On Radical Eyes’ Proposal: How Should Communists Appear?
Posted by Mike E on November 16, 2010
What first impression should a new communist movement make?
I am jazzed from many sides by the proposal from Radical Eyes. And provoked by it. I will be glad to second his proposal… and try to “drill down” to confront some of its contradictions (which are literally among the core contradictions of starting a new radical project).
We do need a much more clear and public face of the Kasama Project as a young communist network (distinct from the Kasama discussion here on the site).
Let me respond to Radical Eye’s proposal with some questions to help “kick the ball on down the field”:
RE writes:
“I too find myself getting impatient at times with communist work that is primarily (at this point) rooted in theoretical and political discussion with other self-identified socialists and communists (plus interlopers). Not that I devalue this work, which is exciting and essential.”
I too am impatient, including with our need to expand the scope of our work.
I am impatient that our theoretical and strategic work remains so primitive… that our organization network needs consolidation… We not only need common public political work, but we need a sharper common idea of what it means to do communist political work (work that connects to our different goals and larger plans).
RE writes:
“But I too am concerned that, as you write “There isn’t a conversation on the street about [communism], and that it isn’t part of our everyday political environment.” And I am concerned that we are not doing as much as we might to develop that “on the street” conversation.”
No communist movement can advance without a deep connection on the “street.”
Long March fighters. This is how the communist revolution in China announced itself to its main audience.
But the question in my mind is how do we decide how to develop that conversation among the people over communism and a radically alternative society?
How do we decide where to appear? How do we know how to appear? Is our appearance mainly a matter of saying something?
RE is making a proposal for a leaflet he describes as something like:
“Capitalism in Crisis: the need for a radical alternative / The Kasama Project: Reconceiving Communism for the 21st century
The Symbolism of First Impression: Text or Deeds
Ok. Several questions come to mind:
1) How does a new revolutionary movement want to appear “on the street”?
As a leaflet? Do we want to assume the familiar form of leafletter (or movement protester, or part of the “activist community” or?) What do those appearances convey? Is our difference of content enough, that our adoption of tired forms is overcome?
This is a media question (i.e. is it true that a paper leaflet is more “street” than a youtube video on a phone?) But it is also a question of “do we show up as talkers or as doers?” What is the symbolic message of our mode of appearance?
You can’t redo first impressions. What are our other options?
As a force in the protection of the undocumented (including as part of the spring’s project in southern Arizona border crossing)? As a manifesto in life? The way Huey chose to declare the existence of the Panthers (in his time and conditions) to “the street.” Or as a manifesto of vision?
One problem with the previous communist movement is ‘too many words, not enough symbolic power.” Radical currents of the previous communist movement came soaked (and defined) by a real fetish of the word. We need to break with that — and it won’t be easy.
How should communists “appear” (in the sense of arrive and be perceived for the first time) this time around?
2) This proposed structure of RE’s leaflet is the familiar “Problem > Solution” outline of every RCP manifesto. Do we want to adopt that? Do we want to repeat their form of presentation for the communist cause?
What is the strategy, assumption, epistemology embedded in that mode of appearing? And why would we get a different result than their last half dozen of such Manifesto campaigns?
Where Does Our Take Come From?
3) This proposal suggests:
“Someone in Kasama draft and circulate a leaflet that articulates a clear and accessible (and catchy, vividly interesting!) “take” on the world situation right now.”
The easy part is “clear, accessible, catchy, vivid” — that kind of agitational writing can be done well. And I won’t address that further.
But my question is: Where would such a “take” come from?
What does it mean for a communist organization to develop a “take on the world situation right now”? How is such a view developed?
What are the prerequisites (theoretical, empirical, organizational) for developing a catchy agitational presentation of that communist “take”?
4) RE’s proposal then suggests a method and a sequence of events:
“And that we post and struggle over this leaflet, until there is unity around it.”
In other words, the emergence of a common “take” on the world situation would emerge through the vetting over an agitational leaflet. Is that realistic?
I assume this would be among supporters of the Kasama Project who have a significant level of unity (around communism, and a particular approach of “reconception and regroupment”) — but even if the “struggle over this leaflet” is restricted to the core network of our Project, will we be able to develop an analysis and then unity over an analysis in this way?
My general view is this: We have no party or general line. Yet many of us think of our situation as if we do… as if our main task is to take what we know and run with it. As if there are not special tasks that confront communists when they need to reconceive and regroup.
The process of reconceiving actually is a process — it has to start, build, mature and reach a certain level. And in the meantime, we have problems and questions, but actually won’t have a “take” to just slap into a leaflet.
We actually need to create a “take” (and reject false “takes”) — and that is its own process of real work and struggle.
For example: How is our “take” different from a reductionist view of crisis (like the General Crisis theory, or the call to “shift the burden of crisis onto the capitalists”)? How is it different from the “main contradiction is national liberation and imperialism”? What is wrong with the old slogan “Hard times are fighting times”? What do we think the impact of globalization has been on the world revolutionary process? What is the U.S. strategic purpose in its wars, and why do we not support them? How do we analyze (and speak about) opponents of the U.S. who are not progressive (jihadists, the “rogue states,” the players of failed states, etc.)?
A counter-thought: Might we not instead consider having an engagement of position papers over several months (real analysis of the world situation, real political economy, real contrast with previous strategic approaches) — and then (on the basis of a discussion at that level) develop a common “take” upon which an agitational attempt (and other expressions of unity) can be created?
My thought has been to propose a national conference in the next, initiate a period of pre-conference discussion of position papers and analyzes, and then once sufficient clarity and unity has been reached, consider having that conference to consolidate and codify that unity (and the various expressions of structure and expression that such a unity allows.)
Where to Dig In
RE puts forward an approach to consider:
“What are people most upset about? What demands would they stand up and fight for today? Where do they feel the hits coming from these days? What could inspire them? What is the level of openness to radical alternatives, rather than say reformist proposals?”
This raises for me a number of further questions:
How Huey presented to his audience. Conditions are obviously different now. But how should a new communist movement present today?
5) Are the faultlines we choose to focus on defined by “what are people most upset about?”
To break it down further: Which “people” are we discussing here? Who is our target audience for the initiation of communist work?
To drill in a little: I can imagine discovering that the faultlines we should work on are not the ones that people are (at this moment) most upset about. Why? Because i think we should choose faultlines that have the most explosive potential (for undermining the system) and that they be arenas that bourgeois politics can’t easily keep “all sewed up” (i.e. they are explosive enough that their key outlines are considered difficult to address within bourgeois politics.)
There is a real history of “ambulance chasing” in the communist movement — of moving from one (perceived) hot-button issue to another in a way that prevents an actual long-term engagements (or a culture of organizing or deepening roots among the oppressed).
Further: It may be that the issues that will create a revolutionary movement are not visible right now — and their forms of appearance may be “over the horizon.” Do we restrict ourselves to what is already readily visible? And if now, what are the methods for anticipating the unspoken and unseen and unannounced?
Scoping a Landscape of Cooptation and Void
6) RE writes:
“Where is the misinformation and propaganda of the enemy exerting its influence?”
I think this is important — though I would focus far less on “misinformation” than on the enemy’s political ability to coopt. The problem is not mainly ideological — or “winning” people in some war of ideas from their ideas. (PLP, for example, is most extreme for viewing class struggle as almost solely “winning people” to communism or whatever — as if the preparation for revolution is a proclamation “fire your ideas, hire mine.”)
My question is: where are the voids in society where the dominant politics can’t even name the suffering and hopes of the people? Who are the people made invisible and unheard by this?
JFSP wrote:
” We all know what the working class person cares about, Jobs, Housing, Health Care, Education for their children and bringing the troops home.”
I think we need to dissect this: These are all important concerns of the people. But are they faultlines along which we can build the beginnings of a distinct revolutionary current?
First: Who is our audience? What happens if we imagine an average or typical worker and imagine that (at this stage of our movement) they are our key audience? Rather than trying to go to the unawake intermediate, shouldn’t we focus approaches that can attract and congeal the advanced into a partisan and revolutionary popular current?
Further: Are these the places (housing? medical care? etc.) we can contest and defeat the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future? Where we (the revolutionaries, the communists) can gather a core of support and take the political stage? And if those places don’t have that potential for us, why focus there?
I think the war may well be such a faultline — since the liberal Democrats will (apparently) be waging endless war, and the radical left can shape and lead an opposition (while the paleo-right mount their own critique).
But I think if we adopt some of these (important!) problems as our focus — we will enter arenas where the liberals will eat our lunch (i.e. where we at best become their instruments, or in-house critics). there is a theory (so-called left economism) that argues that since the recession give the ruling class fewer means to bribe, a change happens and the most basic demands for life become potentially radical ignition points. This is generally not true (and wasn’t true in the Great Depression when this theory was first proposed.)
Those are (by contrast) sites within society where (in some ways) “the crown lies in the gutter” and a relatively small force can contest for it. It is not simple in the U.S. — there are probably no places that are literally uncontested by bourgeois politics. (There are no Chingkang mountains like Mao’s first base area, where there was no national or warlord power, and where a small force could “make a beginning.”)
But what are those places where millions are coming against problems that the dominant politics can’t touch?
For example, the struggle for legality, amnesty and equality for the undocumented may not be the issue that people are “most upset about” — but it may be the faultline that has the most people upset within the bottom rungs of society, and it may be the faultline that bourgeois politics can to the least to coopt and absorb. (I know the Catholic Church is deep in there…. but still…even there we find some fissures between the active Catholics and bourgeois politics).
In some ways, the revolutionary forces and demands can arise from voids that are nixed in the existing public debate — where the people are unheard, their suffering is unknown, their hopes are unacknowledged. And even among them it is a love “that dare not speak its name.”
Taking Up Collective Investigation
7) What is the alternative: I think we should take very seriously RE’s call for investigation.And work through what kind of investigation is needed for make-or-break strategic decisions.
There is a rich and greatly under-appreciated body of work on Maoist theories of investigation — mainly in Mao’s own writings (some of which have been more recently published). Or the example of Lenin with the Thornton workers. I also recently read Bruno Bosteels’ essay “Post-Maoism: Badiou and Politics” in positions — and recommend it for many reasons.
In other words, I think we should stop, and think it over — send out teams to do deep investigation among the people, and then concentrate (instead of disperse). We have had a few such investigations in an initial way — one was of course a team of three who went to Nepal (which was ironically both an investigation of the revolution there, but also of the possibility of a common area of work here in the U.S.), another produced the articles on Smithfield pork processing (and the condition of undocumented immigrants) and a third went to desert ares of the U.S. Mexico border region. We need many more organized investigations of these kinds.
That is a process that does not coexist well with some expressions of impatience. My thought is that impatience should produce concentrated team investigation of a communist kind, not dispersal to our various communities (without that kind of focused collective project of investigation — and reporting! — from specific places).
Again: a theoretical issue here is whether our opportunities are structural or evental/conjunctural.
There is much more to say… but that is where I will break off for now.
Nobody in Particular said
An instructive analysis of that common, aching question at the core of so many of us-what is to be done? I agree that merely melting into the working class will not foment revolution, or even organization. Perhaps the time has come for the FRSO and the PSL (and the WWP, as awkward as that could be) and even the ghostly SWP to join together, unite with other, smaller communist, socialist and, if they’ll join us, anarchist groups to form a large, national, diverse party of the REAL left. The road to power will be long, but we’ll finally be on it for real-I would love to see Beck try to throw down with an actual socialist sometime :)
This is an imperfect, complex idea, months or more likely years in the making, and I would appreciate critique of it, both theoretical and pragmatic.
dh said
I agree with NIP that we need a broad umbrella group of the “far” left.
“What is to be done” with regards to organizing, focus, strategy, program, etc. is a messy question. A very difficult question, no doubt.
But their are a few practical matters that are quite clear to many, I think, in terms of what, unquestionably NEEDS to be done first. The un-difficult issues with a clear answer. Basic stuff. One is alliance building. On the political Left.
One site where I’d envision this to be successful is on college campuses, where students could host (and probably get student government funding for) conferences modeled a bit after the US Social Forum events. They can be regional or state-wide in scope.
Defeating the perception of isolation is a huge step in confidence-building for the Left.
Mike E said
One question is:
Can this be done by merging existing groups or will that “lock in” their pathologies? Two into one?
Will it happen as some crew gets a “better idea” and runs with it — so the others shatter and get absorbed? One aspect eats up the other?
Or should there be (at some point) a call to leave the old forms, and create a new swarm that can fight to that “better idea” and something emerge from the cloud ? One into two?
Or (as we develop a new revolutionary movement) will it mainly come from fresh new forces (generationally) that are not currently “organized” into one of the previous left groups?
I get the vibe from lots of people that even the partisans of old formations are impatient with them — and often alienated from some of their defining features.
dh said
I want to address your post in more detail later, but quickly..
I think one positive outcome of efforts to create conferences and broader umbrella orgs will be to starkly point out which parties/orgs are cultish sects controlled by egomaniacs and which ones genuinely want to help build the broader left.
This would be accomplished by, I think, by making the points of coordination and agreement as broad as possible. So that way anyone who rejects it will be exposed:
The cults will want to dissuade members from interacting with other groups from deathly fear of “contamination” or leaving the party, etc..
It doesn’t make sense for a socialist party to be GREEDY about hoarding members and donations.
dh said
I think that’s a bit too abstract.
That’s “unforeseeable future” stuff.
I think either way, and as a practical truth, the Left will GAIN from creating a broad forum/conference for engaging diverse groups, even if the first few events are messy.
And I think that doing this at college campuses would be brilliant, as long as the older parasitic elements are “missing” (ie: burnt out old hippies, protest-puppet people, hardened cultists, clingers-on, you get the drift). It should be restricted to students because, quite frankly, we’ve gotten nothing but old ideas (shitty ones) and tall “memories” from the previous generations. This is not a strictly left-wing problem. But we should be frank about it. Just my unrestrained opinion though.
But to get to one of your general points: The key ingredient is how it’s organized and, thus, who attends. I could definitely see it becoming unhealthy if you don’t have a proportionate mix of Old Left and New, for example. On the campuses, we might see over-representation of the SDS/Ruckus factions and not enough ISO/SWP/CPUSA, etc.. There should be plans to deal with the Larouche cliche, since they probably cannot be outright banned from attending.
…
The “state” model may be best, with fliers and announcements made at local community colleges as well as state and private schools. Site should be chosen based on factors like favorable student governments, funding, etc.
At minimum, this should be a reflection of numerical strength and bring curious new minds to the fold. (Individual party meetings can be disheartening from the simple fact that they’re often so small.)
Nobody in Particular said
The larouche people aren’t socialist though, right? I know he used to be some sort of leftist, and a rather creepy and “purity” guarding type, but I had the idea he was more conspiracy-oriented and bizarre politically.
What we could hope for by the formation of a larger, unified left front would be, to get rather Hegelian, synthesis; out of something currently dealing with stultification and clannishness, we could have both quiet exchanges of ideas and shouting matches, a great collision and mixing of our best minds in all sects and organizations fighting for and studying socialism/communism/anarchism. And from the collisions and mergers and discussions we will all merge anew-stronger, less divided, more respectful.
And then, my comrades, then…we kill a world.
RW Harvey said
Dh writes: “And I think that doing this at college campuses would be brilliant, as long as the older parasitic elements are “missing” (ie: burnt out old hippies, protest-puppet people, hardened cultists, clingers-on, you get the drift). It should be restricted to students because, quite frankly, we’ve gotten nothing but old ideas (shitty ones) and tall “memories” from the previous generations. This is not a strictly left-wing problem. But we should be frank about it. Just my unrestrained opinion though. But to get to one of your general points: The key ingredient is how it’s organized and, thus, who attends. I could definitely see it becoming unhealthy if you don’t have a proportionate mix of Old Left and New, for example. On the campuses, we might see over-representation of the SDS/Ruckus factions and not enough ISO/SWP/CPUSA, etc.. There should be plans to deal with the Larouche cliche, since they probably cannot be outright banned from attending.”
This is precisely why visions of “left” unity are so ridiculous.
Let’s try for a Kasama speaking tour and see what develops. Campuses, small groups, factory parking lots, it really does not matter. What matters is beginning to show that these questions and issues are alive, and there is a potential organizing force being serious about revolution.
Nobody in Particular said
No one can blame you for saying that, Harvey, my hope is that trying to build one would have a “self-cleaning” effect, while sucking in more new, vibrant members via publicity. We need young people with good ideas and fresh voices and old timers with organizational experience and wisdom.
dh said
Fair enough.
I can get down to that.
Nobody in Particular said
Could militant, regimented appearance be a direction to move in? The lack of visual unity at left events is both thrilling and disorienting-what if we moved towards uniformed solidness, something vaguely Cuban, began to take on the appearance of what we, after all, long to be-an army. Could this appearance of organization and unity in a time of economic chaos and political chicanery endear us to some of the outraged? Or would this be more likely to promulgate alienation and crackdowns from the ruling class? Not that the ruling class cracking down is a reason not to do a thing (if anything, it’s a reason TO do a thing!), but both scaring people off and bringing the bourgeoisie hammer down simultaneously seems a tad too self-destructive for our nascent radical leftist movement.
land said
I will write something longer but this was great.
To begin:
The revolutionary people throughout the world and our place in this picture as communists.
What is the conversation on the street and on the site “is revolution possible (I say yes).
Why we need these conversations on the street. What converations? And in relation to the conversations why we need this site.
Some ideas for an initial flyer. Maybe a kickoff to this project during Black History Month.
Nobody in Particular said
Intriguing land, we should challenge Black History Month, which has the effect of compartmentalizing black history and is a joke to many-Black History should be tied into our education as an aspect of the history of repression and exploitation and racism and struggle in this country.
I’m thinking a message something like;
“Black History Month” Is A Symbol of Separatism! The History of Black’s Struggle for Freedom and Equality is Key to Understanding Society, And Must Be In the Context of a Comprehensive History of Race and Class Relations in the USA! If We Do Not Understand Our Past, What Hope Do We Have of Understanding Ourselves?