My life in a red closet
Posted by Mike E on July 5, 2011
This piece was very difficult for Libri to write. We applaud her courage and her continuing hope for the communist movement. Some things in our history make us celebrate. Others make us grieve.
“I want to talk about what it was like to be attracted to the dream of revolution – and then be told that my lesbian feelings were ideologically part of a corrupt and oppressive world order, and that I force myself to have sexual relationships with men in an effort to develop the sexual feelings I was told I was supposed to have, as part of being a revolutionary. “
“I was pushed into the closet as a price for being considered a revolutionary by those I respected. And this was doubly painful: I was forced to deny my own feelings in public self-criticism, and I was being trained to confront my continuing feelings as reactionary in the privacy of my own mind.”
by Libri Devrim
Much has been written about the Revolutionary Communist Party and its ban on gay people within its ranks. Some of us are familiar with the specific anti-gay rationalizations the RCP promoted for thirty years – including its notorious argument that same-sex attractions are a politically reactionary, personal-ideological choice.
But what was going on within the RCP was not just a stubborn and arrogant “error of line”– it was also an actual practice that had an impact on real people and real struggle. That is what I want to write about, including what it was like to live “in the closet” inside a communist organization.
I want to talk about what it was like to be attracted to the dream of revolution – and then be told that my lesbian feelings were ideologically part of a corrupt and oppressive world order, and that I force myself to have sexual relationships with men in an effort to develop the sexual feelings I was told I was supposed to have, as part of being a revolutionary. I want to talk about the way decent but incredibly ignorant communist comrades were instructed to correct me, my feelings, and my behaviors. And how, within a movement hoping to carry out liberation, the awful arguments and pressures of anti-gay bigotry were reproduced and enforced.
RCP cadre and leaders looked people like me in the eyes and told us to change, conform and be silent — or else get out. At the height of the AIDS crisis, they knowingly opened a horrible split between communist activists and those fighting rightwing attacks on gay people. They reproduced within revolutionary ranks (and using “communist” rhetoric) the prejudices, arguments and repressive practices of rightwing religious nuts – and they tried to promote such views more broadly within the left.
It seems that most queer revolutionaries were attracted to what the RCP was putting out. That they’d go take out the RCP’s newspaper, the Revolutionary Worker, get involved, and then someone would meet with them to have serious talk about “the Homosexuality Question,” and then they would disappear.
In that respect, I was a bit different. I got involved before I came out.
After meeting the revolutionaries of the RCP, I joined the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB), really throwing myself into it. I was convinced that a possible revolutionary situation might be just around the corner (remember that slogan, “Revolution in the ‘80s – Go for it!”?).
All my free time was spent building for the work this party was doing in my area: I was going to demonstrations, taking the paper out, talking to everyone about Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), postering a couple times a week, going to meetings. It was my whole life.
Falling in love
Then I started feeling attracted to another girl who was hanging around the RCYB. She was really funny and cute and smart. I thought was she was great and I really respected her, especially the way she stood up for what she believed at school, how she would face off the cops at a demonstration without fear, the way she was always ready to take the paper out even when the rest of us got discouraged by all the rejection. I wanted to be around her all the time and I thought about her constantly.
Everyone else could see I had it bad, but I never noticed! She gave me her green kaffyah and I wore it all the time, even when I went to bed. I always wanted to ride in the same car with her when we went someplace. Her high school was across town from mine but I’d always try to find a reason to go to her side of town to take the paper out in the afternoons so that I could be with her.
Finally, one of the other guys in the RCYB said something about me acting like I was in love with her. They were all teasing me about it. I realized that I had had feelings for girls for a while and I started to come to terms with the fact that I was a lesbian.
A family’s anger…
When I came out, everyone at home was upset. I was prepared for their reactions, I’d heard other stories from teenagers who had come out about how they were rejected or kicked out of the house, so I was ready to face that from my family.
My family was upset and angry. They were disappointed in me and wanted me to just “get over” whatever young adult phase I was going through that made me “think” I was gay.
I was so depressed that they couldn’t accept me, their daughter, for who I was. But knowing my family’s conservative background, I had expected them to have a negative reaction so it didn’t surprise me.
….then the rejection by comrades
What really shocked me was how leaders in the RCYB and the RCP reacted when I told them I was gay.
I have to say that none of the other Youth Brigade members had a problem with it except one guy. He was a little immature and made a joke about how he didn’t mind if a girl was gay but there’s no way in hell he’d sleep in the same room with a guy who was gay. (We’d just stayed at a motel when we traveled to another city for an event and all of us had shared a room). But really most young communists of my generation never thought that being gay was wrong – it was something that had to be imposed on us from without, and was done without ever really hearing or respecting our insights.
But while the comrades in the Youth Brigade were fine with it I was really shocked by how hostile the RCYB leaders were. I was immediately separated from the rest of brigade – they stopped having me there for meetings and paper discussions, I wasn’t invited to take out the paper or go running in the mornings, and when I showed up at the bookstore for an event I was told to leave.
Being educated
I didn’t understand the reaction.
Finally, after several months of being excluded from everything and with virtually no communication from Youth Brigade leaders, I received a phone call telling me to show up for a meeting at a coffee shop across town the next weekend. Several Youth Brigade leaders were there as well as two RCP leaders (one of whom had never spoken to me before but was clearly in charge).
Everyone was very serious. I was pretty intimidated and scared.
They were there to explain to me what reality was, and what a communist view supposedly was: Why being a lesbian arose from unjustified hostilities toward men as a whole, how it was like being a feminist-separatist, and how in the new society, men wouldn’t hurt women and so women would no longer respond to their oppression by becoming gay. Their argument was that lesbianism was a form of reformism – because it sought relief from oppression by developing a lifestyle within capitalism.
They made a series of deductive arguments – very divorced from reality and my own situation – that lesbianism was an ideological choice that embodied a reformist political program and that was therefore not compatible with being a communist revolutionary. Let me remind you that all of this was happening to me when I was a high school student – just barely starting to sort out life, love and sexuality.
Looking back it seems clearer they had reproduced within revolutionary ranks (and using “communist” rhetoric) prejudices, arguments and repressive practices that were not far removed from rightwing religious nuts and homophobes.
I was very young and pretty naïve I guess – I took what I was told at face value as the communist verdict on gay people, and on me.
But at a gut level I couldn’t reconcile the idea that my feelings for other girls meant that I was being bourgeois. I still was attracted to other girls, even when I berated myself for feeling that way. I was told that I was viewing the girl in the RCYB that I liked as a sex object, that I was objectifying her because I had sexual thoughts about her.
In one painful meeting (at a Burger King – I never wanted to eat there again after this!) I admitted tearfully that, yes, I had imagined seeing her naked while masturbating.
I felt really guilty. I was pushed into the closet as a price for being considered a revolutionary by those I respected. And this was doubly painful: I was forced to deny my own feelings in public self-criticism, and I was being trained to confront my continuing feelings as reactionary in the privacy of my own mind.
Under watch
Once I started being allowed back to Brigade activities I apologized to this girl for objectifying her; but she just laughed and gave me a hug and said not to worry about it.
Local RCP leaders and the Youth Brigade coordinator kept me away from her though, and talked about sending me to live in a Brigade house in another city for the summer. That idea was dropped after I failed geometry and had to go to summer school, but for the next year or so, I was closely watched.
However, I was spouting the party line, so I was “welcomed” back in the fold. But part of me wondered, what would happen if I didn’t accept what I had been told to believe.
A few years later there was another change in the division of labor, I was sent to go work in another area with a new group of people. I had left high school and gotten my GED so I was anxious to start working full time and not having to depend on my family. When I was told to apply for a particular kind of job and live in a shared apartment with some other party folks, I complied. I didn’t really have any reason not to, even though I knew that living with people would be like being at the brigade house full-time; I would never be away from people who could scrutinize my actions and “tell on me” to my leadership.
This whole time I had been repressing my feelings, trying to just pretend that they didn’t exist.
My leadership brought up homosexuality during a paper discussion and I started defending a group of gay activists and one of their slogans. I was criticized by everyone but this time I didn’t back down, I kept on saying that I didn’t understand the RCP’s position on homosexuality. (Actually, I did understand, but I didn’t feel like I could say that I didn’t agree, it felt safer to just say I didn’t understand).
Isolated and out-gunned
Again I was separated from the group and started meeting with my direct leadership and two other people that I had never met before. We had discussions on a regular basis, a few times a week, for months. I wasn’t an idiot, but when it came to complex discussions about theory, I just couldn’t argue hard and fast enough.
Each meeting was a battle; we weren’t studying and discussing and criticizing, we were fighting with words and quotes and sources. I was totally outgunned.
I had gone to a crappy public school and never graduated from college, unlike my leadership, who were well educated and had apparently memorized the entire canon of MLM theory. I was a slow reader and had difficulty with understanding what I read. Every time they struggled with me, I felt stupider. I couldn’t keep up; much less argue for what I believed.
But inside, I always knew that I was gay and that it wasn’t in reaction to men’s oppression. It wasn’t because I had had bad experiences with men or wanted to promote bourgeois ideals.
In fact, I wanted to accept being gay. I wanted to celebrate it because, in the end, being a lesbian was an integral part of what made me human and made me the person I was. I wanted to embrace it and be honest about how I really thought and felt.
I wanted to openly have a relationship with another girl my age, to experience building a relationship together and growing together and having that strong bond that can exist between two people who know each other in such an intimate and complete way.
To conform in love
Instead, I started dating a guy who sold the paper. I was never told I had to start dating a guy, but I felt immense pressure to prove that I wasn’t a bourgeois feminist-separatist, that I was a revolutionary communist who was fully committed to bringing out change in this world. In so many ways, the guy I dated was a wonderfully loving and supportive. We were good friends; he was fun and knew how to make me laugh. I was tired of being alone. And a part of me thought that a relationship with a guy would allay their fears about me. That if I dated a guy they would finally just leave me alone.
I tried, but I just didn’t have feeling for him that I would have towards other women. We moved in together and I hoped that eventually I would develop feelings for him, but it didn’t happen. I liked him a lot and loved spending time with him. But I dreaded having sex with him.
Eventually we stopped having sex; he was very supportive and caring, but still very hurt that I didn’t find him attractive sexually.
He was one of the first people who told me that he thought the RCP’s position on homosexuality was bullshit; when he said that we were in the the RCP’s Revolution bookstore and I shushed him. I didn’t want either of us to get in trouble.
We broke up and soon after I was moved to a different area. I couldn’t work up the same enthusiasm for building the RCP and I became very depressed. I stopped returning phone calls and just drifted away.
For the RCP it was important that, if you left, the summation had to be that you were the one with some fatal flaw. They argued that being a lesbian was a form of backwardness and reformism – and then when someone like me drops out of political life it was taken as a confirmation of the individual’s ignorant prejudices and their own revolutionary character.
Slippery change without a real accounting
When, around 2002, the RCP started having discussions about changing the stance on homosexuality, I couldn’t believe it. Why couldn’t this have happened sooner, before my life and the lives of so many other people were adversely affected?
I thought things had changed so I started getting involved again. I was criticized for having disappeared for so long, but the local leadership felt like now that that “issue” was dealt with we could just move on. And I tried to do just that.
But I never saw any real self-criticism from the RCP’s leadership – I never heard anyone say “Hey, we totally fucked up and this adversely affected people in the party, people were pushed back into the closet, and shit, we’re sorry about that. We bought into these homophobic lines being pushed by the religious right and we contributed to oppressing GLBT people and that was wrong. Let’s examine how and why we embraced a fucked-up line. How had this been possible? What does it mean that this was done for decades with a “scientific” pretense? Let’s evaluate what its impact was to our members, our supporters, gay people generally and our cause.”
Instead it was just like, okay, you can be in the party and be openly gay now.
There was no honest self-criticism or accountability happening. So I guess for the RCP it was all over and done with, but for me it wasn’t. At that point I just couldn’t live with myself if I had stayed, so I left.
One reason I need to write all of this for all of you is that the RCP has still (to this day) not acknowledged that they banned gay people from their ranks, or that their party had a “closet” within its ranks, or publicly accounted for the cost of this to people like me and to the movement for radical change.
This long history of mistreatment and backwardness by the RCP (and by communists movements preceding them by decades) was compounded by the RCP’s stubborn refusal to make a real accounting. That too is something we cannot allow to go uncriticized, and that too is something we cannot ourselves allow around future problems and mistakes in our next communist movement.
I’m also writing this because I feel it is a cautionary story for our common future – because in the grip of dogmatism, ignorance and arrogance even revolutionaries can do awful things. We should be aware of how much we often remain ensnared in the views of the very system we seek to overthrow. We need to see how easily we sometimes set ourselves up as the arbiters of right and wrong – often with little investigation or serious analysis – posturing perhaps as revolutionary or scientific, but in reality merely reflecting backward views that are quite common in the society around us.
ish said
Libri, I had similar experiences in the Trotskyist left of the late 1970s. You might find my story relevant:
http://thecahokian.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-on-left-wing-homophobia-my-story.html
and of related interest:
http://thecahokian.blogspot.com/2010/10/bad-old-days-when-left-hated-gays.html
celticfire said
Thank you for sharing this story with us, Libri.
You’re story is one I’ve heard before from others. A friend of mine was in the RCYB in the 80′s for a time as well, a ‘gutter-punk kid’ who ended up living in the Hawaii House (an RCYB collective house) with two of his friends, who were a lesbian couple.
This erupted into a big struggle in that house, and eventually he and his comrades left the house and the YB. It pushed dedicated, amazing young queer revolutionary activists away as well as anyone who dared to support them. When I spent time with RCP activists and brought this up, they denied that ever happened or claimed it was a rumor designed to attack the Party.
I am really very pleased that you shared this with us – in for anything than validating the experiences of the countless others who experienced what you did and to account for the untold amount of pain that line resulted in.
Eli M-H said
I’m sorry, but how did honest, principled, radical minded people end up staying in this group for literally DECADES while this kind of stuff was going on?
To the comrade who wrote the piece: you have all my love, empathy, and admiration for the incredible strength and commitment you showed under such hideous circumstances.
To the people who were in the RCP at the time and did nothing: where the fuck were you? What were you thinking?
celticfire said
Eli M-H,
While I agree with you sentiment, I think as a principle shaming people (especially about issues that happened a decade ago) aren’t very effective. It would be great, however to see some self-criticism of those who defended the old line on homosexuality and offer that for discussion…
anewworld said
San Francisco Bay Area shouting out!
Seen this happen over here, too, Libri. RCYB members, g/b/l/t/? male and female, who were passionately revolutionary, committing their lives to a whole new world at the same time being slapped around and being ground down for their sexual tendencies.
When the bourgeoisie does it, it’s one thing, but to have a “revolutionary organization” bring out homophobia that way, it can have much worse affects on the prospects of liberation.
I think if the RCP were clearer on self criticism, embraced the g/b/l/t/? community, and attempted some sort of rehabilitation for this line and the still living very serious consequences to those of us who have suffered, rather then pointing people to a pamphlet with unclear analysis.
It’s well known RCPers read Kasama – as an outside reader myself, it would be a good start if they came out from behind their closed doors and openly practice some self criticism to those who are trying to reach out for something new.
Libri, thank you for helping to clear out the fog around this painful time.
chegitz guevara said
The reason why people stay with groups like that, even if they do some very fucked up shit, is because the group has a mission in which they strongly believe. As the group promotes the belief that they alone have the light, the truth, and the way, abandoning the group is an abandonment of the mission. It’s why I put up with verbal abuse at the hands of one of my comrades for years, before I realized I didn’t have to put up with /anyone/ treating me like that. I had even worked very closely with other communist groups, and I knew that I could walk away from this group and join another … but their ideas were wrong, so I didn’t.
It’s been seventeen years, and I still have trust issues about communist organizations.
anewworld said
I think Eli M-H’s question is fair. I’ll try to answer ..
Many people, in that young circle, actually thought , as Libri pointed out, revolution was around the corner. There was a very hyped up atmosphere that had people lockstep on their toes – and it was a very vertical with leadership. Avakian represented the way out, and many were afraid to speak out because of being shunned, kicked out, outted etc. I showed unity with the l/b/g/t/? community, but yes, we should have been louder around this question despite reprisal. It is right to rebel against reactionary ideas!
Tell No Lies said
While I am interested in the answers that people have to give about why they stayed so long in an organization with such a terrible line and practice on homosexuality, it is not actually something that surprises me.
All of us are the products of a variety of forms of authoritarian social conditioning — in our families, in church, in school, at work, in our romantic relationships. Wilhelm Reich discusses the significance of all this in the reproduction of class society in his essay, “What Is Class Consciousness?” (which thoroughly antagonized the German Communist Party of which he was a member).
Given this state of affairs it is entirely to be expected that our efforts to build revolutionary organizations and movements will be repeatedly compromised in this way. This isn’t to make excuses for any of it, but it is to suggest that if we are really serious about building revolutionary organizations and movements we are going to have to patiently work through incredible amounts of the accumulated bullshit of this society that we have all in different measures internalized. There were undoubtedly particularities to the RCP that enabled it to maintain this particulalrly terrible line for so long in the face of pretty much unanimous criticism from the rest of the left and of course from the LGBT folks in every imaginable struggle the RCP got involved with. The extreme verticalism and the cult of personality of the RCP stand out. But I suspect the main reason many people put up with it or silenced themselves was that they understood that any group they participated in would have its problems and that within that there was a wisdom to picking ones battles and they picked other one.
From the outside, where I was, this of course seemed very chickenshit. But it never seemed mysterious to me.
Red Amadeus said
Well, it’s the old divides into two thing thing. The RCP leadership got a lot of criticism for its position on homosexuality, and put out a whole new position on this question.
I think it important not to be one-sided and superficial in evaluating the RCP.
It is a fact that we cannot make a socialist revolution without a certain type of Party, a certain structure of organization.
The RCP has the structure we need to make a socialist revolution.
The repitious attacks on the idea of “cult of personality” are not thought through.
There is nothing wrong with having a strong leader.
Marx/Engels, Lenin, Mao all come to mind.
Avakian has the stuff, and a deep study at his latest piece called BIRDS CANNOT GIVE BIRTH TO CROCODILES, BUT HUMANITY CAN SOAR BEYOND THE HORIZON at REVCOM.US shows all the depth of his analysis.
He has the right to develop a cult of personality around himself, and that should not be seen in a negative light, but should be upheld.
He earned that right through years of study and struggle.
I ask all to read into the piece I mentioned to see just why I say this.
Getting hung up on the RCP’s past mistakes, and looking only at its negative aspects while disregarding its enormous contributions from which we are all benefitting is just a mistake.
Please, strive to unite always, and let’s not be one-sided, narrow and superficial in evaluating phenomena.
Unite all who can be united. Unite the many to defeat the few!
David_D said
I’m repeating a few things I said earlier:
My experience was very different than Libri’s. I never identified myself as gay during my time of activity, although I’m sure that it was known by many that I was homosexually-oriented. But I cannot imagine the reaction from RCP members in that locale being the same. I had a sort of roster in my head of who was defending the homosexuality position out of conviction, and who defended it (if necessary) out of organizational discipline only. The latter seemed prevalent. And none among the fellow YBers supported it internally or externally. Ironically, I was the most publicly (externally) “supportive,” relatively speaking, among the YBers I worked with.
I recall one anti-gay joke told by a male member. I recall a woman member stating with amazement that “one in seven men in San Francisco is gay!” But otherwise, we were encouraged to relate with and organize lesbian and gay youth in the context of a united front of sorts. When youth questioned the line, the response was that homosexuality would be struggled against ideologically like religion, but that freedom to be homosexual would be allowed and discrimination in jobs or housing not allowed. It was also stated that one could be lesbian or gay in the RCYB, though it was conveyed in a way that gave me the impression that such a thing was considered odd.
I do not regret my experience and the work that I did.
But there is really a personal cost involved in all this. It’s not at all abstract for those of us who were targeted or who self-closeted. And I do not believe that the fundamental basis of the 1988 Revolution article critiquing homosexuality was really broken with by the RCP.
Red Amadeus said
@ David_D. What was that about “a male member”?
Selucha said
Thank you for this heartfelt piece.
On a related note: earlier today, I was reading the RCP’s ‘Brief Snapshots from the NYC Pride March” and I noticed how they have no analysis (nor consideration) of queer people and make no mention of the gender binary that their writing seems to subscribe to. Just to be sure, I searched their site and there are no examples where the Party used the term “queer” themselves. Why is that? The extent to which they even discuss LGBT politics seems to center on gay marriage and making critiques (albeit valid ones) of the bourgeois elements that often set the agenda for the LGBT movement; ironically, this is the section of the movement that pushes the centrality of marriage rights and, until recently, repealing DADT.
But even those critiques seem to me often facile. For example, from the “Brief Snapshots” piece:
Is this really true? Does being a representative for the capitalist-imperialist system necessarily imply a moral-opposition to gay marriage?
Where was the mass movement that “forced” this concession?
It seems to me a significant misunderstanding of how the state apparatus of the United States actually works, and it seems that the RCP also misunderstands how oppression of LGBTQ people differs from that of women and oppressed nationalities. This is something that I need to dig into more as well.
@Red Amadeus:
There has been quite a lot of engagement with the historical experience of the RCP on Kasama, both embracing positive elements of that history as well as the negative. I hope you can understand why LGBTQ people are mostly not satisfied with the RCP’s change of position, given that no thorough self-criticism has been made nor apologies given to former cadre adversely affected by the old policy.
Carl Davidson said
A strong leader has ‘a right to build a cult of personality’? I think at root this is a feudal idea, not one for a socialist future. Lenin was a strong leader, and he wanted nothing to do with such things. Besides, in perspective, Avakian is only a big fish is a very small pond.
To the main point: We had a similar line on gays for a while in the CPML. I had to give a speech once defending it. I told people I didn’t really understand it, but was told it was a matter of democratic centralism. There might be many issues that I personally had a difference with, but it was still important to carry it out.
I did so, but took the criticisms from the audience to heart. Then the CPML collapsed, and I went into the LRS, which had the same line–more nuanced in some ways since they were headquartered in the Bay Area, but even worse in others.
I reflected on all the folks I knew were gay in my own life, among my own friends and in my own family. I knew none of them fit the line or ‘chose a lifestyle’. And I knew that anti-gay diatribes came from the same reactionary mindset as racism and male chauvinism. I finally told the rest of the CC that I had no idea why some people were gay and others not, and furthermore, neither did any of them. All the ‘scientific’ stuff put into documents was just a bunch of ‘just so’ stories to justify a backward line, and had nothing to do with real science. Thus what was called for was consistent democracy and acceptance of human diversity.
The LRS didn’t survive either, but thankfully none of its successor organizations carried over the old line. I’m not claiming my stand in that meeting was any big thing; at best, it was a small effort and long overdue. But I was surprised at how many other CC members came up to me afterwards claiming ‘secret’ agreement. In some ways I thought that was even worse. If CC members don’t have the courage to speak their minds and take some hostile reaction in stride, what kind of organization are we building? The class enemy will soon enough put much more severe tests on us and will require a great deal more in the way of courage and conviction. Better create a good practice now.
Gary said
I feel so many emotions reading Libri’s piece.
First of all, compassion for someone so abused by supposed comrades. I can imagine the pain (and fear) inflicted at those coffee shop and Burger King meetings.
Secondly, anger at those inflicting the pain.
Third, puzzlement as to how people who think of themselves as “scientists” (or at any rate have in more recent times encouraged by Bob Avakian to see themselves as scientists) could be so STUPID as to regard homosexual attraction as a problem requiring this kind of intimate interference.
I knew the party was homophobic (and even while in the Brigade in the 70s I opposed the “line of homosexuality”—altho quietly, partly because I thought it might raise questions about my own sexuality) but this is the first I’ve heard about this kind of POLICING of people’s sexuality.
“We’re not interested in being bedroom police,” the RCP used to say when (properly) attacked for their position of homosexuality. But here they were trying to do exactly that, expecting that Libri’s commitment to the cause of revolution and to principles of democratic centralism would cause her to abandon her desire for women and even, to the party’s relief, have some sex with men…
It can only be compared to the counseling programs providing by some Christian groups designed to “cure” gay people of their sinful inclinations.
To be sure, decent reasonable people have at many times in history held irrational prejudices about sexuality. In Marx and Engels’ correspondence you find clear evidence of homophobia. But they lived in Victorian England, while the RCP was attacking gay people (and that’s what the wording of the program, BA’s derisive allusions to “faggots,” the mistreatment of Libri are—attacks!) while U.S. society was undergoing a massive sea-change in knowledge and attitudes.
At one point in the 90s Noam Chomsky, who’d agreed to give a fundraising talk at a Revolution Books, pulled out of the arrangement after learning of the RCP’s position on homosexuality. I was requested (as a friend of the party) to call him and urge him to reconsider. “What am I supposed to tell him?” I asked. Well, I was told, you should explain that the party isn’t against gay people, it just doesn’t think homosexuality is the answer to women’s oppression. It was just the nonsensical line of the 1988 document revising the earlier line (and changing the subject). I declined to call Chomsky and said I think the party should learn from this experience and really change the line.
The RCP basically went from associating same-sex attraction with “bourgeois decadence” to emphasizing that it wasn’t the answer to patriarchy (as though anyone was seriously arguing that it WAS) to (finally) acknowledging error—with some fanfare, issuing that “self-criticism” in (I think it was) 2000. That was largely a self-righteous defense. “We had to study the question, and that took time. Now we’ve studied it, and produced this brilliant, lengthy, footnoted document that explains what we now believe about homosexuality—and, hey, good news, guys—we now think it’s ok to be gay!”
I was glad to see it at the time, because I thought the party was doing good work overall and that they would be able to do better work now that they’d dropped their old line. But I also thought the “self-criticism” didn’t go nearly far enough. Among other things, it made no acknowledgment of homophobia within the party. It made the party’s earlier position sound like one of scholarly caution, changed due to the accumulation of scientific knowledge.
Now the RCP depicts advances in gay rights, including marriage, as products of mass struggle (“forced concessions”). But I agree with Selucha that they are not necessarily that but the result of broad social change influencing everyone from Log Cabin Republicans and Pentagon brass and the leaders of the Methodist church to self-defined communists.
The amazing thing is how the RCP went from seeing homosexuality as something that would be “eliminated” under socialism to seeing it as a right (and even depicting opposition to homosexuality including gay marriage as a key component of “Christian fascism”).
The dishonesty and superficiality, as well as opportunism, of the line change should be obvious. The RCP’s engagement with issues of sexuality (including pornography) remains simplistic, dogmatic and primitive.
Tell No Lies said
Red Amadeus,
What a strange response to this article. Did you read the article? Have you read the comments?
Instead of robotically regurgitating RCP talking points that could have been cut and pasted from an article in the RCP’s paper on virtually any topic, why not take a second to speak to the substance of the article.
If you really believe the things you say about the RCP, doesn’t something like this, which really undercuts what you are trying to argue for, deserve a more substantive response?
If Avakian is such a genius, why did he articulate and promote this terrible line that quite obviously had serious detrimental effects on the viability of the organization you regard as the hope of humanity? Why when the line finally changed was there no serious self-criticism about its noxious effects?
Do you seriously think that a leader and an organization that do this sort of shit is going to command the respect of the advanced in this country?
You do realize, I hope, how your response (complete with follow up dick joke), will only confirm in peoples minds the RCP’s utter lack of seriousness on this question.
anewworld said
What we’re seeing here is the truth being dug up. There’s a tendency that if it’s not within the confines of party influence, outside a paper or even in a “counter revolutionary” setting that it should be ignored/negated, or jokes can be made. I think what we have here are revolutionaries coming off of a Christian Fundamentalist movement being slapped around and ground down during a remarkably historical transformative time (with the 60s/70s coming before that). I applaud Tell No Lies, Selucha, Gary and others for not just towing the line for “the many” but speaking out what’s correct and just for all – in a real substantive, living way.
jfsp said
Gutwrenching story.
It took a tremendous amount of courage to write this story and I applaud you Libri for doing so. From some of the followup comments it appears this was the most extreme of attitudes (RCP) but not alone in them.
celticfire said
There were deeper flaws than just the rotten line on homosexuality that the RCP defended so ardently for years, but it was symptomatic of much larger problems, namely the distorted grasp of the mass line.
Letter 7 stated:
Obviously even when the RCP correct its position there was no admission of damage done, no accounting of the harm to personal lives, and no real summation of the damage done and this was connected to the arrogance as a method that was employed by the RCP so commonly. I remember an RCP member telling once that revolutionary leadership “required arrogance” to actually lead the revolutionary process.
But I don’t believe is true on any level, even towards the enemy, arrogant posturing can have ill effects.
This was systemic in that it polluted the way the Party related to other groups, to organizations and individuals and had an overall isolating effect that in a million ways prevented it from ever establishing alliances, let alone a partisan base.
Miles Ahead said
Libri said, and poignantly so:
I think that what Libri is pointing to is something very serious, and a “phenomena” that has no place in a revolutionary movement or among self-described revolutionaries.
And when Chegitz says, “It’s been seventeen years, and I still have trust issues about communist organizations,” that is not so mysterious to a lot of us who have been involved with organizations such as the rcp.
Would any earnest revolutionary let some racist or sexist remark slide? I sure hope not. But what I think is missing from much of the revolutionary “psyche” is a dire sense of responsibility. Being a revolutionary communist – whether among leadership or cadre, is a tremendous responsibility, and what we say, and our practice, have big implications and ramifications, most especially if various lines (and views) are embraced and carried out more on a mass scale.
We have a responsibility to not simply our particular organization, but to the people worldwide. And with all the bluster, if we think that overthrowing the ruling class in the immediate sense is gonna make everything a-ok, we’re kidding ourselves.
Am not trying to brow-beat the cadre, however, part of the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the cadre—especially as we learn and develop. We’re not simply responsible for carrying out (or memorizing and regurgitating) the dominant line of more “established” leadership, we need to get better at going against the tide, questioning and critiquing, investigation, fighting for collectivity and our principles, et al. even if it means being ostracized within our own little realm. (Isn’t that realm part of something a whole lot bigger and meaningful?)
If something is “rotten in Denmark” I think the attitude should be we need to call it out and struggle against it—even if most of the atmosphere is suffocating or intimidating.
(Shortly after the rcp was formed, I recruited a very devoted revolutionary, and was “responsible” for “working” with her and a few of her friends. About a year later, she was faced with having to make a monumental decision (concerning Iran), came to me for “the answer” and I told her, I didn’t have the answer. Suddenly I thought—who the hell am I in the scheme of things to tell her what to do. So I raised her dilemma with the next body of leadership that I happened to be on at the time. With the exception of one person (who was basically my mentor, and always encouraged cadre to think beyond the obvious, or simply accept the line of the day—he always showed great confidence in the cadre’s abilities), all on this body came up with the usual rhetoric, “the party is first and foremost,” etc., “next on the agenda?”. Cleary this leadership body was not serious about any machinations surrounding the comrade’s real life conflict. I went back to my comrade, told her what this leadership body had said, with an addendum— I’m still not convinced of the “correct” decision, but will support you as my comrade-in-arms )
But in terms of the rcp’s, in particular, reactionary line on homosexuality…Personally I started having fights with leadership even before the rcp was formed, and during discussions of the then “draft programme”—fights escalating in the late ‘70s. Unbeknownst to the majority of my comrades, I became more and more isolated, “demoted”and given new and Jimmy Higgins-style tasks. Then was besmirched with the monikers of – “backward, intermediate,” or “agnostic,” and told on no uncertain terms that I should not be in contact with any of my life-long friends who happened to be gay. And with war-communism as the menu of the day, month, year, who had time to have any contact with anyone anyway?
In 1988 (and out of the rcp by then), I stormed into Rev. Books, because I was so utterly outraged (not just incensed) at the over the top reactionary article in Rev. mag. on homosexuality (basically calling for pogroms.) The answer from a former comrade in the bookstore—“Well, I haven’t read it yet, so can’t really comment…” No sister, you can’t comment because you haven’t been told what to say, and are acting like a “Good German.”
But if you examine the rcp’s “new” manifesto or constitution, you will see it is still very problematic, and the “changes” or attempts at “self-criticism” are limp-wristed. And frankly I think opportunistic. (A more radical-sounding, rhetorical version of ending DADT.)
It is difficult enough to combat contradictions and backward ideas among the people—e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, but to have to go toe to toe with a proclaimed revolutionary communist party or organization, that claims to be the most stalwart fighters against all oppression, is something I don’t think a lot of us bargained for. And when does “revolutionary” leadership, or some forms of “revolutionary” organizations stop mimicking (through the backdoor) the very bourgeoise they’re so set on overthrowing?
In relation to Selucha’s comments re “Snapshots” and his own investigation—he asks, “Where was the mass movement that “forced” this concession?”
To me that is a pivotal question…what concessions have not been wrought from the bourgeoisie, because of developing, ongoing and significant mass movements and militant struggles? And in the case of homophobia (in its multiple forms), Stonewall put things squarely on the political map.
celticfire said
miles ahead: i know you didn’t mean it this way, but the term ‘limp-wristed’ has historically meant a derogatory term towards queer people and many people feel insulted by such a term. that said, i unite with the rest of your statement.
Miles Ahead said
Celticfire…I purposely used that phrase as irony…
saoirse said
I think this is an important discussion. I want to give my sister Libri a hug cause she is a true fighter.
I came out and into the left in the early 90s. I specifically choose to work w. the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation b/c of there consistent vocal support of LGBT rights, the confrontational attitude mirrored organizations like Queer Nation and ACT UP. My transition from working in my college LGBT alliance to Love and Rage was greatly helped by folks like Tell No Lies amongst other women and men in the NY local who was open, welcoming and interested in learning from me and my experiences. At the time using words like bisexual, trans and queer were radical and dangerous even w/in the broader gay community. More than one queer identified women very active in the LES scene told me there were no such things as bisexuals. they were just undecided.
Before joining LnR I surveyed the rest of the left. Workers World had the most advanced work in the community w. obvious ties to people of color communities, at risk youth, more mainstream AIDS activists and the then burgeoning transsexual community (this is pre-transgender never mind concepts like trans, etc). The RCP had a line and I just thought well these gals seem pretty awesome but that line is grotesque. See I came to the left w. a foot already in the LBGT community. So a group like the RCP’s line seem absurd and sad. that they treated trans people like garbage didn’t get as much public discussion until the late 90s outside of informal circles. Groups like FRSO (pre split) were also interested in my student organizing when I met them in the twin cities in the summer of 95 while meeting folks in the ISO I had some rich kids from Columbia telling me that the word queer was alienating to working class lesbians.
I am glad Kasama exist for these discussions to take place. As far as the marriage issue goes I think the mainstream Democrat party sees votes in handing this issue off to states rights and giving the LGBT community a “soft” win for the movement. B/c this is a win for the movement make no mistake. I think some folks are underestimating the importance of the grassroots LBGT activists here who’ve built up communities for decades across America. We may not having a fighting movement at the moment though we have had our moments: stonewall, watts, Matthew Shepard, ACT UP but we’ve built a survival movement outside and sometimes in the 2 party system.
irateadri said
Thank you, Libri, for sharing your story. Shame on the RCP-USA and on its leadership for promoting such hatred. These awful parts of the Left’s past need to be talked about so that they are never repeated.
Mike Ely, what were you doing about this anti-queer line while you were in the RCP?
Red Amadeus said
The line on homosexuality I thought was borrowed from China. It really bugged me the most, but the areas where the RCP was correct (many!) led me to continue promoting the group.
Tell No Lies said
Red Amadeus,
“Borrowed” like one “borrows” a raincoat and then wears it for thirty years? What a cop out. All of your comments indicate a powerful desire not to seriously think about, much less discuss, the damage that this line did to revolutionary communism in the US.
The Bolshevik-led Soviet government was the first modern state on the planet to legalize same sex relations. This was reversed in the 1930s under Stalin as a piece of an overall cultural conservative turn that was then taken up with differing degrees of enthusiasm within the ICM. And yes it was taken up by China and undoubtedly that provided an initial justification for reproducing this line in the RU and then the RCP. But lets be absolutely clear that this line was taken up precisely in the wake of the Stonewall Rebellion and the explosion of the (then) Gay and Lesbian liberation movement, It wasn’t something accidentally adopted, like some inexplicable vestigial piece of code from an earlier version of an operating system. It was an active response to a controversy unfolding in US society at the time on which a decision was made to adopt a reactionary position. This was grounded in both the actual homophobia of many of the leaders of groups like the RCP AND a crudely opportunistic view that such a stance would make it easier to relate to working class people. But of course the effect was only to make it easier to relate to the more conservative elements within the working class who were least receptive to communism. It was utterly and totally reactionary. The efforts to dress it up as part of a commitment to women’s liberation only made it more insulting. It is critical to understand how profoundly damaging this line was. Hundreds of police and FBI infiltrators could not have done more damage.
As a very rebellious bisexual teenager in the late 1970s and early 80s it would have been unimaginable for me to consider joining an ostensibly “revolutionary” organization with such a line. It would have made no more sense than a Black man seeking to join the Mormons. I first read the RU’s position paper “On Homosexuality” as an anarchist pamphlet filled with amusingly homoerotic pictures of various communist leaders embracing, Fidel smoking cigars and so on. It is not an exaggeration for me to say that the anti-gay line of groups like the RCP pushed me towards anti-communist politics. For every queer person like Libri who toughed it out for years within the RCP probably a hundred prospective young communists were chased away. And not just queer ones. Also large numbers of radical straight youth who quite rightly found such bigotry appalling.
Like you, I thought the RCP had enough going for it on other fronts that it was worth struggling with people in and around it. But such efforts were emotionally exhausting and in the end I think the damage done was too severe. It is important to understand how the maintenance of this terrible line and the training of people in defending and upholding it when they knew in their hearts and minds that it was hateful bullshit was central to the cult-like bubble-world the RCP was able to create around its members, with all that implied for the theoretical health of the organization. The anti-gay line chased away critical thinking people in droves and left the organization unable to intellectually regenerate itself from decade to decade. Obviously the anti-gay line wasn’t the only piece of this, but it was very important, and the failure of the RCP to really reckon with this is a testimony to its present irrelevance.
Red Fly said
Thank you to Libri for telling her story and for having the courage to tell it in such a powerful, unvarnished way.
As most of us know, the RCP is hardly the only organization in the history of the ICM to have taken a reactionary position on homosexuality. But I think that, given the stubbornness with which they upheld this wrong-headed position, the fact that they clung to it until 2002 (!), and given the viciousness and outright cruelty with which they enforced it, more than serving as merely an egregious example, the case of the RCP and its leadership in this regard should put into question their entire raison d’etre.
I say all this as an outsider, having never been associated with the RCP in any way. What I know of the group is largely through this website. Now, as much as I respect the knowledge and sincerity of the folks around the Kasama Project, I realize that this is a significant limitation in my understanding of the organization. While I believe in the honest intentions of the former RCP folks here, there’s obviously a subjective factor involved that should, at the very least, give us outsiders some pause in drawing conclusions based solely on the testimony of disgruntled former members.
And let me just also say that, from what I’ve read here, there is actually a hell of a lot to admire about the RCP and its leader Bob Avakian. If the purpose of this site is to somehow denigrate and destroy the legacy of the RCP and Avakian (which I don’t think is the case), then I gotta say, Kasama is doing a terrible job. Because, far from making me despise the RCP, this site has actually had the opposite effect. It has led me to admire (in a real, if qualified way) the legacy of the Party and its Chairman.
I mean, here was a Party that, against all odds, when the ICM was fading (temporarily at least) from the stage of world history, when the era of neoliberalism was decimating even reformist working class movements around the world, here was a Party that steadfastly held, from within the belly of the beast, facing down the system’s petty thugs and enforcers, to the possibility and necessity of socialist revolution. In the darkest of the dark days of these past 30+ years, the RCP, as much or more than any other group in the U.S., served as the keeper of flame for real socialist revolution. And again, this was done in the face of truly horrible objective conditions (conditions so awful that the Party itself was never really able to face up to just how awful they were at the time.) From Maoist street fighting and organizing Appalachian coal miners, to the campaign to free Mumia and supporting the struggles of oppressed people of color, the RCP has consistently and fearlessly (with some successes and many failures — which is to be expected) worked to expose the moral and political bankruptcy of this capitalist-imperialist system and worked to build an organization offering a genuine alternative. From my perspective, the people in and around the RCP both in the past in the present have a lot to hold their heads high about. They’ve shown remarkable courage and conviction throughout the years.
Now, having said all this, I gotta say, there is ZERO excuse for the reprehensible way the Party handled the issue of homosexuality (same with the line around mental illness, btw).
Here we have a Party dedicated to helping the most oppressed people in society free themselves from their oppressors, who at the same time, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, in the midst of often violent repression against homosexuals in this country and around the world, in the midst of a church-sponsored right-wing given to genocidal, eliminationist rhetoric against homosexuals, aligning itself on this issue with the most hateful, bigoted segments of the population. It’s fucking disgusting. Utterly shameful to its core.
Listen to the Libri’s story! Can you not feel the pain and frustration she’s expressing?! How could a Party that champions human liberation have treated a comrade like this?! How could basic human decency have been so willfully shunted aside?!
History has definitively rendered its verdict on the RCP’s line on homosexuality and its treatment of homosexual comrades. That’s undeniable. The RCP can’t change the past. None of us can. But we can decide to face up to it an honest way.
That’s what the RCP has to do now. And they have to do it in a real, public way, not behind closed doors, not by glossing over the previous line and simply pointing to the new one. This wasn’t just a matter of the Party and its Chairman making mistakes. That’s going to happen when we fallible humans get involved in politics. This line, and the forces it served, was much more than an “error” — it was in fact a great crime against the people.
And the process of self-criticism has to start, not with the lower level cadre enforcing the line (though they certainly must do it too), but with the leadership, and in particular, Bob Avakian himself. If what I read here is correct, Avakian used to say that self-described gay people shouldn’t call themselves gays but should instead call themselves “the dismals.” If this is true then clearly “the main man” has some very serious issues to work out, because it appears that the line, far from expressing a genuinely scientific position arrived at through serious study, was at least in part an expression of a contemptible homophobia on Avakian’s part.
RCP cadre should demand not only a public apology, but a real reckoning with the past by Avakian and leadership on this issue. Anything less is a disservice to the causes that the RCP champions, a disservice to history and, ultimately, a disservice to their continued existence as a revolutionary organization.
anewworld said
Red Fly, your logic is perplexing. Libri’s accounts seemed nothing less than an honest account of what she and many others have gone through. How is this a subjective axe to grind? Where is your objective evidence otherwise? How has this propelled your desire for the RCP? I’m not sure how Mumia is a reason? They’ve largely dropped the campaign for Mumia after their “cultural revolution”. While many other people and organizations speak on his behalf. You said you dont think Kasama is out to destroy the RCP. Do you realize the RCP has put a whole package of articles labeling Kasama counter revolutionary? What are your views on that?
Tell No Lies said
Red Fly,
The purpose of this site is most definitely not to tear down the RCP or Avakian. (Though I think a process of debriefing on the part of its former members was necessary.) And I think you are not the only person who has had the experience of coming to appreciate the important positive contributions of the RCP by virtue of discussions here. Its definitely had that effect on me. I’ve learned a lot about the RCP’s history that I otherwise would not have known and that causes me to respect those who were in it more than I did before Kasama came along. All that said, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the RCP to make the reckoning you rightly see as necessary. The sad fact is that bad qualities that plagued the RCP have been greatly exacerbated in recent years and its very difficult to imagine the organization developing at this stage in its development the sort of capacity for collective self-reflection that such a reckoning would require. Its completely anathema to the culture of the organization from everything I understand. I think at this point the most important thing is to learn the lessons of the RCP’s degeneration.
Miles Ahead said
@ Comrade Irateadri–
While you seem to be in agreement overall re this post and various comments, you nevertheless asked–
“Mike Ely, what were you doing about this anti-queer line while you were in the RCP?”
I think your question is somewhat of a red herring. If Mike wants to personally answer, fine…but what Mike was doing is not the point.
There were many in the various organizations, and the rcp more specifically, that did not necessarily agree with the dastardly line on homosexuality, and in other spheres really tried to do and did constructive and “good work.”
The point is, often people raise the “key” importance of political line, line struggle, etc. Except that political line has real consequences–some consequences more profound than others. We’re not just talking in the abstract, but those lines and consequences affect real people and their real lives.
It has been pointed out that i.e., the rcp’s line on homosexuality was/is, even with all its rev. window-dressing, a mirror image of the reactionary lines, ideology and practice of mainly the rulers, but also amongst different sections in society as a whole. But what kind of new society are we about building?
In part, Libri said—“”I’m also writing this because I feel it is a cautionary story for our common future…”
Sure, we want to avoid future errors, and in doing so, can sum up past errors. But other errors will surely be made. But if we are grooming cadre and the advanced to simply follow the lead of (or robotically parrot) some authoritarian figure, or one who speaks from “authority”, and that is the mind set—and we don’t appreciate the role that each of us needs to play in turning things on its head—including bucking the leadership of an organization we may overall respect and want to work with, then I think we will regress. We will continue to make some even grave errors. That mind set is a continuum of the society people live in today, as well as have lived in historically.
IMO, a lot of revolutionaries, mostly concentrated in their leadership, set the bar pretty high for the masses (who are expected to take great risks and make huge sacrifices)—with all sorts of criticisms and ÷prescribed recipes of“how to’s”. But I think we have to raise the bar for revolutionaries—try and be exemplary, and prepare our own minds while organizing forces, and not be intimidated by some iconic leader if that same leader is spewing an incorrect line.
And I think it is pretty common that a lot of revolutionaries don’t go against the tide because they’re afraid of “being wrong,” or called out on the (red) carpet. But if we don’t engage in meaningful struggle, what’s revolutionary about that?
Red Fly said
I think you misunderstand me, Anewworld.
I certainly wasn’t trying in any way to say that Libri was presenting anything less than an honest account! I was merely trying to say that folks here who’ve never been involved with the RCP, myself included, need to do more investigation before we render our verdicts on the organization as a whole. And as I made clear, I take the former RCPers at their word. I’ve never implied that they were being dishonest in any way.
I think the evidence is clear that the line on homosexuality was what Libri and others here have said it was. On other matters though, there are more subjective factors at work, and I think we should be open-minded enough to at least listen to and try to understand things from the RCP’s perspective. But again, with respect to the issue of homosexuality I was categorical in my condemnation of their line.
Libri is a very brave person for putting this out there. I thought I made that clear. Perhaps I could’ve been more clear?
I don’t have a “desire for the RCP” in the sense that I want to join up with them. I’m not sure what gave you that impression. I was merely expressing my admiration for some of their past work, for helping to keep alive genuine militancy and the idea of socialist revolution in the US, and for showing genuine courage in the dark days of the last 30+ years. I think there’s a lot to admire there. Just because the RCP been wrong on any number of things doesn’t mean the entire organization, or even Avakian himself, should just be condemned and written off.
TNL,
I think that’s really sad actually. Avakian had much to contribute to our cause. If he could find it in him to humble himself a bit and be really honest about the past, I think he could still be a valuable contributer. I believe people can change. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I don’t know if Avakian can change, but I try to write people off.
ragingvlad said
@Miles Ahead
Yes, I think what Ely was doing during this period is very important. He was in an influential position in the party, and unless he was both acknowledging the seriousness of this issue and actively struggling against this line, then he shoulders part of the blame for what happened to Libri and any other queer person that was involved with the RCP during this period.
Eli M-H said
I agree with Ragingvlad. Not out of personal vindictiveness, but simply out of a justified curiousity as to how and why honest, principled, radical minded people upheld this vicious, openly hateful position for decades.
Maybe it’s because I’m of a younger generation, but this is a major sticking point to me. This was not just a case of an “incorrect line”; it was, as Red Fly put it, “a crime against the people”. It damaged real people’s lives. Yes, I think there is a desperate need for an extensive “settling of the accounts” with anyone who was in the upper echelons of this party, and who upheld this toxic, anti-human position for, again, DECADES. This can’t be papered over.
Mike E said
Thanks for your interest in my experience during those years and my summation in retrospect. There is, i believe, things to say about responsibility and lessons for future organization. I am hoping to pull something together to share — though I am not sure when.
Gary said
Regarding Mike’s “shouldering of part of the blame”….
The RCP considers itself a Leninist, democratic-centralist organization (as described in Lenin’s “What is to Be Done?” etc.). It seems to have become, at some point, much bigger on centralism than inter-party democracy. But in the theory embraced by the membership, matters are discussed, line is decided, and thereafter party members uphold it. Or if privately dissident they at least do not publicly disagree. They can fight within the organization for a change in line. But they can’t attack the official line.
This is of course different from liberal bourgeois politics. A Republican or Democrat even at the highest levels of office can criticize an element in the party platform and not be expelled. But such parties are seeking to preserve the system, while a communist party seeks to overthrow it, and that requires a kind of military-type discipline. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. We are—some of us anyway—perhaps rethinking the Leninist party model in light of all the changes that have occurred in the world since Lenin’s time, but the commitment of the RCP member to upholding whatever party line existed at the time is not a cut-and-dried moral issue.
The question for many (and this pertains to other issues aside from the line on gays) has been, “Do I stay in this party given all the good it’s doing? Or do I break with it on this particular issue and therefore be excluded?”
I think Mike’s reasons for his break are indicated in the 9 Letters. (While collectively written they are largely his.) They do (Letter 7 especially) allude to the RCP’s “wrong and backward views” on the question. He can speak for himself about how important he considered this error among the others that occasioned his break. But if people are asking “How could anybody be in this party so long, given it’s horrible line on homosexuality,” I’d suggest that individual members committed to a type of discipline determined that the party was the best, most promising vehicle for social change in most of the ways that mattered, and that the lines they disagreed with could be changed over time. I would not rush to judge.
dodge said
No need for any of us to get up on our high horses. We cannot but learn from experience. Any homophobic ideas as a teenage male, eroded over the years, by work in the rag trade. How can one hate a guy/gay that is telling you that RED/GREEN should never be seen!! That my personal dress sense was both pathetic and an eyesore. I told him better girls than him had tried to change me for the better….my poor Ma included. The swanky hotel I spent 7yrs working in also attracted a large number of homosexuals from the four corners of the world. Oh happy days. One of the things it taught me was gays can well take care of themselves and need no patronage from anybody. The assistant general manager was overtly gay and must have been a signal to some that a persons sexuality was not up for discussion.
The above took place during and 7 years after male homosexuality ceased to be a criminal offence….1967 was the date. So hardly surprising there was much confusion about what male homosexuality was….it was obviously hidden, many in numerous professions were open to blackmail or discrimination with jobs and accommodation. Religion too added to the confusion…even outdated medical ideas!!
What is clear to me in as a general rule is that communist parties need to get a grip. Stop this wishful thinking even self delusion they are a vanguard…that a central committee without a vocal and educated membership can function. Thinking is not just for those who take up onerous tasks .it is a job of work set down by Congress….and measured by practise until next congress. Democratic centralism. We need strong leaders, experienced, energetic but when push comes to shove we need principled ones.” This is wrong…this is harmful to us and our cause this has been discussed thoroughly by branch and needs looking at”……. is often the order of the day!! Parties that let leaders do their thinking for them never do what you want them to do . UNDEMOCRATIC- CENTRALISM has its attractions for the lame witted, confused amongst us. They are the first to bemoan the consequences and naturally never see their own fault in the failures. Witness the Labour Party throughout its entire history.
I am happy for what strides gays have made and look forward to many more steps forward. NEVER….NEVER…NEVER…do we want to return to those vile old days……
irateadri said
@ Miles Ahead
I am interested in looking at how those holding positions of leadership in the RCP who were against the policy tried to combat it, and why the RCP held onto such a bogus line for so long. What were the people who worked with Avakian doing, and why didn’t their efforts for progress, assuming such efforts existed, produce results? I think there can be much to learn from such discussions about how struggles within Left parties work, and how to avoid such pitfalls again.
@Mike E
I look forward to reading that.
ragingvlad said
@Gary
Stop being condescending, I don’t not respond well to it at all. I’m well aware of Lenin’s writings, apparently more than you are. The point of democratic centralism is to protect the party from reactionary, counter-revolutionary bullshit like this horrid line. And I don’t care about what Ely wrote in his Dear John letter to the RCP, I’m interested in hearing about what he was doing during the period this was actually happening.
anewworld said
I think Mike is being qualitatively more sincere at digging into this question than many others, through the 9L and actually giving people a living platform to debrief, embrace, and try to give us a chance to give support to those of us who experienced this dreadful period. In contrast to settling the question to “it was reformist/reductionist and borrowed from China” – which I think was a whole different configuration coming off of feudalism – and doesn’t speak to what we faced here in regards to gbltq.
Gary said
Ragingvlad: I don’t think I was being condescending and my comment wasn’t directed specifically to you. For my part I don’t respond well to touchiness and arrogance. “Apparently” you’re more aware of Lenin’s writings than me? Kindly explain how anything you or I have written here indicates your greater awareness.
The point of democratic centralism (as I understand it) is to make revolution guided by a process of decision-making through elected bodies up to the highest one, the central committee, whose decisions must be upheld and carried out by the rank and file. The alternative is to become the “debating society” that Lenin disparaged (for reasons you are undoubtedly aware of).
But there are always going to be bad (even “horrid’) lines being adopted, and those opposed can either say “fuck this” and leave or make the judgment that there’s more good in staying with the party and trying to change the line than leaving (and setting up a new organization, or leaving activism completely).
What is and what isn’t a dividing-line issue? This discussion shows how quite a number or gay, bi or gay-friendly people stuck around the RCP for a long time… some may still. However horrid they thought the line, those in the organization (or the Brigade) stayed in.
I’m also looking forward to Mike’s comments on his own experience. I just don’t think we should assume he “shares blame” because in doing so we assign blame to ALL members of the RCP and RCYB.
This is like assigning blame to all CPSU members for the forced collectivization of the 30s, or all members of the CCP for the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward, or all members of the CPUSA for the party’s endorsement of the Japanese-American labor camps.
Tell No Lies said
Ragingvlad,
If there was some reason to think that Mike didn’t regard his experience in the RCP self-critically or was trying to dodge whatever responsibility he had for not challenging the RCPs anti-gay line sufficiently, your demanding tone might be justified. But that has not been what I have seen. This isn’t the first time this has been discussed here and in previous exchanges Mike has been quite reflective about such matters. Perhaps there is some particular aspect to this that you feel he hasn’t answered to your satisfaction, but thats an occupational hazard of running a blog. Mike has very consistently sought to express his criticisms of the RCP in political terms and has scrupulously avoided giving he said-she said accounts of the RCP’s internal workings thta he was privy to out of respect for their security practices. Unsatisfactory as this approach may be for those hungry for dirt, I think it is very principled. I look forward to reading whatever more Mike might have to add to all this, but I don’t believe he owes you or anyone else a more detailed accounting than he has already given.
Joseph Ball said
I really think when comrades acknowledge their mistakes and change their line it’s wrong to keep on attacking them.
If there was any evidence RCP-USA still has a problems in its line on love of people of the same gender, then I would not try to stop people criticising them.
But if we are going to attack RCP-USA for what it upheld in the past but does no longer, then this criticism cannot just stop with the existing RCP-USA. What of those who left RCP-USA and joined Kasama?
After all they are in exactly the same position-they were in RCP-USA when it was anti-gay, they acknowledged their errors at the same time the rest of RCP-USA did and they only joined a new organisation a few years later.
How are the ex-RCP-USA Kasama members in any different position from those who stayed in RCP-USA when the Kasama group left?
I mean one of the big complaints here is that RCP-USA did not self-criticise enough when they changed their line on love of people of the same gender. I understand what motivates this criticism. It is truly hurtful to be discriminated against and made to feel like you are less than others simply because of what you are. But Kasama, lead by example here! Those among you who were part of RCP-USA., make your own self-criticism.
Revolutionaries always have their bourgeois and reactionary tendencies, just like anyone else. We will not get to socialism without making errors and some of these errors will be grievous. We can only progress through criticism AND self-criticism, not just criticism and criticism….
Jed Brandt said
Joseph, have you previously read accounts of people who went through this?
I have not read this before, and the actual means by which authoritarian control techniques (badgering, guilt-tripping, isolation, etc) were used to impose a line that was also, in itself, reactionary — people need to read stories of what that has looked like. How else do we learn?
The RCP stopped putting gays and lesbians up to different standards than heterosexuals. And their way of dealing with the intimate lives of their members and supporters is 1) not unique to the RCP, despite their proud extremism and cultishness on the issue, and 2) displays a cavalier disregard for real people that is distinct from the “line on homosexuality.”
I feel no need to pick on the RCP. They’ve abused themselves plenty and destroyed the organization. But both myself, and many people I know who dedicated their life to that group are reconstructing their lives. They bear scars from the authoritarian psychological control that group imposed on its members. And talking about it, learning that the abuse and isolation many cadre suffered is not their own failing.
Jed Brandt said
Libri: thank you very much for this account.
Mike E said
I want to tear off a small piece of this tonight:
When talking about the “red closet,” Gary writes:
Jed writes:
In other words, what Libri is describing here has not been revealed or known before. This is not common knowledge inside or outside the RCP. This (to my knowledge) is where it comes into the open.
To put a sharp point on this, let’s add what Joseph writes:
This has never been acknowledged by the RCP (internally or publicly). It has not been criticized. This has been hidden, denied and suppressed. We were all told (inside the party) to move on without demanding (or receiving) such an accounting. And those who did not accept that were targeted for removal from leadership, and ultimately from the party.
To be precise: The RCP has never acknowledged in public that it banned queer people from its ranks. And it has never acknowledged publicly that it pressured gay members and supporters to become heterosexual. And it has never criticized either of those practices.
* * * * * * * *
To turn to my own experiences for a second:
I do feel a joint responsibly in a number of ways for the RCP’s politics and practice (good and bad) — and this is part of that. This is not a process of blaming this or that individual — for what we are learning an organization did. I have, in private conversations (including with Libri) expressed my own sense of responsibility for this (despite of, and perhaps also because of, my degree of disagreement with the analysis the RCP made of same sex attractions). And I will say more about that as I have the time, and as I am able to put it together clearly.
But for now (to tear off that piece), let me just say that it is not just a moment when this “red closet” becomes visible publicly. These practices were also not visible or common knowlege internally.
In that sense, my own discussion of this will be unsatisfying for people who want to know “how did you deal with this?” and “why did it go on so long?”
First, I never knew about such practices. I had no idea that this went on. If I had encountered a gay person within our organization, I would never had dreamed of suggesting that they “convert” to a heterosexuality. If I had been ordered to conduct such a session, I think it would have brought it all to a head for me — since I can’t imagine that I could have carried out such a policy. (And I assume they would have selected for such a task someone they know could carry out the browbeating and pressure.)
And I imagine it is not just me who did not know of this. I think it was generally unknown that this was the policy. I suspect it is still not known within the RCP. (And to point out the juncture in Libri’s story — the actual meetings of “struggling” with her were conducted in isolation from her Brigade chapter, away from others, with “reliable” people, and (I assume) were secret from anyone who was not in the room.
Certainly, in the period of “changing the RCP’s line” (in 2002-2003), it was sharply forbidden to question “who had this political analysis hurt,” and “what was the cost of this analysis,” and “what exactly were the policies that flowed from this analysis,” and “who was responsible for this analysis — where was it decided, when and by whom.” All such questions were forbidden, and when the lid came off (and when they were raised with passion and determination), the whole explosive mix was one of the triggering events of the Avakian self-coup of 2003.
And to be explicit about the double-think: As we were discussing (inside the RCP) the new line and analysis, a leading person said that we must deny and repudiate the claims that we have a policy banning gay people from membership. (This was aimed at me, since I had been arguing we should, finally, reverse that policy). The situation was, this person went on to explain, that we had a specific analysis of the reactionary nature of same sex relations, and that knowing this, it would be strange if gay people wanted to join. In other words, in this logic, not only was being gay a quasi-political choice made by gay people, but not joining the RCP was also political choice that they would make after understanding our analysis. This was not a ban or a discrimination — this was merely a disagreement of analysis (they chose to think being gay was ok, we chose to think it was not).
So it was even said that it was an “anti-party” lie to claim that the RCP had discriminated against gay people. (And, to be clear, this was the view after the “change.”) And so to ask that the ban be lifted was itself a misrepresentation of what the situation had been.
I was myself accused of encouraging such “anti-party” demands of accountability and self-criticism within the party. And that was an early part of the framework for the struggle that led to my resignation.
But, still to this day, there are no answers to those questions of why it took so long to change. There was an official explanation: It is embedded in the conversations between Bill Martin and Bob Avakian — where Avakian essentially says that the problem was uncritically adopting analysis and reductionist method from the Comintern — and that he (and the rest of the leadership) was too busy (in the 1980s) with other matters to dig deeply into the problem of reductionism inherited. In other words, this was not hostility toward gay people, it was merely a reductionist analysis of complicated matters. And the policies had continued because other things had, naturally, taken priority — this is speaking about the 1980s, with the Religious Right attack on gay people, the AIDS epidemic raging, and important struggles rising from ACT-UP and many other corners! I think we should publish that passage, so that everyone can themselves evaluate this explanation of why and how the policy lingered!
And agreeing with Avakian’s assessment (apologia) in that chapter of the Conversations book was considered a litmus test of anti-party and anti-leadership sentiment — it was considered a confession of hostility to communism and Marxism, etc.
irateadri writes above:
Well no shit. Everyone is interested in looking at that too. But at this point, we (none of us!) don’t have any idea how the struggle and formation of policy went on in that leadership.
And to be clear: I was personaly never in the leadership of the RCP — in the simple sense, that there were places where policy and line were set, and others where it was accepted and implemented. I was never at those places in the party where policy and line were set and therefore where the actual formative line struggle took place.
And within the party generally, there was very very little discussion of these views and policies — it was suppressed. And that is why the lid blew off so violently when a discussion was opened at all levels in 2003-2003. (Avakian writes that he was afraid opening the “Gay Question” might tear the RCP apart — and I believe it ultimately played a major role in doing just that.)
This was an organization of watertight internal secrecy. Those involved in carrying out a policy knew of it. But there was very little gossip where I was, not casual telling of tales, or sharing of political qualms outside of tightly defined (and non-functioning) channels.
Incredible as it now seems (especially after reading Libri’s horrible story): I never heard of people being identified as gay and then pressured to be hetero sexual. What Libra is expressing here is something that was not generally known or announced. And yet I suspect it happened, and not just once or twice.
The fact that this has not been know, never been acknowledged, and never been criticized is, after all, why she and I decided to publish this for discussion — precisely because it reveals something denied and hidden. And because it gets to the heart of the implications — of such an anti-gay line — but also the implications of such a structure utterly without internal debate and accountability.
irateadri said
Mike E,
Thank you for the response. That clarifies things for me.
anewworld said
I think the “heterosexual conversion”, as harmful as it was, was just a piece of a larger well known policy of homophobic exclusion, humiliation, and regulation that was well known – obviously those who set line were aware of it based of BA’s denial fantasies. Saddening it seems there will never be a thought out response by them.
Vern Gray said
On two particular aspects of this:
First, Libri’s is the only public account that I have seen of what it was like to have been struggled with by the RCP to change one’s sexual orientation. But yes, there were other cases.
I heard it on good authority, around 1990, i.e. following the RCP’s “first change” (an extremely limited one) of its line on homosexuality in 1988, that there were “some” women (I would not be surprised if that meant two) in a particular city who had been provisionally recruited into the RCP with the stated understanding and on condition that within some definite period of time they would change their sexual orientation. And, of course, that was seen as an “advance” on a policy that banned any lesbians outright from being party members (there still were to be no gay men admitted, a policy that also followed from the 1988 position).
I don’t know what happened after that—whether they were “converted” or whether they had to withdraw from the party. But since the basic policy was the same as in Libri’s case, rooted in the same view that sexual orientation was an ideological choice and lesbianism was politically a type of feminist reformism, it seems reasonable to think that the basic attitude toward the struggle that had to be carried out by and with these women had many similarities with the struggle that Libri was a victim of, even if—IF—it may have been in some ways carried out less crudely.
The other thing I want to say is that we should dig into more at some point the general attitude of the RCP toward self-criticism.
The short-on-substance but contorted, long-winded, and obscurantist “self-criticism” in the 2003 pamphlet about homosexuality has much in common with many others that the RCP has issued over the years, whether around the Boston busing issue in 1974 (see Avakian’s autobiography), the work of World Can’t Wait and the party’s work in it (after the second major push in 2005), the analysis of the Christian fascists, some of Avakian’s own philosophical writings, the party’s summation of the world situation and analysis of current capitalist economy in the 1980s and into the 1990s (for one thing, there was no explanation in the 1999 pamphlet about why it had taken ten years since the collapse of the USSR to publish even that rather thin analysis)—one could reproduce many other examples.
And it is important to realize that these were only the cases in which the party made some kind of public “self-criticism,” even if only a minor one. There were many more cases where it did not.
Avakian’s own stated attitude was that he “did not like to be criticized”; later, during the RCP’s “cultural revolution,” he stressed that no one should raise any critical thoughts about his writings until they had read them many, many times. (I knew one dedicated revolutionary supporter of the party who said he had watched the 2003 video about 40 times . . . holy Moses.) The RCP simply did not function as what Mao called, “a party of criticism and self-criticism.”
And the result? “Where the broom does not reach, the dust does not disappear of itself.” Using the Kasama site, we have the opportunity to wield a big broom.
Mike E said
I agree with what Vern is saying. Part of taking responsibility and avoiding new mistakes is accountability.
It was never enough to “change your line” without excavating what it had meant and how it was done. And this require a real accounting by the leadership. Some people on the RCP leadership and standing body must have insisted on these ideas and policies for many years — and they should have been known to the membership, and it should have been possible to remove them from posts of such influence if this was decided by a party congress.
And, obviously, it is hard to imagine that this small knot did not include Bob Avakian himself — which is what made this whole affair so explosive.
* * * * * * * *
This is in real contrast to Joseph’s misconception of what he is seeing:
Indeed! What should we do — those of us who left the RCP and joined Kasama?
We should do this work. We should excavate what we know of these errors. We should end the shameful whitewash and cover up. We should attempt to sum up causes for such errors — structural, ideological, even psychological. We should speak about how it was possible — in a political trend that was otherwise so radical and thoughtful in other ways, in a membership that was so dedicated and lofty in other ways. How could such an organization have been blind (no, hostile!) to the justified struggle against bigotry and abuse?
Who can ever trust communists if we don’t treat this seriously? Or if we repudiate this merely with a simplistic and superficial distancing?
We are doing an excavation in the context of an internal coverup.The RCP leadership attempted to suppress anger and exposure over this anti-gay line — and was a significant factor in the purges that quickly wracked the organization. Those determined to demand explanations and accountability were targeted — removed from leadership in some cases, run out of the organization in others, simple browbeaten into silence in other cases.
This is not only about homophobia (and passivity by those who didn’t share it). There were clearly structural problems that we need to identify — mis-use of security culture, leadership posts for life, whateverism, an organization with no channels for challenging anything. The RCP’s leadership was able to maintain this bigoted (and theoretically ridiculous) policy in the face of serious but diffuse dissent within their party and its periphery. They were simply immune — their membership was kept uninformed and passive, and they were held above criticism and accountability.
Exploring these events — critically and collectively — is not (as Joseph mis-perceives it) some exercise in “attacking the RCP.” That would truly be beating a dead horse. The RCP is moribund (though Joseph may not see that from Britain). There is no reputation to destroy. It has destroyed itself. No one cares about the RCP today. No one.
This is not about the RCP today. It is about a very important and damaging episode involving one part of the communist movement of the U.S. This was one of the reasons the RCP lost “the 80s generation” of radicals. Whether gay or straight, that generation of radicals was not going to join an organization that banned gay people. This episode also created significant and somewhat cynical distrust for communist “analysis” among important and often quite radical sections of people (including veterans of the RCP itself).
How can we not excavate this?
For those of us who were part of the RCP, this is a way to “make things right” — to help others learn from our blindness, or passivity, or (in the case of those persecuted) from our bitter experiences. This is taking responsibility. We will simply appropriate the history of the RCP for our coming project of commmunist regroupment — absorb what was positive and sum up what was negative. (And not just from the RCP, obviously).
Miles Ahead said
To begin with, I apologize if this is somewhat convoluted, and I sure as hell apologize for its length. This post seems to have opened Pandora’s Box, and still has me reeling..
In comment 45, Irateadri said:
My comment is not to belittle Irateadri, but while Mike shed light on the subject at hand, I don’t think it is as simple as…oh okay, now I see, and that’s that.
The dynamics of any organization are a whole lot more complex—and Mike tried to unravel some of those complexities, in particular within the rcp. There was also the post by “ish” –“Closet Rules: My Story of Survival”, revealing a similar (in some ways different) experience within Trotskyist groupings.
Within this discussion, like any decent discussion, think there are a couple of things going on.
On one level, how LGBT members or supporters of the rcp were treated, and on another level, and in my view maybe more important, the actual rotten line on homosexuality that led to not just the shitty treatment of cadre or potential cadre, but a formulation opposed to an entire section of the people…ultimately against the people en masse. To stretch the point, perhaps in a more sweeping sense, this incorrect line, in a somewhat circuitous way, potentially dashes some hopes for a future and more liberated society in general..
Seems to me, there are the internal workings, line, forces and actions of an organization, and then there are the external effects, impact, ideologically and politically, the reverberations of the internal on and (reaction) from the external forces. In other words, the rcp’s reactionary line on homosexuality took its painful toll on those internal to the organization, those in the “red closet”, but the overwhelming opposing reaction from external forces took its toll on the rcp overall.
Mike said,
Well, what WAS known, most especially outside the confines of the (insular) rcp, was how reactionary the line on homosexuality actually was. Some people were horrified and the reactionary line caused a furor!. And as I said before, this was formulated in a more public way starting with the Draft Programme, written and discussed on the path to party building. With the line carried forth in the actual (old) rcp programme once the party was formed, perhaps somewhat more refined.
Maybe this is going to sound cynical as hell, but…I sincerely don’t believe that the rcp or more specifically its leadership, came to a more “enlightened” position on homosexuality because they were indulging in real self-criticism; that it took 30 years to engage in real “scientific and revolutionary” discovery and investigation should tell people something.
What I truly believe is, the real reason they were forced to retract anything mainly had to do with the fact that for those 30 years, the rcp had become a pariah, was shunned and vociferously criticized by mainly gay (with lots of straight allies) progressive/radical activists and revolutionary-minded people. It didn’t take those same activists 30 years to decide that the rcp’s line on homosexuality was thoroughly bankrupt.
And the rcp lost a ton of support from those very forces, who at different points were relied upon, to reach a broader audience, and engage in their various campaigns. This section of their United Front was crumbling, and righteously so. How could. the likes of women’s health collectives, radical feminists, political activists, progressive authors, professors, students, etc. sign on and sign up, when the rcp, was blatantly and overtly attacking homosexuals? Sounding as Falwellian as Falwell himself, or really in lockstep ideologically with Anita Bryant?
I just went back and reread the rcp’s new manifesto and constitution of 2008. I suggest for anyone who is interested, they do the same.
And while I’m not an advocate of lifting certain quotes out of context, it seems revealing that especially under the section “Our Past Analysis of the Question of Homosexuality–what was right, what was wrong, how we came to recognize our significant errors, and what we can all learn from this,” homosexuality is still (sometimes euphemistically) referred to as a “phenomena.” (!)
And practically off the bat, the rcp manifesto states:…”While we will discuss later some of the strengths as well as weaknesses of the 1988 Revolution magazine article, “On the Question of Homosexuality and the Emancipation of Women,” we continue to feel that the argument in the following section of that article is basically correct and important:”
In large part, they are still upholding the 1988 Rev. mag. article, but with added emphasis on the emancipation of women. And there are still hints of the “innate” misogyny that is stereotypically associated with homosexuality, most especially gay men.
(one example—“While this is not the place to attempt an in-depth analysis of the origins and development of the patriarchal family, it is important to understand its role in putting the stamp of the institutionalized oppression of women on all forms of human sexuality.”)
In terms of recruitment, I found this “odd”. While these days LGBT will supposedly not be discriminated against, and can join and participate, it is clearly stated that all is under the leadership of the proletariat (and proletarian morality) and its vanguard party.
(from the Manifesto–“Can homosexuals be progressive revolutionary allies and even revolutionary communists and members of the revolutionary vanguard party? The answer on both counts is yes. Like everyone else, homosexuals are not objectively defined by (or reducible to) their sexual practices, and homosexual individuals objectively contribute to society in many different ways.”)
But what this sounded like to me was—an implied separation between the proletariat (and by innuendo the vanguard party) and LGBT…almost as if the proletariat was basically (maybe even strictly or more monolithically) heterosexual.
Finally, Mike said:
Sorry, but this had me thinking, yet again, about democratic centralism. Maybe things changed since my lengthy stint in the rcp, but more and more and with a complete departure from the early days of the RU, where lots of things were up for grabs, there was very little discussion, certainly less debate, among the rank and file on most questions. And certainly there was no avenue for debate about something as controversial as the rcp’s leadership’s tenacious and stubborn position on homosexuality.
Over the years, there was a huge breakdown between “Chain of knowledge” and “Chain of Command” weighing very heavily on the latter. “Need to know” was a nice excuse to stifle questions and/or debate. So while things may have been “wrangled”(oy) over in the upper echelons, it certainly didn’t come down the pike that way.
So how are “policy and line set” anyway? I thought it was supposed to be…bottom up, top down.
And under what circumstances is democracy primary and centralism secondary? Or the other way around?
And I am really sorry to say – because I still to this day have faith in so many genuine comrades, but IMO the structure of the organization, with an emphasis on untouchable and omnipotent leadership, and somewhat related to the division of labor, led to a lot of very honest forces being groomed to be some of the best sycophants around. Tragically, a lot of very genuine and earnest revolutionaries were lost in the process.
Mike E said
Miles writes:
How can it not? Perhaps not in some sweeping condemnation of democracy and centralism — but certainly the particular form of organization developed by the RCP — which had zero democracy, and a highly structured centralism. And that used security as a way of preventing the membership from having any real knowledge of their own organization (its size, its setbacks, its policies, etc.)
There was no discussion of politics and policy before decisions had been made — so discussions were always under conditions when the specific line was there and the discipline to adopt it in force. The rare exception was the period right before the “important party meeting” of 2003, when there were discussions of the draft program — and by then discontent had so built up, and differences were so acute, that it all erupted over the outrageous 25 years of anti-gay politics.
clearly.
Joseph Ball said
I am sorry, but I don’t quite understand what Mike is saying when he talks as if he didn’t know what was going on in the party. OK, he didn’t know about specific cases of discrimination like Libri’s but he knew perfectly well what the RCP-USA’s position on same-sex love was. Mike joined the Party voluntarily and stayed in it voluntarily. This doesn’t disqualify Mike or anyone else from criticising the Party’s old line on this issue. But what I think is inappropriate is for Mike to completely distance himself from the line saying he wasn’t part of the leadership, he didn’t know people were being discriminated against etc. If a party has a bad line on same-sex love, it’s not hard to realise that members of it are likely to have a discriminatory practice. I see so often with supporters of Mao that they just do not have this line of self-criticism. They are always blaming others for things but never taking responsibility themselves. This happens time after time, not just on this issue and it is a complete contradiction to Mao’s line on self-criticism.
In this context, I want to take back a comment I made in an earlier post: ‘I really think when comrades acknowledge their mistakes and change their line it’s wrong to keep on attacking them.’ I think this was inappropriate. People still have a right to criticise the line of the RCP-USA on this issue. It’s clear that people have been hurt by this and my previous comment should have taken this into account to a greater extent. However, I would say again that is inappropriate for those who were part of this themselves as voluntary party members to simply attack RCP-USA over this without acknowledging their own role in this.
jfsp said
Mike wrote:
I wonder, I know people in and around the RCP, they have a number of Revolution Books around the country, they hold events both in and out of the bookstores, Carl, Sunsara and Alan regularly do appearances, interviews and a radio show and hold fundraisers amongst other activities. Now I’m not a fan of the RCP but I don’t think the horse is dead.
Miles Ahead said
First Joseph Ball in Comment 51:
I am not making excuses for Mike, or anyone else…but I have to ask, what person, including Joseph, does not voluntarily join some organization that they think represents their overall POV? Is someone, at this stage, putting a gun to their head to join?
Unfortunately, with a lot of organizations, most especially those who are considered (or touted as) revolutionary communist—the gun pointed at your head comes later—to recite the accepted (and doctrinaire) line as some catechism.
But I also think people being attracted to an organization, or actually joining, cannot be divorced from what is, or not is, happening in the world. And I also think, at least initially, this has something to do with both what you are exposed to, as well as some answers you may be seeking. Does that organization’s overall line connect with and speak to your own observations and experience thus far?
Personal example—hopefully without the entire (and boring) grocery list of some political resumé…I was active as a teenager in the Civil Rights Movement, then the FSM, then the anti-war movement (which in the main was not an anti-imperialist movement), flirted with anarchism, worked with the BPP and farmworkers, ad nauseum.
As far as M-L-M went, I was a pretty much a fresh-slate—but was romantically in love with the Bolshevik revolution, and thought the Communist Manifesto liberating.
In my 20s I met the (new and fledgling) RU. They were putting the Vietnam war in a whole new context—an anti-imperialist one, and that was eye-opening, appealing and answered some lingering questions not just on my mind, but for lots of other activists. And other activists also voluntarily joined lots of other organizations—some becoming just as sectarian, dogmatic, authoritarian and dismissive of their cadre (and others) as the rcp became.
M.E. said—
And that is true and is how things developed very methodically within the rcp. (It is also true that there was – obviously except for the line on homosexuality—a change in line, more often than not; with no explanation, and little if any discussion. The “train had left the station” but the train more started to resemble “Murder” (of ideas and struggle) “on the Orient Express.”)
But in contrast to what Mike said, I distinctly remember a very open discussion, in the early days of the RU, about Chile. Instead of a hard and fast summation, or heavy-handed line coming down on say Allende, cadre were encouraged to do their own investigation, to bring different POV to the table. It was like we were collectively part of an investigative and political team, even though the person leading the discussion had brought some prepared (more of an historical nature) summations. The atmosphere was comradely, even with big disagreements, and encouraged discussion and debate.
Personally I took that kind of outlook and approach with me for the most part throughout my year’s in the rcp. (I quit in the mid-80s.) But in defense of other comrades, I don’t think I was alone.
But the rcp’s methods of leadership became more (and over the top) entrenched in both centralism and promoting certain leaders—who were towing the line both literally and figuratively. And some “loose cannon” like myself was (purposely) isolated. At best you were considered disruptive (and not too ite-bre), at worst considered counter-revolutionary.
And if an individual disagreed or questioned the edicts, or worse was thinking of quitting out of good conscience, you were treated like you were subhuman. And let’s face it, for many who are steeped in the line of some organization, a loyal devotée, and that organization unfortunately has become your raison d’être, you’re not so quick to either quit or call that organization’s line into question…let alone asks some questions. The mind-set for a lot of people becomes like the fuckin’ army, or some cult.
“The movement is everything…” Au contraire. The party or organization, and its leaders, become “everything,” even to the exclusion of the very masses one purports to want to liberate.
It is more than sad. And completely bastardizes or waylays any revolutionary spirit or struggle, in theory or practice.
I keep harping on something…because I think it poses a continued danger to the thrust of any semblance of a revolutionary movement or organization. (We have a lot of dangers to be astute about, and not just revisionism.) And that is, that cadre need to be more forthright and when it is necessary, go against the tide. Attempt to think things through more, not be so accepting, struggle for a higher and more collective plane in the realm of ideas—even if one ends up being “wrong”. So what? We’re not about being right or wrong for our own edification, or to placate some “leader”—aren’t we about being part of something more grandiose?
Does leadership not have anything to learn from the “led”?
I think they have a shitload to learn, and instead of the arrogance that’s so preponderant among a lot of the leaders of various organizations, they need to learn to eat some humble pie.
And unfortunately I think that atmospheric arrogance, concentrated in some of the leadership, has an adverse effect on the rank and file—and at times some of the rank and file think they have all the answers, which have been spoon-fed to them by some “leader.” Or since the r & f are viewed as so low on the food chain (of knowledge—the masses even lower), then unless dictums come from the leadership, they shouldn’t have any questions or answers at all.
This whole method, under the guise of simply we gotta have leadership, a party, d.c., IMO turns revolutionary politics on its head.
What kind of leadership? What kind of an organization? One that not only stifles (and intimidates) its cadre, but takes 30 years to sum up some errors and mildly retract those errors; one that will deal with the “phenomena” of same sex love, after being initially victorious, and then they’ll deal with that “phenomena” under socialism? I think not.
land said
JFSP: I don;t think anyone is saying they don’t exist.
jfsp said
My experiences late 70′s, 80′s and early 90′s were the opposite with the experiences written here. There were no divisions at first but the divisions that ended up coming to the forefront were with veganism, animal rights, alcohol and tobacco, gays and lesbians were never an issue and never even came up, and there were many of them within the ranks. All our early struggles were against skinheads like CASH and other groups in Chicago like them.
Vern Gray said
Right. Of course they can participate in coalitions, put on programs, try to make a splash, and keep churning out publications; they can critique the creationists, expose police murders, and defend women’s reproductive rights. But focusing on all that misses the point. To call the RCP dead from the standpoint of communist revolution means that the chances of its morphing—ideologically, politically, and organizationally— into something that could lead a revolution to establish socialism and then guide a socialist society toward communism are essentially equal to zero . . . put as many zeroes after the decimal point as you like. “Birds cannot give birth to crocodiles.”
Adelson Velsky Landis said
Interesting article. Except for “memorized the entire canon of MLM theory”. Probably more like “sounded like they memorized the entire canon of MLM theory”. The typical cadre I have talked to in Revolution Bookstores known almost nothing of MLM theory outside of the somewhat narrowly defined school which Avakian promulgates. Although I have to say, cadre do read literature of a wider berth than say, many Trotskyite cults.
guytoyourleft said
Tremendous thanks to Libri for kicking this off by sharing her experiences. It’s a shame that these kinds of expressions of intimate life need to be shared with a large group in order to get people to understand the insidious brutality of oppression. I know that I personally would prefer to share such things with the near and dear. It is brave and extremely generous of Libri to share her story in order that we can learn.
I’d also like to thank those who were part of RCP at the time these oppressions were being perpetrated in helping to bring these things into the light of day. I think that this is a beginning of the kind of liberation that we’re struggling for in society. The alternative seems to be to deny that such struggle is necessary.
I came to communism much later, through the current and ongoing antiwar movements. I’m a gay man who hasn’t had to suffer through such old-time-religion orthodoxy in my experience with the left. Much of the brunt of that struggle has been born by others that I am grateful and beholden to. As a gay man who has survived growing up in christian fundamentalism, I’m kind of surprised that socialists/communist should think we would be the exception. As if we’re innately superior to and not a product of our society. This is a great reminder that we must struggle for our own liberation and for the liberation of our society.
I often find myself having to call out instances of heteronormativity. It’s not usually as brutal and reactionary as homophobia, but oppressive nonetheless. People who would not dream of holding a multi-day meeting on Martin Luther King weekend will have no problem with a conflict with gay pride celebrations. I find that people of good will and usually high intellect, people I love and I feel love me, still have blind spots. That’s why these conversations are not a luxury. We need them.
I’m reminded of the great line from a scene in the movie Milk. A drunken Dan White is yelling “Harvey Milk has an issue!” Harvey corrects him: “This is not an issue Dan. This is my life.”
Thanks for the willingness to constructively struggle comrades.
Hamiltone Bohn said
I have not read every single post here, but would like to add something.
At base, the reactionary line on homosexuality that the RCP held for decades, came from the same source of most of it’s political shortcomings, Stalinism. During Stalin’s rise in the USSR, the laws were changed from legally recognizing the rights of gays to making it a crime.
The RU, coming as a rightward moving group out of SDS, was stillborn as a revolutionary force.
It embraced all the most backward social prejudices of the Mao and the CCP, and always had an incredibly subjective analysis of the world (“We’re the toughest, the baddest. . . ). In the 70s, the RCP pulled out several comrades they had working in steel mills with decades of seniority to build a fucking May Day demonstration (Well, duh, Bob Avakian says it will be the beginning of something BIG!)! Thus blowing the RCP out of an industry that they would have no chance of getting back into. This almost idiotic waste of time and people is sad. Maoism is done, guys. It is just a particular variant of Stalinism. Without a country of its own, it has no appeal and no pull. So, “dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere, and never seek hegemony!” Oh, and while you are at it, read some Marx, Lenin and Trotsky and learn why Stalin was “the gravedigger of the revolution.”
Red Amadeus said
Stalin? Well, the GPCR (Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) was led by Mao and theChinese Communist Party, and it contained within it some bad lines.
On the whole, however, the GPCR was a very positive decade (1966-1076), and temporarily prevented capitalist restoration in China, long enough for some really extraordinary advances to be made!
The GPCR changed my life! I was going to China Books and Periodicals getting copies of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and of course Mao, and all the reading I did in those books really gave me a terrific new understanding and orientation.
I am not a fan of the many mistakes of the GPCR, but I must uphold it as very inspiring and good!
The line on homosexuality was lousy, but that line is being worked on by the RCP, and many others are grappling with trying to get it right!
It’s a tough question!
Jed Brandt said
Miles Ahead writes:
This theory of democratic centralism as epistemology reminds me of monarchism, the feudal state and the concept of the divine right of kings. By standing above it all, the monarch is the law, the good, the true, the beautiful. But the monarch isn’t above it all, and all the trappings of the sublime (or science and their supra-historical leader, in the case of the RCP) are just more incense in the church rafters.
Democratic centralism — I have never seen it practiced (under its own name) as anything but commandism with participatory trappings to enforce the diktat. Disagreement is masked as “misunderstanding” and lengthy indoctrination sessions weed out the non-compliant. This is the true horror of the way in which Marxist-Leninist groups used the Trotskyite boogyman. A whole range of different, often contradictory ideas, were grouped to be discarded. Or in post-New Left vernaculars, “identity politics” and “economism” and “adventurism” all served as handy ways to discard any ideas (specifically in the RCP) that engaged people in their real lives.
To deal with the real was, to Avakian, to not only be trapped in the current system — but to look at the earth from outer space (as his newspaper now prefers to show the world) — like a deity. Democratic centralism as a theory of knowledge is a travesty, and the case of this twisted line on sexuality is a perfect (THE perfect) way to see that. There was no information back up the chain, because at the very top stood a leadership cluster that viewed homosexuality (and pleasure and love and so on) as a pathology to be managed in dealt with. All evidence to the contrary, in the face of a generationally defining shift in our understanding of gender and liberation.
Mike E said
Lenin writes:
Red Amadeus writes:
You assert precisely what is being disputed –for very good reasons. The RCP have tried to sweep this under the rug. They tried to portray the “error” as merely one of method or theory or reductionism — and whitewashed any question of internal bigotry, mistreatment, accountability.
They are, in other words, not “working on it” — they have been trying to deflect attention, ignore the problems, hide the actual details, “move on”… and your approach on this reflects their influence.
You can’t simply “assert” that they are “working on it” — when in fact they are not. they expelled people for demanding that it be worked on.
RW Harvey said
Seems like Miles and JB have hit on something important — the issue of democratic centralism as a way of deepening our understanding of the world. How is it that lines are established and agreement is forged. In the case of homosexuality it seems like a nightmarish combination of the cult around Avakian and the ideological stranglehold on RCP members/supporters that the RCp was the only force able to make revolution in the U.S. Avakian may be one of the biggest homophobes I’ve ever met. During a week spent with him when he was touring back in the day all he could joke about was an incident in Eugene, Oregon (years before the party was even formed when the gay community denounced him at a speech), and incessantly demanding the the Party take back the word “gay” and henceforth call homosexuals “dismals.” Of course this always got big laughs internally (good soldiers that we were).
How could one possibly even imagine arguing face to face with Avakian about homosexuality? The Chairman? The ideological power within the leader/led contradiction is so potent that frankly it poisons (I believe inevitably) the supposed function of democratic centralism as being a mechanism of obtaining the best, most accurate knowledge. I mean, think of Libri’s story and the utter viciousness — exactly the same mentality as the homophobic Right — of attempting to psycho-emotionally destroy someone’s very being. This is some dangerous shit that has ramifications for any future party formation, for running a state after the seizure of power, of handling contradictions among the people, and of ever, ever making a transition to communism.
So, it’s not “just” about homosexuality; contained within this one contradiction is an entire nest of ideological things to untangle.
Mike E said
To tear off a second piece:
I spoke earlier about my own relationship with this anti-gay line within the RCP. Let me be more explicit (if still fragmentary).
The RCP line after 1988 had three parts:
1) They argued that discrimination against gay people was wrong. And gave lipservice to opposing sodomy laws, gay-bashing, etc.
2) They argued there was something fundamentally wrong and reactionary about same sex attractions, and with gay and lesbian relations, and the existing gay communities as such.
3) They argued that “the homosexual question” was not a “cardinal question” worth splitting over.
These three arguments are rather obviously in contradiction.
How can you claim to be against discrimination if you argue that homosexuals will be re-educated until homosexuality disappears (pre-1988 position), or if you maintain the right to exclude gay people from your organization (post 1988) — an organization you claim will be the key social and political organization of a future socialist society?
When I talk about taking responsibility for this — I think that those of us who were members of the RCP should take responsibility for all of that. We may not personally have believed or supported all of the official line — but we were part of the organization, and we did (as part of its discipline) publicly defend those views.
And, as several people have said in various way, the reason we were part of that organization is that we believe it was a valuable revolutionary attempt. We believed that it made major contribution to the political landscape. And (this is important) we also thought that (at this time in the 1980s and 90s) it was capable of correcting itself, learning and reversing wrong approaches.
It is not itself that startling that a political organization had anti-gay politics. The whole society had an entrenched, ancient, visceral, un-apologetic hostility toward gay relations. But it is startling that after clear and vocal mass struggle arose against such anti-gay bigotry, that the RCP leadership did not question their views. And it is particularly stark that they imposed those views — in the face of internal opposition, in the face of many kinds of external critique (friendly and unfriendly), in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, in the face of rightwing anti-gay offensives, in defiance of widespread research and analysis of same sex attractions.
One part of society after another moved toward tolerance and equality. And it has to be said that the RCP was (literally!) behind the U.S. military and even Dick-fucking-Cheney in their political stance and evolution. That is why the question became, not just how could we be so wrong, but also how could this have taken so long. It was not simply (or mainly) a question of theory and analysis (or as Avakian claimed, methodology and priorities) — it was a problem of entrenched bigotry in high places, and an obvious untouchability and unaccountability in the RCP leadership.
And, since the RCP has (with great force and vehemance) refused to treat this seriously — we who have left the RCP (as precisely part of our responsibility) need to do so.
* * * * * * * * *
Let me say a few things about my own views and self-justifications.
I have always felt great attachment and loyalty to the RCP. I believed (and believe) that it was a serious, important and determined attempt at preparing revolution. When I was in its ranks, I obeyed its rules. I defended its line publicly (even when I disagreed). I respected its channels. And (quite obviously) I also gave the organization itself great respect — i often assumed (when I disagreed) that I was wrong and the organization was probably right…. and i believe there were many times when that view was right.
In regard to queer relations and attractions: I grew up in New York City’s Greenwich Village — in the middle of one of the worlds most developed gay communities. I was not part of that world, but was certainly part of a climate of tolerance toward interracial and sexual subcultures. Personally I had many of the typical male avoidances of gay life — but when the Gay Liberation movement emerged in the late 60s, it was (I assumed) part of our movement (even if I didn’t then understand that deeply).
When I joined the Revolutionary Union in 1970, it was in a part of the country where anti-gay assumptions had not been part of the process (and where several early RU cadre had been recruited out of the local campus Gay Liberation organization).
The anti-gay policies of the national RU were something that had to be adopted. And it happened even as we were aware that some other organizations welcomed gay people. (Workers World Party, in particular, welcomed gay people and had organized gay caucuses then, in 1970, and we knew it. It is odd to realize that our problem with that, politically and organizationally, revolved, as I remember it, more about the idea of internal identity-related caucuses, and less about the acceptance of gay people.) But the point around the WWP is that it was not just “the times” — it is not possible to say “it was just the times” that led the RU to have an anti-gay policy. In fact, precisely in those times, other forces (including gay activists themselves obviously, but also left forces like WWP) had much better and more radical and (frankly) more courageous views on this.
I think that the secrecy culture of the RU/RCP helped this policy to survive — because it is not as if we were all conscious of a stream of people uncovered and expelled, or conflict over gay people turned away. There was (i assume for the vast majority of RU/RCP members) simply a silence around this — where the implications and conflicts of this policy were not shared. I am not aware of discussions on these things at all — which is rather damning. And I mean both internal and external discussion.
When I was an organizer in the coalfields, this policy really did not come up, and it was hard not to ignore it. We were not in contact with openly gay people. When I met gay coalminers (and I did) this was not a source of conflict. We did take distance from some “sexual minorities” — in particular we chose, in two cases I know of, not to politically work with people who were notorious locally for their known incestuous practices (in one case an inbred family, and in another case, a militant miner who had taken his eldest daughter into his bed).
And in passing I would like to note that there is some argument raised that it is wrong to take into account the sexual attitudes and verdicts of working class communities. I think there is cowardness and social backwardness in seeking to tail anti-gay prejudices among working class people. But I’m curious if anyone thinks it was wrong to take distance from men publicly associated with incest — and whether it was wrong to respect the discomfort of the surrounding communities toward these practices.
After I moved to Chicago to work on the RCP’s press, and after the Reagan era started, it did not take long for the questions around gay people to sharpen up for me. In particular, there was a major supreme court decision in the 1980s denying gay people had a “right to privacy” in regard to their sexual practices — and upholding Georgia’s sodomy law. I wrote the RCP’s article on these events, and (as is my habit) started an intense period of study and thinking on same sex attractions and relations (and I have to say it was the first time in my life where I thought seriously about these things). I read several histories of queer relations (and learned about the “invention” of the term “homosexuality” in the late 1800s, and the socially constructued views that were dominant in the U.S.) What struck me in particular was that Chief Justice Burger argued that there is no right to privacy if there are no women and children — because (in his view) the Anglo-Saxon right to privacy is inseparable from the right of a man to conduct his domestic affairs without state interference. Since gay men had no women or children to regulate, there was no “right to privacy” involved. This was a truly naked patriarchal argument — that explictly associated “privacy” (as a legal right) with male-right and father-right. (In other words, to Burger, there was no individual right to privacy — but only a man’s right to rule his home and its inhabitants).
I was very grateful to a particular gay feminist activist (a lawyer in LA) who I interviewed for that article — who said to me simple that the Hardwick decision underscored “that the family is a fuck-box.” that stayed with me a long time — and I struggled to understand the implications.
After those studies, discussions and reflection — I never again believed there was something wrong about gay people, their attractions and relations. I informed my leadership of those views (and those disagreements) for the first time. And I remembered being was asked (in a half-open way) if I was gay (and being amazed by the assumptions beneath that).
* * * * * * * * *
I tried on the RCP’s analysis (the way someone tries on a suit of clothes) — because of the respect I had for the organization and its leadership. I did that again when the “new” position emerged in 1988 — gay people and gay sexuality was still considered reactionary but now the reasons was that they were anti-woman and reformist, not bourgeois decadent.
But i was never able to make myself agree with them.
But what i was won over to is the third position listed above: the RCP leadership argued that “the homosexual question” was not a “cardinal question” worth splitting over. And i accepted that. And that was itself very wrong, and required a real indifference to the mistreatment of gay people (by society and by the RCP itself).
When the RCP said it was “not worth splitting over” — they were of course developing talking points for people in the mass movements who were furious over the RCP’s bigotry. And they were arguing that our hostility toward gay people should not be a basis for breaking up alliances against war, or against the state, or whatever.
But it also applied inside the RCP. It was simply an argument that all this was not that important, and that other things were far more important. Gay people were looked through the wrong end of a telescope — they were some distant “phenomenon” to be talked about in clinical abstract terms (like a five legged frog studied as a curiousity). And the very approach, and the very assumption of “non-cardinal,” denied their reality, their humanity and their suffering.
It was simply a lie that the RCP was consistent (in the 1980s and beyond) in defending gay people from abuse. (Avakian claims this in the Conversations book). I was responsible for trying to list (on our RCP webpage) later the articles that documented this — and there weren’t any (or hardly more than one or two). (You can look at the list yourself on their site) — and see that before 1998 I could not find any articles opposing the mistreatment of gay people. (We did not go back and resurrect my article on the anti-sodomy Hardwick decision… but there was little else over those long years other than reporting on AIDS. There is a whole discussion to be made about how the RCP dealt with AIDS and its many controversies — but let’s just say that it was often done carefully without ever implying acceptance or approval of the gay relations themselves, and we had struggle over this.
As a writer and editor of the party’s newspaper, I started a simple policy of inserting the mistreatment of gay people in our written indictments of U.S. imperialism. And had them carefully taken out each time. I started a policy of suggesting that we honor Stonewall every year, by writing its history in our press — and this was politely ignored each year.
This was not a serious confrontation (on my part) with the party’s policy — but my experience does refute the current claims that the RCP was consistent about defending gay people during all those years when they also labeled them reactionary, decadent, antiwoman and reformist.
I take responsibility for participating in the whole of that. And, in particular, was responsible for “buying” the argument that this “homosexual question” was not important enough to split over — to raise hell over, to dig in over, ot speak truth over, to confront over.
And the mechanisms that supported this lame
Tell No Lies said
Hamiltone Bohn writes:
This is a very tidy view of the world. Too tidy. Its certainly possible to trace the lineage of the RCP’s bad line back to Stalin in this manner. But there is something mechanical in this reasoning. Because, of course not all Maoist groups clung to this approach the way the RCP did. And as has been discussed elsewhere, a number of Trotskyist groups had similarly egregious approaches.
There are several problems with this “blame Stalinism” approach. First of all it is one-dimensional. New formations, even ones that lay claim to this or that tradition, inevitably pick and choose what to keep and what to discard. The explanation of which is which must be grounded in an understanding of the particularities of the group and the conditions under which it was formed. Second, the reduction of the Chinese Revolution to a sub-species of “Stalinism” betrays a fundamental failure to seriously study the Chinese Revolution in its own right. Such a study would of course reveal the considerable contradictions between the Soviet and Chinese parties and in particular Mao’s considerable theoretical departures from Stalin. This failure is, in my view, generally an expression of a Eurocentrism that is quite common among Trotskyists, though of course hardly limited to them. The idea that the Chinese Revolution can be analysed entirely with concepts developed to understand the Russian is inevitably going to blind you to much of what is most distinctive in the Chinese experience.
None of this is to deny the existence of continuities, only to suggest that they don’t have the explanatory heft that you attribute to them.
Hamiltone Bohn said
Agreed that what I posted was “too tidy.”
But the Stalinist/Maoist folks begin from a flawed program. It is a nationalist view that eschews the need for global revolution. It is also tremendously impressionistic and idealistic. So Kruschev gives a speech and capitalism is restored in the Soviet Union. Or, conversely, the Gang of Four are thrown out and capitalism is restored to China. Forget the social and economic underpinnings of the society. Capitalism has not yet been restored to China (as it has been in the Soviet Union since 1991) — lord knows that there has been an ever growing threat of that due to the course that the CCP has taken over the past decades. But capitalism has certain key features (see Das Kapital for further information) and just because you don’t like a regime does not make the country they rule capitalist. But Stalin and his heirs have always been averse to calling things by their correct names. So, from a Marxist standpoint, one must defend China against the US and other capitalist countries. It is from idealistic moralism that you end up supporting the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Which, as we like to say, was neither proletarian, cultural, revolutionary nor great. This was a factional struggle within the bureaucracy of the CCP between Mao and his coterie and Liu, Deng and other, more pragmatic leaders. This folly cost China and the Chinese Revolution, dearly.
As for the line on homosexuality, to have a line like this is not simply a mistake, it underscores a fatally flawed program and organization, from the very beginning. The best of SDS tended to go with PL in the split — at least they had an orientation toward the working class (as partial as their program was).
Mike E said
Hamilton writes:
Not just deceptively tidy. But massively uninformed on many points.
Hamiltone Bohn said
Sorry, just a final point — the position against homosexuality in the RCP is not really different than if they had a policy against being Jewish or black. This is not like changing a position on the independence of Quebec, or whether to give critical support to a centrist group in an election. This is fundamental, and inexcusable.
Mike E said
Hamilton:
Was it always so simple and inexcusable? What do you think the views on sexuality were by communists generally for a century before 1970? do you think your views today were theirs then? You think that Marx or Lenin (or your Trotsky) had your current views on queer sexuality?
You think that your views today will not seem jaded and exhausted in the not-too-distant future? You think human understanding and analysis of complex relations gets frozen into “fundamental” verdicts (that, luckily, you happen to posses)?
Or will our current understandings divide into two?
I have learned that too many people think their own current views are both “obvious” and “fundamental.” How comforting that must be.
As TNL suggests, that is far too tidy, self-gratifying and naive.
And what stands out to me is that this method inherently prevents you from seeing the flaws in your own thinking, your own mistakes and blindnesses.
It is precisely the wrong way to understand our past mistakes — because it condemns superficially without actually or seriously asking how deeply mistaken thinking emerges and survives (including among communists).
Michael said
back in 1975 a communist collective of lesbian women from LA published “Los Angeles Research Group, Toward a Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question” which was a pretty thorough refutation of the anti-gay line of the RU. It would be well worth rereading in the context of this discussion. Maybe someone could put it online?
Red Amadeus said
Wow! You could get a book out of this discussion!
It is very important to get this question properly framed, evaluated, and correctly answered.
I too am curious about the TOWARD A SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF THE GAY QUESTION that Michael wants posted!
The latest RCP document on this question, as well as Martin and Avakian’s discussion in the MARXISM, CALL OF THE FUTURE book should be gone over and corrected.
What would the correct position on this question look like?
If a document were written, what would be in it?
What would be different in its content? What would be the same?
There’s a whole lot to draw on here, for sure!
Mike E said
Red Amadeus writes:
I believe we should republish Avakian’s explanation of why it took so long (extracting it from his chapter in the bill martin conversation book).
He argues (falsely) that the RCP consistently defended gay people during that period (which is provable lie), that an apology is not needed, that it took so long because the RCP leadership had more important things to focus on, that the problem ultimately was a reductionist method (no, not ever stubborn and untouchable bigotry in high places!), and finally that the new RCP line of 2003 is a remarkable development of Marxist theory that is head and shoulders more correct than all the feminist and gay critiques that the RCP encountered in previous years.
In one moment of true rage over communist rejections over his apologia and self-justifications, Avakian fumes that they are too backward and blind to see the “precious gems” and path-breaking insights that Avakian’s discussion lays before the international communist movement. The arrogance and blind self-delusion he pumped in his official explanation display of raw arrogance and unhinged grandiosity built on logical frame of paper thin superficiality and false logic.
We will work to excavate and appropriate all of this — the good and terrible — so that the whole can actually become none to communists and the people broadly. The secrets and lies will not be hidden. The sordid double-talk will be exposed. The cost and pain and abuse will be calculated and quantified. And, finally. slowly, the full truth will become known. The dirty legacy of brownnosers and careerists will see day light. The roots of this error, the manipulations and coverups of its advocates, its implications in policy and cadre treatment, all this will become common property, as it should be, of this new generation of revolutionaries.
We should carefully publish Avakian’s own arguments in that Conversations book — and open then up for sharply critical examination. Avavkian dared to claim that his writings about the gay questions contained far-reaching “gems” for the international movement…. and he was so bitter that his own members mocked and rejectied those arguments and could not appreciate those ‘gems” of pure genius. How is a chance to revisit that judgement.
Hamilton Bohn said
Honestly Mike, I don’t know what Marx’s attitude toward homosexuality was, but I do know that Engles correctly wrote about the nuclear family being a source of repression. And Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks figured out in 1917 to make homosexual relations legal. So as beknighted as some older marxists might have been, they knew a lot better than Stalin/Mao/Avakian (I know, it is moderately hilarious to put his name with two major historical figures) did. So to excuse Avakian and the RU in 1970 because society was backward doesn’t cut it. Other left groups had consistently defended people’s right to have whatever type of consensual sex that they chose — for decades prior. And I am sorry for the anguish comrades have been put through because of this backward shit — and yes, it was backward in 1970 — it came, probably from 2 things — following Mao’s line and also a desire to pander to the backwardness of the US proletariat on this question. But I guess if you buy into the cult of personality around Avakian, rational arguments are pretty much a waste of time.
Miles Ahead said
As part of this debate, seems that we are trying to further sort out “our” legacy—the good, the bad and the ugly.
For those comrades in the U.S., in the main we acknowledge and uphold while critiquing, e.g., the women’s liberation (feminist) movement, the Black and Chicano liberation movements, the anti-imperialist movement, etc., with emphasis on the “good,” even with their pitfalls. So why isn’t Stonewall, or the gay liberation movement, touted or even mentioned in the same breath?
And I doubt seriously that any of us would be having these conversations in the first place if it weren’t for the righteous struggles of these movements.
In Comment 61, KaComrade Jed added:
So how did that “generational” shift come about?
And how are contradictions among the people handled by the revolutionary forces? In the case of homophobia, surely it is not by a “revolutionary communist party” tailing the most backward, retrograde and/or reactionary ideas among the masses?
The rcp, and other “revolutionaries’ ” reactionary line only helped to exacerbate and foment those backward ideas among the people (or among any of those who were bothering to listen to or follow what revolutionary or communist forces had to say.)
Didn’t backward ideas/lines become institutionalized among some backward but oh-so “vanguard” revolutionary forces? An oxymoron? .Ideas and line don’t just exist in some vacuous state, but can have a real material force.
And concerning some homophobia amongst the people, here is just one small example:
Was arguing with a grandmother-in-law in my own family. (This woman, who is overall a terrific person, was born in the South, her grandparents sharecroppers, she’s religious, but militant when it comes to racism, Black liberation and dispelling stereotypes, etc.)
Her thing was—“Well, I don’t think gay people (in general) should be discriminated against, or beat up, or killed BUT this marriage thing is going too far.” And I pointed out, among other contradictory things she had to say, that it wasn’t until 1967 that interracial marriage was deemed (on paper)“constitutionally legal”—and only 40 years ago, none of our entire family would have been able to “legally” marry (or be in open relationships) today. “Hmmmm,” says Granny.
Alex said
Concerning a historical-materialist interpretation of homosexuality and homophobia, one attempt was John d’Emilio’s ‘Capitalism and gay identity’, it is still worth reading although it doesn’t answer the question where desire itself comes from and new research has pushed the date of the creation of the homosexual subcultures he describes further back in histroy. it can be found here: http://intervention.posterous.com/capitalism-and-gay-identity-by-john-demilio
Rick said
Libri’s story was very moving and saddening.
While I share many views and hopes for societal change,
I could never support a party where the style of leadership,
regardless of its challenges and accomplishments,
could not deeply regret and sincerely apologize for
this abuse of basic humanity.
How could I trust any of their positions,
if they lacked this humanity?
Tell No Lies said
I think there are a lot of Grannys saying “Hmmmm” these days. It is fascinating to witness the sea change that has occurred in consciousness on this question in the past decade.And it is critical to keep in mind when we are tempted to see large swathes of the people as irredeemably reactionary. Peoples thinking can change quite dramatically and on a massive scale seemingly out of nowhere (but actually as a consequence of a thousand seemingly trivial victories).
Red Amadeus said
I suppose the thing to do is throw into the mix the following quote from Bob Avakian’s new book, BAsics, page 89., #25 in Chapter 3, MAKING REVOLUTION.
So, what is true in this, what shows a change in the position of the RCP, and what are the weaknesses and/or distortions of his statement here?
CWM said
Bob Avakian’s convoluted writing style is absolutely hilarious! How many subordinating conjunctions and parenthetical comments can you fit into one sentence! I am more and more convinced that the RCP’s weirdness–loopy jargon, indefensible position, etc—was and is a major force binding it together.
Red Amadeus said
Yeah. I get a lot of feedback on his style. The content of what he says up there should be dissected, methinks.
CWM said
But, Amadeus, when you strip this statement of its convoluted style (its weirdness), the only content that remains is utterly banal. He’s just saying this: gay liberation is part of a broader movement for liberation.
While I agree with that assertion, it hardly qualifies as an insight or novel. And while it IS better than the RCP’s old position, the group’s capacity to go from a hateful to a mundane stance is not really an achievement or something to celebrate.
Mike E said
CWM:
My interest in these discussions is the “old” RCP. I.e. understanding how a group (in its vital and revolutionary days) could have such a backward and oppressive set of sub-currents. And I’m also interested in uncovering how the methodologies of this anti-gay campaign (isolation, browbeating, forced submission, “science” as manipulation, authority-based pressure etc.) became far more generalized as dominant organizational mechanisms within the RCP and its orbit (after the 2003 coup). In other words, while these methods were used on gay people in 1990, they were used on the party membership generally in the “rectifications” after 2003 (followed by the isolation, expulsion and shunning of dissidents as “counterrevolutionaries”) .
Put another way: My own experience is quite similar to Libri, Andrew and Suzi. The moment I was identified as critical of the (often unspoken) goals of the “Avakian as cardinal question” campaign — I was isolated, removed from influencing anyone internally, forbidden to speak publicly (even attend a friends funeral), and placed in “the incredible shrinking box” where I was not contacted for weeks on end. I was invited to portentous meetings (intended to intimidate) where there was a panel of interrogators but no advocates. Unlike some of our gay comrades, I was not a newbie, but a rather hardened cadre — and not easily intimidated or “out-articulated” — so these events were not quite the same, or quite as damaging. But the whole was isolting and humiliating. The goal was to either make you submit (in a cultish, emotionally collapsing “i’m yours” kind of sense) or else make you leave demoralized (and politically paralyzed, self-blaming and silent.) One stark and startling memory is the newly empowered leadership person, saying (over and over): “You just have to vomit up your errors. All of it. Give it up.” (think about it “vomit up your errors, all of it” !!) Like we were in some classic cult “ego crushing” session.
All of this had been developed (as methods) somewhere in the organization… but not been familiar or generalized until after 2003.
* * * * * * *
On Amadeus’s point:
First, I have not read BAsics (and have very little interest in following the latest twists and brainstorms of Avakian). I have previously noodled through endless hours of unraveling his unreadable texts, and feel I have paid dues, and don’t need to do any more.
But Red Amadeus wants to raise a sub issue. He is not interested in summing up the earlier RCP (the one described by Libri, Andrew, Gary and Alessa). He (like the RCP itself) wants to say “let the dead bury the dead.” And wants to argue that we should discuss the RCP today, and not excavate the experience of the RCP as a trend. (And I want to note, with some real criticism, that Red Amadeus has really not dealt with, or engaged the experience that has been excavated here, other than to say, more or less “wow, bummer.”)
Let me, for a second, set aside my own interest (which is the RCP-past) and discuss Amadeus’ interest (which is RCP present).
* * * * * * * * ** *
CWM says that Avakian’s Crocodile quote is banal. It is worse than banal if you understand it in context, it is neither new, self critical or any departure from the past. It is simply coverup. Here is why: The historic position of the RCP was (through its various justification) reducible to three assertions:
1) The opposition to discrimination and gay bashing is just. And legal equality is justified.
2) There is something fundamentally wrong with gay people and gay relations.
3) Differences over (2) are not worth splitting or arguing much over, unless you are trying to join a communist organization. Gay people are a relatively unimportant distant “phenomenon” we can begrudgingly quibble over, but let’s not think of it as central to anything.
I won’t dissect the inherent doublethink involved in holding both (1) and (2) — since how can you be “against discrimination” if you yourself discriminate. And how can you be for ending discrimination if you imagine a future society where gay people are systematically excluded from the political network that you intend to put at the center of society (and an essentially one-party state).
But, leaving aside the instability and double think of these three positions….
Avakian in the Red Amadeus quote, is essentially asserting (1) — which is not new (actually). I wrote (for example) the RW’s articles on the hardwick decisions (supreme court on sodomy laws in 1980s) where the RCP (through my articles) upheld the fight against sodomy laws, and for equality and privacy. So while gays were being isolated, expelled or browbeating, the RCP was (on paper) making rare statements opposed to discrimination. There was even a demonstration which the RCYB supported in NYC at the time of the Hardwick decisions.
The fact is that those were practically the only manifestation of the RCP’s “support” for anti-discrimination (before Matthew Shepard’s murder 1998, when a few begrudging articles started to appear).
Avakian, by reasserting position (1), is not speaking to the other aspects of the RCP position (i.e. 2 and 3) — he is not doing anything new or self-critical. And it is, as CWM writes, utterly banal, utterly unself-critical, and not particular insightful (or leading) in any imaginable way.
Let me give one example: It is one thing to say that legalizing gay marriages “subverts” in some ways the fundamentalist and traditional view of “marriage” (which is something everyone understands, from the fundamentalists on the right to the liberals on the left.) That is banal. But what about the fact that gay relations and equality undermine views of gender, and gender roles?
This the RCP historically refused to mention (as part of their old position), and apparently still refuses to touch (in this brief quote from their not-so-new insights.)
Also in evaluating the change of the RCP… I have known in the course of my work in the RCP a number of people who I suspected were secretly gay. Some left, some didn’t. I would be curious, are they now out? Inside the party? In public? And if not, what does that say about how far the line has actually changed? Of course there is no way of asking them. And there is no reason to out them.
But why doesn’t the RCP have some of its new (or old!) gay members write a piece about their experience. “Coming out in the RCP after the line change” or “Gay and recruited to the new RCP”? What about the gay members who were convinced to have heterosexual marriages? Does Avakian want to acknowledge how “subversive” it is for them to now come out (inside the RCP? in public in their political work)? How about actually address these things? They haven’t, and I suspect they won’t. And what does that say about how much their line (and internal culture) has changed?
Gary said
Mike writes:
I think this is a crucial question.
Mike refers sometimes to “queers.”
“Queer” to me isn’t synonymous with gay but connotes someone (not necessarily self-defining as “straight or “gay” or “bi”) who by lifestyle challenges heteronormality. The queer doesn’t do this merely by saying, “I too deserve the right to marry” (and undermine traditional roles thereby, while emulating heterosexuals’ lifestyles) as so many log Cabin Republicans do.
Rather the queer asserts that it’s okay to pursue a lifestyle involving sexual pleasure for its own sake, with multiple partners of either sex (including in anonymous and impersonal situations) without explanation or apology.
That is indeed subversive. And the old (by default, existing) RCP line, “decadent” and requiring criticism.
Certainly there are health and other issues that should be raised about “promiscuity,” which is in fact the norm among gay men, especially younger ones. But doesn’t it, in a positive way, “undermine views of gender, and gender roles”?
This is the sort of question the RCP can’t even discuss. They can (grudgingly, belatedly, insincerely, after prolonged “study”) conclude that it’s ok to be gay. (They don’t even think about bisexuality, because, you see, everything has to fall into one or the other side of a contradiction.) But if it took them (Bob?) so long to conclude that it’s ok for a man to want to fuck another’s butt (or be butt-fucked)—or a woman to want to go down on another woman or vice-versa—how can they possibly grasp that some people’s sexual desires are not even specific to gender object choice but to specific actions and “fetishes”? And that these (the rich array of possibilities producing sexual gratification) cannot be easily explained by wooden “class analysis,” any more than tastes in food?
In many revolutionary movements in the past, most notoriously the Cromwellian bourgeois revolutionary movement in seventeenth century England (which as enthusiastically described by Engels, was a genuine an progressive revolutionary movement), a kind of puritanism prevailed in the minds of the revolutionaries. This isn’t just a bad thing because puritans are boring and oppressive. It’s because they don’t understand sexuality scientifically, and in various ways apply their own doctrines, based on their own repressed sexuality, to the people they lead.
Red Amadeus said
It’s a good idea to try to imagine what a future free of class-exploitation, a future with a long legacy devoid of exploitative social relations might look like.
I was familiar enough with the RCP’s mistaken approach to homosexuality to be deeply troubled by it.
I saw good people in and around the Party trying to go straight, and it was a painful thing to see.
I think it’s good for the revolutionary movement as a whole to really dig around on this question, and enrich it with a view to publishing a book or paper on it.
The mistakes around this question were hardly confined to the RCP.
What would expressions of sexuality in a really communal, really communist society look like? What could they look like? What SHOULD they look like, even?
I think Avakian has admitted the mistakes. I don’t quite see so much the need for an apology, but rather a cessation of policies that oppress gay people!
That’s the point!
The RCP admitted the mistakes; owned them.
The outlook that leads to the oppression of gay people must be challenged in every way.
Get to the mistakes, understand their origins in class society, and then correct the mistakes.
What mistakes? The “mistakes” of being gay??
I myself actually believe that people in a future communist society, some of them will find themselves attracted to people of the same sex, irrespective of the nature of the society around them.
I know too many people who grew up feeling like they were in the wrong body for the feelings they were having.
Some of them have had sex-change operations.
Important question here! Anybody who’s read into this question, what research has been done on the origin of homosexuality and so forth, should chime in.
Mike E said
Red Amadeus writes:
Avakian has only admitted a mistake of theoretical analysis (ascribing it a methodological error of reductionism).
If you are aware of any other admissions (like self criticism of the RCP for not actively supporting the struggle of gay people during the AIDS crisis, abusing gay people inside and outside the party etc. ) point out where.
If you know of any personal admission (of anti-gay sentiment, of personal involvement in insisting on organizational bigotry, of not listening to members and others) list them.
In the Conversations book, he makes the incredible and outrageous claim that the RCP leadership (meaning him) did not catch these errors earlier (i.e. before Dick Cheney) because they (meaning him) were too busy with more important matters (like forming the RIM). Go read it.
You will find a clinical reversal of theoretical argument, but no real self-criticsm, because Avakian has (in fact) not done any serious self-criticism. He in fact relentlessly went after anyone in his party that suggested that he do one (or that he should be given responsibility for the stubborn persistence of a bigotted view). Perhaps he will do self-criticism about driving people out of his party for daring to even mention his possible responsibility?
dodge said
Hello gary…….well thank heavens for cities.Don’t get me wrong I love the countryside, an estuary in winter with waterfowl on the move. Observing, not shooting my pleasure. Give me the city any day, anonymity, no lace curtains twitching, monitoring comings and goings. London is made up of a thousand villages it’s true. Nobody knows you and I suppose nobody really cares. The plus side over the centuries has allowed ideas to flourish survive and also be discarded. While we were in mud huts Alexandria had libraries scientific advance, ideas how life came about and what systems might serve us. Cities are a breath of fresh air! A clear and ever present danger to Caliph, prince,bishop, and parliament alike.The dear sweet old lady who was letting a flatlet asked if I was married or had a girlfriend. On my best behaviour I was trying to pass myself off as a celibate saint….pure as driven snow…..”not bothered, just no kids here. YOU CAN F**K YOURSELF TO DEATH, if you wish!!” I thanked her .
My own sexual history doesn’t bear thinking about.Shudder! It would not stand scrutiny at any level. At 64yrs perhaps I have forgotten what it is like to be young.
WHAT’S IMPORTANT.
It’s another day in paradise the student boarders are sat out in the yard one group beckons me over…they say I look homesick and invite me to drink. Here a group all drink from the same glass, passed around, until money runs out. I toast the young buck who offered me the Tanduay, sat between 2 gays I tell him he looks like a beautiful rose cast between two thorns. This provokes a response from a gay who tells me the buck is his latest boyfriend. The girls not to be outdone and masters of teasing tell me that the very young gay at another table has a terrible ‘crush’ on me. Not one to let the matter pass, I chased him around the yard until he escaped up into the tree house, pulling the rope up after him. Somewhat out of breath I returned to the table…”I did not spill a drop”…”he has got to come down sometime….I can wait”. Not wanting to hold up their drinking I drained the glass and left them to enjoy each others company. A DEEPLY CATHOLIC COUNTRY STILL…..but the young have a knack of finding their own way.
As kids we always knew when adults were getting angry…”mind your own business!!” turned into “for Pete’s sake mind yer own effing business!!” IF THE 1ST WARNING SHOT WAS IGNORED. The war had just ended and people were not in the mood to be pushed around, preached at, or be questioned by faceless bureaucrat or pen pusher. “GET ON WITH YOUR OWN LIFE” or better still get a life to these who want to control every aspect of the way we live and breathe.
jas bou said
As underwhelming as their change in line was, the change did occur in the very same RCP that is being pilloried for their old line. The same RCP whose methods made changes next to impossible. I know it is not the same exact RCP right down to the hair color of its members but Avakian was the top dog during all relevant points.
Externally, society was getting more progressive regarding LGBT issues so this must have had an influence. But what changed internally in the RCP for them to abandon their old line? Something must have. If not, was the change solely a reaction to external pressure?
I understand the disinterest in dealing with the “new” RCP but I think in this instance it has some relevance. Because if their line on homosexuality can change, then theoretically any of their lines could change if one can utilize and harness whatever it is that caused the change.
CWM said
I don’t personally care whether Bob Avakian acknowledges his error with respect to LGBTQ issues. I’m not really sure what difference it would make if, say, he released a statement admitting deep-seated homophobia and authoritarianism. Perhaps that would be repairative for those who spent years under his spell, but the real question, in my view, is not why he’s so loopy but why anyone followed him.
However, I do care about developing a coherent appraisal of the left and I must say that I find discussions of the RCP’s homophobia here somewhat unsatisfying insofar as they are not contextualized of a broader, critical analysis of the history of communism. People on this site tend to represent communism as an unvarnished “good,” as inherently emancipatory, whereas the reality is that communists across the globe have committed terrible crimes over and over and over and over again. I refer to the labor camps, the torture chambers, the implementation of economic, political, and cultural hierarchies, the wars against popular movements, the secret police forces, the assaults against popular assembly, the criminalization of political discourse, in addition to reactionary and abhorrent attitudes toward sexuality, gender, and race, etc. We’ve seen these things in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, East Germany, Albania, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Cuba, Spain, Peru, and hints in places like the United States, where communists had an influence but never came close to taking power.
These crimes are a major part of the history of communism; they are not anomalous or things you can write off by saying, “it was a bad line” (which you can change like an old T-shirt). These things are inherent in communism. Of course, Communists have also fought for lofty, emancipatory goals and heroically resisted injustice, and that’s the point: any analysis of communism, whether in a country or a sect, needs to be able to acknowledge and comprehend these contradictory realities. Of course, theorists have tried to do this in various ways, and some of their attempts have been less convincing than others, but the importance of the theoretical task remains.
A one-sided approach to communism, in which it is ALL good (or ALL bad), won’t allow real insights into groups like the RCP or the history of twentieth century communism
Alex said
CWM writes:
As a regular reader of Kasama, this is not the case. There are many articles and discussions about grappling with and owning errors made in communist movements.
A lot of your comments are focused on broad generalizations and anarchist-sniping against communism that plays out all over the internet in pretty much the same form. And I say this as an anarchist.
As opposed to broadsides in the comment section of other pieces where critical discussion is happening, it would be more useful (IMO) for you to post on Kasama a thoughtful piece in which you write what you really want to say on these issues that goes deeper than simplistic ‘communism is bad’ rhetoric.
PatrickSMcNally said
With regards to this issue I’d have to point out that the original Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 did in fact legalize homosexuality and that is part of “the history of communism.” The later reversal of this decision under Stalin was part of a retrograde shift, and one can start debating the causes of why this occurred.
But clearly if one is going to be reaching back for a broad historical context then the original legalization is the place to begin.
CWM said
yeah, I would agree, Patrick, that that is definitely an important part of the discussion. I’m not sure that it’s necessarily THE place to begin, but certainly relevant
RW Harvey said
@ Red Amadeus:
Don’t you think that homosexuality (and all forms of sexual attraction/expression) have been with humans as long as there have been humans? Once you get into the line that sexuality has a class norm and that expressions of sexuality like same-sex attraction are therefore products of class society, or particular to the rise of capitalism then we really get into some vile social engineering/suppression (much like the RCP line and approach).
In some indigenous cultures there is a place for those called “two spirits” to express same-sex love; in other cultures, perhaps not. Like our forebears approach to the birth of twins where they were either revered or slain, cultures throughout the planet have dealt with social anomalies according to their own beliefs concerning life, death, and every behavior in between.
Recognizing and accepting homosexuality is about accepting our complex humanity, especially when our humaness is not based on the exploitation, oppression, or the harming of another.
Red Amadeus said
@RW Harvey.
Yup. I actually myself DO think that there is a biological component in the homosexuality phenomenon and that the development of a little embryo is a very delicate process which can bring forth various kinds of differences among people.
I read in the New Yorker that most people can distinguish their thoughts as just their own thoughts.
However, a little glitch in the brain can make certain people think that the voices they hear do not come from their own brains, and will respond to the voices in different ways.
Somebody might sit all night in front of a TV that isn’t plugged in even, and think that the TV is ordering them to stay put until dawn, or else, for one example.
Somebody else might follow the instruction from their own brain to go strangle their parakeet to death.
That sort of thing.
How should this phenomeon be dealt with?
Methinks it might be of value to teach people the TRUTH about what is involved, the “glitch” in the brain that makes them think that their thoughts come from outside themselves.
People might be able to relate to the voices rationally if they properly understand the source of the voices.
Homosexuality?
Well, we can’t be dogmatic one way or the other.
It’s not JUST biological, and it’s not JUST related to the way in which people are raised in different forms of society.
I have known people who are very misogynist male homosexuals who were suffocated by their mothers, and made to hate women.
Example: Mom is abused in various way by dear old dad, ignored, say, by a patriarch.
Who can she turn to in the confines of the little hamster-cage bourgeois nuclear family (be it of 600 square feet or 6500 square feet)?
There’s no community to speak of anywhere else, save in the cage, so she turns to her children to gain the love and validation that everyone craves.
Sonny-boy will do just fine, and he gets her suffocating attention, her narcissitic-supply quest, a quest that she is compelled by loneliness and pain to go on.
As the Robin Williams character said in the film, GOOD WILL HUNTING,
“It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault…”
That’s just right.
It’s nobody’s FAULT. The people in the dynamic are victims of a historically obsolete system. The problem is the SYSTEM, the capitalist-imperialist SYSTEM.
Result. Well, Sonny-boy been USED by mama and his time and attention has been focused on her. She forces his attention, and stunts his growth in a host of areas in so doing.
How will he feel about her?
How will he feel about women in general?
He will generalize from his particular experience.
Nobody in the dynamic is a “bad” person.
People are just trying to get their needs met.
Monsieur le grand patriarch isn’t getting HIS needs met either.
He suffers, and doesn’t understand his misery.
He’s alienated and disconnected, a victim of obsolete thinking.
There’s always TV, but the suffering of all concerned, the suffering of people who need real connection, and just cannot get it under capitalism with all of its alientating dynamics, is truly horrible.
The solution is to be found in making revolution, a process that will consciously seek to tie people together in myriad ways.
As “communism springs from every pore of capitalism”, people are meeting on Twitter, FaceBook, emailing, telephoning, and on and on.
It’s very encouraging to see this, and we have to be right in there struggling to raise the standards putting out provocative things like, well, for a favorite example of mine,
“People were and always will be the follish victims of deceit and
self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of
some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social
phrases, declarations and promises. The supporters of reforms
and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the
old order until they realize that every old institution, however rotten
and barbarous it may appear to be is maintained by the forces of
some ruling classes. V.I. Lenin
RW Harvey said
So, RA, nowhere did I say homosexuality was “just” biological or “just” cultural. I think most folks have come to see that the interplay between these forces — and to these we can add temperment, nutrition, in utero trauma, and pure luck, etc. — makes for a very complex set of behaviors. What I said that to claim human sexuality — something that developed prior to classes — is a product of class society or capitalism is very dangerous ground. Is there a proletarian form of sexuality, or a correct line about who loves who?
Now, if your Lenin quote is about class society/capitalism branding human behaviors (favoring some, oppressing others, etc.) with a class perspective, then, yes, we can see the results of this all around — especially in the oppression of women, same-sex love, and on and on. The social construction/enforcement of gender norms is a template determined by those in power and placed upon human behavior, with sexual expression being one of the most volatile in undermining these norms and therefore closely policed.
Yes, the vast majority of people suffer under the current paradigm. We need to call out those who would taken their own suffering and foist it upon others (the patriarch, the racist, the capitalist landowner, the corporate head, the general, the politicians, the child abuser, on and on), while working to uproot the entire paradigm of capitalism/imperialism.
Red Amadeus said
@RW Harvey.
Not “just” one thing or another, but a complex of multiple factors.
The point of this whole discussion should be to unite at a higher level of understanding so that we may have more and more unity among ourselves, always with our “eyes on the prize”.
The line I think should be adhered to is UNITE THE MANY TO DEFEAT THE FEW.
What troubles me in a lot of posts was brought forth in the following note from a friend. This person put forward,
“I would agree that BA is not trying to be earth-shaking, innovative, etc. in the quote from ‘Crocodiles…’ {in re the question of homosexuality I posted above. — RA}”
“Seems more like an acknowledgment of reality, and also, still, a recognition of past errors. What, after all, can be profoundly groundbreaking about people loving each other? They {people discussing the homosexuality question on this thread — RA} really do want to dredge up the past, set up straw men and bash the RCP over this.
If they don’t think there has been a CHANGE in the line of the RCP, they should try to prove it, not just make assertions. If they don’t think the RCP’s changed line goes far enough, they should advocate for what they believe a correct line would be on the question.
See, that’s the thing about opportunists, they (as you have pointed out numerous times) stand on the sidelines gesticulating and criticizing, but you can never seem to pin them down, because THEY WILL NOT ADVOCATE FOR A POSITION THAT THEY THEMSELVES CAN BE PINNED TO.
They should be challenged to present their own views on these questions, and stack them up against what the RCP is fighting for. If they find BA’s style convoluted, pick out some key points and explain them. While the conversation with Bill Martin encapsulates the RCP’s position, the position paper is much deeper, as BA has attested to.”
I have a different line on the RCP than I mostly see in all this discussion.
I understand the need for just this kind of Party for making revolution.
You cannot attain the state power without this structure, without a revolutionary Party, complete with a central committee, a newspaper (in two languages, no less), books, pamphlets, speeches, discussion groups, and so forth.
I think that proper engagement with the line of the RCP, WITH A VIEW TOWARD UNITING WITH THIS PARTY AT A HIGHER LEVEL is the manner in which people should be approaching discussion and debate.
The approach should be in the area of making criticisms IN ORDER TO STRENGTHEN THIS PARTY, and not to weaken it, NOT to weaken it.
The endless description of the RCP I find here as all washed up doesn’t at all accord with what I see.
That is why I recommend that people spend a lot of time at REVCOM.US so as to gain a proper perspective on just what the RCP really is, what it offers, how WE COULD WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE IT BETTER, TO FURTHER STRENGTHEN IT SO THAT WE CAN GET ON WITH THE BUSINESS OF MAKING REVOLUTION AND EMANCIPATING HUMANITY AND THE GRIEVOUSLY SUFFERING EARTH.
The problem in the world is capitalist-imperialism, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that truth. We shouldn’t lose our focus.
anewworld said
RA “unite the many to defeat the few” . Is this the best slogan the RCP can come up with to stand with the minority gays in the party who stood up against a horrific line?
Red Amadeus said
Stand up and describe what is wrong, and then move on to build up the Party. No other approach makes any sense to me.
I don’t know exactly where I got “Unite the many to defeat the few”, probably China back when it was actually social
ist.
Sure, stand up against “horrific” lines. We’ve seen plenty of them since the Paris Commune.
Line, line line. That’s where to focus attention, always aiming to correct mistakes, and unite at a higher level.
The enemy is the capitalist-imperialist system, always keep in mind.
Mike E said
anewworld writes:
Just to be clear and fair:
Red Amadeus is open about his sympathies for the RCP. But no one should think he speaks for the RCP nor should anyone assume that his arguments are the ones they would make.
anewworld said
Sorry to RA for the misunderstanding. It’s confusing to tell what the RCP is putting forward (are they putting anything forward in response to these brave people who have come forward recently?)
Red Amadeus said
No, I don’t speak for the RCP.
I do recognize their achievements as well as their mistakes.
Since it is impossible to make a socialist revolution without just this kind of Party, its structure, I say we make the criticisms that need to be made, and then adopt a friendly and supportive attitude toward it.
I note the value of KASAMA. I look forward to its posts, its musical tributes, its artwork, articles, chats…
There’s always something good to dig into, for example discussion of past mistakes in the revolutionary movement overall.
Important to do that.
I counsel that we look at the positive and negative aspects of things, all things, and not lose sight of the positive aspect of the RCP.
Red Amadeus said
Hey! My arguments are better than the ones the RCP people I’ve talked to would make. I actually believe that, even if that would cause people to roll their eyes to a painful excess! LOL
anewworld said
why would it cause their eyes to roll? they have not given an official response since these new facts have come out. they are hoping to sweep the dreams of their revolutionaries under their rugs.
Red Amadeus said
They think that their responses were adequate for the time being. The Bill Martin discussion and the new position paper they feel are enough.
I see vast areas in the RCP where I really unite with them, really treasure what they’ve put forward, and I read KASAMA and their paper as well as World Can’t Wait (worldcantwait,org).
louise said
this is not to defend any organization or leader, but in defense of the typical ordinary human, it is quite possible to believe two or more contradictory things simultaneously. I am to tired to find quotes on this at this moment. But have we not all experienced this? Such as believing in a god but at the same time not believing any divine being would cure us of our bladder infections or fix the plumbing? So also could rank and file people both agree with parts of the RCP’s anti-gay line but also completely find it abhorrent where we related it to real people.
Red Amadeus said
Let’s just be careful with what we DO with our understanding of mistakes from any quarter. It’s important to keep our eyes on the prize, and strive to unite where we can, and try to impart a revolutionary spirit far and wide.
Pablo said
in message 70.
Michael said
July 10, 2011 at 9:16 pm
back in 1975 a communist collective of lesbian women from LA published “Los Angeles Research Group, Toward a Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question” which was a pretty thorough refutation of the anti-gay line of the RU. It would be well worth rereading in the context of this discussion. Maybe someone could put it online?
In the book, “Revolution in the Air: …” by Max Elbaum he makes reference to “Toward A Scientific Analysis…” stating that it was written by the “Los Angeles Research Group”. I was a member of the San Diego (not Los Angeles) Research Group that published this work. We were a sub-committe of “a communist collective” but NOT mostly “of lesbian women”; although the chief author of it was lesbian and a member of our m-l group, and her non-group “mate” contributed to it.) I was NOT the principal investigor/author; but I played an important role (in guiding/drafting/reworking/reviewing/publishing/diseminating the work.
[By the way, It's not impossible, but I doubt very much that the main author (that lesbian friend & close comrade of mine - I was/am straight; but we were for years in the same M-L collective) "borrowed or stole" from some L.A. Research Group all or part of the information that she/we wrote and published.] [Seems to me there was some group out of L.A., not named "Research Group", that did put out a pamphlet on the gay question, with a different title. Theirs was not, nor did it claim to be, a m-l-ist analysis. If I remember right, it was more of a "we're OK" anectodal type of thing.]
I still have copies of our pamphlet. I read it about once every couple of years and still agree with it. In fact, I still view it as a M-L-ist presentation of the question. The research into both non-human and historical human sexuality (and the attitudes pro and con towards its different forms, particularly towards homosexuality) was/is very extensive. The analysis is guided by an understanding of and acceptance of Engels’ “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.” (He didn’t have access to the information that we were able to get access to and analyze).
We used his historically-based categories describing early human socio-economic formations (primitive communalism, slavery, feudalism; and within the earlier 2: lower-, middle- & upper-: barbarism and savagery) to guide our organization of the results of our investigation. What we found was proof that homo-sexuality existed/exists broadly in nature, and specifically seems to have existed from the very beginning of humanity; instead, what was new and a “perversion” of that “natural order of things” was anti-homosexuality! Homosexuality had always existed and, in fact, was often more highly-revered in early forms of human societies, very frequently associated with leaderships, especially spiritual/religious ones. The introduction of anti-homosexuality as “merely” a prejudicial idea and, far more importantly, as a punishable “offense” exactly dovetailed with the attacks by “more-advanced” socieites, which recognized that to conquer and subjugate the less-developed ones, they would have to break their spirit, and smashing their belief-system (including respect, even reverence for homosexuality and homosexual leaders) was one of THE keys.
In addition, during primitive communalism which lasted for all but the very last 10,000 years of human existence (which depending on how one defines humanity, has existed for between 50,000 and 500,000 – 1million+ years) it was the woman rather than the man who was held in clearly higher esteem. Afterall, people didn’t know that the male had any role at all in procreation, so the woman was considered and treated like a goddess, the creator and nourisher of life. When class society first came into existence, it was because our technological advances had led to us finally being able to produce more of the basic necessities of life than we collectively (in our very small groupings) absolutely needed for bare survival. So, only then could ownership (private property) have value and thus it arose. Thus, we got slavery, because then a worker/slave could produce enough not only to feed him/herself but for his/her owner as well.
Only then could/would the men have an interest in assuring that his heirs (to such property) were truly his biological children. This then “required” monogamy of the women. This was THE major revolution in human social values (at least prior to socialism’s advent). When a slave-owning society, with its more developed organization encountered a pre-slave society, part of conquering it was the subjugation of women and a key part in that was played by anti-homosexuality.
What irony, it wasn’t/isn’t homosexuality but anti-homosexuality that is the perversion!
Our m-l group, the San Diego M-L Group came into existence during the RCP’s RU period. Our early impression of the early RU was that they were humble, very open to democratic debate, idea-sharing. We met with them, trying to unite with them under their leadership. But from the get-go, realizing that we had a non-straight member, their position was, we’ll recruit the rest of you (and only if you reject your back-wards belief/practice and get rid of her).
While we discussed what would be a principled attitude on our part to a gruoup that was more-advanced than us, we continued for a period to distribute RU materials along with our own. But the NCM (new communist movement) had many collectives and bookstores all over the country including in San Diego and we quickly realized that the RU’s position on homosexuality (which we considered very secondary) was not their only incorrect position. We took up a study of Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done?” and it seemed like he wrote especially to criticize the RU.
What was fundamental in the RU then?
In Ideological Line: worship of spontaneity, “Learn from the masses”, “the mass line” … to a near complete “forgetting” of the need to study the science of M-L-ism to GUIDE the practice! The resulting theoretical level of their members was way too low.
In Political Line: Economism – tailing after the spontaneous movement, “workerism”. (“Dump the chump” (Nixon)).
In Organizational Line: tailing after the spontaneous movement, amateurism exemplified by a plethora of local “Workers’ Papers”, published separately in every city they were in. Tailing behind the “spontaneous” N.C.M. Remember, they were virtually the lasts of all the major “national” m-l groups to come out in favor of party-building. And consider…
For years they virtually ignored theory and party-building and they WERE the biggest of the self-proclaimed US m-l groups. If they had pushed early and/or hard for a real fight to build a US m-l party, history in the US might have been way different.
Then, all of a sudden, WITH NO SELF-CRITICISM (sound familiar?) they suddenly declared (admittedly exactly like each of the other smaller groups/groupings were to do after them) that all of a sudden the historical conditions called for the US m-l party to be formed right then during that immediate and brief period. (Nothing close to a legitimate m-l analysis of what made that moment so unique and why it needed to be so very short! – To most outsiders this could only be interpretted as what it really was – a(nother) group with serious weaknesses, trying to con its members and a few others into thinking that suddenly they were THE party – when there was absolutely no justification in theory or their practice for it.)
And as they changed their name then, the seemingly new arrogance, sectarianism and anti self-critical attitude took over. They united with almost nobody. Then, according to them, now that THE party was formed. the historical conditions called for going back to (economist) practice. They saw no need for trying to fight to build unity with all the other groups (ie., with the larger majority of the self-proclaimed and self-believing m-l-ists in the U.S..
talk about long posts, sorry …
Pablo said
More History related to the “Gay Question” and the political work in San Diego.
Permit me first to make one important “technical” correction to the above post. Our m-l collective at that time was NOT the San Diego M-L Group (SDMLG), but instead the League of Struggle (M-L) (LS(m-l)).
In addition to “Towards A Scientific Analysis Of Homosexuality” (under the name of the S.D. Research Group), we publised a worker’s regional paper distributed to many factories and other places throughout the San Diego-Tijuana areas, “Wildcat/Obrero Rebelde De La Frontera” (Rebel Worker of the US-Mex. Border Region), which later becamse “Worker’s Voice/Voz Obrera”. At its peak, we distributed 10,000 copies a month, donations from the working class covered its operating expenses and the paper was definitely influential amonst the masses – they wrote for it, helped circulate it, bragged about it, mass-discussed it, defended our distributors, and rallied behind its info and calls-to-action. *
We also published a series of theoretical journals in our name, LS(M-L), about: Party Building, United Front Work, Working Class / Trade Union Organizing, The National Question (Black, Chicano & others), The Woman Question…
We organized in factories and other work places as well as in popular movements such as: gay, anti-war (Vietnam), anti-apartheid (which developed into our helping build a local branch of the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC) and participating in one of ALSC’s National Conventions).
And we organized within the N.C.M. (new comm. movement), where in addition to publishing/distributing materials by our group and others, we frequently participated in public forums and debates, and communicated with and struggled for unity with a whole series of the larger and smaller groups within the N.C.M. both before and after they changed their names to “Party” (including Black Panthers, La Raza and other Chicano groups, CL, RU, OL, ATM, AsianStudyGroup/Workers’ Viewpoint Org., Amer.Comm.WorkersMovement/COUSML.)
The SDMLG came some years later. It renewed publication of Worker’s Voice/Voz Obrera; published a theoretical journal, Red Flag (including a very large issue about Building a new m-l Party in the U.S. and a new Comm. International world-wide in and thru the all-out struggle VS all hues of opportunism and especially VS economism/tailism in S.D., the U.S. and world-wide. The lead article was entitled, “What Is Driving Us Into Starvation, The 5 (& 10) Burning Questions, the Necessary and Sufficient Basis to form a new U.S. M-L Party”).
We met and united with (and tried hard to unite with many more): both United Front organizations (Albania Support, Central America, anti-Iraq invasion (1991…)…) and a series of seeming and/or self-proclaimed M-L organizations in San Diego and in the U.S. (RPO(m-l), Worker’sVoice(chicago),(others whose names I forget at the moment),, Canada (CPCm-l) and Mexico (Union de Lucha Popular (m-l) in Tijuana, and the national CPM(m-l)) .
*The newspaper, “Wildcat / Obrero Rebelde De La Frontera” was originally titled, for only its first issue, “Strike Back” – due to its support of a mass labor strike in San Diego. Wildcat/ORDLF was published (1969?-1973) by the San Diego Worker’s Group, some of whose members later went on to help form the League of Struggle (M-L). Later, the paper’s name was changed to “Worker’s Voice / Voz Obrera”. (1973-1976).
This newspaper very incorrectly ceased publication due to the influence of / pressure from ATM(M-L) (August Twenty-ninth Movement (M-L) with whom we had developed very close ties. The reason given, “it isn’t as important as other tasks”, while true in the abstract, ignored the newspaper’s tremendous and long-time influence in the San Diego – Tijuana regions’ workers’ and oppressed people’s movements. What a shame! [Why did we go along with this? "They must understand things better than we do." - This reflected both secondary strength (our local anti small-circle mentality) and primary weakness (our local: tailism, liberalism and weakness in grasping the importance of that work; and an ultra-"left" line by ATM on this question)].