“I don’t pretend to understand Dr. Žižek’s ‘Lacanian,’ ‘post-Maoist’ philosophy or critiques of popular culture or whatever it is that he does.”
That says it all — right in the opening sentence. It is a confession.
Friendly suggestion: Perhaps if you don’t understand someone’s work, you should remain silent. And listen to those who have done the hard work of understanding and actually critiquing that work.
In fact, this opening statement is a declaration that you don’t have to understand something to evaluate it. And that alone is revealing. It is a form of identity politics — it says we can categorize and dismiss an idea by considering the source. If we can peg the person speaking, then we can dismiss the idea. We don’t have to evaluate it, we don’t have to “divide it into two,” we con’t even need to understand it (or even “pretend to understand it”!)
In short, the essay starts with a militant statement of know-nothingism. that is its main theme, it is its main method. And it is truly militant: it is right there, proudly, in the opening sentence.
The following article appeared on the Marxist-Leninist site — in response to the piece “Marxism is Not a Layer Cake.” The FRSO discussed below is the group associated with the newspaper “Fight Back.”
by Professor Toad
First, I would like to clarify one point to avoid confusion. When the article Marxism is Not a Layer Cake was first posted, it was stated that it was a comment on the official Freedom Road Socialist Organization reading list. It has since been clarified that the reading list under discussion is not an official Freedom Road Socialist Organization list, but merely a study guide produced by a person who is a member of FRSO. Similarly, I am not writing this article on behalf of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The editor of the Marxist-Leninist blog has, of course, had an opportunity to discuss it with me, and I have listened to his input, because he is a respected comrade. I have had some input from certain other comrades as well, in the US and abroad. But this article is solely my own responsibility.
The depiction of the African American nation in 1930 -- from James Allen's work. Should we approach Black Liberation as if this is still the situation, using theory developed in re-World War 1 Eastern Europe?
This post is a response to remarks by May9 within the “Layer Cake” discussion.
by Mike Ely
First, i want to say to May 9 that I respect and appreciate this engagement. Our views are sharply different — and far too often, such views are not able to engage in public. And I believe it is helpful (not just to me, but to many people watching) to see the exchange in some depth.
What does religious thinking look like?
Mike Ely wrote
“If you teach Marxism as a religion of universal classics, you have taught religion not revolution… Orthodoxy is anathema to revolution. It is very conservative (in training and implications).”
May 9 responds:
“Nobody is teaching Marxism as “religion”. There is your bogus construction.”
Nah. Everyone knows there is a religous quality to major strains of communist doctrine.
And a big part of the change that happened with the codification of Marxism (after the first great socialist revolution in Russia) was that it got confined in a doctrinal way — and had the qualities of a state religion.
Now perhaps these terms are confusing…. so let me be clearer.
“However, as a lifelong educator, I believe the foundation has a responsibility to serve as a catalyst for serious discourse regarding key historical figures and their actions as they relate to the D-Day story and World War II in general,” she continued. “To do otherwise, is a serious disservice to those individuals that lived and died during those historical events.”
The petition also calls on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to make the acceptance of the D-Day Memorial as a national park dependent on the removal of the bust.
Stalin Bust Sparks Outrage Among Small-Town Residents
The installation of a memorial bust of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Bedford, Va., next to Western Allied leaders in World War II has ignited a firestorm of controversy and threatened to tear apart the small town 200 miles south of the nation’s capital.
Opponents of the bronze sculpture say it has no right to be placed in the National D-Day Memorial next to the busts of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill because Stalin’s murderous rule led to the deaths of at least 20 million people, surpassing even the number of murders under Hitler’s bloody reign.
The Bedford board of supervisors voted unanimously late last month to ask the National D-Day Memorial Foundation to lose the bust. A group called the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has an electronic petition calling on the memorial overseers to remove the bust. Several newspaper editorials have criticized the bust. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent uprising of Iran's people against the bloody mullah dictatorship
“But reducing imperialism to those acts (and thinking that opposing particular imperialist actions is inherently “anti-imperialism”) leaves out the revolution and waters down anti-imperialist until it means little more than anti-intervention.”
“When you start talking about ‘anti-imperialist politics,’ an important question is what exactly is meant by ‘imperialism.’
“It seems that for the Workers World Party and a lot of Left groupings, ‘imperialism’ refers concretely primarily to the power position of the US and its allies and that by extension any opposition to the US and its allies is anti-imperialist. Within that framework which is IMO basically geopolitical and not social revolutionary in its criteria, it makes sense to align with Cuba, China etc….
“However if you view imperialism as i do as the world system of monopolistic capital following Bukharin,Lenin etc,then its difficult to see how the PRC or DPRK etc are any more ‘anti-imperialist’ than the USA/EU, in all you have a variable combination of state/private monopoly capital integrated within the world market system.”
I agree with your main point: Imperialism is a system, that defines the world’s current economic and political order.
Imperialism is another name for monopoly capitalism. It is the currently dominant form of class society. This is what we need to be against, what we need to unite with others to oppose and overthrow. It is also what we need to analyze anew because of its many changes and developments — we can’t just affirm Lenin’s work from a century ago.
As part of opposing imperialism, we should of course be energetically against specific imperialist acts — aggression, threats, assassination-by-drone, assassination-by-deathsquad, Guantanamo Bay, interventions, plunder, nuclear blackmail, military aid to proxies, covert intrigues, unequal treaties, robbery of resources etc. etc.
Interesting, I suppose, that we quickly get away from discussing what Lenin wrote and instead into Stalin/Trotsky and the like.
Here, at least along one line of analysis, is the connection. Lenin led a revolution. In this “Unexplored Mountain” essay, Lenin is stressing the need for visionary leadership, which entails not falling back on conventional thinking, especially when the process that is unfolding is entirely new and unprecedented.
Trotsky also played a role in leading the Bolshevik Revolution, and it is shameful that this role has been erased from the standard histories of the Revolution promulgated by Stalinists and Maoists. Even the erstwhile Maoists who have recently discovered truth stumble over this point (they choke, really), and we (who want to continue the revolutionary legacy of Maoism and develop it qualitatively) should draw some lessons from this.
My own view, for what it is worth, is that Trotsky’s Marxist theorizing, while interesting and creative, does not help us understand or make a revolution against imperialism; the legacy of Trotskyism is, in the main, to deny key elements of Lenin’s understanding of imperialism, and to return us to “classical Marxism.” Furthermore, for all kinds of reasons, Trotsky was never going to be the leader of the CPSU. However, none of this means that we shouldn’t study Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution and other work [some of which is just as "Stalinist" as anything Stalin wrote], or that we should not recognize the very important role that Trotsky played in the Bolshevik Revolution.
“It’s sometimes claimed that the multi-party elections in this system will take place under the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this makes no sense at all. If it’s a dictatorship of the proletariat how can you allow bourgeois parties to compete for power with the party of the proletariat? It is absurd to believe that elections could routinely take place between two parties both with a proletarian line. The proletariat has a common interest. It’s vanguard should be encouraging unity not institutionalising a split so we can blindly copy bourgeois democracy. Multi-party democracy has a material basis in capitalism because different factions of the bourgeoisie have different selfish interests. Not so the proletariat.”
Joseph articulates here a view and a logic inherited from the Comintern. It assumes that the Stalin-era state form is inherent in the process of socialist transition and in the very nature of the working class as a historic revolutionary agent. I think this views deserves a respectful discussion and repudiation. It is a view that I disagree with on almost every level. I think it is refuted by actual experience (including the experience of capitalist restoration). I think it has been deeply challenged by Mao’s view on continuing revolution — and needs to be challenged even further. This theory rests on a way of thinking that is deeply schematic and mechanical, and really doesn’t bother to look at living reality in a creative or penetrating way.
Original six Black Panthers (November, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard, Huey P. Newton, Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale. Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton.
By most accounts, an explicit Maoist ideology and movement did not emerge on the U.S. political landscape until Mao initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966. A precursor to the revolution had erupted in China nine years earlier, when Mao appealed to his countrymen to “let a hundred flowers blossom” and “let a hundred schools of thought contend.” That campaign was just a flash in the pan, however, and it was quickly silenced after too many flowers openly criticized the Chinese Communist Party.
But the Cultural Revolution was different. Hierarchies in the party and in the Red Army were ostensibly eliminated. Criticism and self-criticism was encouraged-as long as it coincided with Mao Zedong thought. Communists suspected of supporting a capitalist road were brought to trial. Bourgeois intellectuals in the academy and government were expected to perform manual labor, to work among the people as a way of breaking down social hierarchies. And all vestiges of the old order were to be eliminated. The youth, now the vanguard, attacked tradition with a vengeance and sought to create new cultural forms to promote the revolution. The people of China were now called on to educate themselves. The Cultural Revolution intensified the constituent elements of Maoism: the idea of constant rebellion and conflict; the concept of the centrality of people over economic laws or productive forces; the notion of revolutionary morality.
“…countries as diverse as Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, Albania, and men as dissimilar as Lenin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, have all found themselves arriving at the one-party state, then we might be forced to conclude that the proletariat HAS IN FACT ALREADY FOUND the form of political rule appropriate to itself as a class.”
* * * * * * *
By John Carter
Comrades,
First, I think it’s extremely cool that Mike has chosen to directly engage the divergent views expressed in this thread. Coming from the orbit of the CPUSA, where criticism is dismissed out of hand when it’s not ignored, I hardly know how to respond … I lack recent practice in maintaining a polemic.
But that’s fine. We need to encourage and find ways to foster and nurture the kind of intellectual and ideological struggle that characterized the Bolshevik Party during Lenin’s lifetime, while still remaining comrades. I quite certain Mike would agree with that.
Anyway -
At first blush, it might seem that allowing room for a multiplicity of competing socialist parties, the basic premise of the Maobadi’s “new mainstream” And here I stand corrected, BTW; it is quite correct that the parties of the exploiters and the bourgeoisie are excluded from this spectrum), is a natrual evolution from the insight that tendencies are going to exist within the vanguard party, and so we might as well let them struggle in the open rather than suppressing them through administrative means or worse.
Kasama makes these two very different statements available (as usual) without implying agreement with the details of analysis.
Slavoj Žižek on the resurrection of the left in the midst of current crises — and sharply disputes the ideas of limited local activities as a substitute for large collective actions.
Kasama has learned that the new EROL has been launched – as part of the larger, respected Marxist Internet Archives. It includes a history of anti-revisionist politics and an archive of anti-revisionist documents and newspapers. Salute to Paul and his co-workers for all their effort.
Here is the new site’s own description of its focus and purpose.
Anti-Revisionism and
the Anti-Revisionist Movement
by Paul Costello
Historically, in the Communist lexicon, the term “anti-revisionism” has been used to describe opposition to attempts to revise, modify or abandon the fundamentals of revolutionary theory and practice in a manner that was perceived to represent concessions to Communism’s adversaries.
East German family life around a new computer 1987 -- Honecker's so-called "consumer socialism" was not that much different from West European society and life.
In our discussion of Heresy: On New Demarcations & Coherent Theory, a commentator (T1) argued strongly saying that East Germany (the GDR) should be considered socialist. Selucha responded that despite “socialist elements,” East Germany could not be considered a revolutionary society.
* * * * * * *
I would say that the three claims of socialism in East Germany were not that remarkable for capitalist countries:
welfare state features,
state ownership of industry,
government party self-labeling itself “socialist”
And that we can’t consider a society “socialist” based on just the presence of those “features” — i.e. socialism is not defined by either forms or official rhetoric. And this becomes clear when you start to compare societies.
MPBW objected (with dismissive anger) to remarks on the theory and history of Trotskyism. I’m going to set aside the tone of MPBW’s comments, and deal with a few points.
1) I think there is a general problem of “decline” in the forms of radical left activity forged in the previous century. And i think part of what we need to regroup is forces who want to understand and break out of that pattern.
And I believe that is possible because that decline is independent of the acute suffering of the people globally and the very real potential for radical social alternatives. We (the revolutionary left) need to actively press beyond this moment — and pull something new out of this crisis.
2) I suggested that Trotskyism as a trend is deep into disarray and dispersal. And that is hard to deny. The Fourth International was rather still-born already in Trotsky’s life in the 1930s. It found some pockets of intellectual adherents, but shattered as a trend. Its surviving components have maintained themselves largely by taking distance (in some basic ways) from their own initial beliefs. We could plot the trajectories of Ernest Mandel’s trend, or de-trotskyization of the Workers World and PSL, or Jack Barnes’ withdrawal from Permanent Revolution, or the flurry around post-Trotskyist formations of the Third Camp kind — but those who are interested in such matters already know about them.
3) Here is the point: I don’t think that this kind of crisis is peculiar to Trotskyism. The various left political trends are different in a number of ways, but they do share the common appearance of crisis. And in this I’m including anarchism (which had a spurt of generational growth in the 1980s). And it is even true of the more electoral left forces identified with the Greens or Nader — for whom the appearance of “spoiler” after the tied 2000 election has proven to be such a trauma.
Demarcations and differences do not require treating others like heretics from some true religion
By Mike Ely
I’d like to build upon what Tell No Lies just said in our discussion of the mentioning of Trotsky by one of Nepal’s leading Maoists.
First, the point in all of this is that we need to find a way to be clearly, shockingly revolutionary, but not sectarian. This is a challenge (in a left where anti-sectarianism is the banner of reformism). I think it is possible, and I think many of us are eager for it.
Starkly non-sectarian, fiercely revolutionary. With all that this implies and demands.
TNL said (excerpted from among other things):
“I am quite pleased to see Bhattarai quoting Trotsky, if only to shake up the dogmatists. … I’d love to see a similar openness to the full range of heretics from Gramsci through Fanon and beyond. Being “on guard” against heretical ideas is deadly to revolutionary theory… A genuinely scientific outlook is unafraid of heresy and knows that seemingly disproven ideas come back to life all the time in the light of new experiences or theoretical advances in other areas. The Trotskyist critique of building socialism in one country was problematic more because it was politically paralyzing than because it was analytically wrong about the limits of what could be achieved and its revival in a much smaller country in a more globally integrated world economy makes complete sense to me.”
I think there are a number of sides to approach here.
1) Treating ideas as heresy has been a way of shutting down debate without engaging deeply with the actual lines. It is a terrible method. Communism is not a religion with religious doctrines, apostates and heretics.
“India has a whole lot of Maoists. We need to do our share, wherever we are, for the world revolution.”
I think there are three parts to this that demand our attention:
First, I think that it is just not widely understood just how precious it is to have a radical socialist state in the world. (Even, as Richard says, “just one!”)
It has been a long time (too long) since the world saw a socialist state like Mao’s China that was truly a “beacon of revolution” in the world — training and helping revolutionary movements, providing revolutionary theory and literature, creating a pole among states in the world outside the empires and the dominance of commodity markets, and providing the inspiration of ongoing radical social change.
In many ways it almost seems strange to a new generation when they read how captivated previous generations of communists were by the experiences of the Soviet Union and then (after the 1950s) of revolutionary China. It seems unbalanced for revolutionary movements in this country to be so closely entwined with events and movements so far away.
Tariq Ali has been a fixture of the radical British left for over forty years — when he emerged as a prominent figure within the Trotskyist movement. Now widely respected as a novelist and political commentor — he speaks here on the meaning of Obama’s victory and questions connected to the war encroaching on Pakistan. This talk was given at the Marxism 2009 conference in Britain.
We have been discussing the experience of socialism in the twentieth century, and focusing on matters of free speech and internal repression and their impact on the socialist road. Yesterday, we posted some revealing essays by Mao (here and here) — opposing arrest for reactionary views and execution for political opposition.
In response Jonathan Rochkind writes:
This conversation certainly makes Mao sound like a wise old man, practically libertarian in his outlook. I have to say I’m somewhat suspicious whether the actual practice in China under Mao matched the implication of this conversation though — whether or not it’s what Mao intended.
What do you guys who know more think? Was China under Mao (at one period or another?) actually the libertarian tolerant place that the Mao in this conversation described/recommended?
I think the short answer is a qualified no.
Socialist China was far more complex and contradictory than some simple extension of Mao’s views. And the 1970 interview we posted is itself evidence of how controversial Mao’s views actually were and remained — even at a time when he seemed to be at the height of power (and at a time where his pictures and quotes were everywhere in society).
We have been discussing the importance of summing up the history of socialist revolution in the twentieth century — and the problem of silence on such events as the “Great Purges” in the 1930s Soviet Union. In that thread, a commentator “Reading You” wrote a defense of the mass executions of those times. Here is a reply.
By Mike Ely
On one level, there is a mind-numbing contradiction at play. The communist movement (justifiably!) denounces the beating of Rodney King, the killing of Oscar Grant, the shooting of Amadou Diallo, the assassination of Malcolm or King, the jailing of Peltier and Mumia, the holding of so-called “enemy combatants” without evidence or trial… These are outrages — and often the innocence of the victim is a part of that outrage.
So what does it mean, if someone like “Reading You” can (with a wave of their hand) minimize the state execution of hundreds of thousands of people (without trial and often, it must be said, without evidence)? Is it that different because those were nominally socialist cops who pulled the triggers?
There were in the 1930s quotas for arrests (just like there were quotas for other forms of production) — i.e. the cops in a particular locality were required to produce so many spies and reactionaries. Imagine what that produced? There was permission to torture signed at the highest level. Imagine what that meant for the emergence of “confessions” and new denunciations of new suspects for the machinery.
How often we rage when cops in the U.S. presume the guilt of “perps” (”They wouldn’t have been arrested if they hadn’t done something” or “I can tell a criminal just by looking at him.”) Does it suddenly become ok, to arrest and punish without evidence or public hearings if the system is socialist?
And what kind of justice would the people get from activists with such a blindspot if they got to be part of a new state power?
Our summation has deal with the reality of revolutions, not their romanticized self-images
This is a response to the discussion in our thread on “Socialist Democracy, Snowflakes and the Restoration of Capitalism” and Rosa Blanc’s essay on the state. It focuses on one aspect of all this: i.e. the need for communists to dig fearlessly into the history of socialism (and communist revolution) in the twentieth century. There have been a number of discussions on these topics on our site.
by Mike Ely
Quite simply, we need to tell the truth about the twentieth century and the experience of socialist revolution. Seductive myths and self-deception thrive in the absence of information — where manufactured images pass as the available data. But ultimately, an accurate appraisal of these complex experiences is necessary for the work that lies ahead — and people will not settle for anything less. And it needs to be said, there are powerful and positive experiences that are at the heart of that story — as well as grievous developments that cannot and should not be covered over (or upheld).
The defenders of the current American political order have largely succeeded in presenting their system as democratic and protective of popular rights, while portraying the socialist experiences as inherently dictatorial, capricious and oppressive. This is an intolerable and unjustified situation that must be reversed in the course of revolutionary political work. And as an important part of that is digging deeply and candidly into the socialist experiences of the twentieth century.I believe we cannot possibly go before people of the 21st century with the half-true myths that were occasionally attractive in the previous century — and this has been true for decades. We can’t be the last ones to deal publicly with the sharpest controversies of the first wave of socialist revolutions.
There is in this new generation of radical activists a serious desire for what is “real” — not for easy answers or romanticized imaginings. And this is a good thing.
Lacunae and Avoidance
A lot of this is, understandably, tied up with the question of the Stalin years — but not just there. There is really a whole century of struggles and revolutions — together with their conceptions, organizations, achievements and failures to understand.
by Mike Ely
