What is the RCPUSA's Dividing line?

[Universal Struggle]

Bob avakians new synthesis is apparently an advancement of MLM

Apparently there is a new dividing line.

Yet no RCPer can tell me what the fuck it is.

Its like asking the crazy cat woman fordirection expecting an informative answe and her shouting goooohii jaboobob!

They refer you to freaking 200 page writings, which are so long winded and mind numbing that i want to die.

On top of that, they trhen seem to think Avakian is so important to workers, that he must be shielded from impending assasination and spend his time in intellectual type coffee shopsin france, or writing books to scare off workers with moderate religeous convictions, which happen to be most residents of NORTH AMERICA!

Can an RCPer just tell us what this dividing line is?, or does Sir bob and his intellectual minions not want us backwards peasants to know??

[Obs]

The difference between MLM and the New Synthesis is that the New Synthesis was formulated by BOB AVAKIAN. What don't you get?! :D

[Proletarian Ultra]

I am working on trying to write a fair summary. It is very hard, but I will post it in a new thread. If what I do is useful then Revleft will understand the New Synthesis better than anyone in the RCP! Hoorah!

[vampire squid]

if 200 long-winded mind-numbing pages seems like too much, maybe it's time to find a different ideology

[Universal Struggle]

No, i just should not read the bullshit the RCPUSA put out there, maybe you should shut up

[bots]

No, i just should not read the bullshit the RCPUSA put out there, maybe you should shut up

I think it's important to keep an open mind. Maybe Mr. Avakian is right and you're wrong.

As far as I'm concerned:
GOOD: Workers, horses, workhorses
BAD: Nationalists, Socialists, National Socialists

On a related note, have you ever heard of Miguel Serrano?

[Palingenisis]

On a related note, have you ever heard of Miguel Serrano?

I have.

He is a Neo-Nazi nutcase from Chile who believes that Adolf Hitler escaped to the South Pole and that flying saucers are actually secret Nazi technology that fly out from this base to spy on us.

[bots]

I have.

He is a Neo-Nazi nutcase from Chile who believes that Adolf Hitler escaped to the South Pole and that flying saucers are actually secret Nazi technology that fly out from this base to spy on us.

Excellent! Do you think maybe Bob Avakian isnt in France after all?

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

The simple answer is that the RCP views the appreciation of Bob Avakian, the recognition that he has taken communism to a "new and more exciting place," and the belief that it is impossible to get to communism without the New Synthesis, all as cardinal questions that are dividing lines between communism and revisionism (and between revolution and counterrevolution). You ever wonder why the only other communists they give any support to are Sarbedaran in Iran? It's because Sarbedaran is the only other communist party in the world that feigns interest in BA.

But really y'all, the RCP bashing threads are getting a little old. I wish people would do an archive search before bringing up the same damn questions over and over again.

[NaxalbariZindabad]

This excerpt from Mike Ely's 9 Letters to Our Comrades might be useful:


People often ask “What is this new synthesis?” They find it hard to pin down when confronted with Avakian’s loosely-woven body of work. [13] (http://kasamaproject.org/pamphlets/9-letters/1-a-time-to-speak-clearly/#note13)

For the purposes of these letters, I will break this synthesis down into a number of main areas:


The RCP asserts that the “emergence” of a “unique, special and irreplaceable leader” of a “special caliber” has implications for everything communists and the masses of people do in the world today. This theory of great leaders justifies a number of other major programmatic and strategic shifts — especially moving the “promotion and popularization” of Avakian to the heart of the party’s work.



There is a claim to seek and uphold truth in an entirely new way. This is called “Avakian’s epistemological rupture” [14] (http://kasamaproject.org/pamphlets/9-letters/1-a-time-to-speak-clearly/#note14) with previous communist thinking.



There is a new “envisioning” of the socialist transition to communism — with a special stress on holding firmly onto power while creating the conditions for mass debate over major challenges facing the continuing revolution. There is an assertion that this new re-conception of the communist road should take center stage in political discussions now — both among communists and broadly among the masses.



This synthesis is viewed as a world-historic re-conception of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM). Avakian and his work is specifically compared and equated to the contributions Lenin and Mao made to communist theory. It is said that the masses worldwide must pass through the doorway that Bob Avakian has opened for the way out. And this leap in Marxism is said to be arising from Avakian’s summations of the whole previous history of communist revolution, not mainly from an application of MLM to the practice of making revolution in the U.S.

There are other components to Avakian’s synthesis which will need excavation at another time, including Avakian’s particular view of communist revolution as a world process, an idiosyncratic critique of democracy, and the RCP’s spiral/conjunctural theory of capitalist crisis. [15] (http://kasamaproject.org/pamphlets/9-letters/1-a-time-to-speak-clearly/#note15)

[Robocommie]

if 200 long-winded mind-numbing pages seems like too much, maybe it's time to find a different ideology

Socialism must be approachable as an ideology.

[Jazzhands]

OK so how crazy are these people?

1. Bob Avakian, a member of an obscure, meaningless Maoist group in a first-world country that Maoism obviously does not fit, is now on the same level as Marx and Lenin. They actually refer to him as Great Leader. Hilarious.

2. "A special stress on holding onto power" so you've perfected the idea of a dictatorship of the Party. Which is a cult of Avakian. So a dictatorship of Avakian.

Seriously, why do they even exist?? :confused:

[Red Conall]

US,

Don't waste your time by trying to "understand" the gibberish of the RCP, USA comrade.

In fact I would recommend steering clear of Maoism in general, so thoroughly discredited and bankrupt as it is.

(This is a bit out of date at this point, but what the heck):

The RCP: Socialist Or Social Imperialist? (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/PR/rcp20.html)

[Universal Struggle]

This excerpt from Mike Ely's 9 Letters to Our Comrades might be useful:

It says nothing of this dividing line, but rather embarassingly, compares avakian to Lenin and Mao

FTW!

[Barry Lyndon]

US,

Don't waste your time by trying to "understand" the gibberish of the RCP, USA comrade.

In fact I would recommend steering clear of Maoism in general, so thoroughly discredited and bankrupt as it is.

(This is a bit out of date at this point, but what the heck):

The RCP: Socialist Or Social Imperialist? (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/PR/rcp20.html)

I would say that Maoism is going nowhere in the First World, but it is far from 'discredited and bankrupt' in South Asia.

[Red Conall]

I would say that Maoism is going nowhere in the First World, but it is far from 'discredited and bankrupt' in South Asia.

What's happening in South Asia at present doesn't alter the experience of the Chinese revolution, and if today's Maoists continue with the same approach (which to my knowledge they largely are) they too will lead the struggles of the working class in their respective countries to defeat after defeat. Why people would want to brand their political tradition with the name of a stooge of US imperialism is frankly beyond my comprehension.

[Palingenisis]

What's happening in South Asia at present doesn't alter the experience of the Chinese revolution, and if today's Maoists continue with the same approach (which to my knowledge they largely are) they too will lead the struggles of the working class in their respective countries to defeat after defeat. Why people would want to brand their political tradition with the name of a stooge of US imperialism is frankly beyond my comprehension.

Look at Russia today...Better take down that avatar than.

[Palingenisis]

Trots never lead struggles...They troll struggles.

[Red Conall]

Trots never lead struggles...They troll struggles.

:rolleyes:

[Red Conall]

Look at Russia today...Better take down that avatar than.

Meaning?

[Barry Lyndon]

Meaning?

Meaning that just because the revolution in China, like the revolution in Russia, ultimately failed doesn't mean that Mao shouldn't have tried. The same goes for Lenin and Trotsky. Hindsight is 20/20. Would you have condemned Spartacus for his failed slave revolt?

[Proletarian Ultra]

Meaning?

Compare the extent of capitalist restoration in China with the extent of capitalist restoration in Russia, and the social toll taken by each. So...applying your criterion for Maoist failure to Leninism, you should pick a new avatar.

EDIT: Wait, isn't COFI ortho-Trot? Why don't you recognize China as a degenerated worker's state?

[Red Conall]

So...applying your criterion for Maoist failure to Leninism, you should pick a new avatar.

Well the Bolsheviks actually helped to create the world's first and only workers' state. The Maoists did nothing of the sort.


EDIT: Wait, isn't COFI ortho-Trot?No.


Why don't you recognize China as a degenerated worker's state?I'm not aware of any tendency, self-proclaimed Trotskyist or otherwise, that ever considered the PRC to be a degenerated workers' state. But then there are a lot of crazy people out there, such as the CPGB-ML.

[Saorsa]

I'm not aware of any tendency, self-proclaimed Trotskyist or otherwise, that ever considered the PRC to be a degenerated workers' state.

CWI used to (I think). I know there are others.

[Red Conall]

CWI used to (I think). I know there are others.

"Deformed" surely?

[Saorsa]

Ugh I forgot there was a difference

[chegitz guevara]

As best as I can understand the New Synthesis is self-referential, like PHP being the acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Understanding the New Synthesis is understanding that Bob Avakian has a New Synthesis.

I am being totally serious.

[Proletarian Ultra]

As best as I can understand the New Synthesis is self-referential, like PHP being the acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Understanding the New Synthesis is understanding that Bob Avakian has a New Synthesis.

I am being totally serious.

Naw, it's like a 7 point plan, chegitz:





1. Communism is not inevitable. Any tendency to see communism as the inevitable outcome of history is the result of "idealist, even quasi-religious, forms of thought that had found their way into the foundation of Marxism and had not been ruptured with." The concept of "negation of negation" comes under particular criticism in Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage (http://www.rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html).

2. Base-Superstructure theory is too simplistic. Ideology isn't a one-directional outgrowth of the mode of production. An idea like racism can "take on a life of its own." Neither Mao nor Lenin "grasped the scope and fluidity of this relative independence deeply enough, or in a layered enough way," but we can.

3. There is no such thing as 'Class Truth.' "Truth is truth, and bullshit is bullshit." Truth does not have a class character, and we can learn things from bourgeois thinkers. (Elsewhere, Avakian cites Popper approvingly.)

4. Internationalism. The international communist movement must “put the advance of the world revolution above everything, even above the advance of the revolution in the particular country—build the socialist state as above all a base area for the world revolution.”

5. Solid core with a lot of elasticity. Something about reconciling proletarian dictatorship and democracy. More self-criticism in the party, etc.

6. The proletariat liberates humanity. Economism is for losers. Focus not just on immediate material demands of the proletariat, but on emancipatory struggles for all of humanity. Making Revolution (http://revcom.us/avakian/makingrevolution/) specifically mentions police brutality, anti-war activism, abortion and teaching of evolution in schools.

7. Communism is a science, so we need a leader. "Look: becoming emancipators of humanity is a gigantic rupture and you don’t do it without leadership. Again: people can not take conscious initiative to change the world if they don’t know how the world works; that takes science; and they have to get that science from people who have had an opportunity to get into it. Without that—without a vanguard that is actually worthy of the name—communist revolution’s never gonna happen."

The opposition between science and religion is a running theme - this is in line with the anti-religious right work that World Can't Wait is doing right now, and RCP's recent Away With All Gods campaign.


Except it's not really new and not really a synthesis, so you're exactly right.

[chegitz guevara]

Maybe I'm confused by the fact that there's nothing new in his synthesis.

[Palingenisis]

Maybe I'm confused by the fact that there's nothing new in his synthesis.

Now that Jacobin Of Tomorrow has explained it there are some points worth thinking about but a dividing line it is not...And presenting it as such I find divisive and arrogant. On the other hand they do seem to be slipping into "Utopian Socialism" in certain respects. What drew to Maosim was political realism and dont see much of that in the RCP.

[Palingenisis]

http://www.iwca.info/

This group isnt Marxist-Leninist no mind Maoist but they are much more Maoist in essence than the RCP.