Bob Avakian and the RCP? [Archive]

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Rafiq

8th November 2010, 02:10

Rusty Shackleford

8th November 2010, 02:16

they are pretty far left.

a lot of communists describe them as a sort of cult. a bob avakian cult.

Rafiq

8th November 2010, 02:19

Sounds weird.

Oh well, but his speeches aren't have bad when it comes to Capitalism.

Who?

8th November 2010, 02:22

I recently saw one of this Bob Avakian fellows speeches about capitalism, and it wasn't half bad, in fact, I thought it was pretty good.

However, I have never heard much of the RCP or Bob Avakian, so, can I have a little knowledge of both?

Do mainstream M-L's support them? Do Maoists support them?

Do you categorize them with CPUSA?

What are their downfalls?

Thanks.

They're a political cult which revolves around their leader Bob Avakian and his writings. I've heard that they have just about completely abandoned their old Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line and religiously follow the writings of Avakian.

Few if any mainstream M-L's support them, although you may on occasion find a sympathetic Maoist, they aren't very common and generally aren't very mainstream either.

You can check out their site here (http://revcom.us/rcp-e.htm).

Jimmie Higgins

8th November 2010, 03:14

Their members seem to be pretty active where I am and enthusiastic. I've had some bad run ins with their members, but I've also had some decent and civil exchanges with them.

They are not like the CPUSA who have been basically the socialist supporters of the Democrats for the last two generations. The RCP comes out of the New Left and the New Communist Movement and that's where a lot of their Maoist influence comes from. And to be fair, I don't think many of the groups that went through that period of expecting Revolution but ending up with ruling class reaction, came through without some level of craziness (as could also be argued for individuals like: David Horowitz, Lyndon LaRouche, Bob Avakian). There's a book called "Revolution in the Air" that deals with a lot of that history of Maoism in the US and the RCP.

But I disagree completely with their politics and view of revolution. They seem to believe that a party, (an individual leader even like Bob Avakian) generalizes all lessons of the movement and can lead it to victory. The activity of the working class seems to consist, to them, in supporting that party. According to members I have spoken with they think that the role of the vanguard party is to win the revolution and rule society until communism can be achieved.

It's that kind of top-down political view in which the masses are passive helpers that, IMO, leads to some of the stranger political lines they have adopted - there is a lot of things that seem strange to me and a lot of the left about them. They are overly-secretive and their members often will not say that they are members. I have also read that the group has put a lot of informal an moralistic demands on their members - expecting them to marry if they live together romantically, and not allowing open homosexuality. In fact until early in the 2000s they still officially said that homosexuality was the result of the decadence of late-capitalism.

NGNM85

8th November 2010, 03:28

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/01/27/free_bob_avakian/?page=1

Â¿Que?

8th November 2010, 03:36

Granted I don't know a lot about them, but this is how I understand the history of the RCP.

1. RCP is born, Bob Avakian becomes its leader.
2. Bob Avakian becomes credible with blacks, therefore becomes credible generally.
3. Bob Avakian becomes a threat to the U.S. government.
4. Bob Avakian flees to France ducking "attacks and death threats."
5. Bob Avakian goes crazy, takes the party with him.

I'm not sure how accurate that is, but that's sort of how I picture it in my head.

A Revolutionary Tool

8th November 2010, 03:51

Granted I don't know a lot about them, but this is how I understand the history of the RCP.

1. RCP is born, Bob Avakian becomes its leader.
2. Bob Avakian becomes credible with blacks, therefore becomes credible generally.
3. Bob Avakian thinks he becomes a threat to the U.S. government.
4. Bob Avakian flees to France ducking "attacks and death threats."
5. Bob Avakian goes crazy, takes the party with him.

I'm not sure how accurate that is, but that's sort of how I picture it in my head.
Fixed.

~Spectre

8th November 2010, 08:04

Noam Chomsky made it onto the official enemies list of both Richard Nixon and the Unabomber. He never fled the United States. Just sayin'

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th November 2010, 08:25

On the Avakian cult, check these out:

http://kasamaproject.org/2008/02/10/its-a-sin-thoughts-of-a-former-youth-brigader/

http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/36cCult.html

http://shockworker.blogspot.com/2006/02/cult-of-personality.html

Rakhmetov

8th November 2010, 14:45

I subscribe to the cult of one of its members Sunsara Taylor. :wub: Yum mumm mum.
I'm sure she would sock me in the face for saying that. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85tyaA5knk0

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th November 2010, 14:53

Sexist pig...

scarletghoul

8th November 2010, 15:13

Theres a trillion other Avakian threads which are worth looking at. In short the RCP used to be an alright post-new-left party with a personality cult problem but a lot of potential, and now have degenerated completely. Yes, Avakian's speeches are really good, theres some other great speakers in the party, they also apparently have bookstores throughout the US, and stuff like that. For this reason its even more saddening to see them waste it all in their silly approach to publicity. (+yeah other problems like the gay thing, the theory of state capitalism, and so on)

Rafiq

8th November 2010, 20:05

I never knew he was a Homophobe, though...

I just saw one of his speeches about Capitalism on youtube, and was wondering who he was.

red cat

8th November 2010, 20:15

Didn't the RCP become pro-homosexuality in the 90s ?

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th November 2010, 20:33

^^^You mean, they turned into their opposites...:lol:

Jimmie Higgins

8th November 2010, 20:38

Didn't the RCP become pro-homosexuality in the 90s ?I thought it was the early 2000s, but it could be the 90s sometime. Either way, more than a lifetime since the revolutionary Russian workers threw out laws criminalizing homosexual relationships.

Rakhmetov

8th November 2010, 21:23

Sexist pig...

Well if it isn't the Executive Director of the Junior Anti-Sex League.

:rolleyes:

"I just want to finish by saying a few words ... about the impact of this imminent neurological breakthrough. When the orgasm has been finally eradicated ... the last remaining obstacle to the psychological acceptance ... of the principles of Ingsoc, as applied to artsem, will be overcome. In other words, the unorthodox tendencies towards ownlife...
which constantly threaten the natural erosion of the family unit ...
will no longer have the biological support of the organism. As we all know, the biological and social stimulation of the family leads to...
private reflection, outside Party needs ... and to the establishment of unorthodox loyalties ... which can only lead to thoughtcrime.
The introduction of artsem, combined with the neutralization of the orgasm ... will effectively render obsolete the family ... until it becomes impossible to conceptualize."

http://wiki.newspeakdictionary.com/wiki/Anti-Sex_League

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rQL-B8uka-sJ:www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/n/1984-script-transcript-george-orwell.html+orgasm+thoughtcrime+will+be+impossible +to+conceptualize&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

iwwforever

8th November 2010, 21:52

Rafiq

8th November 2010, 21:59

^^^^ That's True

No physical trait makes you a revolutionary.

But I see all Poor, and oppressed people whoever they be, as potential members of the Revolution.

penguinfoot

8th November 2010, 22:01

There are people who support capitalism who are also gay, athiest, black, poor or women. Just because someone is part of a marginalized group does not make them automatically down with the revolution. At least the RCP is trying to do something to move the revolution forward. I wish Bob Avakian would team up with Michael Prysner and really give us an anti-capitalist movement to get behind.

You know, one of the most annoying things about the RCP is the language they/you use. "Down with the revolution"? Seriously? Not only is that a grossly patronizing way of engaging with people, whether in print or through verbal communication - it assumes that people wouldn't be able to relate to someone who speaks to them in a normal way without the use of slang or that people can't deal with texts and arguments that involve the use of some terminology or complex concepts - it also makes the RCP sound entirely (or rather, even more) ridiculous. As for the issue, it isn't being argued that the people will be revolutionaries just because they're gay, it's being argued that the RCP were (and probably are still) a bunch of homophobes, which is perfectly true. I don't normally quite approvingly from the Sparts, but in ths case, it's useful:

The RCP’s 2001 “On the Position of Homosexuality in the New Draft Programme” admits that their former Programme “did tend to treat the fairly widespread phenomenon of homosexuality in the U.S. as a reflection of imperial decay and decadence, and although not portraying homosexuals as enemies, did regard them as individuals whose backward outlook needed to be reformed and homosexual practice remolded. This was incorrect”! They proceed to defend this “incorrect” program:

“Our view on this subject was also a product of opposition to and criticism of the more degrading and abusive sexual practices engaged in by some homosexuals (which do exist), and to some misogyny towards women (including lesbians) on the part of some male homosexuals. Also, basic masses, among whom our Party is based, works among and relies on as a decisive force for revolution, have a wealth of experience with U.S. prisons and with the widespread use of homosexual sex (including rape) to establish power hierarchies over people in prison and sometimes outside of prison…. All the negative things we spoke of really did (and do) exist….”

So what is the “new” position on homosexuality? Now they “do not see a homosexual orientation or the practice of homosexuality per se as something that constitutes an impediment to the emancipation of women and the abolition of all oppressive and exploitative relations.” Gee, thanks.

The RCP apparently felt compelled to investigate, “why do some people engage in sexual activity with people of the same sex?” This obsession with trying to find the culprit for something that is a natural phenomenon led them to embark on an extensive “theoretical review” of the cause of homosexuality. The fact is, what “causes” homosexuality is completely irrelevant! All we can say is, it’s as natural a sexual expression as any other—occurring not only in all human societies throughout history but in many other species. All the RCP’s baloney about reviewing biological studies to conclude that “even the most backward and socially objectionable of these practices or ‘scenes’ are not the ‘cause’ of the oppression of women” (emphasis in original) is a fig leaf on their bigotry. They would have us believe that in the decades when they were busy excluding gays from their organization as “degenerates,” science couldn’t have told them that they were full of crap.

What they admit to sounds bad enough, but the RCP’s document is rife with falsifications. The statement that “our party has always been firmly opposed to the discrimination and attacks leveled against homosexuals and we welcomed and encouraged the participation of homosexuals in the revolutionary struggle” is a bald-faced lie. Actually, they excluded gays from their organization, stating in their 1974 position paper: “homosexuals cannot be Communists.” All their rhetoric about fighting “pogromist” attacks on gays is empty—they pushed the same reactionary garbage that’s used to whip up murderous hysteria against gays, lesbians and transgenders, including calls to “reeducate” homosexuals from their “degrading” and “shameful” practices. We wonder what the RCP would say about “socialists” who pushed an alleged analysis of black people as intellectually and morally inferior while insisting that they “always opposed” lynching!

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/947/ysp-rcp.html

If you don't read any other part of that quote, take note of the fact that the RCP only officially altered its stance on homosexuality in 2001!

Sentinel

8th November 2010, 23:04

Wow. While not by any means excusable, the homophobia of leftists of the past is at least somewhat understandable due to the circumstances, the values they were brought up around, the lack of access to scientific information, etc.

However, any formerly homophobic leftists that can still be taken seriously today -- such as the Castro brothers etc -- have taken responsibility, admitted that they were utterly wrong, and joined the modern, scientific view on the issue.

Had Chairman Bob done that, it'd be one thing. But this 'explanation' is just backtracking, or more like trying to cover the tracks with pathetic excuses. As long as that is all they can do, I can't really take the RCP-USA seriously at all.

Which doesn't say much, I've always basically seen them as one step up from MIM when it comes to craziness, really.

A Revolutionary Tool

8th November 2010, 23:42

You know, one of the most annoying things about the RCP is the language they/you use. "Down with the revolution"? Seriously? Not only is that a grossly patronizing way of engaging with people, whether in print or through verbal communication - it assumes that people wouldn't be able to relate to someone who speaks to them in a normal way without the use of slang or that people can't deal with texts and arguments that involve the use of some terminology or complex concepts - it also makes the RCP sound entirely (or rather, even more) ridiculous.
Wait a second. So we're not supposed to talk slang now? Because that's how I talk in real life. I can type intelligently using big words and shit but off the computer you'd never know it. Is that a bad thing?

RED DAVE

9th November 2010, 00:10

At least the RCP is trying to do something to move the revolution forward.Like what?

I would specificially like to know what they are doing in the working class (especially at the workplace not in the community).

RED DAVE

penguinfoot

9th November 2010, 00:14

Wait a second. So we're not supposed to talk slang now? Because that's how I talk in real life. I can type intelligently using big words and shit but off the computer you'd never know it. Is that a bad thing?

No, I don't think communists should "talk slang" in their publications and I'd be wary of doing it in political arguments as well - I would certainly never do it to the extent that the RCP does, where most of their paper is comprised of lame phrases involving assertions that people are "down" for this and that, because it's demeaning to their audience and makes the party itself seem like a joke. This doesn't mean you have to make use of hugely obscure terminology, it means taking your politics and working people seriously, by expressing yourself in ways that are both accessible and capable of making serious points and nuanced arguments.

A Revolutionary Tool

9th November 2010, 00:25

No, I don't think communists should "talk slang" in their publications and I'd be wary of doing it in political arguments as well - I would certainly never do it to the extent that the RCP does, where most of their paper is comprised of lame phrases involving assertions that people are "down" for this and that, because it's demeaning to their audience and makes the party itself seem like a joke. This doesn't mean you have to make use of hugely obscure terminology, it means taking your politics and working people seriously, by expressing yourself in ways that are both accessible and capable of making serious points and nuanced arguments.
Oh I understand and agree. I thought you were saying he shouldn't be using slang at all, that using slang in general was demeaning to working class families. Sorry for the confusion :thumbup1:

Rosa Lichtenstein

9th November 2010, 01:29

Sexist-Pig-Named-After-African-Mass-Murderer:

Well if it isn't the Executive Director of the Junior Anti-Sex League.

Only if you were the only boy in the world...:)

~Spectre

9th November 2010, 03:56

Oh snap.

iwwforever

9th November 2010, 05:26

Ouch, where to start...

This reply is taking me a long time to write because I keep typing in lame terminology and then I have to delete my thought because I do not wish to appear grossly patronizing. I was already having a hard enough time keeping my language clean, now I have to worry about appearing stupid.

So, anyway, I have only recently learned of the RCP, I am impressed because they are affiliated with the BP's and they put out the effort to reach people. I went to that rally in DC and they were there handing out papers and talking to people. I rode my bike all over the place that day and this was the only serious revolutionary group I encountered. People from all over the country were there that day. Where were all the other communist organizations?

I read the information linked in the above post about the gay bashing...that was horrible, ignorant and disgusting. That stuff was written a long time ago and people change. The article quotes statements made in 1974 and 1988. In 1974 I was a catholic and in 1988 I was a born again christian, the socialist kind, but deluded just the same. The point is; that I would hate to be considered religious when I am in fact now an athiest.

The IWW does a great job of standing up for the working class, and promoting the communist ideology. But under the current system it is not allowed to be a political party. I am willing to get behind any communist organization that has a chance of overthrowing the system. The situation is getting desperate, we have to come together before those in power make it impossible for us.

A Revolutionary Tool

9th November 2010, 05:40

~Spectre

9th November 2010, 06:09

My own experience with team Avakian was in one of those revolution books places. They were having a series of speakers to discuss current happenings ( Chris Hedges was there, though none of the militant anti-theists said jack to him), and it was actually quite good.

UNTIL THEY STARTED TRYING TO SELL PEOPLE ON CHAIRMAN BOB. They ruined their own event by actually speaking.

One guy was actually giving a decent marxist analysis of things, until he got to a quote by Chairman Bob. It was a short out of context quote that led to him asking "what might Bob Avakian have meant by that?" in the same way that a Priest leading a bible study group might ask his children to interpret the gospels. It was downright bizarre.

What might he have meant? Shoot him a fucking email and find out. Or better yet- who gives a shit?

Their attitude towards this guy is nothing short of cult worship.

So that was my fun experience with them. Well that, and watching Sunsara Taylor go on fox news to be their punching bag. Generally left me with a weird taste in my proverbial mouth in both cases.

Queercommie Girl

9th November 2010, 15:56

Like what?

I would specificially like to know what they are doing in the working class (especially at the workplace not in the community).

RED DAVE

Actually community work is also important, even though generally it is secondary to direct work at the workplace.

zimmerwald1915

9th November 2010, 21:16

I know for a fact the PSL was there, I'm pretty sure the ISO also showed up there too.
Heck the CWI was there.

RedTrackWorker

9th November 2010, 21:52

So, anyway, I have only recently learned of the RCP, I am impressed because they are affiliated with the BP's and they put out the effort to reach people. I went to that rally in DC and they were there handing out papers and talking to people. I rode my bike all over the place that day and this was the only serious revolutionary group I encountered. People from all over the country were there that day. Where were all the other communist organizations?

I read the information linked in the above post about the gay bashing...that was horrible, ignorant and disgusting. That stuff was written a long time ago and people change. The article quotes statements made in 1974 and 1988. In 1974 I was a catholic and in 1988 I was a born again christian, the socialist kind, but deluded just the same. The point is; that I would hate to be considered religious when I am in fact now an athiest.

The IWW does a great job of standing up for the working class, and promoting the communist ideology. But under the current system it is not allowed to be a political party. I am willing to get behind any communist organization that has a chance of overthrowing the system. The situation is getting desperate, we have to come together before those in power make it impossible for us.

The League for the Revolutionary Party was there with a statement (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/statements/jobs10210.html). We also recently attended the union mass meeting of TWU Local 100 (which shut down NY in 2005)--what oppositional union work does the RCP do?
But, iwwforever, I think the bigger issue is that the far left is really fucked up right now, due to a long period of low class struggle and still from the disorientation of the historical defeats before, during and around WW2 of the working-class movement. In that context, it's easy to take the first far left group one comes across and say, "Hey, they're trying." And maybe at first, given the lack of collective experience of class struggle to judge groups by, maybe that's all one can do. But be careful: you're already getting caught up in defending the RCP over something I don't think you want to defend them on. You said: "That stuff was written a long time ago and people change." That can be true. But the SL point was that the 2001 statement lies about their past positions, not that they must held responsible for their past positions just the same as if they hold them today. And if you go read the whole RCP 2001 statement (which I am not necessarily recommending), you see evasion, distortion and a failure to admit, "Hey, look we were really wrong" and instead find, "Hey we were incorrect in being anti-gay, but we were still more right than everyone else if you really thing about it." So you have a dishonest method. The working class can only come to power through its own conscious, collective action. Dishonesty in working-class politics is not a "moral" issue--it is life-and-death issue of workers being able to overcome all the muck of capitalist society and build something different. So please, do not downplay the RCP's twists, turns and evasions on their history of their position on homosexuality because the situation is desperate. You're right--the situation is desperate, which requires careful consideration of political theories. Revolutions--people in the class struggle--have lived and died based upon correct and incorrect ideas.

Kassad

9th November 2010, 23:19

What rally are we talking about? I can't seem to find what everyone's referring to.

Reznov

9th November 2010, 23:34

Are they really this bad? I have a hard time believing this, and I would like to see some ACTUAL RCP members and their thoughts.

RedTrackWorker

9th November 2010, 23:44

What rally are we talking about? I can't seem to find what everyone's referring to.

The October 2nd "One Nation Working Together" rally in D.C.

Kassad

10th November 2010, 00:19

The October 2nd "One Nation Working Together" rally in D.C.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

Then I have no idea what iwwforever is talking about. I was there doing outreach for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We got out thousands of issues of the newspaper and we passed out hundreds of placards that were everywhere during the rally. During my outreach, I came across members of the Progressive Labor Party, Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Alternative. I didn't see the ISO anywhere, but I'm sure they had some members somewhere. I did not, however, see the RCP whatsoever.

And that's not surprising, might I add. If you're an RCP supporter, you need to realize something: you support an organization that doesn't think workers can lead a revolution. You won't see RCP members demonstrating with striking workers. You won't see them organizing with unions. And the reasoning is simple: the RCP has taken a defeatist position in regards to the proletariat. They don't think class conscious workers can lead a revolution. They do, however, think that if enough people follow the line of Bob Avakian, they can lead a revolution. In case you were wondering, that's anti-Marxist.

I'm stunned to see the RCP was even in DC for the One Nation Working Together. In Cleveland, they have flat out refused to get involved with the labor movement. That's why their numbers are dwindling, their supporters are few and far between and they will not make any progressive strides towards working class revolution.

But seriously, iwwforever. Where the hell were you that day? Hell, there was a socialist contingent with hundreds of people in it! If the RCP was all you came across, either you weren't paying attention or you had some incredibly shitty luck.

penguinfoot

10th November 2010, 00:35

the RCP has taken a defeatist position in regards to the proletariat. They don't think class conscious workers can lead a revolution.

Whereas the PSL supports the strikes around the 1989 protest movement in China, the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, the Prague Spring in 1968? No, the PSL backs bureaucratic suppression of the working class to a greater extent than the RCP does and they also believe, through their position that China is socialist and that there was also something progressive about the former members states of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe, that capitalism can be overthrown without the active involvement and leadership of the organized working class. The PSL and RCP are two sides of the same Stalinist coin.

Kassad

10th November 2010, 01:04

Whereas the PSL supports the strikes around the 1989 protest movement in China, the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, the Prague Spring in 1968? No, the PSL backs bureaucratic suppression of the working class to a greater extent than the RCP does and they also believe, through their position that China is socialist and that there was also something progressive about the former members states of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe, that capitalism can be overthrown without the active involvement and leadership of the organized working class. The PSL and RCP are two sides of the same Stalinist coin.

:laugh:

This never gets old. Trotskyists like yourself have one fundamental problem. They put on a guise of supporting the people, ostensibly supporting movements of the "people." This is why a lot of Trotskyists celebrated at the collapse of the Soviet Union and call for the destruction of the Chinese, Cuban and Korean revolution. Despite their shortcomings in some aspects, Trotskyists still applaud anti-communist takeovers and counterrevolution.

But take a look at the Soviet Union. What happened after the counterrevolution in 1991? Widespread poverty. A rapidly expanding gap between rich and poor. Widespread disease. Rampant alcoholism and suicide. A lowered life expectancy and a higher infant mortality. And yet they applaud the collapse of the "Stalinist bureaucracy"! Don't you ever learn?

Now that we've established the scientific notion that counterrevolution consistently leads to economic and social hardship (it wasn't just the Soviet Union. It was the entire Eastern bloc), let's analyze your point. Taking Tiananmen in 1989 as an example, it's almost the exact same thing. We have a country that is on the road to capitalism, yet instead of defending some of the still-monumental gains of the revolution, some "Marxists" join hands with a petty-bourgeois and student uprising.

So let's look at this scientifically, since there's two ways this could have gone. 1) A petty-bourgeois movement, the vast majority of which is calling for American-style capitalism and further destruction of the socialist system in China, is suppressed by the state to protect revolutionary gains. Since it is not a revolutionary movement, it would not have succeeded in anything but backwardness. 2) The uprising is allowed to continue and potentially overthrows the Chinese government. Because the movement is not Marxist, socialist, communist or revolutionary in any sense of the word, it would likely lead to chaos and the destruction of what gains are left of the Chinese Revolution. Who would likely step in? Of course, US imperialism which has waited decades to intervene and claim China as a feudal colony for economic expansion, would be glad to save the day!

So you pick which side are you on. Are you on the side of defending workers gains or do you support a movement that would allow China to revert back into a feudal colony, riddled with disease, opium addiction, poverty, mass starvation and inequality?

I don't have time to analyze the other examples you've given, as I'm trying to get some work done at the moment, but you can analyze it for yourself. I'm on the side of defending revolution. I hope you'll learn from past experience and stop siding with the forces that would defeat it.

RED DAVE

10th November 2010, 01:22

Queercommie Girl

10th November 2010, 01:30

If the regime in the USSR was so great, why weren't there massive uprisings by the workers to defend it? Why didn't the great CPSU, the party of Lenin, lead the workers to victory?

Well in China today the Maoist masses certainly are clashing with the police to defend the little bit that is left of the old worker's state.

I know you don't agree with Maoism, (I don't completely agree with Maoism either) but at least see objectively that the CCP hasn't gone down the same route as the CPSU. Maoist grassroots CCP members like Zhao Dongmin are still seriously and actively defending the interests of the Chinese working class today, and some of the strike leaders in the recent wave of strikes in China are actually Maoists.

The CPSU is completely dead now, but the CCP is not. The Maoists are building a second CCP - CCP(M)/MCPC and calling for a "second socialist revolution".

penguinfoot

10th November 2010, 02:08

This never gets old. Trotskyists like yourself have one fundamental problem. They put on a guise of supporting the people, ostensibly supporting movements of the "people." This is why a lot of Trotskyists celebrated at the collapse of the Soviet Union and call for the destruction of the Chinese, Cuban and Korean revolution. Despite their shortcomings in some aspects, Trotskyists still applaud anti-communist takeovers and counterrevolution.

But take a look at the Soviet Union. What happened after the counterrevolution in 1991? Widespread poverty. A rapidly expanding gap between rich and poor. Widespread disease. Rampant alcoholism and suicide. A lowered life expectancy and a higher infant mortality.

Firstly, I don't think Trotskyists should or would articulate their politics in terms of "the people". The fact that "the people" occupies such a prominent position in Stalinist discourse is significant because it shows that Stalinism relies more on vague populist rhetoric (of the kind that was used in the writings of radical liberals during the historic bourgeois revolutions) rather than a nuanced analysis of the class compositions of particular societies, particularly in terms of drawing out and analyzing the differences between different groups of producers, including the working class and the peasantry, a well as different groups and strata within the working class. However, that's not the most important point. The more important point is that Trotsky predicted that the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union or the undermining of the gains that had been brought about by the revolution would be the result not only of imperialist penetration but also the efforts of the bureaucracy (whether considered as a class or a stratum) to enhance its position, by seeking to obtain the explicit right to own private property (a right that has now been constitutionally recognized in the PRC) as well as the other rights we associate with the bourgeois social order, such as the right to inheritance, and so on, with the bureaucracy being willing to cooperate with and make concessions to imperialism in order to move closer to the attainment of these goals - in other words, the one thing that more or less unites Trotskyists regardless of our specific differences on the class nature of the Soviet Union and other historic "socialist" states is our shared recognition that the gains of these revolutions or social systems cannot be protected without confronting the bureaucracy, as it is ultimately from within the bureaucracy itself that the most reactionary forces emerge. This was confirmed in the Soviet Union, it is being confirmed in countries like the PRC today.

It is because Trotskyists recognize the origins of reaction in countries like the Soviet Union and call on workers to challenge the bureaucracy that we are the best defenders of the revolutions you point to, whereas the PSL has never supported any potential or existing revolutions against the bureaucracy, anywhere, ever - the apparent rationale for this position being that because in periods of political instability there will be forces other than the working class that are trying to take advantage of the prevailing conditions to advance their own interests (for example, the more or less marginal fascist forces in Hungary in 1956) this means that these movements are not "pure" enough to be worthy of our support, and that the interests of the working class are best secured through bureaucratic suppression.

And yet they applaud the collapse of the "Stalinist bureaucracy"! Don't you ever learn?

This isn't the case, as I've shown. But whilst we're on the subject, given that you apparently do not believe that there was a sizable bureaucracy in the Soviet Union in 1989/91, what is the PSL's explanation for the supposed restoration of capitalism? Does it have one that doesn't rely on transforming Gorbachev into a bogey-man who was single-handedly responsible?

Taking Tiananmen in 1989 as an example, it's almost the exact same thing. We have a country that is on the road to capitalism, yet instead of defending some of the still-monumental gains of the revolution, some "Marxists" join hands with a petty-bourgeois and student uprising.

The allegation that the Tiananmen protest movements were "petty-bourgeois" or "student" is highly problematic. There was actually no single set of interests or demands in the protest movement because it embodied a huge range of different social forces and strata - and I would say that this was true of the students as well insofar as the students were themselves a heterogenous group. As Wang Hui, a leading figure within the Chinese New Left, who has by no means an entirely negative orientation towards the market reforms, notes, "the 1989 movement was not merely a student movement, it as a broad social movement that involved workers, individual entrepreneurs, state cadres, teachers and other social elements. Even members of the Central Party Committee, various Ministers of State Affairs, the National People's Congress, various organs of the Chinese People's Consultative Congress, (including such "mouthpieces" as the People's Daily, the Guangming Daly, and the Xinhua News Agency) participated. We could say that, apart from peasants, who did not directly participate, people from every other social class - and particularly those in large and medium-sized cities - were drawn into the movement" (Wang Hui, The End of the Revolution, 2009, pp. 22-3). The idea that it was a student movement only is an invention of both the Chinese state and the Western media that totally ignores the extensive working class involvement that was a central part of the protest movement and which ultimately sparked state intervention.

Amongst scholars of Chinese history the recognition that workers were central to the movement and that it was never simply a student phenomenon is effectively universal - and what is significant is that worker involvement was not limited to passive support for the student participants but involved attempts by workers to form their own organizations and articulate independent demands. These attempts are demonstrated most clearly by the case of the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation, which, being formed in the month of May, issued a call for a one-day general strike (though excluding essential services and sectors) in order to put pressure on the government to withdraw the troops that had been stationed near Tiananmen Square, and launched a registration drive amongst the workers who were at the square or who visited the demonstrations at some point during the course of the events, with this registration drive requiring that workers show their work unit and resident identity cards, and resulting in the Federation being able to boast a membership total of 20,000 by the time the army was ordered to intervene, despite it being highly dangerous for workers to openly affiliate themselves to a working-class body that existed outside the official trade union structure - and the fact that as part of the registration process workers had to show their work unit cards meant that the membership of the organization was not comprised, as was later alleged by the government, of the unemployed and other disparate social elements, but by workers, including employees at some of Beijing's biggest state-owned enterprises. (Walder, Andrew G., Gong, Xiaoxia, Workers in the Tiananmen Protests: The Politics of the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation, in The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 29 (Jan., 1993), pp. 1-29)

Corresponding to their highly complex social composition and the presence of competing interests, the protest movements also exhibited, as one might expect, no single discourse, but a wide range of competing demands and visions. Wang Hui, again, points out that the symbol of reform was common to almost all the participants, but that reform itself, as a political term and component of discourse, was open to widely varying interpretations, in that "what the masses expected from reform and what they understood the democracy and the rule of law to be were not merely a set of proceduralist political arrangements and legal documents, rather, it was the hope to reorganize politics and the legal system to guarantee social justice and the democratization of economic life" (Wang Hui, The End of The Revolution, 2009, pp. 32-3). The specific demands that were expressed by the worker participants included, in opposition to the largely abstract demands of the students, "opposition to corruption and official malfeasance, opposition to the princeling party (special privileged class), demands for stable prices, restrictions on Yangpu Peninsula in Hainan Island (an area that was rented out to foreign capital, and demands for social guarantees and social justice - in short, the demand for the use of democratic methods to supervise the process and progress of the organization of social benefits" (ibid. pp. 30).

It has also been pointed out by other historians that as part of the protest movement (as well as cases of worker unrest more generally, including in China today) the workers drew on a rich language of social revolt and principles of distributive justice (a moral economy, if you will) that had been promoted during the Mao period and internalized by the individuals and families that had grown up in that period, such that the political discourses adopted by the workers were by no means invented out of the blue, much less solely foreign in origin but represented a broader historical tradition whose relevance continues to be marked. (Perry, Elizabeth J., "To Rebel is Justified": Cultural Revolution influences on Contemporary Chinese Protest in Kam-yee Law, (ed.), The Chinese Cultural Revolution Reconsidered, 2003, pp. 262-82)

In sum, you need to justify the assertion that the protest movement was solely or mainly student based, that there was a single set of demands, orientated towards the acceleration of market reform, and so on. I should also point out in connection with the above that, consistent with the general pattern of protest in Chinese history, the working-class leaders received much longer prison sentences than the student leaders - simply because the working class posed a challenge to the government in a way that the students did not.

Since it is not a revolutionary movement, it would not have succeeded in anything but backwardness. 2) The uprising is allowed to continue and potentially overthrows the Chinese government. Because the movement is not Marxist, socialist, communist or revolutionary in any sense of the word,

Now we are descending into the realm of fantasy and speculation. If what you are saying is true and the movement was a student movement without extensive working class participation, do you seriously think that the students would ever have been able to overthrow the Chinese government and form a viable ruling apparatus? The answer can only be no. However, the more important issue here is your absurd characterization of how movements and processes of revolt develop and your view that because a short-lived movement was never fully or wholly "revolutionary" it is not deserving of support - at the risk of stating the obvious, there has never been a social protest movement, ever, that has begun with coherent and total demands for revolution, because protest movements develop through a dialectical process, whereby their participants adopt and transform their demands, these demands being themselves based on their understanding of the world and sense of what is politically possible, as a result of ongoing interaction with both their fellow participants and centers of economic and political power, with it being through victories that the confidents of participants is enhance and their demands radicalized, and through defeats or passivity that pressures in favor of reconciliation come about.

It is precisely because protest movements can never begin with a revolutionary orientation and that they tend to be comprised of a range of different interests and viewpoints, with the development of these movements being an open question, that revolutionaries have an obligation to intervene, to shape the debate, to lead workers away from reformist demands and towards an understanding of their own class interests - and it would be especially absurd to expect the working class in China to step onto the stage with a fully developed revolutionary program when it had, notwithstanding its traditions of class struggle and the language of revolt it adopted from the Mao period, been effectively denied the ability to be politically independent throughout the history of the PRC, due to the restrictions placed on trade unions and other potential instruments of rebellion.

So I feel you need to defend your conception of how movements develop, that is, your view that movements need to be fully revolutionary when and where they appear, in order to be worthy of support. As for the rest of your post, it is just rhetoric, and it does not answer the key question which is: what do you think workers should do in China today when their interests are constantly coming under attack from the party-state and when people like you take the side of the government when it comes to the suppression of protest movements? What is the solution, in your eyes, to the encroachment of market reform, not to mention an increasingly pro-imperialist foreign policy?

RED DAVE

10th November 2010, 17:00

Well in China today the Maoist masses certainly are clashing with the police to defend the little bit that is left of the old worker's state.True. But what they are trying to defend are wages and hours, etc., not workers control of industry.

I know you don't agree with Maoism, (I don't completely agree with Maoism either) but at least see objectively that the CCP hasn't gone down the same route as the CPSU.Quite the contrary: it has gone the same route. It has been the overseer of the transformation from state capitalism into private capitalism.

Maoist grassroots CCP members like Zhao Dongmin are still seriously and actively defending the interests of the Chinese working class today, and some of the strike leaders in the recent wave of strikes in China are actually Maoists.I am sure this is true. But are they fighting for workers control of soicety. If they are just trying to preserve wages, hours, working conditions, etc., then they are acting in the same manner as union leaders in any capitalist country.

The CPSU is completely dead now, but the CCP is not.I beg to differ. There may be a few old militants left, or even new ones, but their position is the same as that of, say, Bernie Sanders: left critics of society but not revolutionaries.

The Maoists are building a second CCP - CCP(M)/MCPC and calling for a "second socialist revolution".Hopefully, the leadership of such a revolution will not be Maoist. If it is, they will probably repeat the same mistakes as in the past and as the Nepalese Maaoists are committing right now.

Maoism has never engaged in a critique of itself to discover how it is that they managed to create the largest capitalist country in the world.

RED DAVE

Queercommie Girl

10th November 2010, 17:12

I am sure this is true. But are they fighting for workers control of soicety. If they are just trying to preserve wages, hours, working conditions, etc., then they are acting in the same manner as union leaders in any capitalist country.

(Not serious point)

Now do you understand why someone like me who comes from a partially middle class background in a Stalinist society would favour the CWI in some ways (among all the hundreds of Trotskyist groups) given their partly centrist tendencies, their focus on economic trade unionism, and their close relations with the Labour Party? It's partly strategic. :D

(I'm sure many Western Trotskyist groups wouldn't even post that relatively positive article on the Maoist trade unionist activist Zhao Dongmin on their site)

On a serious note, I'm sure there are certain things on which we will never agree on, (partly because we are all literally constrained objectively by our backgrounds) so why not just put aside our differences and enter a coalition to co-operate on issues we have in common?

penguinfoot

15th November 2010, 00:53

Are you going to pick up on the debate, Kassad, or let your Stalinism stay undefended?

Unclebananahead

16th November 2010, 12:03

state capitalist regimes in these two countries, morphed themselves into private capitalism. They did this with no massive protests by the workers because all that happened was that one set of capitalists replaced another.
RED DAVE

Is it not the case that Leon Trotsky himself rejected the notion that the USSR was state capitalist, and instead argued that it was a degenerated worker's state?

RED DAVE

16th November 2010, 18:06

Is it not the case that Leon Trotsky himself rejected the notion that the USSR was state capitalist, and instead argued that it was a degenerated worker's state?He did indeed and, demonstrating that he was a human being and not a god, he was wrong.

That's "he" not "He." :D

RED DAVE

Crux

16th November 2010, 18:45

He did indeed and, demonstrating that he was a human being and not a god, he was wrong.

That's "he" not "He." :D

RED DAVE
You're an overly emotional car-mechanic, dave.

Unclebananahead

16th November 2010, 20:33

He did indeed and, demonstrating that he was a human being and not a god, he was wrong.

That's "he" not "He." :D

RED DAVE

So I suppose you regard the leadership of the former Soviet Union as being no better than Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs). Was there not a referendum held in 1991 in which 70% of participants affirmed their preference for the continued existence of the USSR as a "renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed"? Wouldn't that tend to suggest that the Soviet people believed that there was something worth preserving of their planned economic system?

RED DAVE

17th November 2010, 14:57

So I suppose you regard the leadership of the former Soviet Union as being no better than Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs). Was there not a referendum held in 1991 in which 70% of participants affirmed their preference for the continued existence of the USSR as a "renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed"? Wouldn't that tend to suggest that the Soviet people believed that there was something worth preserving of their planned economic system?Let's see: a "renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed."

If that's an affirmation of socialism and a workers state, I'm a ring-tailed wombat.

RED DAVE

Vladimir Innit Lenin

17th November 2010, 15:24

Let's see: a "renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed."

If that's an affirmation of socialism and a workers state, I'm a ring-tailed wombat.

RED DAVE

Answer the question: do you believe that the Soviet Union was as bad as the worst CEOs in the financial industry?

RED DAVE

17th November 2010, 18:52

So I suppose you regard the leadership of the former Soviet Union as being no better than Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs).I regard the leadership of the USSR as being a bunch of oppressive, imperialist swine, every bit as bad as the capitalists of the US.

Let me ask you, as a revolutionary, would you rather have lived in the USSR in, say, 1980, or the US?

RED DAVE

Unclebananahead

18th November 2010, 03:45

Where would I want to be in 1980? LOL! I want to say the USSR, but knowing what I know now, I'm aware that it will suffer a capitalist coup circa 1991. That would give me about 21 years.

It's not really a fair question though. I can't really be anywhere but the present, and existing computer technology provides the basis for the actual, possible realization of a very efficient socialist planned economy, which could easily overcome the so-called 'calculation problem' in determining what to produce.

But I digress. The fact is, the Soviet Union was definitely not capitalist, whatever else it was. Did it achieve socialism? Not entirely, but it did achieve a society with a planned economy, and moreover it was a society which had certain socialist features. The citizens showed that they regarded this system (with some democratic modifications) as worthy of preserving with the results of the 1991 referendum being overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the USSR in existence.

iwwforever

18th November 2010, 17:01

The October 2nd "One Nation Working Together" rally in D.C.

I was referring to the Colbert/Stewart on October 31st. It was an opportunity to reach masses of people who hate right wingers.

I must say, the more I read and listen to Bob Avakian, the more I like him. He is a good front man for the party, he speaks well and can think fast on his feet when responding to questions.

Every communist organization needs to stop focusing on critique and more on standing together for the general strike. If not, the revolution will never go anywhere.

Unclebananahead

18th November 2010, 19:08

I must say, the more I read and listen to Bob Avakian, the more I like him. He is a good front man for the party, he speaks well and can think fast on his feet when responding to questions.

Every communist organization needs to stop focusing on critique and more on standing together for the general strike. If not, the revolution will never go anywhere.

The RCP *really* is 'all about' Bob Avakian. I agree that he says some positive things. I mean, yes he's denouncing capitalism advocating socialism, and promoting some other ideas like his "new synthesis" (whatever that is). But they seem to believe that the best way to advance the class struggle and raise consciousness is to expose people to the speeches and writings of Bob Avakian. It's as if a regular, mainstream, 'Mr. Block' sort of working class or student just reads or hears Bob, they'll immediately have an epiphany 'see the light.'

I managed to get mixed up with them some years ago, and my own personal experiences confirm the aforesaid completely. The first thing they did when I agreed to 'get more involved' with them, was to ask me if I had seen Bob's DVD, and if I haven't, they would be happy to show it to me.

Later, the local branches of the party had actually rented a theater in Los Angeles for a public showing of the recording of Mr. Avakian's 'historic' speech. Everything seemed to revolve around him, like he were the revolutionary Communist sun, around which all other Communists orbit, and draw light and warmth. They encouraged me to purchase Bob's 4 DVD set for the amount of $40 or so, and when I told them I couldn't afford it, they told me that they would provide me with a copy, and I could pay later. I was encouraged to share the DVD of Bob's 'historic' speeches with my friends, and possibly even organize a party around showing the DVD, and that I should consider inviting some neighbors over too were I to host something like that.

One woman in the local branch actually took a portable DVD player around with her when doing party work and community outreach, so she could play a portion of the DVD at any time to new recruits, and potential members. I thought, isn't there anybody else in the RCP worth a fig? Why is this one Guy so amazingly important. The creepiness (and other factors) eventually got to me, and I had to disassociate myself from them.

Kassad

18th November 2010, 19:53

I was referring to the Colbert/Stewart on October 31st. It was an opportunity to reach masses of people who hate right wingers.

I must say, the more I read and listen to Bob Avakian, the more I like him. He is a good front man for the party, he speaks well and can think fast on his feet when responding to questions.

Every communist organization needs to stop focusing on critique and more on standing together for the general strike. If not, the revolution will never go anywhere.

I'm not trying to be rude, but please go back and read my post on the first page regarding Avakian. You are supporting a group that is blatantly anti-Marxist and you need to understand that before you consider joining them.

A Revolutionary Tool

19th November 2010, 05:24

RED DAVE

19th November 2010, 14:51

Kassad

19th November 2010, 16:04

A few months ago, I was in the Revolution Bookstore in Manhattan. I got into a conversation with the comrade behind the counter. Practically the first sentence out of her mouth was, "Have you heard of Bob Avaikian?"

Sure, and L. Ron Hubbard, the 14-Year-Old Guru, Jim Jones, etc.

RED DAVE

They were outside our National Conference in Los Angeles last weekend passing out fliers about Avakian. I found it pretty funny. The Spartacists were there too, if that speaks any lengths about how deranged both groups are.

thriller

19th November 2010, 16:16

The RCP members are SO enthusiastic, you have to give them that. Unfortunately Bob Avakian has created a group focused around him and him alone. While what he says in his "synthesis'" may be good ideas, his actions speak much louder than his words. And he's a Maoist (hope we can all laugh at ourselves :P).

RED DAVE

19th November 2010, 16:56

They were outside our National Conference in Los Angeles last weekend passing out fliers about Avakian. I found it pretty funny. The Spartacists were there too, if that speaks any lengths about how deranged both groups are.I suspect that the Sparts were passing out fliers about Avakian and Avakian sent a message from On High denouncing the Sparts, and five members were expelled from the RCP for spelling Avakian's name wrong on their t-shirts. :D

RED DAVE

RED DAVE

19th November 2010, 16:58

Correction:

lady gaga fans are so enthusiastic, you have to give them that. Unfortunately lady gaga has created a group focused around her and her alone. While what she says in her "music'" may be good ideas, her actions speak much louder than her words. And she has a meat purse (hope we can all laugh at ourselves :p).RED DAVE

Small Geezer

19th November 2010, 22:36

a movement that would allow China to revert back into a feudal colony, riddled with disease, opium addiction, poverty, mass starvation and inequality?

Yep, those Chinese youths would sure be smoking a lot of opium if their workers' state collapsed. :confused:

thriller

21st November 2010, 18:48

Ms. Max

8th April 2011, 13:28

Red_Struggle

8th April 2011, 17:36

Kassad

8th April 2011, 17:43

They operate like a cult. I had a friend who was a member in their youth league and he told me they overworked and then insulted him, "If you can't handle this, you're not down for revolution." If you and your spouse or partner are both members and one leaves, they tell you to divorce him or her and cut ties with them all together.

The RCP kinda reminds me of the People's Temple, but with less cyanide.

I have heard stories of cultish organizations (RCP, Spartacists, etc.) attempting to regulate who someone marries. It's frowned upon if you marry outside of the party. On that note, the Logan Dossier from the Spartacist League that details the trial and expulsion of one of their leaders, Bill Logan, shows how much the organization regulated the personal lives of members. I think it's disgusting.

graymouser

8th April 2011, 17:54

I still think the RCP is the most straight up revolutionary Marxist Leninist party in US today. They are a vanguard party and put forward their leaders, so that makes the middle class arm chair revolutionaries a little nervous and gets them going on about "cults", but that's just BS. RCP also has some other leaders supporting Avakian, like Carl Dix, Sunsara Taylor, Ray Lotta, etc. Check 'em out on Youtube.
The RCP has become a degenerate joke. Early in the Iraq war they were able to project a couple of fronts (Not In Our Name, World Can't Wait) that seemed to have a bit of traction but they simply stopped doing anything that mattered and have focused for YEARS now on this campaign of promoting Avakian. What "leadership" does he contribute? The RCP can't even claim to be putting forward a coherent path other than trying to promote Avakian.

chegitz guevara

8th April 2011, 21:32

The RCP kinda reminds me of the People's Temple, but with less cyanide.

For now. Wait till Bob has the great idea that his party committing mass suicide for communism (except for him) will really show the world what a great leader he is.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

9th April 2011, 21:09

Mass armchair revolutionaries??

Like that bloke who talks shit about the US from his armchair in France?:rolleyes:

chegitz guevara

9th April 2011, 21:38

He's been back in the U.S. for some time.

Raubleaux

9th April 2011, 21:43

altnet

9th April 2011, 21:48

Indeed the party's constitution was openly homophobic until relatively recently. It was revised although a very homophobic sentiment still remains ingrained in its idealology.

Tim Finnegan

10th April 2011, 01:14

RCP is basically like Trotskyist parties. Someone new to Marxism-Leninism will find much that makes sense in what they say. They have very inspired and energetic followings. But everything they do is tainted by the cult of personality and petit-bourgeois attitudes.
What Trotskyist personality cults are you referring to, exactly? I can't say that I've noticed that sort of thing from the leading British Trotskyist groups, the CWI and the SWP (which is more than I can say for the Marxist-Leninists and their antique Stalin-worship...).

Avakianists and Trotskyists are Exhibit A when it comes to why purges are necessary.
And this bit is just plain old creepy.

What's that thing Lenin said about "explaining patiently" and "having our majority"? You'd think that True Believers like Comrade Raubleaux here would take more note of that sort of thing....

RED DAVE

10th April 2011, 01:17

Raubleaux

10th April 2011, 04:09

What Trotskyist personality cults are you referring to, exactly? I can't say that I've noticed that sort of thing from the leading British Trotskyist groups, the CWI and the SWP (which is more than I can say for the Marxist-Leninists and their antique Stalin-worship...).

I find far more hero worship among Trotskyists than among "Stalinists." A sizable number of Trotkyists are introduced to the Trotsky cult by reading Isaac Deutscher's hagiography that explicitly refers to Trotsky as a "prophet."

And this bit is just plain old creepy.

What's that thing Lenin said about "explaining patiently" and "having our majority"? You'd think that True Believers like Comrade Raubleaux here would take more note of that sort of thing....

How is it creepy? Purges are all about enforcing party discipline and democratic centralism. This is how revolutions are actually won -- by being organized and not allowing factionalism to tear the revolution apart. History tells us that in genuinely revolutionary situations party discipline and a vigorous enforcement of the party line is necessary. Comrades who appeared to be fellow travelers in non-revolutionary environments suddenly are revealed to have an ideological chasm between themselves and genuine Marxism-Leninism.

The problem with personalities like Trotsky and Avakian is that their legions of devotees begin to make them feel that they are above the Party. Anyway I won't say anything more about Trotsky I'm derailing the thread.

Tim Finnegan

10th April 2011, 04:24

I find far more hero worship among Trotskyists than among "Stalinists." A sizable number of Trotkyists are introduced to the Trotsky cult by reading Isaac Deutscher's hagiography that explicitly refers to Trotsky as a "prophet."
I'm not sure that the admitted over-reverence expressed by some Trotskyists is really the same thing as the sort of personality cult personally cultivated (no pun intended...) by leaders like Stalin, Mao and Lil' Bobby Avakian here.

How is it creepy? Purges are all about enforcing party discipline and democratic centralism. This is how revolutions are actually won -- by being organized and not allowing factionalism to tear the revolution apart. History tells us that in genuinely revolutionary situations party discipline and a vigorous enforcement of the party line is necessary. Comrades who appeared to be fellow travelers in non-revolutionary environments suddenly are revealed to have an ideological chasm between themselves and genuine Marxism-Leninism.
Those are the reasons that it is creepy, yes.

Fawkes

10th April 2011, 04:40

Really? Of all the threads to necro you had to choose this one?

Purges are all about enforcing party discipline and democratic centralism.
Discipline? Fuck off, you sound like the same motherfuckers we're revolting against.

RED DAVE

10th April 2011, 04:45

I find far more hero worship among Trotskyists than among "Stalinists."Which Trotskyist and Stalnist groups have you been actively in contact with?

A sizable number of Trotkyists are introduced to the Trotsky cult by reading Isaac Deutscher's hagiography that explicitly refers to Trotsky as a "prophet."Source please?

By the way, do you know why Deutscher referred to Trotsky as a prophet?

How is it creepy?Are you aware that Stalin used the purges to murder the leadership of the Bolshevik Party?

Purges are all about enforcing party discipline and democratic centralism.That's like saying the Holocaust got rid of Europe's undersirables.

This is how revolutions are actually won -- by being organized and not allowing factionalism to tear the revolution apart.Really? I thought revolutions were won by the masses with a revolutionary party as its leadership.

History tells us that in genuinely revolutionary situations party discipline and a vigorous enforcement of the party line is necessary.Then Lenin should certainly have gotten rid of Stalin when he arrived back in Russia.

Comrades who appeared to be fellow travelers in non-revolutionary environments suddenly are revealed to have an ideological chasm between themselves and genuine Marxism-Leninism.Stalinist gobbledy-gook.

The problem with personalities like Trotsky and Avakian is that their legions of devotees begin to make them feel that they are above the Party. Anyway I won't say anything more about Trotsky I'm derailing the thread.Good idea. Best not to reveal too much of your ignorance in public.

RED DAVE

Raubleaux

10th April 2011, 05:39

Piss off, Dave. I have had this debate with you many times. Not interested in rehashing it.

Le Socialiste

10th April 2011, 09:29

I haven't heard much, other than they uphold Bob Avakian in ways eerily similar to a political cult. That alone would make me wary of joining (if I was ever a M-L).

DaringMehring

10th April 2011, 09:32

I just want to add, that casually referring to the desire or perceived need to "purge" people, is about as bad for public perception as possible -- confirming the worst stereotyping of communists.

Working people aren't going to be won en masse by a movement or grouping they suspect might go on a murderous rampage even against people within their own organization or side of the spectrum.

It might seem obvious, but I've seen it before. Some patiently explain the glories of socialism, how it will free the spirit from its cell by ending compulsion, and lead to great human gain, while others wreck with their fist pounding about lining people up against the wall after the revolution.

Rableux and others; ghouls who fetishize slaughtering their opposition.

RED DAVE

10th April 2011, 20:52

Piss off, Dave. I have had this debate with you many times. Not interested in rehashing it.Thank you for a rigorous Marxist analysis typical of your political tendency.

Please note, Comrades, that none of the points I raised were addressed.

RED DAVE

Tim Finnegan

10th April 2011, 23:48

Piss off, Dave. I have had this debate with you many times. Not interested in rehashing it.
It's really hard to be convincingly sanctimonious when you're talking about systematically butchering your fellow posters.

Ms. Max

14th April 2011, 02:11

I still would recommend RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) as the most straight up revolutionary Marxist Leninist party in US today. They are a vanguard party and put forward their leaders, so that makes the shop-keeper kids a little nervous and gets them going on about "cults", but that's just BS.

Ms. Max

14th April 2011, 02:38

The RCP *really* is 'all about' Bob Avakian. I agree that he says some positive things. I mean, yes he's denouncing capitalism advocating socialism, and promoting some other ideas like his "new synthesis" (whatever that is). But they seem to believe that the best way to advance the class struggle and raise consciousness is to expose people to the speeches and writings of Bob Avakian. It's as if a regular, mainstream, 'Mr. Block' sort of working class or student just reads or hears Bob, they'll immediately have an epiphany 'see the light.'

I managed to get mixed up with them some years ago, and my own personal experiences confirm the aforesaid completely. The first thing they did when I agreed to 'get more involved' with them, was to ask me if I had seen Bob's DVD, and if I haven't, they would be happy to show it to me.

Later, the local branches of the party had actually rented a theater in Los Angeles for a public showing of the recording of Mr. Avakian's 'historic' speech. Everything seemed to revolve around him, like he were the revolutionary Communist sun, around which all other Communists orbit, and draw light and warmth. They encouraged me to purchase Bob's 4 DVD set for the amount of $40 or so, and when I told them I couldn't afford it, they told me that they would provide me with a copy, and I could pay later. I was encouraged to share the DVD of Bob's 'historic' speeches with my friends, and possibly even organize a party around showing the DVD, and that I should consider inviting some neighbors over too were I to host something like that.

One woman in the local branch actually took a portable DVD player around with her when doing party work and community outreach, so she could play a portion of the DVD at any time to new recruits, and potential members. I thought, isn't there anybody else in the RCP worth a fig? Why is this one Guy so amazingly important. The creepiness (and other factors) eventually got to me, and I had to disassociate myself from them.

Oh my gosh. They had the nerve to put their main guy's words on a DVD. And then someone actually tried to get ya to listen to some of the DVD. It must have been hell for you. But seriously, whether ya agree with them are not, isn't that how you promote and spread your ideas? Get a good thinker and speaker to articulate it? Its what really alerted me about where these folks are coming from.

graymouser

14th April 2011, 11:54

Oh my gosh. They had the nerve to put their main guy's words on a DVD. And then someone actually tried to get ya to listen to some of the DVD. It must have been hell for you. But seriously, whether ya agree with them are not, isn't that how you promote and spread your ideas? Get a good thinker and speaker to articulate it? Its what really alerted me about where these folks are coming from.
Actually, some of us take the view that it's more important to be engaged in practical political work first and foremost, and from that work to earn an audience for our ideas. That's usually how you get people to respect you - it's certainly why Avakian and the Revolutionary Union built up the group they did out of the implosion of SDS in the late 60s and early 70s. The RU / RCP's ideas weren't very worthwhile at the time, but they were doing concrete political tasks and engaging people.

What Avakian has increasingly done in recent years is to abandon any pretense of this in favor of a propaganda effort focused purely on himself. It used to be that you could say that the RCP had a lot of problems in their specific ideas, but at least it was an active and engaged party. Now you can't even say that - it's just a personality cult around Avakian. There is no systematic work outside of promoting Avakian; they wear Bob shirts around and talk about Avakian's ideas.

When you talk to people who want revolutionary social change, they will ask you what you are doing to get it. The RCP can't answer - all they are doing is to put forward their "leader," who is not leading any real struggles.

chegitz guevara

14th April 2011, 21:28

How is it creepy? Purges are all about enforcing party discipline and democratic centralism. This is how revolutions are actually won -- by being organized and not allowing factionalism to tear the revolution apart. History tells us that in genuinely revolutionary situations party discipline and a vigorous enforcement of the party line is necessary. Comrades who appeared to be fellow travelers in non-revolutionary environments suddenly are revealed to have an ideological chasm between themselves and genuine Marxism-Leninism.

This is crap. The Bolsheviks were a multifactional party up until 1929, 12 years AFTER they won the revolution. Even during 1917, during the revolution, there were at least three main factions in the Party. Lenin was absolutely opposed to the idiocy claimed in his name of banning factions.

Ismail

15th April 2011, 14:00

Lenin was absolutely opposed to the idiocy claimed in his name of banning factions.As Grover Furr once pointed out:

Did "the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin", intended the "ban on factions within the party" to be "temporary"?

Fortunately the transcript of the 10th Party Congress of 1921 is available online in Russian, at http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/_KPSS.html#010 (http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/_KPSS.html#010) (DejaVu format). So I downloaded it and read the relevant passages.

There is NO suggestion at all, either from Lenin or from anyone, that the ban on factions -- Resolution No. 12, "On Party Unity" -- was intended to be "temporary", or anything other than permanent.It's worth noting that there were indeed factions that Lenin disliked and the Bolsheviks suppressed, e.g. the "Workers' Opposition." Lenin in his last writings expressed concern over the growing factional rifts between various Bolshevik leaders.

Nothing Human Is Alien

15th April 2011, 15:00

The funny thing is that some leftist hacks point to Lenin's support of the faction ban to prove that such a thing is somehow beneficial. In reality, it came along with the complete degeneration of the October Revolution into something unrecognizable by the workers who carried it out.

"In 1926-7, a debate between representatives of the party leadership and the Opposition on 'Thermidorian degeneration' showed that both sides shared the belief that the revolution was stagnating and that many party members and young people were becoming disillusioned. Workers (including Communist workers) were resentful of the privileges of 'bourgeois experts' and Soviet officials, the profits of sharp-dealing Nepmen, high unemployment and the perpetuation of inequality of opportunity and living standards. Party agitators and propagandists frequently had to respond to the angry question, 'What did we fight for?'" - Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution (pp. 109).

Ismail

15th April 2011, 17:24

I'm aware of such claims (e.g. Simon Pirani's The Russian Revolution in Retreat), and Lenin had to spend a fair amount of time defending the Bolshevik's activities in regards to specialists, managers, suppression of anti-Bolshevik groups, the NEP, etc. Of course one could view this as the Bolsheviks taking state power and attempting to build the foundations for socialism for the first time in history, and obviously under the prevailing conditions what workers expected and what was actually occurring did not line up all that well.

Nothing Human Is Alien

15th April 2011, 17:29

Ismail

15th April 2011, 18:12

Which might have had something to do with workers loosing control along the way. Unless you think a workers revolution and workers state can act against the interests of the workers themselves. :rolleyes:You're free to see Lenin's views against the Russian "left-communists": http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm

Furthermore:
"We must be prepared for inconveniences, hardships and sacrifices; we must be ready to break our habits and possibly our addictions as well, for the sole purpose of working a marked change and improvement in the economic state of the key industries. This must be done at all costs." - Lenin (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/11.htm), 1920.

Tim Finnegan

16th April 2011, 23:00

Ms. Max

18th April 2011, 04:17

I have heard stories of cultish organizations (RCP, Spartacists, etc.) attempting to regulate who someone marries. It's frowned upon if you marry outside of the party. On that note, the Logan Dossier from the Spartacist League that details the trial and expulsion of one of their leaders, Bill Logan, shows how much the organization regulated the personal lives of members. I think it's disgusting.Bullshit, most married RCP people I know are married outside party.

Ms. Max

18th April 2011, 04:21

I subscribe to the cult of one of its members Sunsara Taylor. :wub: Yum mumm mum.
I'm sure she would sock me in the face for saying that. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85tyaA5knk0go eat shit idiot.

Ms. Max

18th April 2011, 04:27

Indeed the party's constitution was openly homophobic until relatively recently. It was revised although a very homophobic sentiment still remains ingrained in its idealology.True RCP had head up ass in past, but today gay and etc. people are openly involved in RCP which is a great thing.

Tim Finnegan

18th April 2011, 05:09

So the RCP has just about caught up with the Republican Party? Very impressive. :rolleyes:

Kassad

18th April 2011, 15:24

Bullshit, most married RCP people I know are married outside party.

I was more referring to the Spartacist League, but I've heard more than one instance of two people within the RCP being married and when one leaves the party, the other is encouraged to divorce the defector and cut off ties with them. I would hope this is not true anymore.

kasama-rl

20th April 2011, 18:37

When I handed in my resignation letter to the RCP, I literally did not know if my wife would move out the next day. I sat and waited in a chair for her to come home. As she came in the door I simply said "I resigned from the party today." She was silent for four of five seconds in the open door and then said "Great. Let's go," stamping the floor with delight.

It was forbidden inside the RCP to speak of ideological differences and struggles with your spouse -- so she literally did not know I was planning to leave, and I did not know that she (on her own) were making parallel decisions.

http://kasamaproject.org/pamphlets/9-letters/letter-8/

http://kasamaproject.org/2008/11/09/mike-ely-my-last-day/

As for party rules on marriage: It is not required that people marry inside the RCP. There is a requirement that a decision to marry (or have children) be discussed and approved within the organization. Generally, in my experience, people received advice (pro or con) -- it was sometimes heavy handed, but usually the final decision was left up to the individual member.

red cat

20th April 2011, 18:39

It was forbidden inside the RCP to speak of ideological differences and struggles with your spouse

Why was this forbidden ?

kasama-rl

20th April 2011, 19:18

In the RCP's highly compartmentalized version of democratic centralism, members are forbidden to discuss politics (and especially differences) outside their units (or body).

Married people are rarely in the same units (at least this was true when there were more members and more units), which means that they could not discuss controversies, political differences, etc. with their spouses.

In other words: the prohibition against organized party factions and internal platforms (which was a feature of the communist movement after the 1920s) was taken to an extreme level where even discussion of views within a marriage was considered a form of factionalism.

Kassad

20th April 2011, 19:42

Firstly, I do want to take a second to thank you, Mike, for revealing such personal information. It must have been a hell of an internal struggle for you. What state was the Chicago branch of the RCP in when you left? I was slightly dismayed when I went there back in October and only saw 2 people selling the paper.

kasama-rl

21st April 2011, 00:12

I was never in the Chicago branch of the RCP. I was in the section that produced the organization's press.

I don't know details about their organization's strength and wouldn't give details if I knew them. Overall, they have clearly lost a considerable part of their ranks since the Avakian self-coup of 2003, the waves of resignation and subsequent purges. I can't say whether they are close to organ failure -- though they clearly have trouble maintaining their key operations (with their newspaper no longer weekly and their bookstores in serious financial crisis).

RedHal

21st April 2011, 01:00

divorces can get really ugly, Chavez' wife went over to the opposition even though her parents stuck with Chavez.

csquared

21st April 2011, 01:34

Bob Avakian scares me, I don't think I like him

mosfeld

21st April 2011, 01:58

They seem to believe that a party, (an individual leader even like Bob Avakian) generalizes all lessons of the movement and can lead it to victory. The activity of the working class seems to consist, to them, in supporting that party. According to members I have spoken with they think that the role of the vanguard party is to win the revolution and rule society until communism can be achieved.

I don't know what the situation is like now, but back when the RCP,USA was a MLM Party this was not the case.

"You have to unite broadly with other sections of people throughout society to carry it out, but it's got to be based on the working class—the class that objectively has nothing to lose but its chains. In order to free itself and all humanity, the proletariat has to get rid of the capitalist system and build a whole new society.

(...)

"To do something like this, you can't just put a new group of people in power and hope they'll do right by everybody. We won't say to the masses who just rose up and made the revolution, "OK, y'all can go back home now. Just sit back and let the Revolutionary Communist Party take care of business for you." No, we'll be challenging people and leading them in attacking every aspect of injustice and degradation left over from capitalist society."

Carl Dix, How the Revolution Will Wipe Out National Oppression and Inequality (http://revcom.us/a/firstvol/carl_e.htm)

StalinFanboy

21st April 2011, 02:02

I was having a discussion with an RCP sympathizer and no joke they said that someone's revolutionary potential was determined by their relation to Truth (Bob Avakian), not their relation to the means of production.

Ms. Max

21st April 2011, 03:49

So the RCP has just about caught up with the Republican Party? Very impressive. :rolleyes:It's a good object lesson I think. Various Marxists at times went down this road of saying "booshwah decadence", trying to be scientific based on Freud and others. Freud did discover true science, but then laid cultural things on top of that it seems. Marxists revolutions eliminated anti-gay laws, but then this stuff came in the back door. Marxism is based on science, but we sometimes get confused on what science is. Similar to that plant genetics stuff in USSR.

kasama-rl

21st April 2011, 11:31

It's a good object lesson I think. Various Marxists at times went down this road of saying "booshwah decadence", trying to be scientific based on Freud and others. Freud did discover true science, but then laid cultural things on top of that it seems. Marxists revolutions eliminated anti-gay laws, but then this stuff came in the back door. Marxism is based on science, but we sometimes get confused on what science is. Similar to that plant genetics stuff in USSR.

I think it is a good object lesson. And it is (as you say) a case where the Bolsheviks first had a basic liberation stance (toward the legalization and acceptance of gay people, and sexual experimentation generally) -- and then a far more conservative line took hold (and justified itself in the name of science).

A few shades of distinction that you probably will agree with:

Communists did not draw their anti-gay moments from Freud. If anything it was the opposite: In the U.S., in particular, the organized communist movement has been rather hostile to psycology generally (not just Freud). Freud was generally dismissed wholesale by the RCP (for example) whereas his work was treated much more respectfully by communists in Europe (Althusser).

One of the problems with the summation of the RCP's experience is that our leadership refused to allow it to be said that the issue might have been backward ideas on homosexuality (including their own!). The decades of anti-gay policy and ideas were explained by taking the discussion into a rareified air of methodology.

("Our methodology was wrong and reductionist you see, our logic was too rigid, and we were too busy with international matters... that is why we couldn't see the injustices happening in our own party, that's why we expelled gay people, and stood aside from the militant resistance during much of the AIDS crisis.")

The anti-gay approach was not simply (or mainly) a problem in method -- it was the influence of reactionary ideas on sexuality inside the party. And trying to understand it at the level of politics (not at the level of philosophical approach to ideology) was considered very dangerous and intolerable. And in fact that conflict precipitated many of the events that have so deeply affected the RCP -- the sharp inner party struggle over the (now forgotten) Draft Program, and what followed.

You write:

"Marxism is based on science, but we sometimes get confused on what science is. "

I think that is far too generous.

I think it is fair to say that at its best Marxism can be materialist and dialectical. But there are times when forms of Marxism predominate that are unscientific -- and that use science as a banner for bullshit.

I have seen many many different ideas, plans, assertions, even worldviews run out by Marxists -- always claiming that their particular twist on things is "scientific." In some ways it is a wrapping that conveys legitimacy and even authority to ideas that need much more critical examination.

Sometimes this talk of "science" is used as a stick to beat back (precisely!) the necessary vetting, testing and evaluation of ideas. Which is unscientific (if you get my drift).

Nothing Human Is Alien

21st April 2011, 12:20

The anti-gay approach was not simply (or mainly) a problem in method -- it was the influence of reactionary ideas on sexuality inside the party.

So ideas don't reflect material conditions.. it's the other way around? It wasn't a problem of how things were done, but rather what things were thought?

No, the reintroduction of reactionary social policies came along with real, underlying changes. It's no coincidence that abortion, homosexuality and prostitution were criminalized as the bureaucracy firmly secured its grip on power.

kasama-rl

25th April 2011, 04:32

So ideas don't reflect material conditions.. it's the other way around? It wasn't a problem of how things were done, but rather what things were thought?

No, the reintroduction of reactionary social policies came along with real, underlying changes. It's no coincidence that abortion, homosexuality and prostitution were criminalized as the bureaucracy firmly secured its grip on power.

You seem confused.

We are discussing the anti-gay policies of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (not the Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

On the issue you raise: It seems very material to assume that every change of idea or policy must arise from some change in material conditions. That is not actually the case. Often ideas and policies change because ideas and policies change (not because some material substrate forced mere humans to move like puppets).

In fact ideas and matter are a unity of opposites. Matter gives rise to ideas. And ideas transform matter (when they are grasped and acted upon by people).