Avakian on How To Talk About Communism

[flyby]

I had my mind blown by three essays that I want to share with you:

Being Eminently Reasonable--And Completely Outrageous: Speaking and Writing--With Masses of People in Mind (http://rwor.org/a/v24/1171-1180/1176/baagit.htm)

And then:

Putting Forward Our Line--In a Bold, Moving, Compelling Way

Part 1 (http://rwor.org/a/v24/1171-1180/1177/ba-line1.htm) and Part 2 (http://rwor.org/a/v24/1171-1180/1178/ba-agit2.htm)

Here are thoughts and methods on how to actually reach and win over people to our communist revolutinoary struggle for a new world.

[Raisa]

Thank you.

[redstar2000]

There's probably an enormous amount of material to reply to in these documents...but this caught my eye right from the start.


Originally posted by Avakian
This is not easy to do--it is not easy to be able to speak on different levels , the United Front level and the level of the Party's independent line, yet not come off as speaking "out of both sides of your mouth"--but it is possible, and particularly people who are associated with the Party have to become skillful in this.

The problem is quite simple. Your party is not simply part of the "United Front", you intend that it should lead the "United Front".

And not just in terms of "line"...but in terms of individual personalities who are simultaneously leading members of the Revolutionary Communist Party and also prominent public leaders of the "United Front".

Naturally, you "come off" as speaking out of both sides of your mouth...that's inevitably what you end up doing and it becomes quickly obvious.

Why do you think people are so "sensitive" on the topic of "front groups"? Sure, some of that may stem from traditional anti-communist propaganda...maybe even quite a bit of it.

But there's also the "real world factor" involved...who is up in front of the room (and scattered through the audience) with a hidden agenda?

People really don't like the feeling that they are being manipulated...not even in a "good cause".

The solution is also simple...though it is doubtful that it will ever be seriously considered as an option by the RCP.

When communists participate in a united front, they should pledge in advance that none of their members (including "secret members") will take "a leading role" in the organization.

Communists should "lead by line" -- convincing non-communists of the correctness of communist analyses and ideas -- not by wielding the levers of organizational power. In fact, they should explicitly refuse positions of organizational power in the united front.

But won't that mean that "the bad guys" (non-communists or even anti-communists) will "take over" and "ruin everything"?

Yes, that can happen...though communists will wage a sharp line struggle against it.

But when a group is perceived as a puppet of a vanguard party, it's credibility tanks. That doesn't necessarily happen "all at once"...but as time passes, it does happen.

Compare what people say about A.N.S.W.E.R. now to what they were saying a couple of years ago. Or, closer to home, N.I.O.N.

In fact, those united front groups are not even discussed seriously any longer; everybody "knows" that they are not "real" united fronts.

Mind you, even if that perception is "wrong", that's the way people perceive it.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[flyby]

forgive me, redstar, but you got it exactly wrong.

The RCP has always opposed "leading by organizaitonal control" and has always argued for "leading by line."

So you criticize the RCP, when in fact you agree with them on this!

When the RCP says "lead" -- they don't mean "hold the key posts and manipulate from behind the scenes."

They want to "represent the future within the present" -- i.e. they want to "lead" the movement and the people in a way that "prepares minds and organizes forces for revolution."

This can only be done through political work, with discussion key issues with people, with "agreeing to disagree" even while uniting with people....

Burningman observed that you assume all leadership is antagonistic... and this is an example. You assume (if i understand you correctly) that the word "lead" can ONLY mean "manipulate in organizational ways." Which of course is how bourgeois leadership is exercised. The bourgeois officers can only "lead" their soldiers by hiding the real purposes of the war, by relying on strict organizaitonal means, by keeping pepole away from cardinal questions, etc.

But communist leadership (when it is done right) is completely different.

Maoists (and our main man) say "lead through line" -- with the method of "grasp revolution promote production" -- meaning that the key to motivating and leading people is to raise the level of consciousness about what is happening, whyat is needed, where we are going, and then relying on people to exercise initiative and creativity.

And it also involves uniting with people who disagree with communists on many things, but have a principled level of unity.

We need a climate where people can both disagree over big things, and unite over key things -- unite to take action (that is). Otherwise how can we function as communists within broader struggles where many people are not communists (and this will even be true of revolutoinary forces at the moment of revolution!!)

[Seuno]

I am time pressed so I shall return to this section later....My approach to 'talking about it': Give your reasons before you give your conclusions: every conversation has some conection with the works of Marx wether it be about political economy or not; he was a man of science, all science. Marx is pro-democracy not pro-dictatorship in any sense. Remember how you mentally arrived at your decision and allow your listener to relive with you that intellectual journey. Revolution is more about free-will than about doctorine or following a "line". We do not preach the application of force as physical violence obsessively, compusively, as priority nor do we allow that inference to take hold. We support and seek to unite all democracies of the world. Only when circumstances provide no other condition for the safe survival of the proletariat (as the jew in nazi germany) shall armed overthrow of the bourgeoisie be brandished and promoted to the proletariat. Marxism is the objective comnprehesion of human mental/intellectual and emotional subjection and subjectivism. It is therefore the reconciliation of objectivism and subjectivism and this point must be brought home to the proletariat and, if possible, the bourgeois heart. (much more on this later [Marxist psychology])


3. Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism
We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf and others.

The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown, necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone. The revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It inculcated universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form.

The Socialist and Communist systems, properly so called, those of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section 1. Bourgeois and Proletarians).

The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement.

Since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the development of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does not as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. They therefore search after a new social science, after new social laws, that are to create these conditions.

Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action; historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones; and the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat to an organisation of society especially contrived by these inventors. Future history resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their social plans.

In the formation of their plans, they are conscious of caring chiefly for the interests of the working class, as being the most suffering class. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class does the proletariat exist for them.

The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favoured. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without the distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?

Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel.

Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a fantastic conception of its own position, correspond with the first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society.

But these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a critical element. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence, they are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures proposed in them — such as the abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the function of the state into a more superintendence of production — all these proposals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely Utopian character.

The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. Therefore, although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, and that consistently, to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. They still dream of experimental realisation of their social Utopias, of founding isolated “phalansteres”, of establishing “Home Colonies”, or setting up a “Little Icaria”(4) — duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem — and to realise all these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By degrees, they sink into the category of the reactionary [or] conservative Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous effects of their social science.

They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new Gospel.

The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose the Chartists and the Réformistes.

[Seuno]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 01:06 AM
I am time pressed so I shall return to this section later....My approach to 'talking about it': Give your reasons before you give your conclusions: every conversation has some conection with the works of Marx wether it be about political economy or not; he was a man of science, all science. Marx is pro-democracy not pro-dictatorship in any sense.....
Keeping it simple, clear and interesting....the ultimate goal is the restoration of the social condition between the people: The revolution is not only about the antagonisms between proletariat and bourgeoisie, but between proletariat and proletariat. The loss of the social condition is painful but necessary for further development and accomodation of more natural control knowledge. Reassure that there is a possible good end to this process; "We can see how subjectivism and objectivism, spiritualism and materialism, activity and passivity, first lose their character as opposites under social conditions, and therefore their existence as such opposites. We can see how the solution of theoretical oppositions is only possible in a practical way, only through the practical energy of man. Their resolution is therefore by no means a project for knowledge but a project of actual living. Philosophy cannot solve them precisely because philosophy grasps them only as theoretical problems."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...cripts/comm.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm)

Actually living the life of the revolutionary *is* "the solution of theoretical oppositions". Of course we discover the greater horizon of psycho-social unrest, and the troubled person does not percieve their own unrest as theoretical because it is not, and should never be treated as such (even if it is). Even a person halucinating feels real emotion and perhaps physical pain. We should never take troubles in the mind litely, wether it be "real" or not.

The people shall be free to have their faith and God, but religion shall never take priority over the spirituality of faith.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Seuno+--> (Seuno)The people shall be free to have their faith and God, but religion shall never take priority over the spirituality of faith.[/b]

I don't understand what this incoherent statement is supposed to mean and why you posted it in this thread.

Please confine this crapola to the Religion subforum in Opposing Ideologies.


flyby
The RCP has always opposed "leading by organizational control" and has always argued for "leading by line."...

When the RCP says "lead" -- they don't mean "hold the key posts and manipulate from behind the scenes."

You invite the unanswerable question: does the RCP actually carry that out in practice?

If it does, then Avakian's problem would never arise -- there would never be a case where an RCPer was faced with the dilemma of speaking "on behalf" of a united front and being unable to say whatever s/he wished. There wouldn't be any RCPers speaking "on behalf" of the united front.


Burningman observed that you assume all leadership is antagonistic... and this is an example. You assume (if I understand you correctly) that the word "lead" can ONLY mean "manipulate in organizational ways." Which of course is how bourgeois leadership is exercised. The bourgeois officers can only "lead" their soldiers by hiding the real purposes of the war, by relying on strict organizational means, by keeping people away from cardinal questions, etc.

Well, that's what I've seen...even in groups that claimed otherwise. The temptation of "capturing" a large organization appears well-nigh irresistible to vanguard parties -- as does the temptation of forming united fronts "on paper" in which the party has "the leading role".

The practical meaning of the "united front" appears to mean getting a large number of non-party people to "do what the party wants" about a particular issue without the knowledge that they are, in fact, being led by the party.


Maoists (and our main man) say "lead through line" -- with the method of "grasp revolution promote production" -- meaning that the key to motivating and leading people is to raise the level of consciousness about what is happening, what is needed, where we are going, and then relying on people to exercise initiative and creativity.

As a minor point, it would help in "talking about communism" if the RCP would stop trying to use Chinese verbal formulas -- they invariably sound "inscrutable" (pardon the stereotype). Very few people in the west have the linguistic/cultural background to understand what you're getting at.

Otherwise, I agree...but I've seen very little of that approach in a lifetime of political engagement.

The closest I ever saw it was in the early days of the Progressive Labor Party when it was in SDS; they did seem to be trying to "lead through line" without attempting to grasp organizational control (at the national level; how they behaved at the chapter level may be a very different story!). But then, when SDS split up in 1969, the portion that PL "captured" was treated as a "youth group" of PL.


We need a climate where people can both disagree over big things, and unite over key things -- unite to take action (that is). Otherwise how can we function as communists within broader struggles where many people are not communists (and this will even be true of revolutionary forces at the moment of revolution!!)?

I think that we have to be committed as a matter of principle to the proposition that the masses must decide. We do everything we can to persuade the masses that our ideas are the best available option...but we cannot decide "for them".

We have to take the risk that they may decide wrongly.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Seuno]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 29 2005, 01:48 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Jan 29 2005, 01:48 PM)
Originally posted by Seuno+--> (Seuno)The people shall be free to have their faith and God, but religion shall never take priority over the spirituality of faith.[/b]

I don't understand what this incoherent statement is supposed to mean and why you posted it in this thread.

Please confine this crapola to the Religion subforum in Opposing Ideologies.[/b]
No. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...cripts/comm.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm)
Karl [email protected]
We see how subjectivity and objectivity, spirituality and materiality, activity and suffering, lose their antithetical character, and — thus their existence as such antitheses only within the framework of society; <we see how the resolution of the theoretical antitheses is only possible in a practical way, by virtue of the practical energy of man. Their resolution is therefore by no means merely a problem of understanding, but a real problem of life, which philosophy could not solve precisely because it conceived this problem as merely a theoretical one.


Karl Marx
Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism.

Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society. [34]

[flyby]

i have no idea what that means, or what it has to do with this thread.

:huh:

[Seuno]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2005, 10:45 PM
i have no idea what that means, or what it has to do with this thread.

:huh:
I know what it does not mean, this, "Join us because we plan to burn down your church." <_<

[flyby]

Perhaps it is necessary to say: the program of the Revolutinary communists is not to "burn down your church."

Communists are atheism, and they promote their scientific, materialist and atheistic worldview. But that does not mean that communists believe in suppressing religion by force or that they believe that religious worship should be forbidden under socialism.

Bob Avakian in particular has argued that it was wrong (in the past socialist societies) to treat Marxism as an "official ideology" for the whole society. He says this played a negative role -- in making it hard for people to express their real views, wrangle over what was true and not true, and actually participate fully in the revolutionary transformations.

As a result, Avakian&#39;s party (the RCP) has taken a clear stand in their draft programme on this:

The following comes from a larger section called: Proletarian Dictatorship, Democracy and the Rights ofthe People (http://rwor.org/margorp/a-proldic.htm)

Religion

An important question that the proletarian state will have to deal with is religion and religious activity. The socialist state will uphold people’s right to worship and to hold religious services and will provide them with the necessary facilities and materials for doing so. Religious people will not, however, be allowed special privileges, nor will they be permitted to use religious activity as a means to promote reactionary political movements. The proletarian state will monitor and regulate their finances to prevent them from becoming a source of capital or otherwise employed in violation of the principles and laws of the socialist state.

When forces do arise within the new society who attempt to carry out counter-revolutionary political activities and/or the exploitation of the masses under the cloak of religion, they will be prevented from doing so and politically suppressed, together with counter-revolutionaries of all other kinds. But as long as religious people do not actively organize against the continuing revolution, they will be allowed to hold services and other similar activities.

At the same time, communists are atheists: they do not believe in super*natural forces or beings of any kind and instead understand that it is the masses themselves who, through taking up and applying the principles of Marxism, must and will achieve their own emancipation and continually advance humanity’s understanding of and transformation of nature. And further, they recognize that the role of religion is to instill in the masses the sense that they are powerless before the forces of nature, and those that rule over them in society, and to console them in their misery rather than arousing them to rise up and abolish the source of it through revolutionary struggle.

The Party, as the leading force of the working class and in the proletarian state, cannot and must not attempt to force people to give up religious beliefs. Rather, it must wage an ideological struggle over this question and rely on those among the masses who hold such beliefs to cast them off on their own. And this they will do, as they come to see—through the advance of the revolution, the masses’ increasing mastery over society, and their continually developing ability to know and change the world in general—that these religious beliefs are incorrect and, more, that they are a burden carried over from capitalism and the dead weight of backward tradition.

Therefore, the proletarian state will, on the one hand, uphold the right of people to believe in religion and, on the other hand, will propagate atheism and educate the masses in the scientific world view of Marxism in opposition to all religious beliefs.

Through the educational system and other means, the Bible, the Torah, the Koran and other religious works and doctrine will be analyzed and criticized with the science of Marxism. In this way—and in general through the process of ideological struggle and persuasion, together with the overall advance through the socialist revolution toward communism—the masses themselves will be enabled to break and cast away the bond of religion and other mental and material shackles and achieve their full emancipation.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RCP Draft Programme
The socialist state will uphold people’s right to worship and to hold religious services and will provide them with the necessary facilities and materials for doing so. -- emphasis added.

Subsidies for superstition?

Not in my revolution&#33;

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[enigma2517]

Looks like Leader...err...um...Bob got it wrong this time.

Honestly, he&#39;s got some good ideas and logic in there but this just shows that the new theoritical structure of society can&#39;t come from just come from one guy.

Or several for that matter :&#092;

[flyby]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 09:58 PM
Looks like Leader...err...um...Bob got it wrong this time.

Honestly, he&#39;s got some good ideas and logic in there but this just shows that the new theoritical structure of society can&#39;t come from just come from one guy.

Or several for that matter :&#092;
hmmmm.

well, i disagree on two levels:

first, i don&#39;t think he got it wrong. You can&#39;t kill an idea by banning it. I think we can, and will, displace religion (and carry out a "radical rupture" in the realm of ideas). But that can only happen on the basis of struggling over ideas. In the meanwhile, believers will need places for their worship, and to build their communities -- which are certainly not all reactionary, and shouldn&#39;t be treated that way.

And it relates to many issues: like art. In socialist society, resources will be provided for all kinds of artistic and scientific experimentation (and not just art and science that narrowly conforms to dialectical materialist and communist politics).

Avakian is arguing that Marxism cannot become an official and enforced state ideology -- because it becomes the worst of all worlds -- people opposing marxism pretend to be marxists, and marxists tend to turn their ideology into a state religion that way.

So he is grappling with how to have society be filled with vibrant and lively debate, keep marxism scientific and revolutinary, and all while pressing forward through the socialist transition toward communism.

Second, i think that it is a strange notion that anyone thinks the "new theoretical structure of society can come from one guy." I mean, wtf? Marxism-leninism-Maoism is the product of a century and more of struggle and theoretical work. The revolutinoary movement consists of whole currents and parties, and line struggle -- all of which contribute to the emergence of approaches, strategies and theoretical insights that help lead us to communism.

Our movement brings forward advanced representatives like Avakian -- whose theoretical work and leadership plays a key role. But who can think socialism is a "one horse town"?

[Seuno]

Originally posted by flyby+Feb 10 2005, 11:48 PM--> (flyby &#064; Feb 10 2005, 11:48 PM)hmmmm.

well, i disagree on two levels:

first, i don&#39;t think he got it wrong. You can&#39;t kill an idea by banning it. I think we can, and will, displace religion (and carry out a "radical rupture" in the realm of ideas). But that can only happen on the basis of struggling over ideas. In the meanwhile, believers will need places for their worship, and to build their communities -- which are certainly not all reactionary, and shouldn&#39;t be treated that way.

And it relates to many issues: like art. In socialist society, resources will be provided for all kinds of artistic and scientific experimentation (and not just art and science that narrowly conforms to dialectical materialist and communist politics).

Avakian is arguing that Marxism cannot become an official and enforced state ideology -- because it becomes the worst of all worlds -- people opposing marxism pretend to be marxists, and marxists tend to turn their ideology into a state religion that way.

So he is grappling with how to have society be filled with vibrant and lively debate, keep marxism scientific and revolutinary, and all while pressing forward through the socialist transition toward communism.

Second, i think that it is a strange notion that anyone thinks the "new theoretical structure of society can come from one guy." I mean, wtf? Marxism-leninism-Maoism is the product of a century and more of struggle and theoretical work. The revolutinoary movement consists of whole currents and parties, and line struggle -- all of which contribute to the emergence of approaches, strategies and theoretical insights that help lead us to communism.

Our movement brings forward advanced representatives like Avakian -- whose theoretical work and leadership plays a key role. But who can think socialism is a "one horse town"?[/b]

Karl Marx
Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism.

Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society. [34]


I think we should keep this passage in mind and meditate with it. In Marx there are no rigid immutable absolutes. I don&#39;t think much of the mother state idea nor the nihlistic ennuendo.

[flyby]

Originally posted by Seuno+Feb 11 2005, 01:02 AM--> (Seuno &#064; Feb 11 2005, 01:02 AM)
Karl Marx
Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism.

Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society. [34]


I think we should keep this passage in mind and meditate with it. In Marx there are no rigid immutable absolutes. I don&#39;t think much of the mother state idea nor the nihlistic ennuendo. [/b]
this quote is from Private Property and Communism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm) written in 1844 when Marx was still a semi-hegelian.

In other words it is an analysis of a pre-marxist marx.

These writings before 1848 are often raised as arguments.

There is no rigid immutable absolutes. But marxism (and the marxist Marx) did not agree with these views -- i.e. that communism was not the goal of human development or the form of future human society. And similarly the views of Atheism here, are true on one level (i.e. once the idea of theism is gone from human society, atheism -- which is the denial of that unreality -- will not have any meaning). But we must not misunderstand it, or beconfused by that.

Socialism is not "man&#39;s positive self-consciusness" but a transitional society.

further modern communists (I.e. MLM) don&#39;t agree with the concept of "negation of negation" as a law of development. So on many levels, what marx was saying here was primitive, pre-marxist.... and it is important to look at these questions from a perspective that is not doctrinaire or that takes his works as canon. We need to look at our class experience over two centuries now (including two major socialist revolutions) and examine how to wage these struggles over religion.

[1949]

Comrade Flyby, you bring up the concept of "negation of negation". I have heard of this concept before, and I&#39;ve heard of Mao and Maoists after him criticizing it, but I don&#39;t really know what it is. Could you please elaborate more on what it is and why it is wrong?