Frustrated by Communist Fundamentalism
Posted by Mike E on September 10, 2010
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) wrote a letter to a small group in the U.S.
Here are two passages criticizing particular methods.
“It goes against dialectics to believe that we are immune to committing any mistakes while translating Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) into practice. Therefore, we not only welcome but demand suggestions and criticism from our comrades the world over. In this sense, we very much welcome your creative suggestions and criticism.
“But, we have been very much frustrated by how you understand us, and your effort to teach us the basics of MLM as if we don’t know them at all or we have derailed from it.
“We clearly observe inconsistency between what ideological and political assistance we need from our international comrades and what they, presently the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), are providing to us through [their previous] letter. We need assistance in our effort to try to connect the missing links in the International Communist Movement (ICM) by which our class had to lose its power in the twentieth century, but your letter is trying to draw us back to the struggle around the basic and classical questions of MLM.
“We want debate on the aforesaid questions to overcome the problems our movement faced in the [twentieth century], when we have got no undisputed answer to date. Your letter does not focus on those ideological and political questions, but mainly teaches the ABCs of Marxism. It is frustrating us.” [page 49]
The Nepali Maoists also wrote:
“Historical and dialectical materialism is the philosophy of revolution; it not only applies to society but also in human thinking. The unity and struggle of opposites is its fundamental law. It means every entity divides into two, and each of the two aspects transforms into its opposite. We think the latter is the principal aspect for us communists.
“It is our opinion that the International Communist Movement (ICM), in general, failed in the past to grasp the totality of this law of dialectics. Our class paid more attention to ‘one divides into two’ in the past and is doing so at present, but knowingly or unknowingly it has skipped grasping and applying in practice the transformation of one aspect into its opposite, the principal aspect. Because of this mistaken grasp, in practice at least, our class applied the dialectics of negation in two‐line struggle so as to create splits among our own ranks instead of helping to unite by creating the material environment to make the wrongdoing comrades transform. In other words, our class practiced unity‐struggle‐split, not unity‐struggle‐ transformation. The fatal consequences that the communists are confronting to date justifies [proves] this fact. Our ranks must correct it, and our Party is trying to do so.” [page 49]
David_D said
“A small group?” Really? Why does you choose those words? It does seem rather coy. It is the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which is referred to. I am not sure, are you trying to communicate something in referring to its size? And, by size, do you refer to membership numbers, or what?
Rishi Raj Baral said
Communist Fundamentalism ? what does it mean ?
Otto said
Fundamentalism of any kind, religious, political or philosophical is simply the idea the one has a monopoly of the truth or a person or group have a clear understanding of the truth and all those who disagree simply can’t see the truth.
No matter who uses this attitude, it is dangerous and leads people to blindly follow people, a person, or dogma.
Common sense—do what works. If you follow a tactic for 30 years and nothing has changed, it is time to re-evaluate all the tactics and consider what is more or most effective. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) letter seems to indicate a frustration with useless suggestions from the Revolutionary Communist Party. They seem open minded to real suggestions that they might be able to use. They seem frustrated with stale dogma from a very small party that was a fringe group when I first saw their newspaper 30 years ago to a fringe group that they are today. When the RCP can figure out how to appeal to American citizens here, they will be in better shape to help out the Nepal Maoists.
Rishi Raj Baral said
What a zoke ? Really they are fundamentalists? I do not think so. I know what is fundamentalism and what is Marxism . In the eye of Khrushav Stalin was always a fundamentalist . There are some differences and debatable issues, but they are not fundamentalists . It is not the matter of big or small Party. Before the the great peoples war the socalled big parties use to say us that a small party raised the arm struggle. Big or small does not decide the correctness of line . It is Massline, which decides the right or wrong.
LongLiveLenin said
Otto:
The RCP needs to ‘get down’ with the Class Struggle like the rest of the International Communist Movement before it can to “appeal to US citizens”.
The (national chauvinist) misnamed One Nation March Oct. 2nd in D.C.–it should be called One World or One Class–regardless of the unfortunate name, is a perfect opportunity to make waves in the class struggle here in the belly of the imperialist beast. The march will be multinational and multigenerational with employed, unemployed and underemployed working and oppressed in the North American continent. I will be surprised if the RCP even attends because it’s too “economist”.
Dave Palmer said
Just out of curiosity, what was the reason for posting this now? The letter is dated June 2006. And what is the need to refer to the RCP as “a small group in the U.S.”, rather than by name? Or to hurl the epithet “fundamentalism”?
If Mike’s intention in re-posting these comments by the Nepali Maoists (which, as I’ve said, are over four years old, and already available on this site) was to draw attention to certain methods he thinks are incorrect, maybe some explanation is in order.
I think the characterization of the RCP as “a small group” (which may be a factually correct statement, but as Rishi Raj Baral says, “Big or small does not decide the correctness of line”) and the use of the term “fundamentalist” may distract from the point Mike is trying to make about methods.
If so, the fault is Mike’s, for not explaining himself adequately. (And Mike is rarely short on words, to say the least).
Rishi Raj Baral said
joseph Ball, I agree with you.
Monkey Riding Dragon said
As many of you are probably aware, I’m not a part of this project (but of an independent position). Still, on seeing this particular item, I couldn’t resist providing a commentary that, in some senses, tactically comes to the RCP’s defense and in others rejects both sides of this dispute:
The section of the old CPN(M) letter quoted above isn’t a serious analysis of anything. Taking a look at the second part Mike highlights in particular, the argument is presented that basically if we just took a more liberal or eclectic approach to dividing-line questions then we would be much nearer to correcting our methodological shortcomings. The RCP has correctly pointed out that the CPN(M) (now the UCPN(M)) applies this liberal/eclectic methodology in practice and that the said methodology is PRECISELY the foundation of the party’s current revisionist trajectory (which yes IS a revisionist trajectory). Going even further, I would point out that the emerging SPLIT between the RCP, USA and the UCPN(M) is only further proof that the goal of simply superficially ‘holding things together’ (if you will) in the way that’s proposed above is a project that cannot be sustained in any event. In truth, the only meaningful basis of unity is that which is rooted in a common foundation.
Trying to superficially ‘hold things together’ in the absence of theoretical foundation for doing so has been an important error of much of the communist movement to date and BOTH KASAMA IN THE MAIN AND THE RCP FALL INTO THIS. For example, I’ve observed that both Mike and Bob Avakian assess the essential shortcoming of the Cultural Revolution to have been its (alleged) failure to reach and win over a sufficient number of intellectuals because intellectuals were viewed in too much of a negative light, as if by just being more tolerant in this sense that alone would have been adequate to fundamentally alter the trajectory of state policy and the corresponding strength of the revisionist tendencies. The truth, by contrast, is quite obviously that the Cultural Revolution ultimately didn’t succeed in preventing the full-fledged restoration of capitalism because it jettisoned mass-based methodology (e.g. reliance on the Red Guards and mass movements of workers and peasants) and replaced the initial objective of establishing a system of commune-based socialism nationwide with that of simply implementing an alternate version of the traditional party-state regime in the form of the (generally less-than-revolutionary) revolutionary committees. And the underlying reason THAT happened lay in a failure to correctly assess the seriousness of the situation they were facing at the start, including how far the CCP and the state had degenerated already. The resultant reconstituted party and nominally reorganized state were hence fundamentally unchanged and the right wing directionality of policy resumed at once upon and even before the party’s reconstitution.
That said, the failure to recognize that the emergence of factions is inevitable and sometimes really a good thing, both within the individual party and within the international communist movement more broadly, has also generally been a historic shortcoming on our part. Attempts to simply forcibly suppress inevitable divisions both stifle critical thinking and ultimately fail on both of these levels, as we have seen time and again. Moreover, attempting to mechanically suppress inevitable divisions also prevents us from recognizing revisionist tendencies for what they are by forcing them underground rather than making them visible out in the open. But none of this should be construed as to suggest that liberalism and/or eclecticism represent scientific methodology! In the event that revisionist tendencies should come to prevail in the individual party, that party must be jettisoned by the organized authentic communists therein. And yes, identifying revisionist tendencies also necessarily involves a regularly revisiting of the “ABCs of Marxism” (a.k.a. the fundamentals), and ESPECIALLY at times when the prevailing line among comrades appears to be headed down the wrong track.
Since Kasama’s existence itself is in no small part an expression of this emerging divide in the world communist movement between those grouped around Prachanda on the one hand and those who reject his revisionist politics on the other (taking the former position), I don’t really expect my views will be taken seriously or received well here, but I’m bored at the moment and thought I’d float them anyway for whatever they may be worth. But seriously, calling the RCP “fundamentalist” for highlighting and trying to dialogue on basic-level problems in the CPN(M)’s methodology and line really is opportunistic and childish. It’s not the (really true) notion that the RCP has religious-type flaws that I take issue with, but rather the faulty basis on which this claim is being made here.
Otto said
I have to admit that when I defined Fundamentalist, I was just taking the opportunity to give my own opinion rather than actually defining what that word really means. So I do believe it is necessary for any group or person to occasionally question what they believe, similar to the concept of criticism- self criticism that Mao promoted. Obviously the only way to prevent wrong ideas from becoming dogma is to re-examine beliefs from time to time. Many religions don’t do this and I’m not sure how often the RCP does this as I’m not a member and I don’t know about their internal workings.
According to Wikipedea;
“Fundamentalism refers to a belief in a strict adherence to an established set of basic principles (usually religious in nature), sometimes as a reaction to perceived doctrinal compromises with modern social and political life.[1][2][3][4]
The term fundamentalism was originally coined to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century, and that had its roots in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy of that time. Until 1950, there was no entry for fundamentalism in the Oxford English Dictionary;[5] the derivative fundamentalist was added only in its second 1989 edition.[6]
The term has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations”.[6]
Which provides more authority on the definition than I do.
Chris Cutrone said
Thinking about questions of “splits” it becomes necessary to distinguish between splits that are politically productive and those that are the product of disintegration/decomposition rather than development and differentiation. That seems to be the point at issue. Unity and splitting in the abstract have no value. But fear of splits, or advocacy of splits as clarifying per se regardless of content is a widespread, endemic problem in the political imagination of the “Left” today. I would say this is because the actual character of the points of dispute remain unclear to people.
Are the Naxalites “revolutionary” or “revisionist?” The fact that such a question does not serve well to productively politically divide people and advance emancipatory struggle, says something about our present moment. Especially in this sense, such divisions speak less to the question of judging particular actions, around which political polarization can take place, and more to hardened organizational affinities (or antipathies) that may not have much if any actual political content, moving forward.