Why did American Maoism implode?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Admittedly I'm not super knowledgeable about the history of the US Maoist movement. It seems that the US Maoism, once trendy in the 60s and 70s, has imploded.

On one hand there is the delightfully wacky personality cult of Bob Avakian.What happened to the RCP that it seems to be destined to go the way of MIM, without even at least leaving us with some half decent film reviews?

On the other hand much of the New Communist Movement ended up working for the Jesse Jackson campaign in the 80s.

What happened? It has to be more than the fact that the PRC restored capitalism under Deng and his successors.Could there have been a theoretical flaw which inevitably led Maoism to devolve into liberalism on one hand and silly personality cultism on the other?

Max Elbaum's book (which I haven't read yet) and Loren Goldner's review of it make interesting reading.

http://www.revolutionintheair.com/reviews/goldner.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.revolutionintheair.com/reviews/goldner.html)

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Could have something to do with class... Possibly that these were people who had moral qualms with capitalism and looked positively on the changes carried out by administrators in the "socialist states," but were later able to change their minds when the working class stubbornly refused to follow their lead and/or they got cushy jobs in management after getting their diplomas.

Either that or class and material reality don't matter.. it's all ideas floating around in the ether, which makes it a lot easier to pick and chose 'revisionist traders' out like bad guys in a pro wrestling match.

[Prairie Fire]

Many of them were fronts and facades to begin with, a'la operation CHAOS/ Operation COINTELPRO, etc.

This was the same around the world, a problem that plagued the NCM ( here is a dutch example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist-Leninist_Party_of_the_Netherlands ).

Myself, I have several old publications on my bookshelf of defunct Canadian Maoist parties that I can find absolutely no mention of online, or any historical source. None of these parties left any trace of themselves behind, save their books, none are prominent enough to be recalled by anyone who was active in the movement at the time, and yet all of them somehow scraped together enough money to publish literature that was qualitatively on par with much more established parties, and other commercial publishers at that time. Very suspicious.

This infiltration was endemic in the NCM, because unfortunately due to the necessities of Communist theory and practice at that time (ie. opposing prominent revisionism, upholding the advances of fraternal comrades), it was relatively easy for even agents that hadn't done their homework to blend into the crowd.

With Maoists at the time criticizing the Soviet Union as often as the John Birch society, informants didn't really stand out that much. With organizations where most of the theory and practice revolved around simply 'upholding' and 'denouncing', a plant was indistinguishable from legitimate cadre.

All of this, plus the fact that the various factions that constitued the NCM easily held the greatest pull with the masses of people around the world at that time (especially in the United States,), and they were a looming threat in the United States that needed to be diffused.

[red cat]

There is a Maoist party in Canada called the Revolutionary Communist Party.

http://pcr-rcp.ca/en/

[Prairie Fire]

There is a Maoist party in Canada called the Revolutionary Communist Party.

http://pcr-rcp.ca/en/ (http://www.anonym.to/?http://pcr-rcp.ca/en/)


That is a new organization (up until like 2006, they were still in the "Organizing comittee" stage of development, and hypenated their title as such). While it is said that there are many people in it who were previously active in the NCM of the 70's, 80's and 90's, it doesn't seem to be a splinter or a continuation of any organization from that time period.

[Chimurenga.]

A lot of the Maoist organizations in the US during the 60's and 70's seemed to be collectives that ether burned out or merged with other organizations. For example, Freedom Road Socialist Organization originally was born out of the merge of what, like five different Marxist-Leninist organizations?

But like Prairie Fire said, there are probably many Maoist groups who existed in the that time who left no traces of themselves and became lost over time.

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/erol/ncm-1/maoism-us.htm - This is an interesting read.

[Jose Gracchus]

It was successful when Maoism looked radical chic because the revolutionary noises being made at the time were mostly the Cultural Revolution, and its nature plus its "radicaler-than-thou" pose were excellent marketing material for radical rushes of privileged student activists everywhere. Also, Maoists did incidentally pay more attention to specifically racist forms of repression, and marginal groups of working people. However, its model of revolution even in theory makes no fucking sense in a thoroughly bourgeoisified society as the U.S., and even in theory is a fabrication of the actual history of the CPC's struggle for power.

Once it stopped being radical chic and couldn't go anywhere, it petered out.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The twists and turns of China at that time definitely helped disorient these groups, but also, domestically, these groups thought a revolution was about to happen and it never materialized... we got a ruling class on the offensive for the next 30 years instead of revolution. This confused all of the left coming out of the early 70s, but especially the Maoists IMO.

The international and domestic factors worked hand in hand: as groups had to play ideological Twister in order to continue arguing that China was really the true road to socialism they had to stop internal dissent and debate (anyone who disagrees was a counter-revolutionary... probably called a trot too) - this made it easier for groups to take bad positions about things domestically in struggles and go off the rails.

As things didn't pan out how they thought... obviously it was the fault of all the other Maoist groups and if not, then definitely Trotskyists and Anarchists.

[the last donut of the night]

i think the bigger question is:

why did the american left implode?

[mosfeld]

"Black Like Mao: Red China & Black Revolution (http://kasamaproject.org/2010/03/01/red-china-and-black-revolution/)" goes into great length explaining the origins and developments of the, mainly, African-American Maoist organizations of the '60s and '70s.

[bezdomni]

Maoism in the US was deeply linked to people's movements in the third world. When these movements died down or were defeated, so too did the movements in the US.

It wasn't quite so linear as perhaps I suggest. For example, there was a bit of a Maoist resurgence in the US after the death of Mao and the imprisonment of the Gang of Four in China.

You should read 1979 Maoist Streetfighting - We Waved the Red Book in Deng Xiaoping's Face/ (http://kasamaproject.org/2011/03/02/1979-maoist-streetfighting-we-waved-the-red-book-in-deng-xiaopings-face/) by Mike Ely as an example of what I mean by "Maoist resurgence in the US after the death of Mao".