"Snarky" is an apt description for this piece. I have long noticed that bourgeoisie journalists are indignant at the survival of communism in any form. During the time of Sendero Luminoso in Peru the metaphor of choice was "Khymer Rouge" as a way of discrediting the guerrillas. It is easier with the situation in Nepal, India and elsewhere because these movements (and countries) are usually just ignored. It as if the fall of the Soviet Union provided the perfect ending to the whole "story" of communism and they resent having to revisit the issue in any form, other than horror stories from North Korea.

Here's an extended response from Lotta:


The Controversy About Bob Avakian: NYRB Ad Appears, Charges of “Cult” and “Insignificance” Follow… But What’s the Real Story?
by Raymond Lotta

Bob Avakian, Maoist theorist and leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has been the subject of three articles this past week – two by Mark Oppenheimer (one in <a href="/http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/01/27/free_bob_avakian/" rel="nofollow">The Boston Globe </a> and another on <a href="/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark_oppenheimer/how_maoists_are_like_scie_b_83555.html" rel="nofollow">Huffington Post</a>

and a third by Scott McLemee on <a href="/http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/01/30/mclemee" rel="nofollow">InsideHigherEd.com</a>. These commentaries were occasioned by the recent publication of an ad from the Engage Committee to Project and Protect the Voice of Bob Avakian that appeared in The New York Review of Books. Oppenheimer and McLemee sneer at the very idea that anyone would seriously conceive of revolution in today’s world. Here is my reply to Mark Oppenheimer’s original piece in The Boston Globe. Scott McLemee, like Oppenheimer, raises questions of “cult of personality,” which I address in my reply:

Mark Oppenheimer (“Free Bob Avakian!” January 27, 2008) dismisses as much ado about nothing a New York Review of Books ad calling on people to engage with the timely and relevant work of Bob Avakian—a statement signed by over 250 intellectuals, artists, people from social movements, and others
(see <a href="/http://www.engagewithbobavakian.org)" rel="nofollow">www.engagewithbobavakian.org)</a>. We live in a time of human history when half the planet subsists on less than $2 a day; when the U.S. is waging unjust, brutal, and endless war in the Middle East; and when global warming threatens ecocide. And Avakian is applying himself to nothing less than the challenge of how to transform the world in a liberating way. All this Oppenheimer conveniently ignores.

Had Oppenheimer bothered to engage with Avakian’s work, as I have, he would encounter someone who is not just a keeper of the flame, but someone creatively addressing how socialism could come alive and speak to the deepest needs and hopes of humanity in the 21st century.

He would have encountered a vision of socialism in which those now on the bottom of society, the great majority of humanity, would have the right and ability to explore scientific and intellectual questions--while professional intellectuals would be able to work, create, venture in all kinds of directions, and contribute to the advance of knowledge free of the constraints of profit and empire. He would learn why Avakian believes that dissent, even dissent opposed to socialism, must be defining of the very fabric of socialist society. He would learn and perhaps argue with Avakian’s insights into how the next wave of socialism has to better handle the relationship between putting the needs of the great majority of society first while fostering individual initiative and protecting individual rights.

In Oppenheimer’s fantasy world, Avakian could not possibly be a target for repression. This flies in the face of the whole history of attacks on revolutionaries and radicals in the U.S. It also trivializes the dangers of the current political climate where anyone’s home can be searched without a warrant, or anyone can be snatched away for indefinite detention without trial. Oppenheimer wants to know where Avakian is. But this is irrelevant (since when does a person’s zip code determine the validity of their ideas?). And Oppenheimer’s insistence that a prominent revolutionary leader somehow be accessible to him—why can’t I have coffee with Avakian?—is as absurd as it is obnoxious. Does he think that Toni Morrison, Brad Pitt, Stephen Hawking, or any person of public accomplishment or notoriety, has some special obligation to meet with him or any journalist who just so wishes? Come on.

Oppenheimer then tries to spook readers with the false claim that Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party are building up a religious-like “cult of personality.” This does a disservice to the diverse range of individuals, coming from different political perspectives, who signed the public statement calling on people to engage with the work of Bob Avakian (to see comments from signers about what they see in Avakian’s work, go to <a href="/http://www.engagewithbobavakian.org/comment.htm" rel="nofollow">www.engagewithbobavakian.org/comment.htm</a>. As for what Avakian thinks about leadership, he is totally opposed to notions of the infallibility of and blind, uncritical adherence to leaders. Avakian makes it very clear that the promotion of his work is meaningful only insofar as that work concentrates a new understanding and vision of communism. He has explained that his leadership is meaningful in relation to the challenge of making revolution and getting to a world without classes, in which people are consciously and voluntarily changing the world and themselves in the process. He also points out that revolution and socialism require dedicated and far-seeing leaders—but must at the same time work to break down the distinction between leaders and led, and empower the formerly oppressed to take hold of, and with the great majority of society, take ever-greater responsibility for the direction of society.

Bob Avakian has not made peace with the system. He not only remains committed to the idea of revolution. He is providing vital political and theoretical leadership to making that a reality in today’s world. Today, when millions agonize over the trajectory of society, and aspire to something just and emancipating, Avakian’s voice needs to be heard and defended.

Bob Avakian’s works are available on Amazon, <a href="/http://bobavakian.net" rel="nofollow">bobavakian.net</a> or <a href="/http://revcom.us" rel="nofollow">revcom.us</a>.

Raymond Lotta is a Maoist political economist, author of America in Decline and Maoist Economics and the Revolutionary Road to Communism and contributor to Revolution Newspaper.

I think Oppenheimer makes an interesting point, not yet discussed much here. The security-justified absence of the physical Avakian makes it easier to promote the whole ap&amp;p thing. Being a mystery man makes the claim of having (or <i>being</i> the solution to humanity's gravest problems a bit harder to falsify. And it makes ducking actual dialog and debate with the skeptical seem less evasive.

(Speaking of which, for all Avakian's self-analogizing to Lenin, old V.I. did not shy from taking on any and all critics of his line within his own party or in the Second International globally, rather than sending surrogates to shoot at journalists for the bourgeois press.)

The Lotta critique of Oppenheimer also highlights by omission an obvious point others have no doubt made. If the ruling class in this country is truly intent on silencing the voice of Bob Avakian, they are doing a piss-poor job of it. He is cranking out a genuinely impressive volume of wordage (none of it, judging by style, by ghostwriters) and all of it seems to be getting out there in print, video, and audio formats pretty readily.

Frankly I don’t find much to get excited about in the Oppenheimer piece in the Boston Globe. I don’t know much about the writer, although his reported<a href="/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-oppenheimer/how-maoists-are-like-scie_b_83555.html" rel="nofollow"> reference to Mumia </a>elsewhere as a “cop-killer” might be indicative of a generally reactionary stance. But on the other hand he says he used to visit Revolution Books in Cambridge and seems seriously interested in interviewing BA, whom (let’s face it) very few journalists are aware of or interested in “engaging.”

In the last 2007 issue of Revolution the editors note <a href="/http://rwor.org/a/114/2007-obits-en.html" rel="nofollow">Tom Snyder</a>, the former late night TV interview show host who once interviewed Avakian, as someone who had “made a positive mark on the world.” (Snyder died last year.) I saw that Snyder interview long ago, and thought it pretty disastrous. The RCP as I recall subsequently lambasted Snyder for making BA look bad. But maybe that experience is being reassessed as Bob prepares to re-access the media. The RCP now seems to crave media interest in its leader and may be alluding to this precedent hoping for more media access. (It now states Snyder “took some chances” in inviting Avakian to appear.) But is there any indication that Oppenheimer is more unsympathetic to Avakian than Snyder, or---say---Diane Sawyer?

Lotta treats Oppenheimer’s suggestion of an interview almost as a provocation. He calls it “absurd” that the journalist might want to have coffee with Avakian, adding, “Does he think that Toni Morrison, Brad Pitt, Stephen Hawking, or any person of public accomplishment or notoriety, has some special obligation to meet with him or any journalist who just so wishes? Come on.”

But the above-mentioned do actually meet with journalists without scripted agendas, as do for that matter Maoist leaders like <a href="/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4707482.stm" rel="nofollow">Prachanda </a>and Sison. None of these people are shrouded in Avakian’s degree of hidden-imam-like mystical secrecy. Oppenheimer, who is just one journalist who appears to have some curiosity about a figure most of his peers regard as marginal, is not saying BA has an obligation to meet with him, personally. He’s drawing attention to the strangeness of the New York Review of Books statement---strange in its depiction of Avakian as especially threatened and deserving of defense at this time---and saying, “Anytime you’re ready, I’d like to ask you some questions.” Is that bad or threatening?

I also thought the <a href="/http://www.engagewithbobavakian.org/" rel="nofollow">“Engage</a>!” campaign strange. My initial reaction was, “What, is Avakian under some new legal attack?” Informed that that was not the case, I concluded that the “defend” Bob aspect of the “Engage!” campaign was secondary to the “promote” Bob aspect. Obviously this is the case, and this is why some “public intellectuals” who are progressive and even work comfortably with the RCP have stayed away from this particular effort.

The limited success of the campaign (in getting the <a href="/http://www.engagewithbobavakian.org/engage-en.pdf" rel="nofollow">ad </a>into the NYRB) of course has attracted bourgeois journalists’ attention and curiosity. How could the RCP have expected otherwise? How can readers of the NYRB pausing to pay attention to the paid as NOT wonder (1) why the RCP is (in very vague terms) depicting its elusive, little-known leader as threatened by the U.S. power structure, and (2) how the small group acquired the funds to finance this Bob Avakian advertisement? I wouldn’t want to get on Oppenheimer’s case for seeing a story here and wanting to pursue it.

Lotta says “Oppenheimer…tries to spook readers with the false claim that Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party are building up a religious-like 'cult of personality.'” But Lotta does not show how that claim is false, and Mike’s <a href="/http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/bob-avakian-on-bob-avakian/" rel="nofollow">website </a>confirms the accuracy of the assessment that the RCP does in fact promote a personality cult. Mike of course notes that the party itself is not a cult, but there is a cult within it, and if people like Oppenheimer, even coming from reactionary perspectives, expose it, where’s the harm?

Lotta says that the charge of a personality cult “does a disservice to the diverse range of individuals, coming from different political perspectives, who signed the public statement calling on people to engage with the work of Bob Avakian…” But how does it do a “disservice” to non-party people who have signed the statement to note, and point out to them, that it was produced by people who are indeed involved in an effort to use liberal academic activists’ commitment to free speech to depict Avakian as a heroic potential victim? And to thus gain him attention---that he wouldn’t otherwise have obtained using other tactics---and to catapult him into the superstructure?

Lotta says that “Avakian makes it very clear that the promotion of his work is meaningful only insofar as that work concentrates a new understanding and vision of communism.”

The problem is that he thinks he has a vision constituting a breakthrough, while this is dubious. He seems to think that by persuading people of his originality and brilliance, and by drawing them into a “culture of appreciation” of his “body of work,” he will be able to jumpstart a revolution in this country. But actually, the “engagement” with BA leaves many (including those familiar with the treasurehouse of Marxist thought) less than impressed. The inability even of the RCP’s most articulate spokespersons to credibly and succinctly distill the “new synthesis” on intellectual rather than personal/reverential/mesianic terms (“he has a vision”) reveals an ideological deficit if not bankruptcy.

His work “concentrates,” Lotta says, “a new understanding and vision of communism.” But where else does Lotta find it, in less concentrated form? In fact Avakian’s prolific writings/recorded “talks” are rambling, sometimes disorganized, subjective, unstructured, incomplete---anything but “concentrated.” His “new synthesis” in a nutshell, demystified, is the mere commonsense recognition that socialist construction in the 20th century was mostly positive, but had negative features validly noted by critics, including anticommunist ones, and that he personally wants a kind of socialism in the future friendlier to criticism. When the RCP elevates this to the status of a grand “vision” gifted to the masses by “<a href="/http://mikeely.wordpress.com/letter-6/" rel="nofollow">one of those rare individuals in history</a>” etc. it of course raises eyebrows---especially the eyebrows of intellectuals accustomed to working with ideas and subjecting them to systematic questioning and criticism. If you’re going to target intellectuals to gain stature for BA, you’ve also got to understand that they’re going to respond to someone like Oppenheimer the way the Harvard scholars did. They’ll say, “I signed for freedom of speech issues, not because I agree with Avakian.” In other words, they’re fine with defending Avakian, in the event he’s persecuted by the system. But they’re NOT saying, “I think he’s a got a brilliant mind.”

That, I think, is what’s got the party pissed. The fact that its strategy of using a “freedom of speech” and anti-persecution argument to get signatures on a statement really designed to popularize a leader not really threatened at this point but determined to receive greater attention has been publicly discussed in a widely read newspaper. However fucked up Oppenheimer’s wordview might be (I have no idea) I don’t feel any reason to unite with the RCP in its response to his article.

The personality cult is wrong, ridiculous, probably self-destructing. If Oppenheimer’s article causes some cult victims to think, I think it’s fine.

Perhaps one of the motivations behind the Engage campaign is to try and create an atmosphere where Avakian can speak publicly in the U.S.?

What do you guys think of that possibility? I've heard this before from supports of the party.

I don't understand, whats holding him back now from speaking publicly?

I think it might even simply be a matter of reciprocity, in the most crude, narrow-horizon "equal exchange" sense of the term. Not that communists should go out of their way for such approval, but people do repay you for your work on behalf of them: "He plugged my book at the end of the speech, so I can overlook his Stalin obsession and his botched rendition of 'first time tragedy, second time farce.'" Or "well gee, they've been so helpful in my campaign against the governor considering what a dick I acted like over the 'Second Harvest' debacle."

Even Engels was upset when Eugene Dühring was forced from his university post.

But seriously though, don't <b>any</b> of these motherfuckers in the RCP have a Myspace page with a single personal photo at least? I sometimes do wonder if it is some pathology as Oppenheimer describes, where they think they can't be "real fo sho" revolutionaries unless they play out this romanticized ideal of clandestineness that amounts to them hiding behind dark curtains all day stroking a hairless cat and cackling in a Canadian-desperately-trying-to-sound-Belgian accent about "the Alan Parsons project," complete with pretentious finger quotes and little finger raised toward puckered lips in comically sinister manner.

I don't just mean Avakian, but I literally have no idea what most of their public leaders and spokespersons look like, let alone sound like, aside from Carl, Sunsara and the Great Helmsman himself. And I can't, aside from somehow meeting them in person. I can sympathize with concerns over the Chairman's safety, but shouldn't the <i>komdivs</i> be playing a more in-ya-face role?

To be fair, im my experience all of the RCP Spokespeople do public speaking (mainly at rallies), &amp; they do so without masks on.

Anyway though, I think the articles criticism of overprotectiveness of BA breaks into two. On one hand, they're wrong. Revolutionary leaders do need to be protected (speaking in general here, leaving aside for moment deciding if BA is really all that revolutionary in practise, etc), &amp; also it's best to be prepared; that is, even if they're not in danger at this second, it's good to have a security infrastructure &amp; procedures in place to better protect them should such danger arise in the future. And if the leader does a good job &amp; gets us closer to a system-threatening revolution, this danger will definitely arise. On the other hand, as folks already pointed out, overparanoia is counteractive to effort of publicising the leader.

I cannot see any evidence that Avakian is under threat of his life or freedom in the US. If he is, he should take the traditional route and speak out in Paris or London.

Come on guys, no one is going to threaten him in those two cities. Even Rushdie is still alive. Avakian's not even that radical amongst the left in France.

Pavel got it about right in his posting. The RCP implies that Avakian has been forced "underground" because the ruling class is so hell-bent on persecuting him. Anyone who still places credence in this fantastic notion is simply beyond rational argument. The reality is that Avakian and his camp followers fear like the plague his returning to the plane of everyday existence, where he might be held accountable for his ideas and forced to engage in real back-and-forth debate with others, including those who are impervious to his cult. That of course would reflect a more genuine "engagement" with BA's thought, as called for in that embarrassing NYRB ad, but such an engagement is well beyond the RCP and certainly Chairman Bob at this late date.

Avakian postures like some kind of heroic revolutionary fugitive, but in reality he's just a cut-rate imitation of the Wizard Oz, hiding behind innumerable screens, stage-managing his lifeless cult, relying upon stagecraft to preserve some illusion that his career actually means anything. What a bizarre spectacle. Three cheers to Oppenheimer for calling out this fraud for what it is. And I could care less about Oppenheimer's "worldview," as though that might in some disqualify his observations. If something's true, deal with it.

nonsense, by what divine authority do you render this judgment? Can you actually demonstrate how Oppenheimer's article is "counter-revolutionary"? I'd like to see the argument. By my lights, Oppehheimer usefully singled out some rather acute contradictions at the center of the RCP's Engage campaign, and what's wrong with that? Shouldn't revolutionaries welcome criticism, and what good are they when they set up themselves as being somehow above criticism?

back in the day, when people announced they were rendering a "materialist analysis," they usually made at least some effort to substantiate the claim. I see no evidence of that in your reply, which seems awfully restricted to subjectivity, whether BA's (and his good intentions) or the limits of RCP forbearance.

What is remarkable here is how, in your treatment, a "snarky" article that conveys some warranted skepticism regarding Avakian's personality cult becomes "counter-revolutionary" -- apparently on some level you still feel, despite your current bid for apostasy, that Bob Avakian's leadership constitutes a demarcating line separating revolution from reaction in this country. In hopes of yet hearing from you some semblance of "materialist analysis," I challenge you to marshal any evidence whatsoever to show that

a) BA's cult of personality has advanced in any tangible way the revolutionary movement in the US or elsewhere;

b) BA's cult of personality has made the RCP a more influential and effective organization;

c) BA's cult of personality has ever been dictated by actual revolutionary requirements and interests.

Finally, you might consider just how this personality cult is to be justified in light of US conditions. The antipathy of Marx and Lenin towards personality cults is a matter of historical record. The cults of Stalin and Mao, on the other hand, arose in situations where imperial traditions maintained a strong residual presence, and where servility to charismatic autocrats was a long-standing feature of political culture and relations. Just what precedent for such a leadership style has ever existed in the US or, for that matter, any bourgeois democracy? Why would the RCP have ever thought such a personality cult was historically warranted, much less desirable?

And just what kind of party manages to carry on for decades without ever presenting even the appearance of considering such questions?

John,

I think the point you miss about the Oppenheimer piece is that it is basically a "let's make fun of the commies" and all those well meaning liberal folks were tricked. That's what makes it reactionary, even when, at the same time, it is largely factual. Why does he make the comments he does? In whose interests is the article written? If someone agrees with you for the wrong reasons, it isn't necessarily a good thing.

For many Maoists, BA made important contributions. I, frankly, was rather shocked that he had any influence beyond the United States and the RCP, but there it is. While many of us on the U.S. left joked about Chairman Bob, BA was helping put together a Maoist international, if I understand it correctly. The only work of BA's I've read is <i>For a Harvest of Dragons,</i> and I wasn't terribly impressed, but many of the comrades here keep referring to <i>Mao's Immortal Contributions</i> as an important work for international Maoism. I am willing to give BA a second glance. The caliber of the comrades here vouching for his work indicates to me that I may have missed something.

your comrade,

chegitz guevara
SUN! SURF! SOCIALISM!

[...] from a NON-radical place &#8212; including the mainstream press. (We have already published both bourgeois and communist commentary on Avakian&#8217;s cult of personality &#8212; we have even published [...]

Attack Avakian all you want !!! But, HANDS OFF MAO AND MUMIA!!! damn counter-revolutionary Oppenheimer!

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[...]Boston Globe Snipes Progressives over Avakian Ad &laquo; Kasama[...]...

@Mike

Bob Avakian *is* a clown. The RCP is his circus. Get over it.