefore it is beyond approach).
Engaging with Avakian doesn’t mean uncritically accepting everything he or the RCP states. All the reading and listening I did failed to convince me of the level of revolutionary breakthroughs that I keep hearing about. I already know what Avakian said (which is why it gets tiring to be told to read the same material again). I want to know why its a breakthrough.
Tell No Lies said
United in attacking Avakian? Please. Show me ONE other website where anybody gives a shit about him.
Jon, could you please tell us whether you are posting here with the knowledge and approval of the RCP?
I only think its fair that we know whether the crazy shit you are saying is your own crazy shit or whether it actually refelects the state of current thinking in the RCP. If you are doing this without the RCP’s approval its important that we not wrongly attribute your views to that organization.
Another thing, nothing you’ve written here suggests that you have even bothered to read the rest of the thread. You aren’t engaging ANYBODY else, just putting out assertions without even arguing for them really. What caliber of people do you think you are likely to attract with such a method?
There are a lot of different viewpoints represented among the participants in discussions here. There might even be people you can win over. But not if you don’t bother to answer what people actually say.
Have a nice day.
Rosa L. said
Hi Jon! You said the following on Avakian:
“…Avakian should be regarded as more important for the black community than Malcolm X because of his scientific analysis of what happened with the Panthers thereby showing that MLM- new synthesis is the way forward for all of humanity..”
I think you should read carefully the following paragraph of what Paul L said right after your comment:
“In truth, I DID find Akakian’s talks to be fascinating and actually agreed with about 80 percent of them, which drew me to continue. But his words were continuosly presented as sacrament, and were consistently used in informal conversations to punch home a point. (Example, ‘as Avakian says…’. Yes, the RCP is criticized as being a cult, but when the chair is elevated to a position more important than the ideology, and that said ideolgy MUST be correct because the chair says so (because it MUST be true if Avakian says it so, and therefore it is beyond approach)…. Engaging with Avakian doesn’t mean uncritically accepting everything he or the RCP states. All the reading and listening I did failed to convince me of the level of revolutionary breakthroughs that I keep hearing about. I already know what Avakian said (which is why it gets tiring to be told to read the same material again). I want to know why its a breakthrough.”
Jon, Paul L. summarizes with this paragraph the experience of many people in KASAMA with RCP and Avakian. We are not enemies of RCP and we never started our relation with RCP or Avakian thinking that we were going to be turned-off by what we experienced as members or sympathizers of RCP. Many of the people in this page (not everybody) were either hard-core members or sympathizers of RCP for many years. We did an effort to engage Avakian and to develop RCP as a revolutionary force. However, many of us just cannot buy this messianic Christian-like sectarian elevation of Avakian’s role as a new messiah or guru-like figure where people are required to stop thinking and follow the leader. No matter how many times RCP repeats that Avakian has produced a “new synthesis”, there is not a convincing argument to sustain it in the absent of single work of Avakian that is at the level of MLM classics such as Marx’s “Das Kapital”, Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, Lenin’s “Imperialism, Highest Stage of Capitalism”, Mao’s “Military Writings” or “Philosophical Writings”, etc. RCP can repeat all they want about Avakianism being the new synthesis or the new stage for communism in the 21st century, but it is just not convincing when you do not back-up that statement with a serious work in philosophy, political-economy or state theory that is not just a repetition of what MLM classics have already said in the past and that do not provides anything new that we can identify as a contribution that was not said by somebody in the past by other marxist. If you know a little about the marxist tradition of thought, many of Avakian’s ideas has been said before by other marxists that he refuses to acknowledge in what he and RCP calls the “new synthesis”. So, the point is that we are not RCP nor Avakian enemies. We are made “your enemies” by RCP, Avakian and people like you just because we disagree and try to develop a different perspective and practice from Avakian’s gospel. Let’s assume that you are a 100% right in everything you said and that Avakian new synthesis is to the 21st century what Marx/Engels were for the 19th century and Lenin/Mao for the 20th century. Still, this does not justify building a movement on a cultish religious sectarian base of making one leader the unquestioned authority and dividing line of communism world-wide. There is no single revolution led by Avakian that could even come close to such exaggerated statement and not a single original idea that could make the case for presenting Avakian’s work in such an exaggerated way. After more than 30 years of following Avakian thought and not having any practical success to make a breakthrough for revolution in the USA, people have “the right to rebel” and to try with other alternatives. But when they are accused by RCP of being counter-revolutionary just because after more than 30 years in the RCP they did not see any serious practical success and are now trying to develop a new theory and practice different from Avakian to make revolution in the USA, there is something profoundly wrong in both RCP and statements like yours. The RCP Christian-like sect form of organization (preaching rather than convincing) and Christ-like messiah elevation of Avakian (follow the leader not the ideas because whatever he says is truth) is well summarized in the following phrase of Paul L.:
“…the chair is elevated to a position more important than the ideology, and that said ideolgy MUST be correct because the chair says so (because it MUST be true if Avakian says it so, and therefore it is beyond approach)…
Finally, watch carefully how you characterized Avakian’s new synthesis. You used the following phrase: “MLM-new synthesis.” This is not the characterization made by RCP nor Avakian about “Avakian new synthesis.” In the new RCP constitution and in the recent RCP documents they abandoned the use of MLM and replaced it by “Avakian’s new synthesis” and the word “communism” as the ideology of the party. So, your formulation runs short from the way RCP characterizes itself after the so-called “Avakian’s new synthesis.” Avakian synthesis in the RCP is beyond MLM to the point that they abandoned the use of MLM as their ideological identity. I predict that very soon they will start talking about Avakianism to replace marxism, leninism and maoism. “Avakianism” is a short phrase for the same: “Avakian’s new synthesis.” They are not going to say “MLMA” and put the “A” of “Avakianism” at the end of MLM. They are going to say “Avakianism” and not MLMA, because for RCP “Avakian” is greater than Marx, Lenin or Mao because in their view he has produced what is needed to “re-envision communism” in the 21st century. If you are part of this Christian-like sect and follow Avakian as a new messiah, as you seem to do in your interventions in this page, then you should be honest with yourself and other people and stop talking about “MLM new synthesis” and simply say “Avakianism”. This would be the honest way to address your ideological identity, unless you disagree with RCP formulation and believe that Avakian is just synthesizing MLM ideas (without adding anything new) and in that case your formulation of Avakian doing an “MLM-new synthesis” might be the way you should continue to identity yourself and then debate RCP characterization of Avakian as being beyond MLM. So, are you agreeing with RCP new ideological identity (“Avakian’s new synthesis”) abandoning the MLM identity or do you disagree with them and that is why you keep characterizing Avakian as doing simply an “MLM new synthesis”? I hope you address my concerns outlined above and answer me this question.
carldavidson said
If Avakian’s ‘New Synthesis’ were what it claims to be, there would be no need for the Cult of Bob; the Cult of Bob is needed precisely because it isn’t. This farce is really the death knell of the RCP as anything viable.
jon said
Avakian can be compared to either Marx,Lenin or Mao. He has rescued the ICM, and only the RCP has the correct line. Just as Lenin criticized Trotzky and Bukharin, and also in Materialism and Empirio criticism Lenin tore the mask off the idealism passing as the latest ‘scientific’ philosophy, so Avakian has done the same to Badiou, and torn the mask off the radical phrases to show the same old idealism of Rousseau. Because the New Synthesis is very hot right now, you are spending your whole time trying to knock it. Marxism Leninism Maoism are three milestones, three qualitative leaps. The New Synthesis is not called Avakianism because it is not quite a qualitative leap. it would be correct to term it ‘Bob Avakian Thought’. We could call it Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Bob Avakian Thought, but it would be too long, so the term ‘new synthesis’ is used, taking the science of MLM to a new stage.
Zack said
Paul L, you’re clearly not going to get much out of Jon. He’s obviously delusional/off his rocker.
Unwilling to read anything that’s written here that’s critical of Dear Ol’ Bobby A.
carldavidson said
Jon, as I’ve said here before, anyone can make assertions, but arguments, especially good ones, require more. Besides, I doubt whether 99% of the American left has even heard of ‘the new synthesis,’ let alone think it ‘hot.’
nando said
Jon writes:
An (uh) interesting assertion.
I think that Avakian’s theory of “three milestones” (from Harvest of Dragons) is mistaken. Revolutinary theory is more complex in its development than that. The emergence of revolutoinary theory is (like other forms of evolution) far more bushy, with quite a bit more cross fertilization than the very narrow and dogmatic “milestones” theory allows.
In the rest of this, Jon is putting forward an analysis clearly at odds with the RCP’s own view of Avakian in some fundamental ways.
First, they clearly believe that Avakian’s new synthesis “on the level of a Lenin or a Mao.” In other words, they think that this New Synthesis is the Marxism of our time. This is why they removed the “three ours” from their website (that used to say “our ideology is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.) They do not discuss their ideology as MLM anymore — they discuss it as “Avakian’s New Synthesis.”
There are a number of reasons that the RCP doesn’t go with MLMA (either Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Avakianism, or “Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Bob Avakian Thought.”)
First, a tactical and pragmatic one: It would blox up their attempt to have Avakian engaged within the world movement. To SIMPLY announce that Avakianism is the Marxism of today for the whole world would be a difficult sell — even though that is precisely what they believe.
Second, Avakian never loved the MLM formuation — and so doesn’t want his name added as a fourth name to that growing list. First it is awkward, but second it down plays the degree to which he believes his synthesis REPLACES MLM (even while it “builds on” MLM with continuity). I think they hold that Avakian’s synthesis replaces MLM.
Third, the awkward formulation Bob Avakian Thought implies a step below an “ism” — i.e. it owuld imply that MLM is the theory for our times, and Avakian’s work is an important emerging body of theory. This is what Jon puts forward, but it is NOT what the RCP believes. Jon is more modest in his claims than the RCP is.
The main point: one way or another, Avakian’s theories are supposed to be viewed as the FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT of an “ism.” It exists, it is “there for the taking.” and it is a comprehensive leap beyond previous MLM (in their view). If they don’t openly call it Avakianism it is mainly for tactical reasons, for all other intents and purposes, it is an “ism” and they view it as an “ism” (“on the level of a Lenin or a Mao.”)
TNL asked if Jon represents the RCP’s view. Jon does not completely understand what the RCP’s view is, and is putting forward his own interpretation of why the term “new synthesis” is used. What he does try to convey is their conviction that previous Marxism (and MLM) are outdated now that Avakian has unveiled his personal synthesis.
TNL asks if Jon:
No, he is not. If he is a member, he is doing this in violation of party discipline. If he is a non-member supporter, he is posting without their knowledge and approval (and probably keeping it secret from them).
their policy is that this site is “counterrevolutionary” and anyone associated with it should be shunned. People have been excluded from RCP events (in several cities) merely on the basis that they have posted on this site. If Jon told his party friends he was posting here, it would be viewed with extreme hostility.
And in that sense, by flouting those rules and by keeping this secret, Jon is expressing his own small disagreement with the RCP’s assessments.
jon said
You cannot avoid the New Synthesis! It is the future, and we will see who is delusional. Zack-have you read the new synthesis? how many times have you read it? when you know about the new synthesis, then you can criticise, but you guys have not reached the heights of Avakian.
carldavidson said
Yes, indeed. We will see who is delusional, and sooner than you might think.
n3wday said
lol, although this person “jon” may appear to be opening up windows to discuss the actual substance of Avakian’s views, like the “3 milestones” thing, I’m back to thinking it’s just someone screwing with us (for a minute there I thought (s)he was serious).
I’m waiting for someone to take the bait and go, “I’ve read ‘Dictatorship and democracy’ [substitute and other work by avakian] thirty two times!!! of course I know it’s not ground breaking”, lol.
Adrienne said
Wow. Now I think I’m beginning to understand why so many socialists, communists and anarchists I know always refer to the RCP as nothing more than a cult.
Jon’s clear adulation of Avakian is obviously sincere, but his complete inability to actually address anyone in this thread with arguments of real substance is something that I personally find incredibly disturbing, and frightening.
Seriously comrades, what could be more ironic? Such veneration and slavishness to the words of a single figure is completely antithethical to the whole idea and aims of communism! We are people who seek to do away with all forms of elitism and privilege, are we not? So what on earth could be more revisionist than elevating a party chairman to such ridiculous heights of supposed perfection of vision and thought?
In my view, those who raise leaders up to such heights are destined from the outset to prevent collectivity and equality of responsibilities and rights among comrades. As a communist and member of the proletariat, there is no way I will ever cease to demand those things. And I am totally unwilling to work to replace this diabolical capitalist hierarchy with a Dear Leader at the top of a pyramid and a party hierarchy below that requires everyone to to bow down in worship — even if they do choose to go by the name communist.
For me, the true beauty of the dialectical method is that it is meant to continually ruthlessly interrogate and critique itself and attempt to resolve contradictions within theory and consciousness — as it moves ever forward towards its goals. Such an endeavor MUST be done in a collective way among comrades, and NO ONE PERSON can ever claim to have ALL of the answers. Therefore, those who push Avakian (or anyone else) as The Dear Leader with all of the answers and a perfectly conceived linear path that everyone must follow (or be wrong) are obviously NOT using the dialectical method.
In other words, it is crystal clear that such slavish followers might be called something, but they sure as hell aren’t Marxists.
nando said
Jon, let’s look at your argument “when you know about the new synthesis, then you can criticise.”
Well, is that also true for you and your view of Badiou? Do you have the basis for dismissing these new philosophical explorations and proposals?
Or does this only apply to Avakian?
I do think that “without investigation, there is no right to speak.”
Now this odd argument about “How many times have you read it?” is both flawed and revealing.
First, it gives an insight into the current culture of the RCP — which demands reading and rereading the same works over and over. Members are regularly quized about how much they are reading avakian. “Are you listening to his CDs over earphones when you are on the subway or working out? Which ones?”
To my amazement I heard a middle level management cadre of the RCP announce that he had read Avakian’s self-coup speech (the one from the “important party meeting” of 2003) “over 150 times.” At the time I did the math, and it basically meant that he spent hours a day, every day, reading and rereading…..
And of course, if you are always “racing to catch up with the Chair” and if “catching up means” reading many times…. well, you don’t have time for much else, do you? In fact, reading anything else becomes seen itself part of a wrong line…..
Now your argument of “how many times have you read it” just doesn’t work on those of us who are “steeped” in the New Synthesis (as the RCP’s jargon goes). When I emerged from the RCP i was so “steeped” in that New Synthesis that i felt like a teabag. I bet i have read all of the key works many (many!) more times than you (unfortunately).
And (without being competitive about it) I imagine my grasp of that synthesis compares (uh) favorably with your own. (Notice, for example, my understanding of the question of “ism” vs. New Synthesis — which is quite a bit more accurate on the RCP beliefs than yours — and based precisely on reading and rereading that water-shed self-coup speech. (see above)
But there is also a particular narrowness to Avakian’s assertion that he can only be criticized by people who have deeply appreciated his work. (And Jon is expressing this important notion that comes straight from Avakian himself!)
There is a story that Avakian himself tells: He had just given his all-day DVD speech — to a disappointing turnout of members and supporters. And he describes a party member coming up to him and saying they have brought some people to the event, and one of them had a criticism of the speech. And the comrade asked, “Would you like to hear the criticism?” And (as Avakian himself tells the story) he answered, “No.” And asked the comrade if this person has really grasped the speech yet, if he/she had delved deeply into its points and innovations — and if not, on what basis did they have a valid criticism? so no, he didn’t want to hear it. Avakian said that he had studied and defended Mao for ten years, before he started to articulate his criticisms (on the basis of his profound appreciation of Mao as a “milestone” of Marxism.) And his point, of course, was that communists should study his work and defend it and promote it — and perhaps (after a long time, if they have the right stuff) they may, eventually, after years, have some critical thoughts worth listening to.
But the key thing is this: that critical thoughts on Avakian’s synthesis only have validity on the basis of “appreciation.” And that kind of appreciation take a long time of being “steeped” in this “body of work.”
And in some ways, Bill Martin (interviewing Avakian for the “Conversations” book) provided a kind of model for that kind of “engagement based on appreciation” — where he had (obviously) been a close and eager student of Avakian’s work over decades, and on that basis, and on the basis of obvious respect, was venturing to raise some questions (even some hard questions) of Avakian.
That’s the background of what Jon is raising, the argument that “when you know about the new synthesis, then you can criticise.” (And i believe that sentence alone answers the question of whether Jon is a parody — because who but a close supporter would choose to repeat THAT challenge in such a central and naked way?)
And in fact, the point is only half-right at best.
You don’t need to study avakian for ten years to have a valid criticism.
you can be a radical high school student who goes to one of his speeches and says “this is too long and rambly. It really doesn’t get to its key points in a way I can grasp.”
In other words, SOME criticisms don’t need to come only on the basis of long-time appreciation.
Put another way: I am not a student of Sunni Islam. I have not read the Koran. And I don’t claim to make a deep and reasoned refutation of (say) Muslim morality, or the koran’s view of law. I haven’t done the investigation for that level of criticism. But I can say (and do say): I am an atheist, I am convinced there is no god, and so on that basis I can say I have a reasonable criticism of a core belief within Islam (one it shares with a number of other religions).
Here too, are examples of criticisms that can be made without a monk-like dedication of years to appreciation.
to make a refutation of Avakian’s synthesis (the kind started, for example, in the 9 Letters to OUr comrades) you obviously have to have done deep investigation. Clearly.
But it is also true that we can learn from the criticisms of people who are not coming from such an engagement. And if you shut that off, the way Jon has learned to do, with a dismissive questoin of “how many times have you read it,” then you will find your self in a small, isolated and theoretically-imploding bubble of self-referencing.
And this anecdote was told (and studied, and then restudied) by the party as a whole…. and Jon is repeating the point here.
carldavidson said
‘Monk-like’ is exactly right. This is feudal thinking, of an abbot to his novices, a pope to his parish priests, and the priest to the unschooled peasants. With Mao, Kim Il Sung or even Stalin, the tragedy was that the cult was rooted in the feudalism in their respective cultures. But with Bob in our context, it’s only farce. “We want no condescending saviors…”
Zack said
You cannot avoid the Gospel! It is the future, and we will see who is delusional. Heretics-have you read the Bible? how many times have you read it? when you know about the Good News, then you can criticise, but you guys have not reached the heights of God The Almighty.
Mike E said
Addrienne writes:
I think, Addrienne, that you have stuck your finger into a dirty little secret of the RCP.
Their initial published critique of Badiou is a critique of equality. And a critique of anyone making the notion of equality or egalitarianism a central focus of communism.
When they unfold their anti-equality arguments they (tactfully) choose do so in terms of the needs of the distant future: in other words, when communism eliminates oppression it will do so not on the basis of enforcing some rigid formal bean-counting equality but on the basis of “crossing the narrow horizon of bourgeois right.” (I.e. “to each according to their need” is not distribution on the basis of formal equality.)
Ok. But that argument is really a subterfuge. (And when Badiou is talking about equality and communism, he is not talking about social mechanisms of distribution, for example).
And in fact, the motivation and passion behind the RCP’s very public current distain for equality is much more present than future:
The whole central thesis of “Avakian as the cardinal question” is an assertion (and explicit “CELEBRATION”) of a profound chasm of INEQUALITY separating people. The words that Avakian insists be applied to himself are: special, unique, rare, beloved and irreplacable. (“Just say the words!”)
And the whole thrust of the RCP’s theory (accelerating after the self-coup of 2003) is OPPOSED to any sentiment for equality — and demands an appreciation of intrinsic INEQUALITY among people. And it has been raised to the level of a whole theory.
At one point, Avakian mused that perhaps the reason there were revolutions in China and Russia were because two stubborn individuals simply refused to accept anything other than revolution. In other words, it is a flirtation with complete voluntarism (in which conjuncture, objective conditions, particularity of countries and moments are all faded into the background, and one stubborn son of a gun emerges as the player who forces the party, the people and the world itself to bend to his will.)
This is why there is such a huge huge gap within the party between how leaders and cadre are regarded and treated. Why in some areas of work, there emerged new rules about “don’t speak until spoken to” when leaders were present — lower level cadre who spoke (or even said hi) were give a cold fish-eyed stare until they fell silent — and this was enforced on leading members who did obey those new rules. It was truly startling and disturbing for me (and a number of other people) to see that emerge around us — it was like an alien planet. How quick the leap was from “Avakian as a special…unique…rare” to believing that those who grasp Avakian best are now special….unique….and so on. It was a rapid tricke-down practice of raw elitism. Profoundly uncommunist, and a complete break with the previous casual comradely culture of the RCP.
Again, why does the RCP have such a militant disdain for Badiou’s talk of equality?
It is not cuz they want a break with Rousseauian ideology from the 1700s. And it is not because they are worried that there will be disaster in 2090 when some future socialism butts into the “narrow horizon of bourgeois right.”
It is because, right now, in the world today, in 2009, they don’t want communists infatuated with equality.
They want communists to see “the Main Man” as unique, special, rare, and irreplacable — and athe very real, heartfelt, and positive radical belief in equality between people has been (at each point) a MAJOR ideological roadblock to the “correct appreciation” of “the Main Man’s” specialness.
Badiou’s communist equality has to be knocked down to Avakian’s specialness can be grasped.
Mike E said
Zack writes:
When I was living in the Bible Belt, I constantly ran into the argument that you can’t understand the bible BEFORE you have accepted Jesus as your savior.
In other words, I would make arguments based on the bible and its contradictions. I would take its passages and say “how can we uphold this? Should we really ‘turn the other cheek’ when we are oppressed? Should we “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s'?” and so on….
And their argument was that “wisdom with man is foolishness with the lord.” That without having been born again you can’t even start to understand the bible — because it is not your petty reason that brings that understanding, but the holy spirit within you. And so conversion was PRECONDITION to grasping the doctrine.
And of course Jon’s repeating of Avakian’s teachings are not quite as openly religious as the Fundamentalists — there is no ‘holy ghost” in the schema of “serious criticism must be based on germanic appreciation.”
But the argument is really the same: you have to view this closed system from the inside, before you have a right to participate in repairing it or building it out. You have to be inside the bubble to “get it” — and only if you “get it” do your comments have any real validity.
(And, of course, in reality, even the most loyal and dogmatic followers were not allowed to express criticism, and were assumed not to “get it” — and so were permanently on a cycle of scrutiny, denunciation and self-criticism. Party members were supposed to “race to catch up with the Main Man,” while knowing full well, that they would never “catch up.”
These are quasi-religious mechanisms that reveal fundamental and desperate changes that preserve a “revolutionary” shell and rhetoric (and sincere self-identification) but have (by their logic) wandered far far from a truly revolutionary worldview.
It is, it needs to be said, the politics of capitulation.
Green Red said
this crazy guy of yours saying
RCP members are prohibited from visiting let alone participating in the discussions on this site. ”
i cannot count the numbers of direct/indirect rcp-ite friends of a sort stating to me that i am being “recognized”, etc.,
doesn’t have guts to say who he is and where he’s learned to claim the party ever said such thing or, you are being “identified”
without Avakian you would be nothing at all and Jon is not the only she who reads your site to find out our past peculiar elements to stay away from
Green Red said
Dear sister/brother “Green Red” the second,
that name, with all due respect, has been used by the very same guy you are inlluting as a “crazy guy,” and, that is me.
In and of it all as far as my understanding shows KASAMA has not forbidden anyone, including supporters of other radical parties, to not to debate, discuss and disagree on topics shared here. At other point i humbly had asked folks to take good old criticizm, self criticism on wrong doings which, forevermore i stand by but,
as of now, i declare that anything written under Green Red agaist my viewpoint or, of anybodyelses, without the red box that by laws of probablities has been attached to my identity, is not written by me.
Similar matter occured for comrade Chuck Morris in this very thread.
Please understand that RCP friends and chair Avakian are good people and, i am always hoping that in the long run we may fight alongside against our arch enemy, imperialism of the US right here in the belly of the beast but, as of now, if any rcp-pite fellow or whomever choose to re abuse my title, i shall use my same box with a different name.
With all due respect and clear expression of personal disapointment,
Green Red
emil said
Jon- what has Avakian and the RCP acutally done??? maybe you are sincere, but this sounds completely crazy. an american superman is going to save the world…
to the others- is this kind of thinking implicit in maoism as such? this is my problem with MLM. there is something cultish and quasi religious to it. it is ridiculous with the rcp, but in the shining path propaganda i have seen, the cult of Gonzalo is also quite ridiculous and over the top. i hope that future communist movements will not use this ‘cult of personality’.
nando said
Emil writes:
This is a question I would like to see us dig into, in a serious way. And I don’t think it is that simple.
Here are a few initial thoughts (written in the gray light just before dawn):
1) I think not all “cults of personality are alike — and they fall out in two particular ways. First, there is the question of “who is being promoted.” And the second is how are they being promoted.
2) Complex political processes need leaders, and i believe there is value in having key leaders known (and vetted) among the people. I don’t believe you can do a revolution without (among other things) a stabile core of tested and creative leaders, and I don’t think you can make revolution anonymously (i.e. the leading people need to be known, and people broadly need to be able to evaluate them over time). In a very basic sense, people want to know “who is running this thing, what are they like, what are their values and experiences, what have they personally said and done on the key questions that matter, etc.”
To put it another way: The Maoist movement (even Avakian’s part of it) is far from the most glaring practitioners of “over the top” personality politics — and you don’t have to look far for it. From the Jesse Jackson campaigns (of the 1980s) to the Obama campaign last year — progressive people in the U.S. have gotten caught up in “cults of personality” that were very extreme in their depiction and promotion of individual people.
It has always struck me as a bad case of “double think” — when some progressive people would express a visceral and mocking dislike for any promotion of revolutionary leaders, but would often turn around and wear political buttons emblazoned with nothing but the face and name of their favorite bourgeois politician.
3) One way or another, as real political movements become widely known, and dig roots, and generate partisan loyalty — they will be known by their programs, their deeds, their name, their “image,” their goals…. and also will have “faces” attached to them. They will also be known (in part) by their main leaders. Some are relatively “anonymous” during highly illegal periods — i.e. the French resistance. But that changes as soon as the manhunt is off.(I can’t think of any major movement, of any political complexion, for which this isn’t true. Are there exceptions?)
4) Clearly a cult of personality is particularly ridiculous if it is undeserved, and if it is self-generated (as Avakian has personally tried to do, first within his party, and then within the wider world).
The 9 Letters write:
Mao wrote in 1958 (as communists around the world were dismantling a religious awe that had been constructed around the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and as they were struggling over how to do that):
Mao later wrote (in 1967) “Authority and prestige can be established only naturally through struggle and practice. They cannot be established artificially. Prestige established artificially will inevitably collapse.”
5) Letter 8 of the “9 Letters to Our Comrades” focuses on the question of “how” leaders are describes and portrayed, and what that means about the ideology of the movement itself:
6) As for Maoism’s approach to leadership (and to the process of portraying its leaders among the people), Mao digs into this directly by talking about the words of the communist anthem, the Internationale, which rejects the notion of “supreme saviors”:
this digs into a key question around the promotion of leaders: that in some reactionary ways of promoting leaders, they are portrayed as the engine of change. Their parties, the opppressed, and even the material terrain of society are made to fade into the background — and what is promoted (in this mistaken view) is the will, ideas, and persona of one person. The key problem with this is that OUR kind of revolution (and OUR kind of movement) needs people (broadly) to UNDERSTAND their own role — to understand that people can remake their world (and that in fact the emancipation of oppressed humanity can only happen through tremendous effort and creative transformation of the oppressed people themselves.)
7) In other words, I don’t think a reactionary view of individuals (and a reactionary denigration of the oppressed) is inherent in Maoism at all — I think that in revolutionary movements there has been struggle between different lines on this. (and that such struggle is inevitable and inherent).
8) I think there is an element of feudal thinking in some of the “cult of personality” that emerged in the communist movement. When you look at some terrible lines that emerged — producing the mummification of Lenin and Mao in public mausoleum, or the making of extreme claims of genius for some communist leaders — I think they are rooted in the class struggles of those societies, and in the interaction of the communists with some backward ideas (and strongly held) views about leaders among the people. Some societies deify their top leaders (i.e. making emperors into demi-gods). Other societies turn their leaders into “celebrities” — using the machinery of mass media to make people feel like they “know” and trust these people.
I agree with Emil that we should not tolerate a religious approach to top leaders. But I also suspect that this will not be the main “pull” in the United States — here the pull will be to try to “humanize” the leaders by promoting the trivial and personal (just look at the fascination with the Obama’s dog) — in a way that builds an illusion of familiarity, divorced from a comprehension of the line and cause that someone has come to lead and represent.
Carl Davidson said
There is no cult around Obama or Jackson. There’s a big difference between a big fan club and a cult. No one at the top promotes any infallibility or special genius to these two. There is no such thing as Obama Thought or Jackson Thought, nor is any claimed. Only the right wing and some ultraleft detractors use ‘cult’ here. Both are charismatic, but that’s another matter. So is Bruce Springsteen.
Lenin, for one, had contempt for such notions of unduely flattering leaders. Stalin’s training, on the other hand, started in the seminary, and he knew how to make use of the religious-feudal form, begining with his treatment of Lenin’s death, and later to his own person.
I had a conversation with Avakian once, in my home in Brooklyn, on the cult around Mao. First, he denied it. Then I showed him an edition of Peking Review were Mao’s name was invoked 21 times on the first page. He still denied it, claimed I didn’t understand ‘Chinese culture.’ I asserted that I did, and could see feudal emperor worship for what it was. We moved on to other topics, but he soon wrote me off as an opponent, which I was and still am. I pegged his line as ‘left’ opportunist, particularly on the national question, with a personal streak of demogogy and bullying. He hasn’t improved with age. In fact, he’s gotten worse.
I respect leaders, especially those who have actually led in some way or contributed new ideas. Gil Green and Ted Allen come to mind. But even these are human and make mistakes as well. ‘Revere’ is a religious term, best used for spiritual leaders. Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind. But even there, a grain of salt is in order. These people are human too.
Adrienne said
I think both Mike and Carl have made some very important points here, and I’d just like to add a few of my own thoughts to some of their comments.
Mike wrote:
This seems like the very definition of a leader whose over-inflated ego has been allowed to take over. As communists fighting to do away with inequality, elitism and special privilege, I believe we can only be deterred from reaching our goals with such leaders. Allowing ourselves to continue to follow people who start claiming they’re functioning on some higher plane than the rest of humanity and are somehow irreplaceable will always be a bad idea. Because we are all merely human beings, and each of us is replaceable.
Carl wrote:
I personally don’t think we should have a problem recognizing that some people are going to have special genius in certain areas of study, or special talents and abilities in certain areas of endeavor. But we should also realize there are many people who share the same potential and abilities, and none of them will ever be perfect or infallible.
I have nothing but respect and admiration for such people too, Carl.
Revere is a creepily religious term — which automatically makes it the kind of term that should never be applied to political or governmental leadership.
Zack said
Bobby A writes:
they have ignored—or dismissed with no, or only very superficial, engagement—the extensive work our party has done around this, which finds expression in the new synthesis and the overall body of work and method and approach of which this new synthesis is, in important ways, a concentration.
And that’s really it, isn’t it? Bob is hurt, really hurt that his self-important ramblings aren’t taken all that seriously and are treated as just what they are… ramblings of an ego-tripped and delusional self-enclosed out of touch exile.
The gall of the Nepalese to not take the New Synthesis seriously!!!
jon said
what is the difference between you guys and the old MIM who made it their whole aim in life to attack Avakian and the revolutionary line. as for the Nepalese, they have ditched revolution, and the future of the ICM depends on the correct understanding of Nepal. Bob Avakian has given this, and as he states clearly, the choice for the Nepalese is between ‘new synthesis or tired old bourgeois democracy’. this is the latest letter by the RCP revolutionaries to the Prachanda revisionists.
http://rwor.org/a/160/nepal-article-en.html.
….for it is the work that Avakian has done to rescue communism from being turned into a museum piece—and to revitalize and strengthen it as a scientific outlook and method capable of leading the masses to advance the revolutionary struggle toward the goal of communism—that poses the greatest danger to this brand of revisionist “cynical realism.”
nando said
Adrienne writes:
I think that is a bit complicated. I don’t think Avakian is irreplacable, and I think his political concepts are flawed.
However, the question of “replacable” in general is more complicated. There are many moments (in struggles and events) when particular people are indespensible (for specific historic reasons). That is why there is such a need to protect command posts in battles (during warfare) — because in the context of a battle, the destruction of the central “command and control” represents defeat.
I think that the capture of Gonzalo in Peru had a profound effect on the revolutionary war there — certainly that party’s assumptions were part of the reason, but I don’t think that is all. It is not like key leaders are just “replaced” and things can roll on.
Similarly, if you look at the Russian revolution (in 1917) — its pretty obvious that if something had happened to Lenin, it is very likely that the second revolution would not have happened. And (to take another example) the death of Mao (in china in 1976) meant the disappearance of someone with a unique role in revolutionary chinese politics — it is not like his followers could just step into his shoes and continue. His death and their defeat were closely links.
In one sense, mao was “replaced” — i.e. someone took over his post, some one tried to play his role of overall revolutionary leadership. But in a very real sense, he proved irreplacable.
To take an example that doesn’t come from communist politics: Lincoln had a tremendous difficulty finding a general who could fight and defeat the confederacy. He went through one general after another (McClellan, Meade etc.) looking for someone with the mix of ability, political clarity and specifically the ability to sustain heavy losses day after day, while pushing ahead. Warfare had gone through some profound changes, and the war itself was highly controversial on the Northern side. (McClellan went on tobecome the copperhead presidential candidate on an antiwar ticket). So when Lincoln discovered Grant (after the victory of Vicksburg) he made him general over the Army of the Potomac….. and sent him after Lee. In other words, Grant was not simply replacable — no one else emerged who was able to play that role, and Grant himself did not emerge to play that role until quite far into the war, and until the revolutionary side had been very poorly served by his predecessors.
It is true (as a simple matter of biology) that we all die, and (in THAT sense) we are replaced. But in another sense, there are repeatedly in politics and warfare, people who emerge who are not replacable. And their loss sometimes means that their projects simply don’t go forward successfully.
Carl (ever eager to defend bourgeois politicians and bourgeois politics) wrote that in American electoral politics:
That is because bourgeois politics does not represent a radical rupture of ideas. Obama calls for an embrace of the dominant ideas of this system, not a rupture. So (in that sense) there is no “Obama thought.” And in that sense, we need new bodies of thought (whatever we call them) in OPPOSITION to the dominant ideas and methods.
So yes, there is not any “Obama thought.” And the forms of the “cult of personality” of liberal American politics is therefore not IDENTICAL to those that emerge from other movements (like say Japanese expansionism and its emperor worship, or the semi-religious view of Ho Chi MInh in Vietnam).
But the fact remains: If I wear a picture of a communist leader on a button (say, for example, a Mao pin), there are quite a few liberal and progressive people who find that a bizarre instance of “cult of personality” — even while such people seem have no problem with wearing (themselves) huge buttons (or t-shirts or whatever) with the image and name of an American bourgeois politician.
There are few societies with more deliberate and extravagant celebration of individuals than this one — the cult of personalities (the fixation with the pettiest details of their lives), and the investment of these figures with hopes and illusions and extraordinary powers is rather extreme. (Sometimes it is literally religious. highly institutionalized and normalized — as is the case of the pope, who are routinely referred to as “his holiness” by secular politicians and media.)
But because of the way “a fish doesn’t notice water” — the BOURGEOIS cults of personality are not seen as strange to some people, while any promotion of revolutionary leaders (within the U.S. for example) is seen as distasteful. Put a revolutionary leader on a t-shirt or a big poster, and just listen to the response of sum.
There are a number of reasons for this — but the simple fact is that there are progressive people who want the left to take a second string, backseat, view of itself — and to fall in line behind the system’s politicians. And they actually don’t like promoting the revolutinary movement (its parties, its leaders, its thoughts) in a partisan and enthusiastic way. This is not because such promotion is strange, it is because some liberals don’t want to see revolutionary politics take the stage.
* * * * * *
Adrienne writes:
No one is perfect or infallible. And the very idea of perfection (like the idea of purity) is opposition to how reality actually works (which is contradictory, where knowledge is always partial, and the correctness of an complex idea or plan is always relative). On that we agree.
However is it true that “many people share the same potential and abilities”?
Perhaps I’m not sure what that means… because it seems to take the question out of the any specific context.
Take the example of Ulysses S. Grant or Niels Bohr (the Danish physicist who developed quantum physics). I suppose you could say that there are people who can potentially do what they did. If Bohr had died before his discoveries, SOMEONE would have made those discoveries (eventually). The world is knowable, and someone would have unraveled those contradictions.
But it is not true that there is always at any specific period of time someone at hand with those abilities. Certainly that is obvious when your pilot has a heart attack on a plane (it is not comforting to say to the passengers that “Don’t worry, there are lots of people with the potential and ability to fly the plane” — IF NONE OF THEM ARE THERE or if the people who supposedly have “the potential” don’t actually have the experience and training.)
So sure, no one is so unique that you can’t imagine anyone ever exhibiting similar levels of skill and ability in their field. but that is a pretty abstracted assertion.
When Luxemburg was murdered in the 1919 revolutionary attempt in Germany, there was no one there to replace her — not because her abilities were literally unique, but because she had emerged as a well-known and tested representative of specific networks of people. And the impact on the formation of the German communist movement (and on the ability of it to be dominated from without) was pretty profound.
Adrienne writes:
I would not use the word “revere” in regard to untested political leaderships. And it is pretty creepy when reverence is promoted (artificially).
I have been personally been in a situation where we received written instructions about the degree and forms of reverence to show in the presence of a supposedly “great leader” — which was very startling and creepy in a movement where a casual comradeship had been the norm.
Now, I’d like to note that Mao’s quote is translated from Chinese, and the non-chinese speakers among us are stuck with the specific word (“revere”) that a translater (not Mao himself) chose to use decades ago. But from other readings, I think it is clear the Mao was well aware of the depth of feeling developed in the course of a long hard struggle for freedom, and that he did not think that kind of bond between leaders and the led was wrong (if it was deserved).
In complex struggles for emancipation, leaders of political movement (who are trusted, and who have come to embody something) are often revered….. John Brown, Mao, Lenin, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Tecumseh, Spartacus, Abraham Lincoln, and many more we can mention all through history. In such moments, especially after years of great risk, proven dedication and precious foresight, i would not call it “creepy” when people come to revere such people. There are leaders of that kind who I revere — in a non-religious way.
For obvious reasons, the revering of some leaders may not be deserved, and it may even (at times) be betrayed, but it is certainly understandable when such feelings emerge out of world-changing struggles where bitterly oppressed people are led in great struggles for freedom.
Carl Davidson said
Sorry, ‘Jon’ but Avakian hasn’t rescued anything. As for his work being ‘capable of leading the masses to advance,’ that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Avakian hasn’t led anything of a significant mass character in decades.
As to Nando’s claim about my supposed defense of Obama or Jackson, my defense wasn’t of them, although both have done things worth defending, but was a defense of their supporters against the charge of cultism. The two American leaders I picked out for ‘respect’ were Communist Party members, and there are more where they came from. Avakian has neither led the masses (Gil Green as anti-fascist leader of youth in the 1930s) or made theoretical breakthroughs (Ted Allen’s ‘Invention of the White Race’) in any way that even comes close to these two.
Actually, I consider Avakian and his cult rather trivial compared to the theoretical and practical problems in front of us, in the wider scope of things. But I understand the particularities here on this list, and respect people for at least taking the first sets to break with him and his warped line, which is why I take up the subject at all.
emil said
statement: ‘My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it.’
kaplan shot Lenin, and considered him a counter revolutionary for not accepting the CA and banning her party. i think that the role of Lenin himself needs to be questioned. not everybody thought of him as a great revolutionary, and there is a lot of stalin in lenin. i think Lenin did not use the cult of personality, but a personality cult did start around lenin after he was shot by Kaplan, and Lenin could not appear and give his own views. both trotsky and stalin claim to speak on behalf of lenin and to be the true heirs of lenin. this seems to me to be the start of the cult of personality in the communist movement.
Zack said
Jon states:
“Bob Avakian has given this, and as he states clearly, the choice for the Nepalese is between ‘new synthesis or tired old bourgeois democracy’”
So Bob Avakian is basically the communist version of George W. Bush… nice. “With us or with the terrorists!”
***
Jon, keep talking, you more and more reveal your creepy adoration for BA (which one can only assume the majority of the few left that have clung to the dead-end RCP do).
Whateverism, man.
emile said
also- there seems a difference between the respect many feel toward Fidel Castro and the crazy shit of Shining Path and some of the stuff of the Cultural revolution. the cult of personality seems a particularly maoist thing, but respect for leaders is a political fact. but it is not just the cult of personality that is disturbing. the cult like thinking in many ml and mlm groups is similar over the world. i have never had contact with the rcp usa, but in france there is a small mlm party, the pcf-mlm. similar style of thinking to the rcp usa but they do not have a ‘great leader’ to promote.
zerohour said
Emil -
“kaplan shot Lenin, and considered him a counter revolutionary for not accepting the CA and banning her party. i think that the role of Lenin himself needs to be questioned. not everybody thought of him as a great revolutionary, and there is a lot of stalin in lenin.”
Of course not everyone thought Lenin was a great revolutionary. Why are you raising this example when there are many others to point to – many not involving assassination? What are you arguing here? What was Lenin’s role that had to be questioned? Was it right for Lenin to be shot? This is the way to deal with political disagreement? Since it was Kaplan who shot Lenin instead of relying on popular mobilization, couldn’t you also say there was a bit of Stalin in her?
Personality cults [btw, it's derived from Marx who coined the term "cult of the individual"] can arise in any collective entity, secular or religious, where certain individuals with strong personalities are present. Cults of personality are not particularly endemic to Maoism, and sometimes take innocuous forms, even in collectives that have “no leaders.” There is often a blurry line between respect and slavishness and the best way to mitigate the latter is to create an atmosphere of critical and open expression, without punitive repercussions for disagreements. Cults of personality are not particularly endemic to Maoism, and sometimes take innocuous forms, even in collectives that have “no leaders.” What I’m interested in are the conditions that facilitate the development of such cultish behavior. I’m sure that would require a larger discussion but I don’t think we should start with the presumption that only certain types of people are susceptible and not others.
chegitz guevara said
Cult of Personality is not a particularly Maoist thing. It is a particularly “Leninist” thing. By “Leninist”t I don’t mean the actual practice of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The Cult of Lenin started after his death, and every tendency, Stalinist, Trotskyist, Maoist, has followed that path. There are a few groups here and there that don’t succumb to the cult of personality, but they are the exceptions.
Adrienne said
Nando,
I intend to make a reply to the long and thoughtful post you directed towards the comments I made this morning, but I hope you won’t mind waiting to read it until sometime tomorrow? I’m afraid today has been a long and busy one, and since I’ve got several things to say in return, I’d prefer not to try rush through it.
Until tomorrow comrade,
Adrienne
emil said
‘Of course not everyone thought Lenin was a great revolutionary. Why are you raising this example when there are many others to point to – many not involving assassination? What are you arguing here? What was Lenin’s role that had to be questioned? Was it right for Lenin to be shot? This is the way to deal with political disagreement? Since it was Kaplan who shot Lenin instead of relying on popular mobilization, couldn’t you also say there was a bit of Stalin in her’-Zerohour
what am i trying to say? I dont know whether it was right or not for Kaplan to shoot Lenin, and we cannot turn history back anyhow, and i dont know enough, and i dont think there is enough information also, about the Russian revolution to say. The Leninist versions of history give one account, but if we look at the accounts of the Russian revolution by people such as Victor Serge, then we get a different understanding, ie the Cheka, the shutting down of the Constituent Assembly, the shutting down of the Soviets etc. What i am saying is the role of Lenin and ‘Leninism’ needs to be thought out more, and there is too much of a Lenin cult role. the crazy ‘Jon’ stuff is certainly way out there, but if we look at some of Lenin’s stuff, his way of arguing is not much more advanced than Avakian. ‘Jon’ mentioned Lenin’s materialism and empirio criticism. If you read this, as well as ‘Left wing communism’ there are not many arguments, but mainly denunciations. but you are right, i could have chosen another example but this seemed like a good one because while everyone is denouncing the Avakian cult, rightly, there is still a Lenin cult or Lenin can do not wrong. but perhaps a better thing that is really worth reading is Rosa Luxemburgs ‘Marxism or leninism?
jon said
you have all ditched the revolutionary science. You can say what you like about Avakian, but he is the only one doing Dialectical Materialism. MLM is a science, and Avakian is a scientist. There is no ‘cult’ around Avakian, but we respect him in the same way that people respect Einstein, as a great scientist. If you are capable of thinking dialectically and scientifically, then you will recognize Avakian as having made a qualitative break in the science of MLM. This is an objective real world fact. Avakian has also criticised ‘instrumentalism’ and so enriched MLM. The Nepali Maoists could learn a thing or two from Avakian, thats for sure.
jon said
also, if you guys think i am so crazy, then check this out by Joseph Ball on the Nepal Maoists.
http://www.wengewang.org/read.php?tid=19703
and from the aoove article by Joseph Ball;
It is Avakian’s achievement that he has courageously and clearly stated the line of the dictatorship of the proletariat in a world where the victories of the bourgeoisie against the people seem to have discredited the notion of the liberation of humanity forever. Avakian’s work helps to clearly demarcate the line between those communists who believe in the necessity of the proletariat taking over the superstructure and running it themselves through their own revolutionary institutions and those who seek to substitute empty bourgeois ‘democratic’ rituals for the vanguard role of the proletariat.
Carl Davidson said
Very well, Jon, if Avakian is a great scientist, you should be able to succinctly tell us what his new discoveries are, and where they have passed muster in peer-reviewed journals. You see, real science is democratic, in that its new discoveries can be replicated and ascertained by anyone willing to work at it, whatever their outlook. Moreover, Avakian can rant all he likes against the instrumental theory of truth, but its still what most scientists use when they’re practicing their science, and it has contributed a great deal to the storehouse of human knowledge.
But you seem to think that Avakian is not only a great scientist, but when it comes to political and economic matters, practically the only living practitioner in the the country today, if not the greatest in the world. All this is rather silly out here on the wider world of the big blue marble, teeming with life and contradictions. But I’d hazard a guess that your ‘science’ is even becoming unraveled in the small insular world of the RCP. Let’s agree to wait just two years, and we’ll see who’s right on the matter.
jon said
carl davidson-so i am right, you have ditched the science of MLM. without a scientific understanding of the world you are left to idealism, like Badiou. The Iranians know how great Avakian is, Joseph Ball swears by Avakian, everybody who is serious about revolution needs Avakian.
carldavidson said
I haven’t ditched science one bit, Jon. I’m arguing that you have little idea what it is. So far, you’ve been arguing, or more likely simply asserting, a coherence theory of truth, which is more in tune with feudal thinking. What major struggle has Avakian ever led, and I’m not talking about student-based WCW events? No, you’ll have to do better than name a handful of devotees, if you want to be taken seriously. But I doubt if you can.
jon said
you have been disrespectul towards Avakian. Avakian was forced to exile in France because of US govt persecution, and is forced to live underground, because of the revolutionary threat to the US is very great if Avakian is in the US. Avakian has the support of the masses, and especially the black and latino populations. In France, Avakian was recognised as a great MLM theorists by the Iranians and other Maoist parties, and was instrumental in setting up the RIM. You should respect Avakians sacrifice and great contribution to the ICM. by attacking Avakian, you are helping the reactionaries, willingly or unwillingly. also, MLM is a science, but a revolutionary science, and so is not likely to be recognized in bourgeois journals and colleges. But, yes, Avakians works should be taught in schools.
carldavidson said
Avakian forced into exile by the US government? Really? You have partaken of the Kool-Aid, haven’t you? Recognized as ‘great’? For what, pray tell? More like claiming to be a big fish in a very small fishbowl, not even a small pond. And his ‘science’ is only recognized in ‘revolutionary’ science journals, which he has a hand in, not ‘bourgeois’ science journals. Please, that just gets you a chuckle, if not a howl of laughter, among actual scientists. You need to look up the fallacy of self-referential argument.
Zack said
This Avakian fella sounds really fuckin’ badass, guys.
Jon, tell us more.
Can he fly too? What about lazer beam eyes? I bet he’s got lazer beam eyes!
jon said
you guys are not taking Avakian seriously. someone asked me about the new synthesis. what is it? serious revolutionaries should study this very closely. It is complex and without a thorough knowledge of science and dialectics it is hard to understand, however because it is truly scientific, Avakian has put it in simple terms, just like Einstein with E=MC squared. the new synthesis can be summarized as a new groundbreaking concept, with which the whole structure of parties and our thinking as well as our societies can change in a revolutionary direction. This concept is a ‘solid core with a lot of elasticity’. This is the essence of the new synthesis, but it is not as simple as it seems. the Sarbederan from Iran accept Avakian as equal to Marx or Lenin, and they are real revolutionaries. Also, an impartial scholar of Maoism, such as Joseph Ball also greatly admires Avakian’s insights and recognizes the New Synthesis. From Cornel West, a great academic,to the rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy, Avakian is respected as not only a revolutionary but the great revolutionary of our times for black and white people. ( this is why Avakian is more important for the black community than Malcolm X, because Malcolm X promoted many wrong, idealist, metaphysical religious muslim religious views, but Avakian is completely scientific) I think both Cornel West and Chuck D would agree that on a scientific basis, Avakian is more important for the liberation of the black people than Malcolm X. Because Avakian is a revolutionary, and not a Liberal like Noam Chomsky, he is not given ‘air time’ and his views are dismissed and mocked by counter revolutionaries, such as the above, and not discussed in the universities, but many intellectuals greatly respect and revere Avakian.
Bob Avakian is underground these days because his life is in serious danger. Avakian is a greater threat to the US ruling class than radical Islam.
I think the problem is that people on this site can only think in terms of Formal Logic, by using true premises to get to false conclusions, and are not able to think dialectically at all. Many of the previous mistakes of the RCP, such as the ‘art is entertainment’ line, as well as the, now proven wrong, prediction that there would be a nuclear war in the 1980s between the USSR and the US were not the fault of Avakian, but the fault of some intellectually lesser RCP leaders such as Raymond Lotta or Li Onesto.
remember-a solid core with a lot of elasticity.
jon said
the issue is Avakian! Avakian is revolution.
Mike E said
[moderator note: Zack, when someone has the conviction to put forward a view here that others don't agree with, it is important not to respond by mocking. Let's focus on the actual arguments.]
Rosa L. said
Jon’s comments in this page are illustrative of the kind of bourgeois thinking that is developed in cult of personalities. Cult of personalities makes people to stop thinking and when you stop thinking you just follow blindly a God-like figure. Repetition of phrases without a rational engagement with the critical arguments raised by the opponents is the kind of irrational loyalty produced by having a cult of personality and shown here by Jon’s cultish and slavelish attitude towards Avakian. This is a good example of why Avakian wants to do Away With All Gods: he wants himself to replace God and be praised as a God-like figure. He wants people to stop praying to GOD and instead praise him as the messianic saviour and emancipator of humanity. Once this semi-religious belief is install in the party, Avakian assures that he will have no ideological nor personal challenges to his leadership. Christian messianism operates this way: since the messiah arrived and is the son of God, the messanger becomes more important than the message. If the sruggle is for a new society where the DEATH OF GOD is replaced by a HUMAN SEMI-GOD we are in trouble. This fetishization of a human being is not only still caught in bourgeois thought (the commodity effect of transforming what is a human produced effect into a thing or a semi-god with spiritual/fetishistic powers in itself) but in the worst form of bourgeois thought which is to elevate a human figure to a GOD-LIKE status. Cult of personalities have a particular role: You make people belief that a human being is a god-like figure in order to produce blind followers. Fortunately for all of humanity, Avakian will never have state power to install his God-Like state capitalist dictatorship disguised as socialism and the dictatorship of the proletaria! Why? Avakian and RCP delirious dreams are not going to be fulfilled because this is exactly the kind of secularized Christian-like religious cults that turns people off. I know of many people who have been inside or close to RCP that decided to leave the party due to this kind of irrational cult to Avakian. MLM is about developing critical thinking on your own and not about being blind followers of a leader. This is the legacy of Stalin that we are still carrying on in the international communist movement and that keeps repeating over and over again. The problem is that with the RCP cult of personality over Avakian it takes ridiculous and parodic dimensions because we are talking about a small sect and not about a party with state power. Jon, I just hope you are able to read everything you have said above ten years from now!!!! You will probably laugh at it the same way some people in this page have done. However, I am one of those who did not laugh at your comments. I just found your comments and your overall irrational cultish attitude very sad. There is nothing Communist about it!!!
zerohour said
“the issue is Avakian! Avakian is revolution.”
I think this just about sums it up.
Adrienne said
Nando wrote:
I absolutely agree there are certain specific moments in time where particular people can actually prove to be indispensable, Nando. This has certainly been the case throughout history. Yet I also consider it obvious that we need to think and plan in advance for just such a contingency. In your post, you gave several historical examples (Lenin, Luxemburg, Grant, etc.) that I believe should automatically inform us about the dangers of allowing so much to hinge upon single individuals, and of not being prepared with alternative leadership, or adequate plans of action in the event that such leadership is suddenly lost.
The way I see it, communists simply cannot afford for this to continue going into the future. Our losing leadership (even extraordinarily intelligent and wise leadership) shouldn’t have to mean our entire cause must face defeat as well.
You may disagree, but I certainly think that this is true. Though the opportunity to prove that they do is not always easily accessible or available to many people.
I mean it in the most general and universal sense, and you may place it in any context you wish to name. I am not someone who believes that there are only a small select number of special, rare, irreplaceable people on this planet. Or that there ever have been. I honestly think that a vast number of people share an enormous amount of potential and ability (intelligence, creativity, courage, etc.) and that a great many can become capable of leadership, or of making leaps of discovery and knowledge, or of producing works of great art and culture, or possess the ability to take heroic actions.
You’re right. And this seems to be especially true when leaders invest far too much power in themselves. Or, when leadership does not bother to look around and try to prepare others who have potential and ability. Or when they have done a poor job of planning ahead for what could happen in the event that their leadership is lost.
Exactly.
I don’t agree.
Well, I have to admit that I do find the idea of reverence a bit creepy. Those leaders were all merely people who were willing to stand up and fight for their deeply held personal principles, convictions, and ideals. Aren’t we the kind of people who are willing to do the same?
Like I said earlier, I hold such leadership in the deepest respect and admiration, but I cannot honestly say that I revere them.
Zack said
Mockery is all I’ve got for this fool.
Adrienne said
Jon:
“the issue is Avakian! Avakian is revolution.”
Zerohour:
“I think this just about sums it up.”
Indeed. But now I’m suddenly wondering if TNL correctly nailed Jon as satirist from the beginning…
Zack:
“Mockery is all I’ve got for this fool.”
If Jon is actually serious (and now I’m not at all certain that he is), perhaps pity is more in order?
Zack said
It’s like the flat-Earth nutters… at a certain point all you can do is point and laugh at it.
I mean, come on, the dude just compared Avakian with Einstein… Einstein!
“Avakian has the support of the masses, and especially the black and latino populations.”
I’ve got nothing but lulz for shit like that.
selucha said
I’ve got to agree with Zack here…. I think everybody here has adequately demonstrated the fact that this Jon character is incapable of or unwilling to actually respond to anything we say and is merely parroting RCP jargon. At this point, what’s left to do? I agree that, if people come in here with a genuine defense of Avakian, we should not mock them and should have a vibrant discussion and debate, but this cat is nowhere near that realm of rational discourse. Hell, he hasn’t even laid out how the New Synthesis is, according to him and the RCP, scientific. This is a CORE tenet of the RCP program, yet he is unwilling to explain how it follows a scientific method by any stretch of anybody’s imagination.
I also wanted to point out that, as far as I know, Avakian’s location is not disclosed, so Jon either a) knows Avakian is in France and is breaking party discipline by revealing that information, or b) is speculating that Avakian is in France, which is also a violation of party discipline. The official line is that he’s in exile somewhere. This guy is obviously not a member and obviously hasn’t been on the periphery very long to not know some of this basic stuff, so he’s either fooling around or is new to the RCP and is extremely overzealous. Avakian is that mystical, everywhere-and-nowhere at once figure, remember, how can he be watching over us if he’s in France?
And Zack, I think we need an official Kasama graphic novel with a tragically flawed superhero Rob D’Frankian who flees to Europe at the end of every episode to run away from a government that he imagines is pursuing him for selling his self-help books out of the trunk of his Ford Pinto haha. I think he should have an animal sidekick too that attempts in futility to keep his ego in check by calling him out on his illusions of grandeur, kind of like Calvin & Hobbes. Duck-billed platypus maybe?
Lmao okay I’m done. *Waits to get called out for clowning around*
nando said
Well, I understand your point, Zack. But lemme at least try:
Joh writes:
Ironically and actually, this website is one of the few places on earth where Avakian IS taken seriously.
And there is a bit of a struggle (and has been all along) over whether there is any value in that. Or (to be precise) where there is CONTINUING value in that.
Here is my view: I think there is little gained by paying attention to each new squiggle of Avakian’s pronouncements. He is going to keep producing mock-historic pronouncements every few months, and there will be individuals who think this is worth digging into. But overall, it seems clear that the quality and insight of his work has declined, and the core problems with it have been engaged.
In some ways, the problem with their Kasama polemic, and the Nepal polemic and the Badiou polemic are the same — the idealism and circular reasoning. and the value of unraveling each has declined as that problem has become more pronounced and more exposed.
There may be specific statements and actions from the RCP worth addressing — (the polemics over Nepal and Badiou were important to address to some controled degree. However objectively isolated and irrelevant the RCP has become within the U.S., there is a larger Maoist movement internationally that remains highly relevant to revolution.
I do believe there is value in analyzing some of the experience of the RCP over the years (back when it was a real organizaiton, with real ties, and a real ability to act on the national stage). That work of excavation and summation has barely started — and will (i believe) have value.
In fact, Jon, quite a few people (especially on this site) have given the synthesis far more time and study than it deserves. (“Steeped in the Main Man’s body of work, method and approach” as it is officially said.) This synthesis is flawed in some basic ways (starting with idealism, and with its timid approach to the orthodoxies of past marxism), and overall it is simplistic and superficial (the “dilettantism” discussed in the 9 letters, and the raw mix of ignorance and arrogance critiqued in Pavel’s writings on ‘Away with All Gods.”)
As for “scientific” — I have been thinking about the many ways this approach has been startlingly unscientific. How false its inventions and expectations have been. How shallow and uninformed its pronouncements (on the approach of revolution, on the inevitability of world war, on the “coming civil war” — you can really pick any period in the forty year history of the RU/RCP and see how many of the guiding assumptions were precisely UN-scientific. And the ones that were wrong were often precisely the ones that were presented as innovations of the RCP’s leadership.)
Just take the pivotal analysis that the Democratic party would be unable to challenge the religious rights program. That they would be unable to mobilize their social base and put up any coherent alternative. That they were forced (by their class nature) to be “me too” followers of the religious right…. and so on. It was as wrong as wrong can be. It was busted by events (starting in 2006, and culminating in the election of Obama.) Go back and re-read the “coming civil war.” Or read the “Pyramid piece“…
And look at reality now — did the democrats confront and defeat the Bush Christian Fascists (for this round at least)? Is Sarah Palin a contender or a joke? Didn’t the Christian Fascists get dissed (to some teeth-grinding degree) even by the Republicans (who nominated McCain, a long time nemesis)?
That’s just one example, among many. The analysis isn’t scientific, it is just off. wrong. a mix of wishful thinking and half-baked facts.
Jon writes:
This is an example of how science is misused among supporters of the RCP.
Einstein’s equation here is confused with popularization. As if e=MC2 is a pithy popular summary. No. The elegance of E=MC2 actually stems from the elegance of nature itself. It is not a popularization. It is remarkably precise.
and, while what is “new” in Avakian’s synthesis sometimes rests on formulas, they are generally neither precise, nor elegant, nor represent reality in a close way. Pick any of them. (solid core with a lot of elasticity?)
I’m not saying that Avakian hasn’t made contributions. I believe he has, or to put more precisely, his work represented a serious attempt at contributions — that we can learn from and surpass. And this was especially true in the earlier days, when there was more enthusiastic engagement with reality and less bitter-taste-of-repeated-failure. But precisely the things that are touted as the “new synthesis” are not the contributions, in the main.
Jon writes:
The forces that are even speaking to the RCP internationally are very very few. And this was generally kept from Avakian’s supporters (even while it was widely known because of the public statements of the TKPML, forces aorund the PCP and so on.) It may be true that the Sarbedaran (or some other small groupings) hold that Avakian is a cardinal divide for Marxism. However I have not seen public documents where ANYONE outside the RCP accepts avakian’s slogan that he “is on the level of a Lenin or a Mao.” You assert this is true…. fine. Where is the evidence?
Jon writes:
Cornel wrote a blurb for Bob’s memoir. And i assume he is sincerely appreciative of Bob’s years of effort and refusal to capitulate. (As am I, by the way.) But that is very different from believing that Cornel West (or Chuck D) thinks that Avakian is “the great revolutionary of our times” — here too, where is any evidence of this?
Cornel West is a radical theologian, he is a leading social democrat, he is a great admirer of Obama (from the left) — he has his own politics (we can engage and discuss). He signed the Engage statement (which read as if it was a defense statement from some unspecified government attack). But is there any evidence for Jon’s assertion.
And this is not just Jon’s problem — the whole RCP has worked in this way where any, minor statement from anyone is seen as evidence (in a very exaggerated way) that things are working out fine.
Jon writes:
You are certainly “free” to think whatever you want. You can imagine flying elephants. But you are just tripping here.
Jon writes:
This is a sentitive topic and I will touch on it with a bit of care.
If you want to assert that Avakian’s life is “in serious danger” — you should explain why you think that. Evicene? Examples? Government plots?
The fact is that there has been no documented danger to him since the early 80s. Few arrests of his followers. No RICO cases. No congressinoal hearings. No grand jury probes. No redbaiting campaigns in the press. No campaigns of neo-cointelpro.
There is undoubtedly general government surveillance, and probably continuing attempts at info-gathering and infiltration at a low level. But nothing aimed at the RCP that is not surpassed by the government targeting of a number of other forces and groups.
The RCP faced repressive responses. The 70s, May Day 1980, the Teng Demo… but not for a long time. The only exception (that I know of) were over a decade ago: after the events in LA after 1992 — when (briefly) there were press articles that the RCP played a role in the LA REbellion…. and there was press coverage of the RCP’s involvement in May day’s and when there were serious police harassments at the street level in South Central and similar places etc.
But such exceptions underscore the actual situation: i.e. that the ruling class does repress and it prepares information to be used for future suppression. But it generally swings into action when some political force (a) connects with the people in a potentially significant way, or (b) crosses lines of legality (with or without the people).
But the RCP has not done either in a long long time. And it has little potential for gathering forces among the people. Any rational observer (including the government’s quite rational observers) can see that. The RCP is now sinking below the critical mass needed to launch even a national leftist initiative like NION or to maintain one like WCW.
On one hand, we should defend people from government attack. And if there were an attack on Avakian — he should be defended.
But on the other hand, if an organization and a person puff themselves up — with undocumented claims of unseen attack that seem to be self-aggrandizing and imaginary — then it is not unfair (or irresponsible, or unprincipled) to simple ask, in a quiet tone: “Uh, where is the evidence of these attacks?”
Put another way: The RCP’s “Engage Campaign” wrote: “…we are also serving notice to this government that we intend to defend his right to freely advocate and organize for his views, to engage broadly with people about those views.”
Avakian’s problem is not that the government is suppressing him, it is that everyone else is ignoring him.
The RCP’s new slogan is “If we don’t do anything else well, we must promote Avakian.” Which has (as we have seen) been turned into a recipe for not doing anything else well.
* * * * * **
Jon does not represent the RCP’s line in the most convincing way. In some areas, he is even mistaken about what their line is. But it is worth saying tht his dogmatism IS an example of what Avakian’s line (and self-coup) have UNLEASHED. This is a religious and self-blinding aura that has wrapped itself around their little core.
land said
I do think we need to take people seriously.
But I would start by taking Bill Martin seriously.
I think Jon is mocking.
I think mocking is an art. Have to know your audience and you have to be good at it otherwise people take you seriously.
rosa harris said
One has to ask “can we really say that MLM is a science?” How should that be understood?
Zack said
Nando, I think it’s more than a try, you’ve continually pointed out the disconnects of Avakian/RCP with reality in this thread… with extreme lucidity. My joking with the religious notions Jon has been espousing was something I chose to do because I clearly don’t have your patience. Heh.
Selucha, I’m currently on my first draft of D’Frankian and Slappy, his slap-happy brown-nosed side-kick! :) You do the inking?
Adrienne said
Selucha:
Good point. I’m definitely expecting Jon to come back into this thread tomorrow to vent more outrage that our incorrect level of respect for Avakian’s genius has failed to reflect his status as The New Lord Cheeses Sliced.
:^)
Zack:
I’ll second that. Very nicely done, Nando.
In fact, whenever you suggest booting somebody I want to yell “NO!” because I can’t help but enjoy watching as you surgically dissect an argument.
Linda D. said
I’d like to weigh in on something Nando said:
My view is mostly in agreement with Nando’s. I would have to say that I only think it relevant to address specific statements and/or actions of the rcp, insofar as it clarifies or aids in our understanding of say the specific and pivotal polemics around revolutionary struggles, e.g. Nepal, or even deepening our understanding of theories presented by Badiou, Zisek, etc. IMO, it is necessary to place these debates within the context of the larger picture, i.e. the re-burgeoning of the international communist movement, and not even simply “a larger MAOIST movement internationally.” I also see some value or relevance to engaging or discussing the rcp’s political line, to the extent that it aids in our vision of reconceiving and regrouping, developing and attempting to take the high road, within our own “native country.”
I suspect that I am not alone, but I had never heard of Badiou before Kasama had a lead post on him back in April 2008. I was most interested in trying to study and fathom Badiou’s (for me, difficult) theories, and a whole lot less interested in responding to the rcp’s “polemic” which appeared in March 2009. And this has little to do with whether or not I personally think the rcp is relevant or irrelevant. Is Badiou relevant to revolutionary theory and practice? And if so, how so?
I would much rather study and try and digest Badiou’s philosophy from his own writings, or read what say John Steele has to say since he is obviously closely and seriously studying different revolutionary trends. But to fall into speculation my own damn self, I have wondered why now, suddenly, the rcp is even concerned with say Badiou—and can’t help but think their “treatise” is in reaction to Kasama’s Badiou, Althusser, etc. posts. This m.o. strikes me as being infantile—ah, just what revolutionaries need, some infantilism thrown into the mix. If my speculation is correct I suspect that the rcp might think Kasama relevant…then again…not really important.
As far as Nepal goes, the polemics around that existing revolution have continued whether or not the rcp finally broke their silence on the question or not. I much prefer to compare and contrast the various sources, and line struggles, including of course by the CPN(M), that have been posted on Kasama (since its beginning), as well as by others internationally, than go tit for tat with the rcp, who are suddenly stepping into the fray and trying to wrap up an extremely complicated situation in some nice neat ribbon .
What I find disturbing is how some discussions on Kasama degenerate into focusing on or reacting to the rcp (or even trying to figure out why Jon is serious or sarcastic/satirical)—when our difficult tasks now and in the future call for so much more.
Nando said:
Linda D. said
I’d like to weigh in on something Nando said:
My view is mostly in agreement with Nando’s. I would have to say that I only think it relevant to address specific statements and/or actions of the rcp, insofar as it clarifies or aids in our understanding of say the specific and pivotal polemics around revolutionary struggles, e.g. Nepal, or even deepening our understanding of theories presented by Badiou, Zisek, etc. IMO, it is necessary to place these debates within the context of the larger picture, i.e. the re-burgeoning of the international communist movement, and not even simply “a larger MAOIST movement internationally.” I also see some value or relevance to engaging or discussing the rcp’s political line, to the extent that it aids in our vision of reconceiving and regrouping, developing and attempting to take the high road, within our own “native country.”
I suspect that I am not alone, but I had never heard of Badiou before Kasama had a lead post on him back in April 2008. I was most interested in trying to study and fathom Badiou’s (for me, difficult) theories, and a whole lot less interested in responding to the rcp’s “polemic” which appeared in March 2009. And this has little to do with whether or not I personally think the rcp is relevant or irrelevant. Is Badiou relevant to revolutionary theory and practice? And if so, how so?
I would much rather study and try and digest Badiou’s philosophy from his own writings, or read what say John Steele has to say since he is obviously closely and seriously studying different revolutionary trends. But to fall into speculation my own damn self, I have wondered why now, suddenly, the rcp is even concerned with say Badiou—and can’t help but think their “treatise” is in reaction to Kasama’s Badiou, Althusser, etc. posts. This m.o. strikes me as being infantile—ah, just what revolutionaries need, some infantilism thrown into the mix. If my speculation is correct I suspect that the rcp might think Kasama relevant…then again…not really important.
As far as Nepal goes, the polemics around that existing revolution have continued whether or not the rcp finally broke their silence on the question or not. I much prefer to compare and contrast the various sources, and line struggles, including of course by the CPN(M), that have been posted on Kasama (since its beginning), as well as by others internationally, than go tit for tat with the rcp, who are suddenly stepping into the fray and trying to wrap up an extremely complicated situation in some nice neat ribbon .
What I find disturbing is how some discussions on Kasama degenerate into focusing on or reacting to the rcp (or even trying to figure out why Jon is serious or sarcastic/satirical)—when our difficult tasks now and in the future call for so much more.
Nando said: [sorry meant to put end to block quote]
Well, I question how valuable it is to analyze some of the experience of the rcp over the years, if that experience is not joined with much of our historical and worldwide experience amongst many parties, organizations, and revolutionaries who have played significant roles to one degree or another. Some people, in fact a lot of people, around K have a tendency to talk rcp because that jives with their own experience, and often times, when referring to that experience, they do make relevant or revealing remarks; however, even that experience has its limitations. I see a drawback to putting so much emphasis on the rcp experience as at a certain point, it almost appears somewhat philistine. I can’t help but wonder what many comrades, or potential comrades are thinking who have little or no idea who the hell the rcp is. I really believe the time has come to broaden our horizons and stop thinking that the rcp was the only relevant organization during its heyday, especially since the rcp’s experience, whether positive or negative was basically limited to the good ol’ U.S. of A. There’s a whole world out there, with much experience to draw from and analyze. There are also current trends and political machinations, e.g. in Latin America, that in my opinion are not given enough play or generate sufficient interest.
Jon said
Yesterday, after posting on Kasama,my girlfriend came to see me. i put on my Avakian DVD for us to watch together and she said ‘Jon, there’s one person too many in our relationship.There’s me, you,and Avakian. One of us has to go.’ so i told her ‘ you go girl, coz’ i’m stickin’ with Avakian!’. She told me i was a jerk off and was in love! with Avakian. Anyway, afterwards i felt real bad and read again the comments on this thread, and i have come to the conclusion that what you guys are saying is correct. The RCP is a mindless cult with pseudo scientific pretensions, and no chance whatsoever to do a revolution. So, i have ditched these RCP losers. Fuck Avakian!
Jon said
also, the rcp is probably a CIA front!
BobH said
I think Jon’s obvious trolling has been quite useful in showing how hard it is for some people posting here to get past the RCP. Linda is right, this is just alienating to people. Maybe it’s time for a separate blog where people can gripe about the RCP. It was obvious (to me) in the 80s that Avakian was trying to build a cult around himself, it’s sad that 20 years later this is still a hot topic for some.
I mean, as a naive college student who respected the militancy and seriousness of the RCP, even I could see a problem. At the time I wrote a little parody of the lord’s prayer, but alas it was not something I could share at the time:
Our Chairman, who art in France,
hallowed be thy thought….
Perhaps a useful discussion is why some obviously intelligent people took so long to wake up to the pathological side of Avakian, but I doubt we’ll see that.
Gary said
I’m not so sure it’s a matter of “getting past the RCP,” BobH, and alientating people in the process. I don’t know how much of Kasama’s readership has been attracted by/continues to be attracted by the critique of the RCP which brought the site into being and how much of the readership finds that somehow past history or beside the point. But in my opinion there remains much to engage, criticize and figure out (as in, what went wrong?) about the RCP’s history and practice.
The (somewhat amusing) Jon “trolling” episode aside, we have the very real (and equally amusing) “Open Letter to the Revolutionary Communists and Everyone Seriously Thinking About Revolution” that appears in the RCP paper, up for over a month and highlighted again this week. Surely this deserves some discussion here. Subtitled “On the Role and Importance of Bob Avakian,” it strikes an almost plaintive note, acknowledging a “current discussion over the role and importance of Chairman Bob Avakian in the struggle for a communist world” without noting that the “discussion” is largely the powerful challenge to the cultic pretentions mounted by the Kasama site.
The anonymous writer [personal speculation snipped] states flat-out that
He/she then goes on to describe how back in the day BA opposed
and how he alone correctly analyzed events in China after Mao’s death.
Avakian, this hagiographer writes, infuriates opponents because he goes into things DEEPLY.
Without Avakian, he/she asks,
This weird letter, coming out of nowhere and ending with “my warmest and most heartfelt communist greetings” seems to me the pinnacle of the personality-cult madness.
We could just ignore it, laugh at it or raise our eyebrows in incredulity. But those of us who’ve been there, or close enough to the mindset to care about those still victimized may still want to pick apart these writings in the slim hope that such critiques may influence others.
Hope this makes sense.
BobH said
Gary,
thanks for the reply, but some things don’t add up for me.
I understand people need to work through their experiences with Avakianism by dissecting its pronouncements ideologically. However, I think that process might be better served by going further.
The cultish aspects of the RCP were becoming quite clear (at least to me) with the publication of “Bullets” in the mid 80s. Maybe those who were on the inside could outline the trajectory of how things got here, of the process of ossification, so that this mistake isn’t repeated. More importantly, the question of how to develop the personal-organizational dynamic going forward from a ‘lessons learned’ perspective, both with the peculiar case of the RCP but also many other political cults people have had experience with, would probably be of great service. But dissecting the “New Synthesis” seems to a job with diminishing returns.
In other words, we’ve all been trained in “line is decisive”, so we tend to fall back into that pattern of looking at things. Yet groups with very different lines have reproduced similar dysfunction, so maybe we need some collective study of psychology to understand this better. That might even be more fruitful than studying Badiou, for all I know.
I’d love to see a serious “how to tell when your group is becoming a cult” guidebook come out of all this. That might be the most useful legacy of Avakianism, at least in my opinion. I know we need to respect our leaders, but we also need to understand how to keep our (positive) humanity intact, so we can keep our leaders’ (negative) humanity in check.
There are many dynamics of political groups that need to be thoroughly explored: the guilt-tripping, the rationalizations of “this group is flawed, but what else is there”, or “stay and fight for the correct line”, the inability to address complex questions without invoking the chain of command, etc. I’m sure others here can think of a lot more.
We all know the old feminist slogan “the personal is political”. Maybe we need an inversion of that, “the political is personal” as a way to get deeper into these questions than analyzing ideas with an eye towards future organizing.
Does any of this make sense to others here?
Jon said
i am glad my ‘trolling’ had some good effect. no more i promise. this is the last post by ‘Jon’. but i did actually hear all the things i put above told me by my friends who are into this stuff, and i did not make up any of it, and i read some of Avakians books, some of which are ok, but some of which are awful, such as ‘away with all gods’. but i could not understand why my rcp friends insisted it was such a groundbreaking work and a ‘must read’, heralding a ‘new renaissance’! this kind of language is so easy to manipulate, and it is hard to tell when someone is bullshitting or being sincere.
Zack said
Yes BobH, it makes a lot of sense to me. Especially this point:
“In other words, we’ve all been trained in “line is decisive”, so we tend to fall back into that pattern of looking at things. Yet groups with very different lines have reproduced similar dysfunction, so maybe we need some collective study of psychology to understand this better.”
***
A friend of mine sent this to me a while back… some of it is sort of corny, but I think it apt, nonetheless.
Rosa L. said
It is obvious that Jon was playing with us! RCP followers do not change their mind about their bourgeois cultish attitude towards Avakian as easily as Jon did this morning.
Members of organizations built around a cult of personality towards a leader, do not change their mind that fast. This is why Avakian promotes a cult of personality towards himself. It is the only guarantee for him to keep solid control over any rival leader or ideological challenges inside RCP.
The sad thing is that many of Jon’s statements in this page are representative of many RCP members and sympathizers. I have personally encountered RCP members very similar to Jon’s parody of RCP dogmatic and silly attitudes in this page. I never found this something funny to laugh about, but a sad phenomenon because there are many valuable people inside RCP that are wasting their life and time in this cultish Christian-like sect group fighting for a one-leader/one-party state capitalist dictatorship.
The latter is what they are really fighting for despite statements to the contrary. You can deceive yourself believing that you are really fighting for communism, when in fact this is the political project of a new bourgeois bureaucratic class thirsty for state power. Fortunately for all of us, this is not going to happen given how fast are people turned away when they encounter cultish organizations such as the RCP….
Linda D. said
Coming off of some of what Bob H. said:
Perhaps, “think” is the operative word. While I can unite in spirit with what Bob H. said, and hopefully without this sounding at all like a put down of him, I think some of what he says is a little naïve. Seems to me that forever and a day, various and a multitude of parties and organizations have had and continue to have opposing lines, positions, contradictions, etc. which is a reflection of society as a whole–even if your goal is to make revolution and overthrow the existing system and order. But as some sort of preventative measure to a revolutionary organization “going bad” or the development of a cult and cult of the personality, I think it is important for the cadre to be trained and steeped in and struggle over revolutionary theory. To me one of the pivotal places to start is for people to think hard and fast and be able to decipher–contradictions among the people vs. contradictions against the enemy. IMO, one of the tell-tale results of the development of a cult, or the blind reverence for a particular leader, is to put on par those two contradictions; thus, if someone doesn’t simply abide by the cult’s set program, they become the enemy.
BobH said
Linda,
let me try and be more clear. When you say “I think it is important for the cadre to be trained and steeped in and struggle over revolutionary theory”, I would say this is clearly insufficient. For instance, based on what I read on this site I know people like Mike E and Nando are far better than I am at parsing out ideological lines and struggling over them, and I can well imagine where that came from.
Or the many people I’ve met molded by MLM-Gonzalo Thought, which has an even stronger conception of 2 line struggle (not as a formality, but as daily practice, even internal to the individual — the struggle between the “black flag” and the “red flag”), and could handle revolutionary theory with the best of them, but were helpless to stop the tendency towards cultishness, indeed that was part of the problem.
Human beings are capable of rationalizing anything, as history shows pretty clearly, especially the history of the ICM (I think of Sartre’s play “Dirty Hands”, for instance — now there’s something every Party study group should read). So my (probably naive) suggestion is that any attempts at communist refoundation, a clear and pressing necessity today, should try and institutionalize some of these lessons.
You know, there are corporations that hire therapists, and masseuses and what not to keep their employees at peak efficiency, unstressed, etc. I’m not suggesting “the Party masseuse”, of course, but keeping everybody on a war-footing in peacetime (and guilt-tripping after the inevitable failures) is a well-know way of consolidating a cult.
Is it really so unrealistic to train new cadre (who are often times inexperienced teenagers) in recognizing the danger signs, at the same time you are training in class/political struggle, history, theory, organizing, etc.?
Put another way, why has the democratic-centralist method been so good at producing lions of class struggle who are simultaneously sheep in the face of the leadership?
nando said
Bob writes:
I think that is a very sharply put question… The interesting part of the RCP decomposition is not that they can attract and indoctrinate individuals in a quasi-religious ideology around a leader. This happens every day — throughout the society.
The thing that is disturbing is precisely what bob points to: that an organization of rather sophisticated revolutionaries, with the criticial thinking to become communists, and a great deal of study into theory and philosophy allowed this to happen to their party and movement. The RCP’s central committee opposed the escalated cult of avakian, and then just rolled over. A section of the cadre had to be forced out (at all levels) but still….
and this is also not a question i ask of others, but of myself.
the question “how did the RCP have such a terrible line on gay people for so long?” is not just a question of its top leaders (i.e. why did they insist on this? and what does it say about them?) But it is also a question for the cadre, how could this be accepted? How many thought in their heart-of-hearts that this was wrong, but also assumed “the party knows best” or (perhaps worse) “this is not an issue worth fighting over”?
and i agree with Bob that it is worth thinking about how to avoid it.
Put another way: a revolution needs a great deal of cohesion and organization. There is a need for discipline (and for disciplined fighting along common approaches and policies). There needs to be dissent and debate, but there also needs to be common action and unity. So the problem of how to maintain critical thought inherently exists in the context of the other problem: how to develop the unity and hardness needed to face immeasurably stronger opponents?
In the RCP, the self-coup was carried out in the middle of a hysterical claim that “the party’s existance is in danger.” It was a call to rally to the party’s defense — which was (sadly) a rally to its final corruption.
And then part of the fact was that the instrument of democratic centralism had been used (for a long time) in ways that insisted discussion happened only after decisions — so the discussion of “Avakian as the cardinal question” was only known to cadre (and only discussed by cadre) after it was enshrined as the party’s decision and policy.
artemi0 said
Jon,
Well played. I kind of suspected you were spoofing from jump street, and just when you would go over the top and become totally outrageous, you’d bring it back down to the level of being believable.
Iris has talked about the role that
pranks
can play in politics. You legitamately got many of us, it was amusing, overall the prank had a good message. It is my hope that you will cultivate this talent and focus your fire more on someone who is a clear enemy of the people.
It’s contradictory- the line of Bob Avakian, The RCP, and the madness it generates is what was being criticized through humor. Those who have broken with this line, or were always critical of it- are the ones who end up being spoofed though as part of the joke.
Thanks for giving the punchline when you did, and not dragging this thing out forever. Well timed. I’ve actually heard some of the words and phrases used by the RCP as well- so it’s not completely fabricated (sadly, including the RCP attempting to force people to make a choice between a family member, friend, or lover- and a political lifestyle and culture that revolves around BA.)
However, I feel like we are entitled to ask you; What are your real politics?
orinda said
This has been a very interesting discussion.
I’m not a psychiatrist not do I play one on TV. However, Jon reminds me of the severely psychologically disturbed people that sometimes gravitated to the RCP or any fringe group. He is not a typical RCP person and should not be treated as one. He strongly reminds me of a person I once knew in the periphery of the RCP who stood outside the office of someone she was angry with for personal reasons and shouted slogans about the revolution in Peru. With such people you will only get repetition of slogans and dogma, not any analysis of their own beliefs or anyone else’s. It’s impossible to engage with Jon in any meaningful way.
I appreciated the contributions from Adrienne and Nando on leadership. Agree with Adrienne, we need more that one capable leader to identify with a line. Too many revolutions have been reversed or seriously set back at the death of The Leader. Going back to the American Civil War analogy, the South had several good generals, not just one. Why the North had so few is not something I know enough about to go into. It certainly cost a lot of lives though.
orinda said
OK, now I’ve read Jon’s confession. But it still remains true, he sounded just like those who liked the RCP but had a tenuous hold on reality.
nando said
It is funny that we couldn’t tell — he was a bit more clipped and terse than actual supporters. Sometime he sounded too crude, then he would say something that was soooo dead-on. I ended up convinced (i confess!)
And since he actually represented some of their core verdicts — there is still some substance the discussion.
congrats “Jon” — prankster. Thanks for coming clean, so we could all enjoy the joke.
jon said
However, I feel like we are entitled to ask you; What are your real politics?- Artemio
this is really the last post by ‘jon’. this is a legit question. ok, i consider myself a ‘leftist’ but not a Marxist or Maoist, mainly because i cannot accept the ‘dictatorship of the proleteriat’.( i think though, Marx is really a genius) why? because can you imagine what it would actually be like if a group like the rcp had a dictatorship? Or if in Peru the PCP had succeeded and established a dictatorship under Gonzalo? What kind of society would it be? Something like North Korea i think. but i consider myself a leftist in that i think capitalism/imperialism is the problem, the main problem. i dont have any particular line or theory to promote however. my problems whenever i have got involved with the ‘left’ is that there is too much bullshit. i mean, we may want to get involved with a particular group or party to help in our way to make a better world. however in reality we spend more time attacking other groups. in my group of friends, one is a trotskyist and the other in the rcp, yet they do not talk to each other, despite both being marxists of a sort. i have one question for those who were before in the rcp. when you were in the rcp, did you believe the things you were saying when you were saying it?? also, do Bob Avakian and other rcp leaders actually believe this stuff?
This time, really, goodbye from Jon, and we should all move on to some other topic and leave this one behind. thanks for appreciating my ‘trolling’.
redflags said
Bill writes: (this is a repetitive way of making the point, but I not only want to make the point, I want to rub it in).
Which is hilarious.
observer said
Alain Badiou’s “Politics of Emancipation”: A Communism Locked Within the Confines of the Bourgeois World by Raymond Lotta, Nayi Duniya, and K. J. A. is now available in its entirety at http://www.demarcations-journal.org/