Archive for the ‘RCPUSA’ Category
Posted by Mike E on May 13, 2012
The 9 letters to Our Comrades was an opening shot of Kasama’s project. These essays sketch a fundamental critique of the Revolutionary Communist Party’s turn toward cultism.
In another sense, it also represent a critique of a more general set of problems within the organized left. It is a critique of failure to deeply engage reality, and a corrupting sense of grandiosity.
Now these 9 essays are available in both main e-book formats.
Click here for the new e-book versions
Previously available forms:
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Posted in >> analysis of news, 9 Letters, Kasama, Kasama videos, Maoism, mass line, methodology, Mike Ely, New Com. Movement, podcasts, RCPUSA, theory, truth and class truth | 1 Comment »
Posted by kasama on January 8, 2012
From the pamphlet introduction:
One of the most remarkable events on the Kasama site during the summer of 2011 has been the outpouring of discussion over the treatment of gay people in the previous communist movement.
Libri Devrim opened the door with her piece “My life in a red closet” – a heartfelt remembrance written with deliberate restraint.
There was a heartening outpouring of interest, experience and discussion. Kasama published several different, unsolicited new posts.
Three of them detailed experiences with the red closet in the Revolutionary Communist Party (a relatively small communist organization in the U.S.) : “Working with the RCP, Opposing the homophobia,” “Rejected by comrades: My love was just love,”and“Suzie’s story: Queer, isolated, invisible.”
Other posts dealt with experiences and summations from outside the RCP, including “Closet Rules: My Story of Survival” and “The Cahokian: Homophobia & the value of thoughtful excavation.”
There were (all together) about 200 comments and over 6,000 page views of these threads.
In this pamphlet, we gather and reprint these posts and some of the comments that followed.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, Bob Avakian, communism, gay, homophobia, lesbian, Mike Ely, RCPUSA | 6 Comments »
Posted by kasama on November 13, 2011
We received the following essay from a young communist in Ohio breaking his ties with the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Behold, the emperor’s clothes were nowhere to be found…
A critique of the RCP,USA and
a challenge for those seeking a better world
by Kassad
For the first time in decades, the masses are seriously in motion and the winds of radical change are blowing. These winds are fierce and they are powerful. With the rise of the Occupy Wall Street that has inspired people across the globe, something historic is brewing. As these winds blow, as communists, we must ask ourselves: do we take flight or do we allow our wings to be clipped once more by this system?
This upsurge is what many of us have only dreamed of and discussed. The potential to shake this empire to the core is very real and the empire’s eyes are on us. The critical contradiction is this: though the rulers of this brutal system seek to chain us down, are there even some on the revolutionary left that, whether intentionally or without recognition, do the very same thing?
In brief…
To briefly touch on myself and why this essay is being written, I am a young communist living in Ohio. I have been active in supporting the RCP for a little under a year.
I would like to publicly withdraw that support after the RCP’s absurd attack on Kasama Project and Avakian’s recent article on the Occupy Movement. The Occupy Movement is historic and to boil it down to merely being a vehicle to support Avakian’s cult of personality is pure laughable grandiose for reasons that I will get in to in this essay.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Bob Avakian, Occupy Wall Street, RCPUSA | 35 Comments »
Posted by kasama on November 9, 2011
This Kasama site has recently been accused by the Revolutionary Communist Party of setting up their members and leadership for state repression.
The RCP’s recent statement is called “Outright Piggery from the Camp of Counter-Revolution” — so their charge is right in the title.
Extreme accusations demand a response.
Here it is: These claims are utterly false. The RCP does not give examples, evidence or proof of their accusation because they have none.
* * * * * * * * *
Here is their central charge:
“Specifically, including very recently, there has been a whole practice of naming individuals who are identified on the Kasama site as being connected to the RCP, and then encouraging people to try to find out about individuals, their relationship to the Party, and speculation about the composition of different bodies and membership in the Party. And there has been an ongoing campaign of posting ad hominem (personal) attacks on Bob Avakian in particular. This alone puts it in the same camp as reactionary and vicious right-wing blogs and websites, doing the work for government agencies whose mission is to collect this kind of information which is then used to destroy individuals and organizations they deem to be a threat.”
In fact: Kasama has published political criticisms of the RCP. If that has been damaging to the RCP it is because their politics are self-isolating and unattractive.However Kasama discussion has never breached the security of any organizations.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Bob Avakian, cointelpro, gay, lesbian, Mike Ely, New Com. Movement, RCPUSA | 64 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on October 22, 2011
Cleansing and reclaiming the red flag
The following is an important and highly controversial document from the previous communist movement (of the 1970 and 80s). This is an argument against socialist revolution attempting to reclaim patriotism or nationalist symbols in a country like the United States. The essay was part of a major theoretical effort by the Revolutionary Communist Party in the period of 1979-1984 to break with rightist and patriotic legacies within the international communist movement. It contains extensive sections written by Bob Avakian during this period — one of the times when a younger Avakian was still pressing the envelope of communist thinking and making creative contributions.
This essay was first published in 1980 and has been unavailable for decades. It has been republished by the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line. It is part of an archival project making documents of the “New Communist Movement” available to revolutionaries today for study, evaluation and summation.
* * * * * * * * *
On the Question of So-Called “National Nihilism”:
You Can’t Beat the Enemy While Raising His Flag
Can revolution in the U.S. today come wrapped in the American flag? Can we “claim it as our own”? Should a revolutionary party be motivated by a desire to “save America. . . from her rulers and for her people”? Can a class-conscious revolutionary in the U.S. “have pride in the true history of this country”? These are questions which have posed themselves again and again in the development of the revolutionary movement in the U.S. and are doing so today. In fact, similar questions of national pride and patriotism have historically been very important in the advances–and setbacks–of the international communist movement.
Earl Browder, the naked revisionist former leader of the Communist Party, USA gave his infamous answer to these questions in the mid-1930s when he coined the phrase “Communism is 20th Century Americanism” and said that the CPUSA was carrying on the revolutionary tradition of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and the like. Unfortunately, when all was said and done, Earl Browder was right about the CPUSA (though most certainly wrong about genuine communism) because the CP had completely taken up the program and outlook of bourgeois democracy. Such a stand may be American and definitely is bourgeois, but for a communist it is a thoroughly counter-revolutionary one, especially here in the imperialist USA in this, the era of proletarian revolution.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, comintern, Lenin, Maoism, Marxist theory, RCPUSA, Socialism, Stalin and Stalinism, V.I. Lenin | 25 Comments »
Posted by kasama on August 29, 2011
In the last months the EROL archives has posted a rich new body of past communist writings. (EROL is the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-line) We extend special thanks to Paul Saba, whose work is so important to our ongoing project of communist summation.
The following is one of the few existing histories of the RCP,USA. It is that organization’s own history — though this document has been buried and forgotten by the organization that wrote it.
We will now make it available for critical summation.
There is a lot to say about the real strengths and real weaknesses of the previous communist movement. To even start to understand them, we all need a common sense of what that history was, and how it was viewed (at that time) by those involved.
This essay was written in the wake of the RCP’s split with the RWH — over an economist view of work in the working class, and over a (relatedly) conservative view of what constitutes socialism and our revolutionary goals.
There are many levels on which to approach this document, and many ways in which to assimilate it. For now, we in Kasama are simply offering it for study and discussion — as part of the appropriation of previous communist history, and as part of the reconception based on that experience.
(We would like to make this available in pdf format. If you create such a pdf, share it with us, and we will post it as a pamphlet.)
Important Struggles in Building the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA
by Bill Klingel and Joanne Psihountas, leading members of the Central Committee of the RCP
This history is written in the light of the struggle against the Jarvis-Bergman clique, opportunists (led by Mickey Jarvis and Leibel Bergman) who attempted a revisionist coup to seize leadership of the RCP, and failing that tried to wreck, and then led a split from, the Party in the winter of1977-78. In the course of this struggle, it became clear that a summation of not only the current struggle, but of previous line struggles that went into forging a vanguard of the U.S. proletariat would be extremely valuable. This summation was originally written as an internal document of the RCP and on the basis of discussion within the Party, it has been rewritten in some parts for publication.
Opposition and struggle between ideas of different kinds constantly occur within the Party; this is a reflection within the Party of contradictions between classes and between the new and the old in society. If there were no contradictions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party’s life would come to an end. (Mao Tsetung, “On Contradiction,” Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 317.)
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Posted in >> analysis of news, communism, Maoism, New Com. Movement, RCPUSA | 12 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on August 28, 2011
Mao Zedong's road of protracted peoples war emerged in opposition to the Comintern's strategy of basing revolution on urban workers and using rural base areas to seize urban areas.
In the last months the EROL archives has posted a rich new body of past communist writings. (EROL is the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-line)
We wish to extend special thanks to Paul Saba, whose work has been tireless and extremely important to both our common ongoing project of communist summation and coming project of communist regroupment.
In the next few days, we will point out some of the remarkable documents now available online.But for the moment we will start here:
Over and over, we have received requests (on Kasama) for reposting a particular document: the Revolutionary Communist Party’s sharp and extensive critique of Hoxhaism.
This 1979 piece on Mao and Hoxha was one of the more effective and powerful polemics made on a number of key questions dividing the international communist movement in the late 1970s — in the wake of the counter-revolutionary events engulfing China after Mao’s death.
We have gotten these requests because the dispute between Maoism and Hoxhaism is one of the sharp historic collision points between creative Marxism and dogmatic Marxism — and because Hoxhaism concentrated a number of arguments for Comintern-era thinking that have maintained power within parts of the international communist movement.
This document is extensive, and we will simply make it available here. It was first published in the RCP’s theoretical journal The Communist #5.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Beat back the dogmato-revisionist attack on Mao Tsetung Thought
Comments on Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism and the Revolution
by J. Werner
Introduction
Upon first examining Enver Hoxha’s new book, Imperialism and the Revolution, one is tempted to dismiss it as a petty and shallow hatchet job and refer the reader to the works of Mao Tsetung, which make clear that most of the charges hurled at Mao are simply the worst type of blatant misquotations, distortions and downright lies, and also refer the reader to the many Soviet criticisms of Mao which, while sharing the same method and most of the same arguments as Hoxha, at least have the virtue of a more systematic and well-rounded presentation of the revisionist line.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, China, comintern, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, New Com. Movement, RCPUSA | 38 Comments »
Posted by kasama on August 16, 2011
by Mike Ely
I have many thoughts on each of John-John’s questions — and (i suspect) a rather different starting point.
This is a discussion about both the past and the future. What do we need or want from the past? How creatively do we prepare for the future? How much of the theory we need will emerge from our own coming practice?
I’m a partisan of appropriating what was revolutionary in the past — I think it is precious and that there is no way of facing the future without it. I am skeptical of the idea that our theory should come mainly from our own practice (since that is usually an approach that goes over to routinized and unimaginative activism). Yes our ideas and organizations will be tested (and transformed) in coming fires — and we need to prepare now energetically and expect then to be transformed again and yet again.
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Posted in Bill Martin, Black Panthers, communism, Cultural Revolution, Kasama, Maoism, Marxist theory, Mike Ely, New Com. Movement, philosophy, RCPUSA, Stalin and Stalinism, theory, Young Lords Party | 3 Comments »
Posted by kasama on August 6, 2011
We continue to receive contributions by people hoping to understand and sum up the anti-gay policies of the RCP.
What stands out about Pat’s comment (reposted below) is that s/he directly participated in the pressuring of a young gay revolutionary.
“…I was part of series of discussions with a potential recruit from the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB) who was gay. The descriptions given by Libri and others are similar to what we did with this youth who came out while in the brigade.
“At the time my thinking was that it was our responsibility to publicly uphold the party’s line even if we didn’t personally agree with it.
“I deeply regret being part of this and the damage it caused a very impressionable and somewhat immature high schooler.”
Pat wants to discuss the kind of training and thinking that led to such actions. And, at the same time, Pat remains a supporter of the RCP and expresses belief in that organization’s continuing viability and capacity to correct itself.
This originally appeared as a comment on a longer thread.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
by Pat
Like Sylvanus Windrunner I am also posting with trepidation. As a former member of the party I still support the party and view it as the only viable force for revolution in our country. My contact with them currently is limited but I left on good terms and want to keep it that way.
At the same time I think I do need to weigh in on the discussion because I was part of series of discussions with a potential recruit from the YB who was gay. The descriptions given by Libri and others are similar to what we did with this youth who came out while in the brigade.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> GLBT, gay, homosexuality, lesbian, RCPUSA | 21 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on August 2, 2011
by Mike Ely
One of the most remarkable events on Kasama this summer has been the outpouring of discussion over the treatment of gay people in the previous communist movement.
Libri Devrim, opened the door, with her piece “My life in a red closet” – a heartfelt remembrance written with deliberate restraint.
We experienced two responses, very different in kind:
Response #1: Rushing through the open door
There was a heartening outpouring of interest, experience and discussion. Kasama published six different, unsolicited new posts.
Three of them detailed experiences with the RCP’s red closet:
Three other posts dealt with experiences and summations from outside the RCP:
There were (all together) about 200 comments and over 6,000 page views of these threads.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, >> GLBT, communism, gay, homophobia, homosexuality, lesbian, Mike Ely, RCPUSA | 42 Comments »
Posted by kasama on July 13, 2011
Excavation
Kasama gives space to critical and even hostile remarks, and rarely dwells on praise. Consider this an exception.
This week we have been focused on excavating a particular and painful history: bigotry aimed at gay people within the revolutionary movement, its justifications, its policies and impact. It is gratifying to see evidence that our collective effort is being understood and appreciated — in this case from afar, by someone outside the organized left.
The following is excerpted from an essay originally published by The Cahokian.
One factual note: Ish described several people as “former RCP members” — when they have, in fact, been members of the organization’s youth group and supporters. Such mistakes are easy to make, but the distinctions are nonetheless important. Some of the commentators on our threads spoke as former members, but not the ones writing the main posts. We have corrected this in the excerpt we reprint below.
* * * * * * *
“This discussion is amazing to me. I can’t imagine the left as I knew it being so daring or honest with itself: and it’s done with the intention of being constructive and healing.”
“While I often find much to disagree with, I give them full credit for daring to look backwards as well as forward.”
Kasama: Coming to Terms with a Legacy of Homophobia
by the Cahokian (aka “ish”)
I’ve been following a number of left-wing websites which strike me as attempting to re-grow a meaningful left. The most exciting part of this to me is that following the obvious failure or defeat of the left in the last century, the people engaged in this attempt are going over the dogma of the past and trying to find what to hang on to and what to discard.
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Posted in >> Kasama Project, gay, homophobia, homosexuality, Kasama, lesbian, Maoism, Queer History, RCPUSA | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kasama on July 12, 2011
Mao Zedong
“We make the following rightful and righteous demands:
1. that the Marxist-Leninist methodology of dialectical and historical materialism be applied to the gay question and that subjectivist, “natural” bourgeois ideas based on no investigation be cast aside;
2. that serious criticism/self-criticism be made of anti-gay attitudes among comrades;
3. that gay people who hold ideological, political and organizational unity with a communist organization be allowed membership;
4. that the democratic rights of gay people be firmly upheld and struggled for by communists;
5. that evidence of anti-gay attitudes among the working class be struggled with by showing whose interests such prejudices actually serve.”
Paul Saba has encouraged Kasama to post the following document — a critique of anti-gay positions within the revolutionary movement, written by a collective of Maoist lesbians in 1975.
What stands out in reading this analysis is that it targets and convincingly refutes arguments that still lingered (inexplicably and shamefully) for almost 30 more years.
After reading this, no one can say that the error of anti-gay bigotry was unknowable at that time — because it was laid out here quite clearly, in a document that was widely circulated. No one can say that inherited communist thinking made it impossible to break with anti-gay bigotry — because here its refutation is conducted on the basis of careful Maoist investigation and methodology.
This critique includes (as an appendix) the document of the Revolutionary Union that they are refuting.
We have been excavating the mistreatment of gay people within the revolutionary movement. Every day, we receive new information, suggestions, personal testimony and documents.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in gay, homophobia, homosexuality, lesbian, Maoism, New Com. Movement, Queer History, RCPUSA | 11 Comments »
Posted by Tell No Lies on July 12, 2011
We could follow the old dictum and “let the dead bury the dead.” But there is value in thinking through how the communist movement of the 1980s and 1990s might have avoided the “cindering out” that engulfed today’s RCP.
In the following exchange, Tell No Lies and Mike Ely each give their own versions of what they saw, and what we might have done.
Chuck (CWM) triggers the exchange by repeatedly suggesting that those frustrated by disagreements within the RCP should simply have dropped out and found something else to do.
Tell No Lies:
No other revolutionary project just waiting
“Perhaps Mike and others in the RCP should have ditched the RCP en masse in the early 90s to join Love and Rage and fought to make IT a better organization. It certainly would have been helpful. They would have brought a level of skills, discipline and seriousness that we sorely needed. But I have no difficulty understanding why they didn’t.”
Chuck writes:
“there were/are a whole range of non-Leninist revolutionary groups.”
Oh yeah? Name them. Name a single non-Leninist revolutionary organization that was around for the duration of Mike’s tenure in the RCP (from the 70s until the middle of this past decade.
Name a single non-Leninist revolutionary organization that demonstrated anything like the organizational capacity of the RCP — its national presence, its press, its bookstores, its “mass formations”?
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Kasama, Kasama collectives, Mike Ely, RCPUSA, Tell No Lies, vanguard party | 40 Comments »
Posted by kasama on July 12, 2011
After publishing Libri Devrim’s “My Life in a Red Closet” we have received several accounts of the suppression of gay people within the revolutionary movement. Here is our fourth one.
Each recollection has added detail — but also confirmed a pattern where gay people were identified, isolated, confronted with the RCP’s position, pressured to reject their same sex attractions, and then often just shunned. As this account notes, there apparently a worked-out routine here, carried out after supporters have been sequestered and wrapped in a concealing cloud of invented security concerns.
* * * * * * * * *
by Alessa Hill
I wasn’t of the same generation as either Andrew or Libri, but in some ways I had a very similar experience.
I am heterosexual and was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB) for three years. During that time I saw eager young people who were active and interested in politics become enthusiastic about what was in the pages of the Revolutionary Worker and would want to be involved in building the party. More than a handful, including one of my close friends, were GLBTQ. Some were actively discouraged from seeking to be anything more than “supporters” while others were active up until they heard the party’s line on homosexuality and then they left in disgust.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, gay, homophobia, homosexuality, lesbian, Queer History, RCPUSA | 4 Comments »
Posted by kasama on July 10, 2011
Kasama has received the following recollection. We are attempting to excavate and understand a hidden and denied history within our previous communist movement.
“The point of contention for me was with the accusation that I was my love for Mark (and possible future love for another man) was a concentrated expression of misogyny that stood as an obstacle to the emancipation of women. I never understood that argument with its twisted logic.
“My love for Mark was just love. It had nothing to do with my feelings for women in general or my commitment to fighting sexism or the transformation to a new society. It was just love for someone who was a great guy who I sorely missed and wished every day was there with me.”
* * * * * * * * * *
by Andrew Copper
After reading Libri’s painful account of her time in the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and the pressure that was placed on her to change her sexual orientation, I feel compelled to tell my own story.
I was active in the Revolutionary Union, the precursor to the Revolutionary Communist Party, as a college student and then, years later, with the RCP. During those intervening years I was out of touch with comrades from the RCP and so it was no surprise that they didn’t realize I had come out as a gay man and that I was living with male partner, Mark, who had first been my college roommate and then become my lover.
Mark’s sudden death in an accident in the late 1980s forced me to reconsider the direction my life had been taking. I had been so involved in the details of my life, my education and nascent career, and everything else in life, that I had stepped back from political activity (temporarily) and never returned.
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Posted in gay, homosexuality, RCPUSA | 26 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on July 7, 2011
The publication of “My Life in a Red Closet” has encouraged a number of other people to share their experiences. The following comes from a long time supporter of the RCP who describes experiences of questioning and opposing the anti-gay line.
by Gary
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 interference into a member or supporter’s intimate life.
I knew the party was homophobic. And even while in the Brigade in the 70s I opposed the “line of homosexuality.” I did so quietly, partly because I thought it might raise questions about my own sexuality. (It now seems strange to me that I would have once cared about such things. Why should I have ever held back in expressing my views about homosexuality, fearing that I might be considered gay? These days if someone mistook me as gay, I’d see it as similar to misspelling my name or misidentifying my ethnicity. Not a big issue. Such has society evolved; you certainly see it in the youth.)
Anyway, this is the first I’ve heard about this kind of Revolutionary Communist Party 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…
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in gay, homophobia, homosexuality, lesbian, Queer History, RCPUSA | 15 Comments »
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in communism, homophobia, homosexuality, lesbian, Queer History, RCPUSA | 107 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on June 5, 2011
“There are many socialisms possible, and they are not all equally or automatically liberatory.”
“This dogmatic and reductionist approach is not just wrong in these particular cases around alcoholism– but represents an overall approach that will never solve any problems, including all the other problems of making revolution and liberating humanity.”
“Think about the destruction and madness that would reign if such a line came to dominate a serious political movement? On the contrary: we need actively critical thinking, investigation, and an approach of eagerly learning about real contradictions.”
by Mike Ely
There are many things to respond to in our discussion.
But first I want to acknowledge the pain of people suffering from addictions and mental illnesses, and the incredible perseverance of those who have maintained their revolutionary commitment in the face of so much adversity (including mistreatment by some currents within the revolutionary movement).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, methodology, Mike Ely, RCPUSA | Tagged: alcoholism, drugs | 32 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on April 24, 2011
Kasama is publishing a series of articles this week on the destruction of the environment and socialist solutions. These articles will represent sharply opposing views, and (as usual) the posting by Kasama does not imply endorsement of specific arguments. Thanks to the Kasama team that has been researching and debating these questions. We started this series with One Struggle‘s statement.
The following is an excerpt from Draft Program written around 2001 within the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA. The RCP did not (in the end) adopt this program because of their course change after 2003. Nonetheless these ideas of socialist sustainability and Maoist urban planning deserve continuing attention and development.
The New Socialist Economy:
Agriculture, City and Countryside, Ecology, and Planning
Introduction
Maoism approaches economic development as an interdependent whole. It strives for integrated and egalitarian development. It takes account of the immediate and pressing needs of society and of the long-term goals and long-term effects of economic-social development.
Capitalism mobilizes human and material resources according to the dictates of profit and evaluates economic performance within that narrow framework. Socialism, by contrast, insists on a kind of social balance sheet. For instance, agricultural land-use has health and environmental repercussions; what is called the ‘built environment’ of residential dwellings, public buildings and spaces, and transport systems reflects society’s values and shapes the experience of daily life. These sorts of issues are part of the framework of economic calculation and planning under socialism.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in communism, ecology, environment, Maoism, RCPUSA, theory | 5 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on April 24, 2011
Public debate and conscious social decisions make possible socialist planning
Kasama is publishing a series of articles this week on the destruction of the environment and socialist solutions. These articles will represent sharply opposing views, and (as usual) the posting by Kasama does not imply endorsement of specific arguments. Thanks to the Kasama team that has been researching and debating these questions. We started this series with One Struggle‘s statement.
The following is an excerpt from Draft Program written around 2001 within the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA. The RCP did not (in the end) adopt this program because of their course change after 2003. Nonetheless these ideas of socialist sustainability and Maoist urban planning deserve continuing attention and development.
III. Socialist Sustainable Development and Ecology
Proletarian revolution in the U.S. will be a giant leap in changing the realities of the global environment. Imperialism has produced a wasteful and destructive pattern of economic activity and industrial development. Its profit-above-all-else, blind expansionary nature, its turning of more and more of nature into a commodity, its wars and weapons of mass destruction all this is strangling the fundamental ecosystems of the planet.
The proletariat seeks to achieve conscious social control of production. This requires that the well-being of the natural environment the renewal of eco-systems and the ability of ecosystems to assimilate waste from human productive activity be maintained. Natural resources will be used to further social development but will not be a means to accumulate private wealth.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, ecology, environment, Maoism, Marxist theory, mass line, RCPUSA, revolution | 1 Comment »
