repeater138
22nd February 2008, 07:15
Why the RCP Can’t Lead a Revolution (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/steele-why-the-rcp-can%e2%80%99t-lead-a-revolution/)
By John Steele
I’ve been associated with the RCP, often closely, over a 25 year period, ending about two years ago. I helped work on the 9 Letters (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/9-letters/) with Mike Ely. While the RCP public Orientation (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/rcps-public-response-to-9-letters-and-kasama-site/) charges the 9 Letters with vague “distortions,” I can say, from my own experience, that the Letters’ description of the RCP’s line and analysis is carefully accurate.
I thought it might contribute to the discussion to post some of what I wrote in making my own break from the party orbit in the spring of ‘06. I got essentially no reply of any substance to the critical work I am posting here. I was instead told two things (almost in passing): That I was wrong to imply that the Party was demanding “unquestioning” recognition of Avakian, and that my differences would lead me to turn my back on the revolution.
I removed any passages on internal party functioning and made some clarifying edits (mostly questions of party jargon).
My Differences with the Party — in Short
(May 2006) I will state things as sharply and clearly as I can, despite the fact that there are many complexities and even ambiguities in my feelings, thinking, and positions. Overall, I am having an increasingly difficult time believing in this party as the “vanguard of the proletariat” or the leading organization of a revolution. And I don’t see much prospect of its becoming so. There’s a lot that goes into this and much of it I won’t be able to make clear here, but I will bring out here what I can say clearly and in relatively simple form.
In this light, the three main poles around which my differences revolve are: the party’s “Coming Civil War and Repolarization (http://revcom.us/avakian/Avakian-coming-civil-war.html)” analysis; the dynamics and functioning of the party as an organization; and the position that Avakian is on the level of Lenin and Mao. As will become clear, there are interrelations among these.
I. The analysis of “Coming Civil War….”
The analysis of the Avakian and line of the party is:
That the Christian-Fascists are the most driving, solid-core force within the ruling class and that the likely development of things (unless they are successfully opposed) will put them in the driver’s seat. Within the ruling class, the polarization is between mainstream (“liberal” or neoliberal) imperialist thinking and program on the one hand, and fascist thought and program on the other, with the CF [christian fascist] line and program being the most dynamic and decisive on the fascist side. This is a situation of tumult and struggle within the ruling class, through which a new center, in terms of a new cohering program and norms, is being forged.
Why is this taking place? First, the CFs have been cohered as a social force over a long period of time, and they have developed an internal (and internalized) program, logic, and dynamic as a social force, which cannot be simply turned off and on. Second, there are changing historical circumstances which make for a strong need, from both above and below, for “new cohering social norms.” Finally, there is a need or opportunity for the US ruling class to reshape imperialist structures in the world (“reshuffle the whole deck”). (See The Coming Civil War and Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era (http://rwor.org/avakian/Avakian-coming-civil-war.html))
Now parts of this are very undeveloped and under-theorized, in particular the way in which changing circumstances make for a need for both new cohering norms and a restructuring of imperialist relations, and the relation between these two aspects. This wouldn’t be a problem – they need to be developed – except that as the party works, this won’t be done (see below). So it becomes a problem.
But to get more to my points of disagreement: The way this analysis is taken out by the party is, in effect, that there is underway a very rapidly developing and virtually straight-line dynamic leading to the imposition of christian fascism in this country, unless it is prevented by a movement of the people. My own analysis: I don’t see it as being as rapidly-developing, and I see what is developing as probably more “mixed” fascist structures, which may not go over to “full fascism.” Further, I think there’s a lot more congruence between fascists and “mainstream” imperialists than the party or Avakian’s analysis seems to see. (It should be clear that what I’m putting forward is not a counsel of complacency.) On the other hand: what does this mean, and what does the party envision in terms of a fully actualized christian fascism? I am actively trying to investigate, develop and analyze this further.
II. The party as an organization
I have brought out some of this previously (see below “Some Notes…”, March 2006 ) – the question of functioning as an intellectual and having a close relation to the party along with broader questions related to this, including carrying out the sort of analytical and theoretical work that’s needed – and I won’t repeat that here. But there is an important related factor I want to mention, coming off what I said above about the underdeveloped aspect of the Avakian’s and the party’s analysis of the current situation. There is a contradiction, if you will, between this very deep and path-breaking analysis put forward by the Avakian, and the fact that there are undeveloped aspects of it. This should not be a difficult contradiction to resolve, but the way the party deals with it is dysfunctional. Essentially there is, in effect, an attitude that only Avakian can or should develop theory, and that the task of everyone else is to understand what he has developed, situate one’s thinking in it, and take it out. The results are that the necessary analysis and theory doesn’t get developed, while political work is adversely affected by the fact that people work from and repeat vague or incomplete formulations.
But to get to the heart of the question, and in line with my attempt here to state things sharply and simply, let me frame this by saying that it is not believable to me that this party, simply in terms of how it functions both internally and with respect to people outside it, could be the leading vanguard organization of a revolution or a revolutionary movement in this country.
I doubt the party’s ability to act as a revolutionary vehicle, or to gain leadership, as things develop, and particularly in an actual revolutionary situation. These doubts arise out of the style of interaction in the party’s attempts to give leadership now (it does not really apply the mass line), as well as its lack of quickness, agility and flexibility, and a strong aspect of stodginess and bureaucratism in the way it functions.
There is also the question of the way in which “struggle” is understood. Struggle is a wide concept which encompasses exploration and interpretation (struggle to understand), to “thrashing things out” in a free-form sort of way, through arguments over interpretations, tactics, immediate goals and values, all the way to sharply focused struggles between polarized positions. It’s taken that struggle in and close to this party, though, either is or should be exclusively the latter – “two-line struggle” (2LS). Further, it’s taken that one pole of this 2LS either is or should be “the line of the party.”
This narrowing-down of what the life-blood of the party and its supporting milieu is supposed to be can be very stultifying.
III. Avakian as on the level of Lenin, Mao
There is the question of the truth of this proposition, and I will say something about that, and then there are the conclusions that have been drawn from it, and the practice that has flowed from these conclusions.
Concerning the truth of this thesis: I don’t think this can be known at this time, and the reason has to with the relation of theory and practice.
There are a lot of aspects here and I can’t argue in any sense fully, but, in very short form: Lenin and Mao became Lenin and Mao through the process of gaining and giving leadership in the world-historic Russian and Chinese revolutions. Not: that’s how they attained the stature in the eyes of the world that they would have (should have) had anyway by right, but rather, it’s only in this way that their theories were forged. Avakian’s works and contributions are exploratory and unfinished, and he is not able to solve or answer many of the problems and questions in revolutionary theory which he addresses.
[Footnote: Avakian is aware of this fact: “…I have pointed to some decisive contradictions, and I keep trying to help come up with resolutions to them, but as far as I have gotten in a lot of spheres is pointing at these contradictions….” (Observations on Art and Culture, Science and Philosophy (http://www.insight-press.com/site/epage/47698_664.htm), p. 88]
This is not a criticism, and in fact I don’t think these questions, which are crucial questions of revolutionary theory, are resolvable by one person reflecting and struggling with them, or one person working with the resources of this party (certainly not as it stands). That’s why I believe that the question of intellectuals in and around the party, and of actual wrangling in and around the party, are of such importance. But further, I believe that these and other vital problems will only be solved through revolutionary practice and intellectual struggle with and reflection on that practice. This does not mean not addressing, investigating and struggling to solve them now; just the opposite.
The attempt to gain premature closure on this question is not only falsifying in the above way, but the conclusions that the party has drawn from this, and the party’s consequent practice, are often not right in my opinion. There often seems to be something like the following line of reasoning: Avakian is a path-breaking revolutionary thinker and leader (I am putting this in terms that I believe are true, in order to bring out other aspects.) This should be recognized within the party and broadly. Therefore we should strive to make this be the case through internal and external campaigns. I accept the first two statements here (that Avakian is this, and that it needs to be recognized). But the conclusion doesn’t follow. To say, we’re going to bring this up, and struggle with people over it, is not the same as saying (or aiming for it to be the case that) through our struggle, we can make this happen. The reason is simply that recognition of leadership comes through a process of seeing contradictions concretely synthesized and a pathway forged or shown. Promotion is great, but it can’t create recognition.
My greater objection, though, is the way this plays itself out internally. Let me pose this question: Should APP [appreciation, promotion and popularization of Avakian (http://revcom.us/a/116/makingrevolution-p2-04-en.html)] be principal within our work, or striving to internalize, embody, and extend Avakian’s method, approach and work? I think the latter; the party’s position (and Avakian’s) is the former.
In practice this gets reduced to a kind of piety with regard to Avakian and what he says or writes, which in fact becomes the opposite of the sort of questing and questioning that he himself exhibits, and is not at all the sort of critical engagement with his writings that in my opinion is needed. The fact that this is within and around a democratic centralist organization produces a further contradiction: the basic criterion around this question is recognition of the Lenin/Mao stature of the Avakian and “having the humility to be led by the Chair,” even having a love for the person of Bob Avakian, but all this “without a hint of slavishness”; in other words, as it were: You are required to do this and you must do it out of your own autonomy. I am not saying: well, there’s a contradiction involved, that’s the end of the matter; but that the way this contradiction plays out is not generally good or fruitful in and around the party.
Let me develop it along this line: During Lenin’s life the Bolsheviks were not the party of Lenin as unquestioned leader. Unquestionably, though, Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks. Further, the primacy of Lenin above everyone else in that party, and the need to struggle for the assertion of Lenin’s leadership were both the case. But it’s the wrong lesson to draw, to say: it would have been better if everyone had recognized Lenin’s greatness, and therefore it would have been better had it been assured that Lenin’s primacy and greatness had been unquestioningly recognized (as we have reasoned). Because it was precisely the way that through struggle Lenin’s leadership and thinking came out, that enabled the Bolsheviks to explore a lot of territory conceptually, to develop 2nd-level leadership, and to develop Lenin’s leadership and thinking. As mentioned above, it’s not as if Lenin was always Lenin, promulgating Leninism. What we have come to know as Leninism developed, and Lenin’s leadership developed and was won, through struggle within a diverse field, both within and without the party. It’s tempting to say, well that was a really near thing, actually (cf. the actions of Zinoviev & Kamenev on the eve of insurrection), and we should try to make sure that the leadership of the person that we can already recognize is outstanding and above others, is secure and recognized by all. The problem is that the very process of attempting to make it sure this time, actually works against the full development of the “new Leninism” that’s needed, as well as against the discursive field and “field of struggle” that’s necessary to develop a diverse array of leadership and wide intellectual range of exploration.
This is connected to the fact that, as pointed to above, that the “new synthesis” is not an actually achieved new synthesis, but rather the pointing to certain parameters of an as-yet-to-be-achieved new synthesis, and to the need for it. But the way that this is treated in the party and by the party is in a manner that hinders the development of a new synthesis, certainly within the party. Because the way we treat it in and around the party is not in such a way as to develop (or not in such a way as not to block) the field of struggle which would be necessary to develop the theory.
There is obviously much more to say about all of this, as well as many things I haven’t touched on. I’ve tried to put things in as short a form as I can and to pose the questions sharply.
* * * * * *
Notes on the party and intellectuals
(March 2006) In Dictatorship and Democracy (http://rwor.org/bob_avakian/new_speech/avakian_democracy_dictatorship_speech.htm), Avakian talks about the great importance of working with ideas, and of intellectuals to the revolutionary process, and goes into several contradictions in this area. There is the struggle of actually working with ideas, which involves immersing yourself deeply in an area of study, engaging with intellectuals and taking their ideas seriously. There is the importance of bringing forward people from among the intelligentsia, winning them to sympathy and support and more: winning “…as many of them as possible to become revolutionary communist intellectuals, actively partisan to our cause, and more than that, to become part of the vanguard. There can never be a communist revolution without this.” And then there is the question, “Can you actually work with ideas in a critical and creative way and be a member of a vanguard communist party? Or can you really do creative work in the arts or sciences and be a member of such a party?” This is, Avakian stresses, “…a real question, and it doesn’t have an easy answer.”
These are contradictions that concern me very much. They are real, they’re difficult, and they present problems which have not been solved.
Is work on these problems being done by and within the party? Are these thought to be pressing problems? Are they widely recognized as problems?
The party lacks the complexity and depth, as it stands now, to be able to interface with society with sufficient richness to be able to digest and process the complexity of developments in the world. This has to do with the new synthesis, and with the mass line in both its aspects: on the one hand, we have to interact with people in a way that is both broad and variegated in order “to take the ideas of the masses, scattered and unsystematic”; then, in order to “concentrate” these ideas (and this includes a lot, and more than would appear from the way Mao phrases it – I believe we have it as more in Draft Programme (http://revcom.us/margorp/progtoc-e.htm) and elsewhere), we must have a sophisticated “wrangling” machinery, so to speak, which really analyzes these ideas through Marxist theory. The thing is that both those aspects require a level of breadth and complexity in the party that is nowhere near the case now. There is a way in which this can be a function of size – if the party were of a certain size, it would become more complex (but not necessarily in good ways) no matter how people tried to simplify it. But essentially it is a function of how the party functions, of its internal dynamics.
What I believe:
First, although the thrust of the new synthesis, as I understand it, is precisely oriented toward realizing the value and achieving the sort of complex and dynamically interacting party that is necessary, the way in which the party continues to function cuts against moving toward this.
Second, the ways in which we are working within society are not ways which will build the party into the sort of instrument it needs to be.
Things get reduced in a lowest-common-denominator kind of way that is just deadly. Thus:
The importance of intellectuals, and interacting with intellectuals gets reduced to mobilizing academics against repression and APP [appreciation, promotion and popularization of Avakian] among intellectuals.
The importance of really looking at the history of the 20th century revolutions and re-evaluating aspects of them becomes reduced, in the Set the Record Straight project, to efforts to proclaim and uphold the achievements of these revs and combat the slanders that are heaped upon them.
The project of transforming the newspaper [Revolution (http://revcom.us/)] becomes reduced to making it a (hopefully more lively) vehicle for build-the-struggle, expose the fascists and propagate the writings of Avakian.
We are not interacting with intellectuals except in terms of the extent to which we’ve been able to bring them in to World Can’t Wait (http://www.worldcantwait.net/), to struggles against repression in academia or the scientific sphere, or influence or interface with them through Set the Record Straight (http://thisiscommunism.org/) and APP work.
The point is, we are not interacting with them as intellectuals or about intellectual or theoretical matters. (Is it any different with regard to artists? I doubt it.) And the only way that seems to be envisioned, of interacting with them on that level, is in terms of APP.
Is there any notion of recruiting intellectuals into the party? If we come to them only in order to recruit them into struggle and to get them to read Avakian – in other words, if the function of cadre is activism + APP + promoting the newspaper – how can they possibly see a role for themselves in this party as intellectuals? Ditto for artists. And in fact: Is there such a role?
Yet I would say: Unless intellectuals can function as intellectuals both within the party and close to it, (a) we cannot intersect adequately with this very important social group, and (b) more importantly, we cannot function adequately so as to carry out the sort of analytical and theoretical work that we need to do to understand the world and make revolution.
Artists too: In Democracy and Dictatorship it’s said that there can’t be a revolution without intellectuals; I believe the same is true of artists – understanding the term in its broadest sense – in the contemporary US. Here again, although somewhat differently, I think unless artists can function as artists both within the party and close to it, (a) we cannot intersect adequately with this very important social group, and (b) we cannot make revolution, or cannot make the kind of revolution that must be made.
Let me just mention a couple of cases where the need for concrete intellectual/theoretical work, by the party and/or in relation to the party, is glaring.
It’s remarkable to me that in the course of the past year and more, during which time the analysis that this country is moving fairly rapidly toward a state of fascism has been central to the work and orientation of the party, there has been no real attempt to grapple with the question, What is fascism? In fact, and even more remarkably, there hasn’t been any discussion of this as a need or lack, nor any realization, as far as I can see, that it is a need and a lack.
This, to my mind, is a pretty damning statement. Certainly it’s a great and necessary first step to understand that we are on the road to fascism in this country unless….. And we can start with a simple and preliminary understanding of what that means, and point historically to German fascism as the prime exemplar. But how can this possibly be the end of the matter? Yet for the most part that’s where it’s rested for over a year, as far as I can see, with most people content to try to estimate and warn of a fascist USA by means of a few (often not very well understood, and sometimes actually inaccurate) examples from Nazi Germany. How can we understand what we’re up against without deep and concrete analysis of concrete conditions, informed by historical categories which are understood historically (rather than in some sort of “timeless” way)? We can’t.
And of course this also relates – again, in a pretty damning way – in re the party’s relation to intellectuals: How can we hope to relate fruitfully to intellectuals if we don’t even see the need for intellectual work, in a concrete sense?
Rereading “New Situation” recently [The New Situation and the Great Challenges (http://rwor.org/a/036/avakian-new-situation-great-challenges.htm)], I was struck again by Avakian’s strong statement, at one point, of the “…need to do some work theoretically and in terms of analysis (and synthesis) to more deeply grasp what’s going on with this whole massive ‘demographic upheaval’ in these countries, with the uprooting of masses of the peasantry, with the transformation of the peasantry into a sort of shantytown semi-proletariat. There is a lot of work to be done.” The point has been brought forward again more recently as well.
In other words: We need to do some work theoretically and in terms of analysis (and synthesis) There is a lot of very important intellectual/theoretical work to be done, and it needs to be done on the basis of solid core with a lot of elasticity.
Has any of this been done? Is it in process? Is it seen as important to do?
If it were something seen as something necessary to carry out (and I don’t see any sign that it’s seen that way in/by the party generally), how could it be done or approached? What would be necessary in order to do it?
Obviously any such intellectual and theoretical projects would have to involve intellectuals beyond the party. How else could it actually be carried out? So this brings the question of relations with intellectuals to the fore, and everything I said above.
By John Steele
I’ve been associated with the RCP, often closely, over a 25 year period, ending about two years ago. I helped work on the 9 Letters (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/9-letters/) with Mike Ely. While the RCP public Orientation (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/rcps-public-response-to-9-letters-and-kasama-site/) charges the 9 Letters with vague “distortions,” I can say, from my own experience, that the Letters’ description of the RCP’s line and analysis is carefully accurate.
I thought it might contribute to the discussion to post some of what I wrote in making my own break from the party orbit in the spring of ‘06. I got essentially no reply of any substance to the critical work I am posting here. I was instead told two things (almost in passing): That I was wrong to imply that the Party was demanding “unquestioning” recognition of Avakian, and that my differences would lead me to turn my back on the revolution.
I removed any passages on internal party functioning and made some clarifying edits (mostly questions of party jargon).
My Differences with the Party — in Short
(May 2006) I will state things as sharply and clearly as I can, despite the fact that there are many complexities and even ambiguities in my feelings, thinking, and positions. Overall, I am having an increasingly difficult time believing in this party as the “vanguard of the proletariat” or the leading organization of a revolution. And I don’t see much prospect of its becoming so. There’s a lot that goes into this and much of it I won’t be able to make clear here, but I will bring out here what I can say clearly and in relatively simple form.
In this light, the three main poles around which my differences revolve are: the party’s “Coming Civil War and Repolarization (http://revcom.us/avakian/Avakian-coming-civil-war.html)” analysis; the dynamics and functioning of the party as an organization; and the position that Avakian is on the level of Lenin and Mao. As will become clear, there are interrelations among these.
I. The analysis of “Coming Civil War….”
The analysis of the Avakian and line of the party is:
That the Christian-Fascists are the most driving, solid-core force within the ruling class and that the likely development of things (unless they are successfully opposed) will put them in the driver’s seat. Within the ruling class, the polarization is between mainstream (“liberal” or neoliberal) imperialist thinking and program on the one hand, and fascist thought and program on the other, with the CF [christian fascist] line and program being the most dynamic and decisive on the fascist side. This is a situation of tumult and struggle within the ruling class, through which a new center, in terms of a new cohering program and norms, is being forged.
Why is this taking place? First, the CFs have been cohered as a social force over a long period of time, and they have developed an internal (and internalized) program, logic, and dynamic as a social force, which cannot be simply turned off and on. Second, there are changing historical circumstances which make for a strong need, from both above and below, for “new cohering social norms.” Finally, there is a need or opportunity for the US ruling class to reshape imperialist structures in the world (“reshuffle the whole deck”). (See The Coming Civil War and Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era (http://rwor.org/avakian/Avakian-coming-civil-war.html))
Now parts of this are very undeveloped and under-theorized, in particular the way in which changing circumstances make for a need for both new cohering norms and a restructuring of imperialist relations, and the relation between these two aspects. This wouldn’t be a problem – they need to be developed – except that as the party works, this won’t be done (see below). So it becomes a problem.
But to get more to my points of disagreement: The way this analysis is taken out by the party is, in effect, that there is underway a very rapidly developing and virtually straight-line dynamic leading to the imposition of christian fascism in this country, unless it is prevented by a movement of the people. My own analysis: I don’t see it as being as rapidly-developing, and I see what is developing as probably more “mixed” fascist structures, which may not go over to “full fascism.” Further, I think there’s a lot more congruence between fascists and “mainstream” imperialists than the party or Avakian’s analysis seems to see. (It should be clear that what I’m putting forward is not a counsel of complacency.) On the other hand: what does this mean, and what does the party envision in terms of a fully actualized christian fascism? I am actively trying to investigate, develop and analyze this further.
II. The party as an organization
I have brought out some of this previously (see below “Some Notes…”, March 2006 ) – the question of functioning as an intellectual and having a close relation to the party along with broader questions related to this, including carrying out the sort of analytical and theoretical work that’s needed – and I won’t repeat that here. But there is an important related factor I want to mention, coming off what I said above about the underdeveloped aspect of the Avakian’s and the party’s analysis of the current situation. There is a contradiction, if you will, between this very deep and path-breaking analysis put forward by the Avakian, and the fact that there are undeveloped aspects of it. This should not be a difficult contradiction to resolve, but the way the party deals with it is dysfunctional. Essentially there is, in effect, an attitude that only Avakian can or should develop theory, and that the task of everyone else is to understand what he has developed, situate one’s thinking in it, and take it out. The results are that the necessary analysis and theory doesn’t get developed, while political work is adversely affected by the fact that people work from and repeat vague or incomplete formulations.
But to get to the heart of the question, and in line with my attempt here to state things sharply and simply, let me frame this by saying that it is not believable to me that this party, simply in terms of how it functions both internally and with respect to people outside it, could be the leading vanguard organization of a revolution or a revolutionary movement in this country.
I doubt the party’s ability to act as a revolutionary vehicle, or to gain leadership, as things develop, and particularly in an actual revolutionary situation. These doubts arise out of the style of interaction in the party’s attempts to give leadership now (it does not really apply the mass line), as well as its lack of quickness, agility and flexibility, and a strong aspect of stodginess and bureaucratism in the way it functions.
There is also the question of the way in which “struggle” is understood. Struggle is a wide concept which encompasses exploration and interpretation (struggle to understand), to “thrashing things out” in a free-form sort of way, through arguments over interpretations, tactics, immediate goals and values, all the way to sharply focused struggles between polarized positions. It’s taken that struggle in and close to this party, though, either is or should be exclusively the latter – “two-line struggle” (2LS). Further, it’s taken that one pole of this 2LS either is or should be “the line of the party.”
This narrowing-down of what the life-blood of the party and its supporting milieu is supposed to be can be very stultifying.
III. Avakian as on the level of Lenin, Mao
There is the question of the truth of this proposition, and I will say something about that, and then there are the conclusions that have been drawn from it, and the practice that has flowed from these conclusions.
Concerning the truth of this thesis: I don’t think this can be known at this time, and the reason has to with the relation of theory and practice.
There are a lot of aspects here and I can’t argue in any sense fully, but, in very short form: Lenin and Mao became Lenin and Mao through the process of gaining and giving leadership in the world-historic Russian and Chinese revolutions. Not: that’s how they attained the stature in the eyes of the world that they would have (should have) had anyway by right, but rather, it’s only in this way that their theories were forged. Avakian’s works and contributions are exploratory and unfinished, and he is not able to solve or answer many of the problems and questions in revolutionary theory which he addresses.
[Footnote: Avakian is aware of this fact: “…I have pointed to some decisive contradictions, and I keep trying to help come up with resolutions to them, but as far as I have gotten in a lot of spheres is pointing at these contradictions….” (Observations on Art and Culture, Science and Philosophy (http://www.insight-press.com/site/epage/47698_664.htm), p. 88]
This is not a criticism, and in fact I don’t think these questions, which are crucial questions of revolutionary theory, are resolvable by one person reflecting and struggling with them, or one person working with the resources of this party (certainly not as it stands). That’s why I believe that the question of intellectuals in and around the party, and of actual wrangling in and around the party, are of such importance. But further, I believe that these and other vital problems will only be solved through revolutionary practice and intellectual struggle with and reflection on that practice. This does not mean not addressing, investigating and struggling to solve them now; just the opposite.
The attempt to gain premature closure on this question is not only falsifying in the above way, but the conclusions that the party has drawn from this, and the party’s consequent practice, are often not right in my opinion. There often seems to be something like the following line of reasoning: Avakian is a path-breaking revolutionary thinker and leader (I am putting this in terms that I believe are true, in order to bring out other aspects.) This should be recognized within the party and broadly. Therefore we should strive to make this be the case through internal and external campaigns. I accept the first two statements here (that Avakian is this, and that it needs to be recognized). But the conclusion doesn’t follow. To say, we’re going to bring this up, and struggle with people over it, is not the same as saying (or aiming for it to be the case that) through our struggle, we can make this happen. The reason is simply that recognition of leadership comes through a process of seeing contradictions concretely synthesized and a pathway forged or shown. Promotion is great, but it can’t create recognition.
My greater objection, though, is the way this plays itself out internally. Let me pose this question: Should APP [appreciation, promotion and popularization of Avakian (http://revcom.us/a/116/makingrevolution-p2-04-en.html)] be principal within our work, or striving to internalize, embody, and extend Avakian’s method, approach and work? I think the latter; the party’s position (and Avakian’s) is the former.
In practice this gets reduced to a kind of piety with regard to Avakian and what he says or writes, which in fact becomes the opposite of the sort of questing and questioning that he himself exhibits, and is not at all the sort of critical engagement with his writings that in my opinion is needed. The fact that this is within and around a democratic centralist organization produces a further contradiction: the basic criterion around this question is recognition of the Lenin/Mao stature of the Avakian and “having the humility to be led by the Chair,” even having a love for the person of Bob Avakian, but all this “without a hint of slavishness”; in other words, as it were: You are required to do this and you must do it out of your own autonomy. I am not saying: well, there’s a contradiction involved, that’s the end of the matter; but that the way this contradiction plays out is not generally good or fruitful in and around the party.
Let me develop it along this line: During Lenin’s life the Bolsheviks were not the party of Lenin as unquestioned leader. Unquestionably, though, Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks. Further, the primacy of Lenin above everyone else in that party, and the need to struggle for the assertion of Lenin’s leadership were both the case. But it’s the wrong lesson to draw, to say: it would have been better if everyone had recognized Lenin’s greatness, and therefore it would have been better had it been assured that Lenin’s primacy and greatness had been unquestioningly recognized (as we have reasoned). Because it was precisely the way that through struggle Lenin’s leadership and thinking came out, that enabled the Bolsheviks to explore a lot of territory conceptually, to develop 2nd-level leadership, and to develop Lenin’s leadership and thinking. As mentioned above, it’s not as if Lenin was always Lenin, promulgating Leninism. What we have come to know as Leninism developed, and Lenin’s leadership developed and was won, through struggle within a diverse field, both within and without the party. It’s tempting to say, well that was a really near thing, actually (cf. the actions of Zinoviev & Kamenev on the eve of insurrection), and we should try to make sure that the leadership of the person that we can already recognize is outstanding and above others, is secure and recognized by all. The problem is that the very process of attempting to make it sure this time, actually works against the full development of the “new Leninism” that’s needed, as well as against the discursive field and “field of struggle” that’s necessary to develop a diverse array of leadership and wide intellectual range of exploration.
This is connected to the fact that, as pointed to above, that the “new synthesis” is not an actually achieved new synthesis, but rather the pointing to certain parameters of an as-yet-to-be-achieved new synthesis, and to the need for it. But the way that this is treated in the party and by the party is in a manner that hinders the development of a new synthesis, certainly within the party. Because the way we treat it in and around the party is not in such a way as to develop (or not in such a way as not to block) the field of struggle which would be necessary to develop the theory.
There is obviously much more to say about all of this, as well as many things I haven’t touched on. I’ve tried to put things in as short a form as I can and to pose the questions sharply.
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Notes on the party and intellectuals
(March 2006) In Dictatorship and Democracy (http://rwor.org/bob_avakian/new_speech/avakian_democracy_dictatorship_speech.htm), Avakian talks about the great importance of working with ideas, and of intellectuals to the revolutionary process, and goes into several contradictions in this area. There is the struggle of actually working with ideas, which involves immersing yourself deeply in an area of study, engaging with intellectuals and taking their ideas seriously. There is the importance of bringing forward people from among the intelligentsia, winning them to sympathy and support and more: winning “…as many of them as possible to become revolutionary communist intellectuals, actively partisan to our cause, and more than that, to become part of the vanguard. There can never be a communist revolution without this.” And then there is the question, “Can you actually work with ideas in a critical and creative way and be a member of a vanguard communist party? Or can you really do creative work in the arts or sciences and be a member of such a party?” This is, Avakian stresses, “…a real question, and it doesn’t have an easy answer.”
These are contradictions that concern me very much. They are real, they’re difficult, and they present problems which have not been solved.
Is work on these problems being done by and within the party? Are these thought to be pressing problems? Are they widely recognized as problems?
The party lacks the complexity and depth, as it stands now, to be able to interface with society with sufficient richness to be able to digest and process the complexity of developments in the world. This has to do with the new synthesis, and with the mass line in both its aspects: on the one hand, we have to interact with people in a way that is both broad and variegated in order “to take the ideas of the masses, scattered and unsystematic”; then, in order to “concentrate” these ideas (and this includes a lot, and more than would appear from the way Mao phrases it – I believe we have it as more in Draft Programme (http://revcom.us/margorp/progtoc-e.htm) and elsewhere), we must have a sophisticated “wrangling” machinery, so to speak, which really analyzes these ideas through Marxist theory. The thing is that both those aspects require a level of breadth and complexity in the party that is nowhere near the case now. There is a way in which this can be a function of size – if the party were of a certain size, it would become more complex (but not necessarily in good ways) no matter how people tried to simplify it. But essentially it is a function of how the party functions, of its internal dynamics.
What I believe:
First, although the thrust of the new synthesis, as I understand it, is precisely oriented toward realizing the value and achieving the sort of complex and dynamically interacting party that is necessary, the way in which the party continues to function cuts against moving toward this.
Second, the ways in which we are working within society are not ways which will build the party into the sort of instrument it needs to be.
Things get reduced in a lowest-common-denominator kind of way that is just deadly. Thus:
The importance of intellectuals, and interacting with intellectuals gets reduced to mobilizing academics against repression and APP [appreciation, promotion and popularization of Avakian] among intellectuals.
The importance of really looking at the history of the 20th century revolutions and re-evaluating aspects of them becomes reduced, in the Set the Record Straight project, to efforts to proclaim and uphold the achievements of these revs and combat the slanders that are heaped upon them.
The project of transforming the newspaper [Revolution (http://revcom.us/)] becomes reduced to making it a (hopefully more lively) vehicle for build-the-struggle, expose the fascists and propagate the writings of Avakian.
We are not interacting with intellectuals except in terms of the extent to which we’ve been able to bring them in to World Can’t Wait (http://www.worldcantwait.net/), to struggles against repression in academia or the scientific sphere, or influence or interface with them through Set the Record Straight (http://thisiscommunism.org/) and APP work.
The point is, we are not interacting with them as intellectuals or about intellectual or theoretical matters. (Is it any different with regard to artists? I doubt it.) And the only way that seems to be envisioned, of interacting with them on that level, is in terms of APP.
Is there any notion of recruiting intellectuals into the party? If we come to them only in order to recruit them into struggle and to get them to read Avakian – in other words, if the function of cadre is activism + APP + promoting the newspaper – how can they possibly see a role for themselves in this party as intellectuals? Ditto for artists. And in fact: Is there such a role?
Yet I would say: Unless intellectuals can function as intellectuals both within the party and close to it, (a) we cannot intersect adequately with this very important social group, and (b) more importantly, we cannot function adequately so as to carry out the sort of analytical and theoretical work that we need to do to understand the world and make revolution.
Artists too: In Democracy and Dictatorship it’s said that there can’t be a revolution without intellectuals; I believe the same is true of artists – understanding the term in its broadest sense – in the contemporary US. Here again, although somewhat differently, I think unless artists can function as artists both within the party and close to it, (a) we cannot intersect adequately with this very important social group, and (b) we cannot make revolution, or cannot make the kind of revolution that must be made.
Let me just mention a couple of cases where the need for concrete intellectual/theoretical work, by the party and/or in relation to the party, is glaring.
It’s remarkable to me that in the course of the past year and more, during which time the analysis that this country is moving fairly rapidly toward a state of fascism has been central to the work and orientation of the party, there has been no real attempt to grapple with the question, What is fascism? In fact, and even more remarkably, there hasn’t been any discussion of this as a need or lack, nor any realization, as far as I can see, that it is a need and a lack.
This, to my mind, is a pretty damning statement. Certainly it’s a great and necessary first step to understand that we are on the road to fascism in this country unless….. And we can start with a simple and preliminary understanding of what that means, and point historically to German fascism as the prime exemplar. But how can this possibly be the end of the matter? Yet for the most part that’s where it’s rested for over a year, as far as I can see, with most people content to try to estimate and warn of a fascist USA by means of a few (often not very well understood, and sometimes actually inaccurate) examples from Nazi Germany. How can we understand what we’re up against without deep and concrete analysis of concrete conditions, informed by historical categories which are understood historically (rather than in some sort of “timeless” way)? We can’t.
And of course this also relates – again, in a pretty damning way – in re the party’s relation to intellectuals: How can we hope to relate fruitfully to intellectuals if we don’t even see the need for intellectual work, in a concrete sense?
Rereading “New Situation” recently [The New Situation and the Great Challenges (http://rwor.org/a/036/avakian-new-situation-great-challenges.htm)], I was struck again by Avakian’s strong statement, at one point, of the “…need to do some work theoretically and in terms of analysis (and synthesis) to more deeply grasp what’s going on with this whole massive ‘demographic upheaval’ in these countries, with the uprooting of masses of the peasantry, with the transformation of the peasantry into a sort of shantytown semi-proletariat. There is a lot of work to be done.” The point has been brought forward again more recently as well.
In other words: We need to do some work theoretically and in terms of analysis (and synthesis) There is a lot of very important intellectual/theoretical work to be done, and it needs to be done on the basis of solid core with a lot of elasticity.
Has any of this been done? Is it in process? Is it seen as important to do?
If it were something seen as something necessary to carry out (and I don’t see any sign that it’s seen that way in/by the party generally), how could it be done or approached? What would be necessary in order to do it?
Obviously any such intellectual and theoretical projects would have to involve intellectuals beyond the party. How else could it actually be carried out? So this brings the question of relations with intellectuals to the fore, and everything I said above.