Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage

[redwinter]

This statement is a major document from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, calling on people around the world to rise to the challenges that face the communist project in the 21st century and beyond -- and challenging people to get on the revolutionary road forward....what do y'all think?


COMMUNISM:
THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE (http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)
A Manifesto from
the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

September 2008
Despite what is constantly preached at us, this capitalist system we live under, this way of life that constantly drains away—or in an instant blows away—life for the great majority of humanity, does not represent the best possible world—nor the only possible world. The ways in which the daily train of life has, for centuries and millennia, caused the great majority of humanity to be weighed down, broken in body and spirit, by oppression, agony, degradation, violence and destruction, and the dark veil of ignorance and superstition, is not the fault of this suffering humanity—nor is this the “will” of some non-existent god or gods, or the result of some unchanging and unchangeable “human nature.” All this is the expression, and the result, of the way human society has developed up to this point under the domination of exploiters and oppressors...but that very development has brought humanity to the point where what has been, for thousands of years, no longer has to be—where a whole different way of life is possible in which human beings, individually and above all in their mutual interaction with each other, in all parts of the world, can throw off the heavy chains of tradition and rise to their full height and thrive in ways never before experienced, or even fully imagined.
Read on… (http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)

(from http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)

Blurb from Revolution:
"Revolutionary Communism at a Crossroads: Residue of the Past. . . or Vanguard of the Future?
This fall, the RCP,USA will issue a major statement, a manifesto for our times.
The past several decades have witnessed truly unprecedented changes in the world. The reversal of the revolution in China following the death of Mao in 1976. . . the fall of the Soviet Union and rise of the U.S. as the sole superpower in the world. . . the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism as a major contending force in the world, ideologically and politically. . . and the radical reactionary transformations of the U.S. world role, and domestic politics. All these have posed major challenges for the international communist movement, and struggle has arisen in the movement over how to meet them.
Will the movement rise to those challenges? Or will it become a residue of the past, either locked in fading dogma or in thrall to the horizons of bourgeois democracy? This new manifesto will draw out and sharply contrast the contending roads before the revolutionary movement, go deeply into the direction and implications of each, and clearly put forward a line that can lead to a revolutionary future.
If you have any hope, any aspiration, for fundamental and radical social change, you must read this statement and help us get this out to every corner of society."

[Die Neue Zeit]

How many more "manifestos" do we need after the grossly overrated Empire and An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto? :glare:

[DiaMat86]

The RCP recently underwent a split, or so I have heard. Does this manifesto relate to that?

[Saorsa]

How is a relatively small communist organisation in a First World country, an organisation that doesn't hold state power or even have a mass base in the working class, entitled to issue "a major statement" or "a manifesto for our times"? I don't think the RCP or Bob Avakian are quite on the level required to take such talk from them seriously.

It may well be an interesting and even powerful document, but an organisation like the RCP doesn't have the mana to be issuing such self important proclamations.

[Abluegreen7]

They really need to organize themselves a bit more before doing this.

[redwinter]

I really recommend that everyone read this manifesto online before jumping off into their own conclusions about it...Indeed I found it to be a powerful challenge and call to communists around the world. But you can check it out for yourself and be the judge.

Communists not just in the US but all over the world are waging deep line struggle over the questions addressed in this Manifesto. Even in the US we can see that within the RCP itself Avakian launched a Cultural Revolution within the party to struggle against revisionism within the ranks of the party itself. It's not a question of "who's got the most credentials" in some narrow and economist way as you put it above, Comrade Alastair. Marx and Engels' original Communist Manifesto was pretty much written by Marx in London with no mass following, among a First International which never consolidated under his ideology and later split due to differences - and the only serious revolutionary attempt that came close to power during his lifetime was the Paris Commune, which decidedly did not follow Marx's path of revolution (no Marxist revolutions or even a "mass base in the working class" (!) were forged either in Germany or Britain during his lifetime). However, most importantly he was able to sum up the life-or-death lessons taught by the defeat of the Commune - including that the bourgeois state machine must be smashed by the revolutionaries (lessons that apparently are being discarded wholesale by parts of the international communist movement, according to this Manifesto, even among those who regrouped on a revolutionary basis after the capitalist-restorationist coup in China).

When Lenin analyzed the collapse of the Second International in 1914, he was an obscure self-exiled communist leader from a country where revolution was supposedly impossible, with relatively no "mass base" compared with the awesome "creds" of people like Karl Kautsky, leader of the German SPD (with a huge "mass base in the working class" as you put it), or Turati in the Italian Socialist Party, for instance, where they had a big following but went right over the cliff of opportunism and ended up as a knife in the back of the masses.

China issued their "Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement" in 1963 exposing the revisionism of the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and basically almost all of the international communist movement continued and consolidated on the revisionist path; new parties had to be formed from essentially nothing, or as splits from pro-Soviet parties to continue on the revolutionary road - this included those parties like the Italian PCI who had millions and millions of supporters but who refused to break with the bourgeoisie and launch armed struggle for state power during/after World War II, and instead continued with their Dimitrov-inspired line of the Comintern leading to betrayal of the masses there. The Maoist movement in Italy never got anywhere near the numbers of the revisionist, phony communist PCI, even in the swirl of the 60s and the 70s "anni di piombo"/"autunni caldi" (years of lead/hot autumns) where there were serious upsurges that shook the edifices of the state and a potentially revolutionary situation throughout the country.

Today we face the end of the first stage of socialist revolutions in the Soviet Union and China - and a crisis of theory within the communist movement (see particularly part V of the Manifesto (http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html), "Communism at a Crossroads: Vanguard of the Future, or Residue of the Past?"). Different lines are contending as to where we need to go - and there is a real question as to whether the communist movement will even survive into the 21st century - without becoming a caricature of stale dogma or sinking into the quicksand of the fetishization of bourgeois democracy, both of which seem to be in vogue at the moment. And this is a struggle that is shaping up not simply "in the RCP" but, as the Manifesto puts it:


"In the face of the continuing challenges and difficulties of the current period, the initial regrouping of communists which took place after the defeat in China and the end of the first stage of communist revolution has, to a significant extent, given way recently to sharp divergences: on the one hand, our Party, whose basic line is concentrated in our new Constitution, along with some others that are gravitating toward the new synthesis; and, on the other hand, two opposing tendencies—either to cling religiously to all of the previous experience and the theory and method associated with it or (in essence, if not in words) to throw that out altogether."


So yeah, maybe that clears up why exactly this is important despite the objections. Now after reading it, let's really get the debate going...

[Abluegreen7]

I thought it was a good Manifesto as well. Somewhere Karl Marx is smileing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

When Lenin analyzed the collapse of the Second International in 1914, he was an obscure self-exiled communist leader from a country where revolution was supposedly impossible, with relatively no "mass base" compared with the awesome "creds" of people like Karl Kautsky, leader of the German KPD (with a huge "mass base in the working class" as you put it)

Actually, he underestimated the organizational influence that the Bolsheviks had within the working class precisely because of applying the organizational "creds" of people like Kautsky who, by the way, was NOT the leader of the KPD or even the SPD.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1203523&postcount=32

[DiaMat86]

Even in the US we can see that within the RCP itself Avakian launched a Cultural Revolution within the party to struggle against revisionism within the ranks of the party itself...

I agree with most of your points. However, can the organization survive without Avakian? He seems to call all the shots and form all the theory. Where is the central committee in this? I have no experience in RCP.

Cult of personality is a manifestation of lack of confidence in the working class and lax part cadre. Does RCP claim it has not formed a CoP around Avakian?

"The Empire is shaking, trust in Bob Avakian"

(An actual RCP chant at a march in NYC)

[redwinter]

Thanks Jacob, I stand corrected. I did mean to write that he was a leader of the SPD, not the KPD, which would be valid for the timeframe I'm talking about...I corrected my last post.

DiaMat, I think you should check out the party's work on what exactly they think about Avakian...this manifesto itself I think is a good example of how the RCP sees his role - in terms of the new synthesis that he is bringing forward and challenging people to get down with; some of the key advances made in revolutionary theory and conception that are vital for communism surviving as a revolutionary trend. Some other references are in the talk Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity (http://revcom.us/avakian/makingrevolution2/) in part 2 (under "Meaningful Revolutionary Work"), and also the "1995 Leadership Resolutions on Leaders and Leadership: Part II: Some Points on the Question of Revolutionary Leadership and Individual Leaders" (http://www.revcom.us/a/120/leadership-resolutions-en.html) passed by the RCP Central Committee that get more into detail on their view of what revolutionary leadership is.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Still, you didn't address my main point above regarding Kautsky and Lenin on party-building.

[IrisBright]

I am a bit mystified by the 'Cultural Revolution' section of this Manifesto (which certainly has value). It seems to confirm the 'cardinal question' question--is Avakian and his synthesis the dividing line between revolutionary and revisionist in the communist ranks?

1. Why call a gentle culling/investigation/PURGE in a tiny Maoist organization a 'Cultural Revolution'? I have heard comments that such a thing is not only grandiose, but an insult to the actual GPCR.

2. The tone of Section 6 is incredibly spiteful--full of disgust for unworthy cadre. I don't mean to argue that people may come to 'go through the motions' in awful decades, so to speak, but such disgust for people who did not agree with the Synthesis?

3. There is an implicit, sort of unexplained rebuking of the NION project, refuse and Resist, and the Mumia Freedom Summer. I wasn't around for these projects, so I'm not sure why this is. I'm interested in why this is.

4. If only Avakian and a tiny core of leadership wanted to enforce the Synthesis line, how was it done? What about Congresses?

5. If Avakian was in leadership during this revisionist period, how is he criticized? Will a piece be coming out about how his leadership related to such revisionism (to say nothing of the down right reactionary line on homosexuality, that no cadre supported--for decades). Sounds heavy on the centralism, light on the democracy.

I used to be a supporter of the RCP. I sold their paper. Since the Synthesis, and the 9 Letters, and the terrible RCP Response (and the weird, writing team produced 'Observations from Reader(s)'), I am no longer a supporter. Not because I am attracted to anticommunist prejudices, or imperialism, or whatever such nonsense. I am finding that this just sounds freakier and freakier--just from reading the Manifesto!---like Avakian is this superhero, struggling to get to the masses through this morass of ungrateful, undedicated, traitorous cadre.

Doesn't the party know how this sounds?

[IrisBright]

To clarify, I meant the Manifesto itself had value, not just section 6.

And why doesn't the party just come out and name the CPN(M)?

[IrisBright]

"retreating at an accelerating pace into bourgeois democracy and the narrow confines of bourgeois right, traversing the centuries from the 21st back to the 18th."

"and who attempt to substitute in place of that analysis an approach based on bourgeois-democratic principles and criteria, and bourgeois-democratic notions of legitimacy—bound up with the formal process of elections, with competing political parties, so common in capitalist society and so compatible with and conducive to the exercise of political power by the capitalist class. Those who hold to these positions, even while continuing to claim the mantle of communism, are anxious to discard and distance themselves from the concept and the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat—and in many cases the very term itself. In effect, such people are seeking to “unburden themselves” from the most liberating experience in human history so far!"

Wow! I didn't know the Nepalese were so anxious to unburden themselves in such a manner.

Also, the following stood out to me the first time I read the Manifesto:

"Related to the above, another key element of the “revisionist package” that had gained such currency within our Party was the approach not of treating communism as a real, revolutionary orientation—which must be consistently applied to change the world, and which masses of people can and must be won to take up consciously and actively fight for—but instead reducing communism to an “alternative lifestyle.” With this viewpoint, the Party was becoming just one more self-validating oppositional niche, more or less trendy. Sometimes this “alternative lifestyle” meant busily preoccupying yourself, and everyone else, dashing from one immediate struggle to the next; sometimes it took the form of smug, dogmatic satisfaction at (supposedly) being a communist, with your special knowledge of history and set of ethics (that you could never connect with anyone, if you even still ever tried); sometimes it just meant marking time, putting critical thinking in the freezer. The work of the Party was increasingly marked by the approach of feeding the masses pablum while maintaining, as the special province of the “initiated,” what has been described as “a temple of secret knowledge”—turning communism into a lifeless, essentially religious, dogma."

Who treats their comrades in such a bitter and disgusted manner? 'Dashing from one struggle to the next'? I would never speak to a openly non-revolutionary friend, someone who was a dedicated community organizer immersed in struggle--especially if I wanted to win them [back?] over to revolutionary politics! I would not even treat an earnest progressive in such a way! Of course, if you are not Down With The Synthesis, you are dismissed wholesale (as you can see in footnote 16 of the Manifesto)--even if you are a dedicated communist. You actually cannot be revolutionary if you do not subscribe to Avakian's epistemological break, vision or future socialism, or summations of past revolution, you are revisionist.

This is wrong! It is dismissive, and refuses to engage people's ideas (through insults, or remaining silent on them publicly).

Footnote 16:

"During this present period, some communists, former communists, and “fellow travelers” of communism have conjured up an eclectic brew of scholasticism, agnosticism, and relativism, which is in opposition, in some cases consciously and explicitly, to the new synthesis brought forward by Bob Avakian, and in any case to the fundamental outlook, methodology, and objectives of communism. Those who proffer this brew claim that there is no adequate theoretical framework to explain, clarify, and draw the appropriate lessons from the past experience of the communist movement and to guide practice which would avoid the mistakes of the past, as these people (mis)understand them. Therefore, the argument goes, efforts must be spent on what can only amount to endless and aimless endeavors to discover, in a realm totally divorced from revolutionary practice guided by communist principles, the necessary theoretical framework."

How can one learn if one takes this approach? And doesn't much of this stem from the presupposition that the Synthesis is correct and that Avakian is the groundbreaking leader for our times? This speaks of a 'realm totally divorced from revolutionary practice' (while making snide implications about upper class intelligentsia), yet questions about practice validating the New Synthesis are met with claims that 'theory runs ahead of practice'.

People should read the entire Manifesto carefully, firstly, and if they are interested in hearing discussion around this, see the recent posts on the Kasama Project.

Kasama's encapsulated interpretation of Section VI of the Manifesto:


"If you read this new document carefully, you can get a sense of both the tone and the ideology it comes from. A capsule history of revolutionary history is given, where there are objective conditions, and great men who solve the problems of their age. The Maoist concept of mass line (i.e. the understanding that the masses as the makers of history) is given lipservice. But in fact, history awaits the great man. The great revolutionary parties are barely present, the people themselves are wall paper.
"And this history of revolutions “first stage” all builds to THIS moment, when the problems of the next stage need to be solved by this moment’s great man for any advance to happen. And then the climax is not situated in modern politics — but in Section 6 — in the great struggle of Avakian against those revisionists who don’t appreciate him and his work….
"In other words, Avakian’s line has, ironically, led precisely to the situation it claims to reject: "…smug, dogmatic satisfaction at (supposedly) being a communist, with your special knowledge of history and set of ethics… putting critical thinking in the freezer… turning communism into a lifeless, essentially religious, dogma.”as the special province of the “initiated”….”
I await denunciation as an 'eclectic-revisionist-pragmatic-economist-traitorous-empiricist-counterrevolutionary-big-fat-FATTY". I prefer to see engagement with my thoughts, however.

[Red October]

I thought it was a good Manifesto as well. Somewhere Karl Marx is smileing.

Or throwing up.

[Lenin II]

There really isn’t much to talk about with this new Manifesto in itself. Anyone who is a true communist will agree with what is being said. I think the real issue we wish to get at is whether or not the RCP really IS that.


People should read the entire Manifesto carefully, firstly, and if they are interested in hearing discussion around this, see the recent posts on the Kasama Project.
Firstly, let’s be clear that anyone who actually READS the 9 letters knows that it’s bullshit. It attacks the RCP from the standpoint of a Trotskyist or left liberal standpoint. While that may be perfectly fine with the liberals and Trots who hang out on this forum, for actual Marxist-Leninists their criticisms are petty-bourgeois and disappear the moment of utterance.
Here’s what the so-called “Maoist” critique says about Stalin:

Another example: Everyone knows that understanding capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union is important. But how can a movement claim to have a real analysis of those events without working up a credible materialist history of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s? How is it possible to assess the Stalin years (with all their complexity, heroism and horror) without having any real analysis of the struggles of the 1930s, including the events called “the purges” in the late thirties?

Isn’t it possible to have a positive impact in one period, and fall seriously short in another (as might be said about Joseph Stalin)?
Does this sound like Marxism-Leninism to you? What exactly about class struggle can be called “horror?”
Now I am more than prepared for a pelting storm of the label of “dogmatist” from various Maoists who love the new synthesis, but the fact is that there is a reason that Marxism-Leninism espouses what it does—it is a correct analysis of social conditions, how to carry out a revolution, create socialism and then communism afterwards. That said, while the RCP is the best Party in the United States right now, criticisms have to be made.
For example, in their New Synthesis—I don’t understand how you could say something like that and not think REVISIONISM by the way—they say that in previous socialist societies there has been too much “cracking down on dissent” instead of “searching for the truth.” (Notice the idealism: whose truth? Didn’t Mao himself say there’s a class nature to truth?)
According to themselves, this new synthesis “breaks from dogmatic thinking” and the use of “outdated” (??) verdicts. They see themselves as applying Marxism-Leninism to modern conditions. Now, you may ask, what is more important—conforming to what Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin or Mao said or did in the past or creatively applying Marxism?
Now, everyone here who is an actual COMMUNIST (a minority on this forum) should know and understand that the particular measures of expropriating power from the bourgeoisie vary from country to country. This was said right from the beginning by Marx and Engels. Nevertheless, statements against “dogmatism” have been used to excuse revisionism in the DPRK, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Romania, et al. Though they are revolutionary and progressive, the RCP and the CPN(M) are not meeting the minimum requirements to be Marxist-Leninist.


Aside from this, the main problem I have with Maoist philosophy is the capitulation to bourgeois perceptions on certain issues such as Stalin, the dictatorship of the proletariat and democracy.
1) They seem to have odd perceptions of Stalin. Instead of upholding him, they say we should look back on Stalin’s actions not as the application of Marxism-Leninism but rather actions “the same way people look back on George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.” This is straight from Avakian’s mouth, btw. Yes, of course Stalin made mistakes, who doesn’t? But it’s our responsibility to fight bourgeois propaganda at every turn, not ignore it and merely cosign it to history in order to keep the focus on Mao. Stalin made NO important theoretical mistakes in his time, while Mao Zedong almost turned Marxism on its head by saying that “proletarian” is only a state of mind not first a condition and then consciousness as Stalin points out in “Anarchism or Socialism.”

2) Their pluralist outlook in the realm of political speech and parties ignores the roots of multiparty democracy (as a vehicle for solving internal quarrels among the factions of the bourgeoisie), but also has no links in the theory of Marxism-Leninism. Marx talked about a proletarian party; Lenin talked about the vanguard party at the head of the proletariat; Stalin upheld this analysis. Only in Mao’s writings would you find theory that corresponds to this development (“Let one hundred flowers bloom, and one hundred schools of thought contend”), which is part of our general outlook that Maoism is not Marxism-Leninism.
What would be the point of a multi-party system to socialism? Does the proletariat need more than one party? It is our analysis that parties represent class interests. Well, if you concentrate political power into the hands of the proletariat as a class, why would you need more than one party? Unless they plan to have a party to represent the national bourgeoisie, which Maoists are known to do. If the national bourgeoisie still holds legislative and political powers in any form, such as in Nepal, it is not socialism.


3) The aforementioned line on dissent. Obviously we should not imprison anyone who speaks out against the government’s actions, but what seems to be lost on the Maoists is that we never have—it’s an image promoted by the bourgeoisie that if someone insulted the leader’s haircut they were arrested. There is a difference between dissent and counterrevolution, and the weakness and sentimentality towards the bourgeoisie at home, national or not, is one of the things that lead to the capitalist coup in China.

[DancingLarry]

How Stalinists tie themselves in knots:



Another example: Everyone knows that understanding capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union is important. But how can a movement claim to have a real analysis of those events without working up a credible materialist history of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s? How is it possible to assess the Stalin years (with all their complexity, heroism and horror) without having any real analysis of the struggles of the 1930s, including the events called “the purges” in the late thirties? Quote:
Isn’t it possible to have a positive impact in one period, and fall seriously short in another (as might be said about Joseph Stalin)?
Does this sound like Marxism-Leninism to you? What exactly about class struggle can be called “horror?”


So the years of Yagoda and the Yezhovshchina are back to being "class struggle"? After Yagoda and Yezhov were themselves denounced, rejected, discredited and reduced to non-persons by the non-revisionist Marxist-Leninists of the Nomenklatura? Suddenly the bloodletting horror for which they were themselves ousted from their positions of leadership under the watch of none other than the Great Father of Peoples Himself is restored to the sacred name of "class struggle"?

[redwinter]

Now I am more than prepared for a pelting storm of the label of “dogmatist” from various Maoists who love the new synthesis, but the fact is that there is a reason that Marxism-Leninism espouses what it does—it is a correct analysis of social conditions, how to carry out a revolution, create socialism and then communism afterwards. That said, while the RCP is the best Party in the United States right now, criticisms have to be made.
For example, in their New Synthesis—I don’t understand how you could say something like that and not think REVISIONISM by the way—they say that in previous socialist societies there has been too much “cracking down on dissent” instead of “searching for the truth.” (Notice the idealism: whose truth? Didn’t Mao himself say there’s a class nature to truth?)

Sure, Mao put that out there at times. But to dig deeper into the epistemological question we have to ask, is that true (that there's a "class nature to truth")? I think it's more than anything an expression of relativism to posit such a claim. It brings me back to what was written in part IV of the Manifesto (http://www.rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html):


This [reification of the proletariat] has often been accompanied by narrow, pragmatic, and positivist outlooks and approaches—which restrict what is relevant, or what can be determined (or is declared) to be true, to what relates to immediate experiences and struggles in which the masses of people are involved, and to the immediate objectives of the socialist state and its leading party, at any given time. This, in turn, has gone along with tendencies—which were a marked element in the Soviet Union but also in China when it was socialist—toward the notion of “class truth,” which in fact is opposed to the scientific understanding that truth is objective, does not vary in accordance with differing class interests, and is not dependent on which class outlook one brings to the pursuit of the truth. The scientific outlook and method of communism—if it is correctly taken up and applied, as a living science and not as a dogma—provides, in an overall sense, the most consistent, systematic, and comprehensive means for arriving at the truth, but that is not the same thing as saying that truth itself has a class character, or that communists are bound to arrive at the truth with regard to particular phenomena, while people who do not apply, or who even oppose, the communist outlook and method are not capable of arriving at important truths. Such views of “class truth,” which have existed to varying degrees and in various forms in the communist movement, are reductionist and vulgar materialist and run counter to the actual scientific viewpoint and method of dialectical materialism.
(http://rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)


I think, Lenin II, there's also a methodological point to be made here (which as you guessed correctly I think is linked to a tendency toward dogmatism, heh): Just because Mao (or anyone for that matter!) said something at some point doesn't mean it's necessarily true either.




According to themselves, this new synthesis “breaks from dogmatic thinking” and the use of “outdated” (??) verdicts. They see themselves as applying Marxism-Leninism to modern conditions. Now, you may ask, what is more important—conforming to what Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin or Mao said or did in the past or creatively applying Marxism?
Now, everyone here who is an actual COMMUNIST (a minority on this forum) should know and understand that the particular measures of expropriating power from the bourgeoisie vary from country to country. This was said right from the beginning by Marx and Engels. Nevertheless, statements against “dogmatism” have been used to excuse revisionism in the DPRK, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Romania, et al. Though they are revolutionary and progressive, the RCP and the CPN(M) are not meeting the minimum requirements to be Marxist-Leninist.


Actually, rather than "applying Marxism-Leninism to modern conditions" I think the RCP sees "communism as a science" -- and that fundamentally we are not simplistically conforming to what even the greatest communist leaders did or said in the past, but actually going back and analyzing what was said and done, what the positives and negatives were, and recasting the synthesis of the experience of the communist project into a totally new framework. It's not "let's just do all the good things and not repeat the mistakes". Neither are they saying that the history of the communist project needs to be thrown on the "dustbin of history", and that people should rally to one or another bourgeois-democratic illusion of multiparty elections as the path to communism in the 21st century.

No.

This is a radical rupture with previous ways of even how we conceive the science of communism itself, with ramifications in the philosophical, political, and strategic realms.




Aside from this, the main problem I have with Maoist philosophy is the capitulation to bourgeois perceptions on certain issues such as Stalin, the dictatorship of the proletariat and democracy.
1) They seem to have odd perceptions of Stalin. Instead of upholding him, they say we should look back on Stalin’s actions not as the application of Marxism-Leninism but rather actions “the same way people look back on George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.” This is straight from Avakian’s mouth, btw. Yes, of course Stalin made mistakes, who doesn’t? But it’s our responsibility to fight bourgeois propaganda at every turn, not ignore it and merely cosign it to history in order to keep the focus on Mao. Stalin made NO important theoretical mistakes in his time, while Mao Zedong almost turned Marxism on its head by saying that “proletarian” is only a state of mind not first a condition and then consciousness as Stalin points out in “Anarchism or Socialism.”


Again I think it's worthwhile turning back to the Manifesto (http://www.rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html) for what it puts out regarding the question of Stalin, which I think sheds some light on the overall summation of the experience in the Soviet Union:


But, with the death of Lenin in 1924, the challenge of leading this process forward, in a hostile world dominated by powerful imperialist countries and other reactionary states, fell to others in the Soviet Communist Party, and in particular to Joseph Stalin, who emerged as the leader of the Soviet Communist Party. This was an unprecedented historical experience: For several decades, the economy as well as social relations broadly—including the relations between women and men, as well as between different nationalities—and the political institutions and the culture of the society and the worldview of masses of people underwent profound changes. The standard of living of the people improved greatly and in all spheres, including health care, housing, education, and literacy. But more than that, the burden of exploitation and the weight of age-old tradition began to be lifted from the masses of people. There were great achievements in all spheres of life and society, but not surprisingly also very real limitations, shortcomings, and errors—some of them owing to the situation the Soviet Union found itself in, as the world’s only socialist state for several decades (until after World War 2), and some of it owing to problems in the outlook, approach, and method of those leading this process, in particular Stalin. With the necessary historical perspective, and the application of a scientific, materialist and dialectical, approach and method—and in opposition to the seemingly endless emission of distortions and slanders spewed forth against socialism and communism—the conclusion can, and must, be clearly drawn that the historical experience of socialism in the Soviet Union (and even more so in China, after socialism was established there) was decidedly positive, even with undeniable negative aspects—all of which must be deeply learned from.5 (http://rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html#footnote5)
(http://rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)


I think the point is that yes, everyone makes mistakes. But Stalin's were linked to a particular methodology that was to a degree not fully scientific or dialectical, but at times tended towards mechanical materialism. And these problems in methodology actually had effects in the real world, that we can pretty directly correlate - for instance the Comintern/Dimitrov line on the United Front and anti-fascism, to Stalin's analysis of classes in the Soviet Union and being unable to make the leap that Mao made in that the bourgeoisie under socialism is concentrated in those in power taking the capitalist road (and not, as Stalin believed, mainly consisting of old expropriated rich people and foreign infiltrators).

So while, as you can see in the abovequoted passage, the socialist experience under Stalin is upheld overall, without actually going back and trying to figure out why shit went wrong and why capitalism was restored -- we're not going to be able to do any better next time and ultimately are going to end up being another knife in the back of the masses if we shirk that responsibility.



2) Their pluralist outlook in the realm of political speech and parties ignores the roots of multiparty democracy (as a vehicle for solving internal quarrels among the factions of the bourgeoisie), but also has no links in the theory of Marxism-Leninism. Marx talked about a proletarian party; Lenin talked about the vanguard party at the head of the proletariat; Stalin upheld this analysis. Only in Mao’s writings would you find theory that corresponds to this development (“Let one hundred flowers bloom, and one hundred schools of thought contend”), which is part of our general outlook that Maoism is not Marxism-Leninism.
What would be the point of a multi-party system to socialism? Does the proletariat need more than one party? It is our analysis that parties represent class interests. Well, if you concentrate political power into the hands of the proletariat as a class, why would you need more than one party? Unless they plan to have a party to represent the national bourgeoisie, which Maoists are known to do. If the national bourgeoisie still holds legislative and political powers in any form, such as in Nepal, it is not socialism.

3) The aforementioned line on dissent. Obviously we should not imprison anyone who speaks out against the government’s actions, but what seems to be lost on the Maoists is that we never have—it’s an image promoted by the bourgeoisie that if someone insulted the leader’s haircut they were arrested. There is a difference between dissent and counterrevolution, and the weakness and sentimentality towards the bourgeoisie at home, national or not, is one of the things that lead to the capitalist coup in China.

I think the RCP has put out that the proletariat in power, concentrated in the communist party, needs to have its hands on the levers of state power. But I think you don't make the distinction here between democracy under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (which I think your characterization is 100% correct on), and democracy under the dictatorship of the proletariat (under which there is a different dynamic where a revolutionary core is leading a transformative process towards communism and the abolition of the state and classes).

Obviously the proletariat does not need more than one party. However, for one thing, Stalin never realized that the bourgeoisie was right there in the communist party in power. So just because you have a party or individual proclaiming itself communist, doesn't mean it is really that. Which class interest did the Chinese Communist Party represent in 1966 when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was launched by Mao? Throughout many parts of society and the party, the bourgeois line was actually dominant.

As far as the RCP's line on contested elections under socialism, having a Constitution for the socialist state, and other hotly contested issues that you're raising, Bob Avakian begins to address these in a work called "A Materialist Understanding of the State and Its Relation to the Underlying Economic Base", in part 2 (http://www.rwor.org/a/074/ba-materialistpt2-en.html). I'll resist the urge to paste the entire fucking article here, and will only cite a short section -- but I think the whole thing is worth reading if you want to see the thinking going into all this...



[T]here is a point that [John Stuart] Mill is raising, about how people should be able to hear arguments from their ardent advocates. And I think one of the ways in which this should find expression in the governing of socialist society is that—within the framework where, first of all, the state is firmly controlled by the proletariat, and second, there is consultation between the party and the masses and the implementation of forms, such as those that were developed through the Cultural Revolution in China, forms that combine basic masses with people from administrative posts or technical or educational professionals, or people in the arts who are professionals, etc., in decision-making and administrative tasks on all the different levels and in all the different spheres of society—while that should go on as a foundation, there should be a certain element of contested elections within the framework of whatever the Constitution of the socialist society is at the time. And one of the reasons why this should happen is that it will contribute to implementing what is positive about this John Stuart Mill point—that people need to hear positions not just as they are characterized by those who oppose them but as they are put forward by ardent advocates of those positions—what is positive about this in relation to our strategic objectives, of continuing the socialist revolution toward the goal of communism, the ways in which the implementation of this principle will contribute to political and overall intellectual ferment in socialist society and to the flowering of critical and creative thinking and, yes, of dissent, within socialist society—which will make that society more vibrant and will overall strengthen not only the willingness but the conscious determination of the masses of the people, including among the intellectuals, to not only preserve and defend that society but to continue revolutionizing society toward the goal of communism, together with the revolutionary struggle throughout the world.
(http://www.rwor.org/a/074/ba-materialistpt2-en.html)


Look, this is all important not because of some liberal line that "bourgeois individualism and spontaneity are great and we need a lot of viewpoints out there because that's inherently good" or something. It's deeper than that: capitalism was restored in both the Soviet Union and China fundamentally because the masses could still not tell the difference between communism and revisionism. If the masses are not learning how to differentiate these lines and getting pulled into the "expanding 'we' that rules" socialist society, then they are ultimately being trained to follow whoever is in governmental authority and not to think critically and scientifically to be able to evaluate on their own different political lines being concentrated in leadership. It's all part of revolutionizing society and breaking down the mental/manual contradiction (which to a great degree is even manifested between those who make the leap to becoming communists and the broader masses generally, and is something we need to urgently "get the fuck beyond" when we have state power - but it's definitely not something we can put on autopilot!).

I guess I just wanted to finish this out with another quote from the RCP's Manifesto (http://www.rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html), to really highlight where a lot of people even in the communist movement might have issue with what's being brought forward:



Today, on the part of those who refuse to critically examine the historical experience of the communist movement, it is common to find the phenomena of insistence upon “class truth” and related reification of the proletariat, and generally an approach to communist theory and principles as some kind of dogma, akin to religious catechism—in essence: “We know all we need to know, we have all the fundamentals that are required, it’s just a matter of carrying out the handed-down wisdom.”

At the opposite pole are those whose understanding of the historical experience of the communist movement—and in particular the causes of its difficulties, setbacks, and defeats—is also superficial and ill-founded, who ignore or dismiss scientific communist analysis of the profound contradictions that have given rise to the danger of capitalist restoration in socialist society, and who attempt to substitute in place of that analysis an approach based on bourgeois-democratic principles and criteria, and bourgeois-democratic notions of legitimacy—bound up with the formal process of elections, with competing political parties, so common in capitalist society and so compatible with and conducive to the exercise of political power by the capitalist class. Those who hold to these positions, even while continuing to claim the mantle of communism, are anxious to discard and distance themselves from the concept and the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat—and in many cases the very term itself. In effect, such people are seeking to “unburden themselves” from the most liberating experience in human history so far! They claim to want to move rapidly ahead, to meet new conditions of the time...but they have their vehicles in the wrong gear, and they are moving rapidly in reverse—retreating at an accelerating pace into bourgeois democracy and the narrow confines of bourgeois right,14 (http://rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html#footnote14)traversing the centuries from the 21st back to the 18th.

(http://www.rwor.org/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)

[IrisBright]

Lenin II

I am new to communism, and eager to learn. I am not sure what all the arguments about Stalin are and who they are attributed to. I don't agree that people who honestly want to investigate Stalin's failings and discuss the finer points of dc are instantly anti-Stalinist, revisionist, pansies.

Its not enough to say that the RCP is the 'best thing going'. And its not enough to argue that people are Trots or liberals without engaging their ideas. I was an organizer with WCW and supported the RCP, even while the 9 Letters controversy erupted. It was the RCP's own attitude; their own Response, their own grammatically ambiguous 'Observations from Readers'--or is it 'Reader'? Their own handling of gay people's struggles--these things killed my sympathies at last.

[Lenin II]

I am new to communism, and eager to learn. GOOD! We need more people like you, and please do not stop reading!

I am not sure what all the arguments about Stalin are and who they are attributed to. And yet you said they were one of the reasons for you leaving the RCP. You have chosen to believe them, and surely you agree it is in your interests to investigate sources as much as possible.

I don't agree that people who honestly want to investigate Stalin's failings and discuss the finer points of dc are instantly anti-Stalinist, revisionist, pansies. This is a straw man argument.

Its not enough to say that the RCP is the 'best thing going'. Of course not. I never said it was enough, that’s why I went to the trouble of making that last post—to discuss my greviences. And there’s another one of equal size coming.

And its not enough to argue that people are Trots or liberals without engaging their ideas. I have engaged their ideas and found them profoundly lacking. I’m a former Trotskyite.

How can a so-called “communist” not uphold Stalin? That’s like a fascist not liking Mussolini (yes, I’m sure the opportunists on this thread shall make a one-liner about Stalin=fascist) or A Marxist disagreeing with Marx’s basic theories. Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist and a communist leader. To criticize him is one thing, to call him a “murderer” for the “purges” is quite another. But this is neither here nor there. The POINT is that if you do not agree with Marx, you are not a Marxist. If you do not agree with Lenin, you are not a Leninist. This isn’t dogmatic thinking, it’s objective fact. A socialist which does not uphold Stalin is not a Marxist-Leninist, but a Trot or a left communist, because literally no faction calls him a butcher except Trotskyites and lefts.
No, there is nothing wrong with investigating Stalin’s mistakes, but here’s the problem: that is not what Trots do. They believe every bad thing they hear about Stalin from the bourgeoisie, including the 50-100 million inflated death tolls. They even quote them in their papers! In light of this, I truly see no reason to believe any Trot, just like they refuse to believe anything from the Soviet archives (“Stalinist propaganda”) but believe what they see on the History Channel when GORBY and CONDI RICE come on to call Stalin a maniac.

Their own handling of gay people's struggles--these things killed my sympathies at last. Could you be more specific here? I’m not sure what you mean.

[IrisBright]

Hi, Lenin II.

You're right, that bit about anti-stalinism was lame and undisciplined. Like i said, I'm green and i've encountered a few Stalinists who get miffed and accuse me (and people of many 'schools' of communism) of liberalism if they investigate Stalin's errors or talk about democratic centralism, or dissent.

I don't think that Kasama doesn't uphold Stalin. They do not agree with the RCP analysis of the world wars, and, like many communists, believe a principled and clear eyed investigation of stalin--and his greatness, and errors--is needed, especially since soviet records opened up. Why is that not upholding stalin? I don't understand. The 9 Letters to Our Comrades says that everywhere communists are, people demand to know why things 'failed', or how things are going to move forward. it's something we all deal with, and don't need to do on the terms of the bourgeoise.

and it isn't a matter of 'i chose the 9 Letters over the RCP'. The RCP discredited itself in my eyes, through the behavior of local cadre and their official 'polemics'. i think the questions i ask above are legit, and will not be answered by Redwinter without him first qualifying that I am economist or something.

On homosexuality: the Party held that it was a conscious decision made by gay people to be gay and was inherently a reactionary ideology from 1988-2001. I think it is fucked up that the whooooole party disagreed with leadership, but that this line was maintained for so long. And as a gender studies major, I also think it is BS to say "Oh, we were like, reductionist." That is not enough, it does not account for such a reactionary position, why it was kept, etc.

As for learning: that it why I read Kasama, and many many other websites. I don't think Stalin is mainly horrific, and don't reject him--despite the propaganda I recieved all my 23 years. Thanks for the 'GOOD!' comrade, I am learning to welcome struggle!

Cheers!

[redwinter]

On homosexuality: the Party held that it was a conscious decision made by gay people to be gay and was inherently a reactionary ideology from 1988-2001. I think it is fucked up that the whooooole party disagreed with leadership, but that this line was maintained for so long. And as a gender studies major, I also think it is BS to say "Oh, we were like, reductionist." That is not enough, it does not account for such a reactionary position, why it was kept, etc.


I think you're mischaracterizing the old position of the RCP here, Iris (as well as your one-liner summation of the process that brought about the new position). The RCP wrote a long position paper (http://www.revcom.us/margorp/homosexuality.htm) on the question of homosexuality and right off the bat addressed this question you're asking about (though, I don't know where you're getting this supposed insider information about the thought processes of the "whoooooole party" - and such speculation seems for one thing to be totally invented, and in any case isn't something that should be casually blabbed out on a forum like this).

This is from the intro to that position paper:


This position in our new Draft Programme is a departure from our past position. While 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, we did hold the position that both male and female homosexuality amounted to a conscious ideological statement and that male homosexuality in particular, in and of itself, represented a concentrated expression of misogyny and was something which therefore stood as an obstacle to the emancipation of women and in general to the socialist transformation of society. And our view was that lesbianism, while an understandable response to the oppression and subjugation of women, was, at best, an expression of political reformism and ultimately ideological accommodation to the prevailing oppressive relations. Accordingly, while we were clear that in socialist society there should not be discrimination against homosexuals nor should there be attempts to use legal means and in general the power of the state to coerce people to no longer be involved in homosexual relationships, we did see it as a political and ideological objective of the socialist revolution to transform people's outlook and practice such that homosexuality would ultimately cease to exist (in effect, would "wither away") in socialist society, though we did not preclude its reemergence under communism.

As a result of our further investigating this question, and as part of that taking a new look at criticisms that have been raised of our past position, we have come to a different understanding. Not only do we continue to be staunchly opposed to discrimination, persecution, and physical assaults on homosexuals, but we also 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.(3) (http://www.revcom.us/margorp/homosexuality.htm#N_3_)

Rather, our view is that the pivotal question and goal, with regard to all intimate and sexual relations, heterosexual as well as homosexual, is to radically transform them in general, in line with and to serve the emancipation of women and the abolition of all exploitative and oppressive relations.
(from http://www.revcom.us/margorp/homosexuality.htm)


And I think there's a deeper methodological point that's at play here. Are we going to reject wholesale the experience in China under Mao because, under socialism there, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder all the way up to the 1976 coup? Do we reject Stalin wholesale because of the criminalization of homosexuals in the Soviet Union during WWII?

Of course not. But at the same time, we deeply criticize both these particular verdicts themselves and the method used to get to them. This is an example where, like the new position on homosexuality, just taking "your daddy's communism" isn't going to cut it. You think the RCP just made that old position on homosexuality up? No, it was the position of pretty much the entire communist movement internationally at the point the RCP was founded in the 70s (including Mao's party). There are even parties today that call themselves Maoist internationally that have a similar position on homosexuality to the old one of the RCP, if you do a miniscule amount of research you might be surprised to see what you find. (Are you ready to denounce those groups too, or is it just the RCP that gets shit for being correct now, but having an incorrect position a decade ago, while everyone else gets off the hook even if they currently have the wrong position and/or never had the right one?!)

This whole rupture involved a process of breaking with old ways of looking at things and old frameworks to be able to come to a new position (but at the same time, not simply changing the position on an issue like a chameleon because some people were upset about it). And I think there are a lot of connections between the ability to make this kind of rupture and for what's called for in this Manifesto for communists around the world to get back on the revolutionary road, and to not fall into being a "residue of the past" (whether back to even the best of Stalin and Mao, or all the way back to classical 18th century bourgeois democracy!).

[Goose]

I can't read anything attributed to the RCP on here without thinking of the uk RCP, and my thoughts on them get me temporarily banned, so far be it from me to express an opinion. It just wouldn't be democratic, apparently.


(Though as that thread went on to, the UK RCP are now a bunch of uber rightwingers funded by the oil companies, but I didn't say that, if the site's Ministry of Truth are watching...)

[IrisBright]

Redwinter,

I have read the position paper from the RCP, and I urge others to do so as well. I am also aware of the positions of other parties, to old assumption about blackmail, the position of the CPUSA, etc. I know there are parties out there that have bad lines on women and queer people. I just think there is a particularity to party with a high level of dedication to the right line on women maintaining such a position in a country like this, FOR SO LONG, even through the AIDS crisis, and this unexplained. I mean gay people were barred from the party (officially anyway) and presumably, some were closeted. This is abusive and fucked up.

I think it is important to point out that there is misogyny in gay male culture, or that heteronormative values get asserted in queer relationships. I don't think it is ok to take a 'hands off' liberal approach to oppressed people engaged in struggle. We agree on those things at least, I'm sure.

As far as bad lines on gay people goes, when I examine it in other parties /organizations/individuals (communist and non-communist) it is in SOME ways attributable to backwards views on gender and homosexuality. Period. Why would this not be the case with the RCP (for so long?!)? Is Avakian somehow free of such influences?

The ICM in general needs to examine its own views on the advances in scientific understanding of sexuality, psychology, drug use, and emotion. I feel they have been less than cutting edge on this--just like they have on the environment. It is not enough to talk about capitalism destroying the environment, which is true--we need to get into these things deeper. The youngest generation of new leftists are looking at communists and saying: you guys are looking a little dusty. This shit is supposed to be cutting edge. It sure doesn't feel that way sometimes, and I want to catch up!

As to insider info: are you telling me that people in the party, in say, 1995, were agreeing with Avakian on homosexuality? En masse? You can't say of course and I'm not asking you to, but anyone who has talked to cadre, even wonderful lively people, knows you all have to say the same thing. Sometimes literally, in terms of the synthesis and BA. It's like talking to one person when you've talked to seven. Or thirty. It's the way you do DC (I have been told this by cadre, it ain't a secret, ok?). I disagree with it, precisely because all those people had to say that shit about gay people UNTIL 2001, and no one in their right mind (Avakian, I mean you too!)--who was not clinging to homophobia or backwardness--would put such a line out. Especially young people.

As a queer person with queer friends and family, I want an apology or acknowledgement of the damage you did to your own project and cadre with that line. That isn't identity politics, it is the right thing to do.

And I find it interesting that of all the questions I asked, you spoke to that one.

[manic expression]

I have engaged their ideas and found them profoundly lacking. I’m a former Trotskyite. This means nothing. Former communists oftentimes make the same arguments about us, and it's just as invalid in that context. The point is that you have to take part in discussion and dialogues, and vapid name-calling doesn't count. I find your position to be more of the latter than of the former. Hopefully you'll disprove this assertion.


How can a so-called “communist” not uphold Stalin? That’s like a fascist not liking Mussolini (yes, I’m sure the opportunists on this thread shall make a one-liner about Stalin=fascist) or A Marxist disagreeing with Marx’s basic theories. Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist and a communist leader. To criticize him is one thing, to call him a “murderer” for the “purges” is quite another. What nonsense. Stalin may have been a Marxist-Leninist, but he only deserves support if he furthered the cause of the working classes and of communism. That's what Marxism IS, not some blind admiration of a man because of what he called himself. If your understanding of Marxism is that of supporting all so-called Marxist leaders, then I suggest you increase your understanding of Marx's works: our movement is about the interests of the working class, nothing more and nothing less. I'll deal with Stalin's leadership in this critical regard later.

Let us establish one thing: it is very easy to be a Marxist-Leninist and not uphold Stalin, and your inability to see this does not refute it. Can one be a Marxist-Leninist and not uphold Khruschev, or Breznev, or Gorbachev? The answer is simple: yes. So what, exactly, is the difference between those three "Marxist-Leninist leaders" and Stalin? Objectively, nothing. While you may point out, and rightfully so, that Stalin's policies were different from each of the other three, that is precisely the point: a leader's POLICIES are what they must be judged by, not by some blind belief in their right to rule, which is what you are trying to convince us of in Stalin.

On the purges, Stalin did lead a horrific campaign that took the lives of countless revolutionaries, to say nothing of thousands of innocent people. The purges established quotas for the execution of members of a terrorist centre that simply didn't exist. Every shred of scholarship on this issue (and by scholarship I do not mean Conquest and his bigoted buddies, mind you) reveals that Stalin's rule was indeed horrific at many points. Even more importantly, Stalin reversed the revolutionary path of the Soviet Union. He killed his party rivals to consolidate power, he gutted the democratic organs of the Soviet state (banning the Congress of the Soviets was a particularly notable example of this) and put power in the hands of the nomenklatura. When Kaganovich talked of "the earth and heavens trembling" in the presence of the factory manager, he meant exactly that: working class control was dead.

Castro may have put it best when it criticized "historical simplism" when it came to Stalin. It is simplistic and silly to call Stalin evil, but it is just as simplistic and naive to uphold Stalin as some great leader when he was no such thing. Communists resist such interpretations of history, but apparently some "anti-revisionists" are more concerned with a bottomless hatred for anyone who doesn't unswervingly praise Stalin. This mindless garbage is, unfortunately, typical for the more rabid "anti-revisionists".


But this is neither here nor there. The POINT is that if you do not agree with Marx, you are not a Marxist. If you do not agree with Lenin, you are not a Leninist. This isn’t dogmatic thinking, it’s objective fact. A socialist which does not uphold Stalin is not a Marxist-Leninist, but a Trot or a left communist, because literally no faction calls him a butcher except Trotskyites and lefts.More dogmatic hogwash that reminds me of a belligerent Roman Catholic. Your argument boils down to a tautology based on a fallacy: all Marxist-Leninists are Stalinists because Stalinism is the only Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Trotsky, for his part, called Stalin what he was: a supporter of the bureaucracy. You may employ all the manufactured rage you like, the fact is that you will not get anywhere beyond cheap sloganeering until you deal with the charges against Stalin. He suppressed Lenin's ideas, he destroyed working-class democracy, he put power into the nomenklatura, he murdered communists and innocents. The list goes on. Let me venture to say that I doubt you will do what is asked and instead use petty labels as substitute. Marxism has nothing to do with such low-minded foolishness.


No, there is nothing wrong with investigating Stalin’s mistakes, but here’s the problem: that is not what Trots do. They believe every bad thing they hear about Stalin from the bourgeoisie, including the 50-100 million inflated death tolls. They even quote them in their papers!
That's slander. You make the mistake of all Stalinist dogmatists in thinking that Trotskyists are some faceless group with a homogenous program. If you used the slightest bit of specification in your claims, you'd discover that not all Trotskyists use those reactionary lies. The ones that do find a great opponent in myself, I can tell you that right now.

How typical of you to try to tell me what I believe.


In light of this, I truly see no reason to believe any Trot, just like they refuse to believe anything from the Soviet archives (“Stalinist propaganda”) but believe what they see on the History Channel when GORBY and CONDI RICE come on to call Stalin a maniac.I agree with Arch Getty's research for the most part, which was the first major study to be done from the Soviet archives. This, by the way, contradicts your claims above.

[IrisBright]

I don't know my way around 'old rivalries' in the commie world, so to speak, but I notice a lot of 'Trot baiting'. It is not enough to call some one a Trot/anarchist/liberal/revisionist in a discussion. We learn nothing. It is childish, lame and suppresses debate.

As I posted elsewhere, when some comrades were dismissing the Zapatistas:

"At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I also think it is fair to say socialism has not been an unqualified success. Revolutionary states are very much at the mercy of their neighbors, depending on who and where they are. They still have to deal with the contradictions and problems of the masses truly becoming the rulers. As we can see from Nepal, the methodology is never cut and dried, and while I think you need to seize state power, communists who sneer at the Zapatistas must also keep in mind: we are facing the same problems! Same goes for any anarchists who sneer at Lenin and Mao!"

I don't think all comrades mean to suppress debate, necessarily, and we all can be guilty of such sniping sometimes. I feel like the left can be a small pond, and we can fall into old habits and verdicts. Let's break out of this together!

[redwinter]

What nonsense. Stalin may have been a Marxist-Leninist, but he only deserves support if he furthered the cause of the working classes and of communism. That's what Marxism IS, not some blind admiration of a man because of what he called himself. If your understanding of Marxism is that of supporting all so-called Marxist leaders, then I suggest you increase your understanding of Marx's works: our movement is about the interests of the working class, nothing more and nothing less. I'll deal with Stalin's leadership in this critical regard later.

Let us establish one thing: it is very easy to be a Marxist-Leninist and not uphold Stalin, and your inability to see this does not refute it. Can one be a Marxist-Leninist and not uphold Khruschev, or Breznev, or Gorbachev? The answer is simple: yes. So what, exactly, is the difference between those three "Marxist-Leninist leaders" and Stalin? Objectively, nothing. While you may point out, and rightfully so, that Stalin's policies were different from each of the other three, that is precisely the point: a leader's POLICIES are what they must be judged by, not by some blind belief in their right to rule, which is what you are trying to convince us of in Stalin.

On the purges, Stalin did lead a horrific campaign that took the lives of countless revolutionaries, to say nothing of thousands of innocent people. The purges established quotas for the execution of members of a terrorist centre that simply didn't exist. Every shred of scholarship on this issue (and by scholarship I do not mean Conquest and his bigoted buddies, mind you) reveals that Stalin's rule was indeed horrific at many points. Even more importantly, Stalin reversed the revolutionary path of the Soviet Union. He killed his party rivals to consolidate power, he gutted the democratic organs of the Soviet state (banning the Congress of the Soviets was a particularly notable example of this) and put power in the hands of the nomenklatura. When Kaganovich talked of "the earth and heavens trembling" in the presence of the factory manager, he meant exactly that: working class control was dead.

Castro may have put it best when it criticized "historical simplism" when it came to Stalin. It is simplistic and silly to call Stalin evil, but it is just as simplistic and naive to uphold Stalin as some great leader when he was no such thing. Communists resist such interpretations of history, but apparently some "anti-revisionists" are more concerned with a bottomless hatred for anyone who doesn't unswervingly praise Stalin. This mindless garbage is, unfortunately, typical for the more rabid "anti-revisionists".

More dogmatic hogwash that reminds me of a belligerent Roman Catholic. Your argument boils down to a tautology based on a fallacy: all Marxist-Leninists are Stalinists because Stalinism is the only Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Trotsky, for his part, called Stalin what he was: a supporter of the bureaucracy. You may employ all the manufactured rage you like, the fact is that you will not get anywhere beyond cheap sloganeering until you deal with the charges against Stalin. He suppressed Lenin's ideas, he destroyed working-class democracy, he put power into the nomenklatura, he murdered communists and innocents. The list goes on. Let me venture to say that I doubt you will do what is asked and instead use petty labels as substitute. Marxism has nothing to do with such low-minded foolishness.


I agree with the thrust of your first paragraph here, manic. However I think the rest is precisely incorrect, and precisely what the RCP,USA's Manifesto is challenging the international communist movement to engage: that the socialist experience of the 20th century was an extremely positive thing and not something to shit on. At the same time there were some very wrong methods and approaches infused throughout that experience that, in part, helped lead to capitalist restoration (though I believe the RCP does not think that those were the principal reasons for said restoration, and rather that the unfavorable world situation at the time was the main factor in giving the capitalist-roaders room to flourish and seize power in both the Soviet Union and China).

There is a very poignant and sharp analogy made in the Manifesto:



Imagine a situation in which Christian fundamentalist creationists have seized power, in the academies of science and in society overall, and have proceeded to suppress knowledge of evolution. Imagine that they go so far as to execute and imprison the most prominent scientists and educators who had insisted on teaching evolution and bringing knowledge of this to the public, and they heap scorn and abuse on the well-established scientific fact of evolution, denouncing and ridiculing it as a flawed and dangerous theory which runs counter to well-known “truth” of the biblical creation story and to religious notions of “natural law” and the “divinely ordained order.” And, to continue the analogy, imagine that in this situation many intellectual “authorities,” and others following in their wake, jump on the bandwagon: “It was not only naïve but criminal to believe that evolution was a well-documented scientific theory, and to force that belief on people,” they declare. “Now we can see that it is ‘common wisdom,’ which no one questions (so why should we?), that evolution embodies a worldview and leads to actions that are disastrous for human beings. We were taken in by the arrogant assurance of those who propagated this notion. We can see that everything that exists, or has existed, could not have come into being without the guiding hand of an ‘intelligent designer.’” And, finally, imagine that in this situation, even many of those who once knew better become disoriented and demoralized, cowed into silence where they do not join in, meekly or loudly, in the chorus of capitulation and denunciation.

The temporary defeat of socialism and the end of the first stage of the communist revolution has had many features and consequences that are analogous to such a situation. Among other things, it has led to lowered sights and low dreams: Even among many people who once would have known better and would have striven higher, it has led, in the short run, to acceptance of the idea that—in reality and at least for the foreseeable future—there can be no alternative to the world as it is, under the domination of imperialism and other exploiters. That the most one can hope for and work for are some secondary adjustments within the framework of accommodation to this system. That anything else—and especially the attempt to bring about a revolutionary rupture out of the confines of this system, aiming toward a radically different, communist world—is unrealistic and is bound to bring disaster.

At the same time, in the “vacuum” created by the reversal of socialism and accompanying setbacks for communism, and with the continuing, and even heightening, depredations carried out by imperialism—with all the upheaval, chaos, and oppression this means for literally billions of people throughout the world—there has been a significant growth of religious fundamentalism and its organized expression in many parts of the world, including among the desperately oppressed. Imperialist marauders and mass murderers, and fanatical religious fundamentalists—the former more powerful and doing greater harm, and in so doing giving further impetus to the latter, but both representing a dark veil, and very real chains, of enslavement and enforced ignorance, reinforcing each other even when they oppose each other.

But all this has not done away with reality: the reality of how the world is, under the domination of this capitalist-imperialist system and the daily horror this involves for the great majority of humanity—or the reality of what communism actually represents for humanity and the possibility of making new breakthroughs and advances on the road of communist revolution.

(http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html, Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, Part III: The End of a Stage--And What Conclusions Should, and Should Not, Be Drawn from this Historical Experience)


I think this really captures the crossroads we face as revolutionaries in the 21st century.

It's useful to look back to 1848 with the publication of the first Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels in London and the position that they faced internationally with the socialist movement around the First International Workingmen's Association (and others) going off in different directions (from Bakuninite anarchism to Lassallean reformist socialdemocracy) - and the very real struggle that Marx had to wage to win as many as possible over to his line.

Maybe some of you reading this have also seen that document, and might remember that on the first page they mention it being published in English, Flemish, Italian, French, and Danish in addition to the original German. Unfortunately even just those initial translations were not even completed until, in some cases, many years later (the first English translation, for instance, wasn't until two years later - and the damn thing was written and published in London!). It wasn't a "done deal" that Marx's line would win out or been taken up at all by other forces -- and the world might've turned out very differently. It's not a "done deal" today either -- communism in the 21st century could be reduced to some revisionist amalgam of bourgeois illusions and/or religious dogma, and humanity could really lose the chance to make the leap towards communism anywhere (!) before our species is literally destroyed by environmental destruction, famine, nuclear war, etc.

Fast forward to the 21st century and you have a lot of the supposedly communist forces in the world abandoning even Marx's analysis of the Paris Commune and the nature of the bourgeois state apparatus - which I think was a big reason why Marx's important summation of the Commune was emphasized so much in this Manifesto.

So I think it's important to not do as Trotskyists and liberals have generally done and abandon the entire socialist experience as "not really socialism" or a horrible nightmare as you seem to do in your post, manic. I think we need to be upholding the great positive achievements under Lenin, Stalin, and Mao now more than ever -- but at the same time taking up and developing the new synthesis by Bob Avakian, really wielding it to "ideologize revolution back on the map" in our era.

[manic expression]

I agree with the thrust of your first paragraph here, manic. However I think the rest is precisely incorrect, and precisely what the RCP,USA's Manifesto is challenging the international communist movement to engage: that the socialist experience of the 20th century was an extremely positive thing and not something to shit on. At the same time there were some very wrong methods and approaches infused throughout that experience that, in part, helped lead to capitalist restoration (though I believe the RCP does not think that those were the principal reasons for said restoration, and rather that the unfavorable world situation at the time was the main factor in giving the capitalist-roaders room to flourish and seize power in both the Soviet Union and China).

My intention was not to shit on 20th Century socialism, far from it. My intention is to critique mistakes that were made (which involves understanding why they were made) and find methods for avoiding them in the future. That means analyzing Stalin's positions and figuring out whether or not they helped the working class; it is not black-and-white in this regard, I have always maintained that. For instance, when I criticized some of Stalin's most notable policies, did I disavow support for the Soviet Union? No, because every socialist must support a worker state, regardless of what problems may be found within them.

I agree with most of what you're saying, it's just that my position is not anti-Soviet Union. Many Maoists, on the other hand, can be more accurately characterized as such.

Lastly, on the "capitalist roaders", I find this simplistic and insufficient. We must look at class dynamics more closely and refuse to rely on solely ideological suspicions (which is what the fear of "capitalist roaders" boils down to). The Soviet Union and the PRC both fell to capitalism because of the weakness of working class democracy; Stalin gutted Soviet Power, Mao neglected to build it in the first place. No one clicks their heels and reestablishes capitalism from socialism, it is the result of deformations within the socialist state. In my opinion, that analysis is far more objective and scientific. I don't discount the influence of so-called "capitalist roaders", I simply put that in a much larger context.


There is a very poignant and sharp analogy made in the Manifesto:


I think this really captures the crossroads we face as revolutionaries in the 21st century.

It's useful to look back to 1848 with the publication of the first Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels in London and the position that they faced internationally with the socialist movement around the First International Workingmen's Association (and others) going off in different directions (from Bakuninite anarchism to Lassallean reformist socialdemocracy) - and the very real struggle that Marx had to wage to win as many as possible over to his line.

Yes, this is all true, but what does this have to do with upholding Stalin? We must use Marxism to look at the world, and that means pinpointing class struggle, not the rhetorical hot air that the Stalinist years saw so much of.


Maybe some of you reading this have also seen that document, and might remember that on the first page they mention it being published in English, Flemish, Italian, French, and Danish in addition to the original German. Unfortunately even just those initial translations were not even completed until, in some cases, many years later (the first English translation, for instance, wasn't until two years later - and the damn thing was written and published in London!). It wasn't a "done deal" that Marx's line would win out or been taken up at all by other forces -- and the world might've turned out very differently. It's not a "done deal" today either -- communism in the 21st century could be reduced to some revisionist amalgam of bourgeois illusions and/or religious dogma, and humanity could really lose the chance to make the leap towards communism anywhere (!) before our species is literally destroyed by environmental destruction, famine, nuclear war, etc.

I strongly disagree. Communism will never be anything but what it is: it is the interests of the working class. That's why our ideology is impossible to destroy, for so long as there is a working class, there will be a communist movement. Let us look at this fact instead of a paranoia of ideological impurity.


Fast forward to the 21st century and you have a lot of the supposedly communist forces in the world abandoning even Marx's analysis of the Paris Commune and the nature of the bourgeois state apparatus - which I think was a big reason why Marx's important summation of the Commune was emphasized so much in this Manifesto.

We must be earnest, as Lenin and the Bolsheviks were on the Social Democrats, that these people are not socialists at all. That is very important, that we define socialism as working class struggle.


So I think it's important to not do as Trotskyists and liberals have generally done and abandon the entire socialist experience as "not really socialism" or a horrible nightmare as you seem to do in your post, manic. I think we need to be upholding the great positive achievements under Lenin, Stalin, and Mao now more than ever -- but at the same time taking up and developing the new synthesis by Bob Avakian, really wielding it to "ideologize revolution back on the map" in our era.

You're making the same mistake that I alluded to before. Trotskyists have abandoned nothing, they simply opposed the misguided policies of Stalin and his clique. In fact, Trotsky's Marxist analysis of the Soviet Union remains to date the most effective and accurate of its type. Please refer to my previous post on the issue of Marxists not upholding Stalin.

Further, you're once again resorting to black-and-white views of individuals, which is anti-materialist to say the least. There are two problems here: first, I don't have such absolutist views of those leaders and second, it neglects the entire influence of class. As I said before, I defend Stalin from bourgeois lies and propaganda (I've even done so on this board and many anti-revisionists here will agree), I agree that some of his policies were positive (such as collectivization, the great evacuation of industry during WWII). However, Stalin also made tremendous errors and committed inexplicable acts against the interests of the working class, and to call the purges anything but a horrible project is the sign of complete denial. Mao is very much the same, as I uphold his monumental achievements as a revolutionary leader, but I tirelessly criticize his very grave mistakes after the establishment of the PRC (GLF, Cultural Revolution for starters).

The biggest point is that Stalin and Mao did not promote working class democracy, which is what doomed both the Soviet Union and the PRC. History has proven Trotsky right in this regard. Please address the arguments that I've made and not the arguments anti-revisionists like to believe I made.

[Lenin II]

A few notes:


Sure, Mao put that out there at times. But to dig deeper into the epistemological question we have to ask, is that true (that there's a "class nature to truth")? I think it's more than anything an expression of relativism to posit such a claim I think, Lenin II, there's also a methodological point to be made here (which as you guessed correctly I think is linked to a tendency toward dogmatism, heh): Just because Mao (or anyone for that matter!) said something at some point doesn't mean it's necessarily true either.
So to dispute a so-called relativist claim…you make a relativist claim? Your answer to a fundamental theory of Marxism—that what is called the “truth” is determined by social forces at work—is to use a relativist argument that moves in circles? Please explain what possible dialectic process there could be behind this. This is idealism. There IS NO TRUTH IN THE ABSTRACT, just like there is no abstract man. There is only truth and man with class character. It is impossible for a man in class society to see a truth without applying a class character to it—if it was we would live in a Hegelian world.

Actually, rather than "applying Marxism-Leninism to modern conditions" I think the RCP sees "communism as a science" -- and that fundamentally we are not simplistically conforming to what even the greatest communist leaders did or said in the past, but actually going back and analyzing what was said and done, what the positives and negatives were, and recasting the synthesis of the experience of the communist project into a totally new framework. It's not "let's just do all the good things and not repeat the mistakes". Neither are they saying that the history of the communist project needs to be thrown on the "dustbin of history", and that people should rally to one or another bourgeois-democratic illusion of multiparty elections as the path to communism in the 21st century. This is a radical rupture with previous ways of even how we conceive the science of communism itself, with ramifications in the philosophical, political, and strategic realms. With the incorporation of Maoist philosophy, as well as deviation from that on several important subjects, and the new synthesis added on top of that, there are now significant deviations from the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism in the RCP. Now, it could be argued that several of the “heads” believed incorrect things, for example that homosexuality was a construct of bourgeois society—because they did not have access to the knowledge we have, and therefore it is essential from time to time to make a dialectical analysis of the situation. This is fine of course, because it is completely in line with Marxism.
However, the proponents of this argument overlook one essential fact: the belief that homosexuality was a bourgeois construct, or thinking that abortion should be limited to extreme cases are NOT integral parts of Marxism, whereas things like dialectical materialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are, and here my major concerns are revisions of basic doctrines such as that.

I think the point is that yes, everyone makes mistakes. But Stalin's were linked to a particular methodology that was to a degree not fully scientific or dialectical, but at times tended towards mechanical materialism.

This is pandering. Why even mention the “mistakes” of Stalin at all in your new synthesis? Do you mention the mistakes of Lenin? Mao? Bob Avakian himself? I don’t think so. The only mention of “mistakes” or “negative aspects” in the entire synthesis is on the subject of Stalin.

And these problems in methodology actually had effects in the real world, that we can pretty directly correlate - for instance the Comintern/Dimitrov line on the United Front and anti-fascism, to Stalin's analysis of classes in the Soviet Union and being unable to make the leap that Mao made in that the bourgeoisie under socialism is concentrated in those in power taking the capitalist road (and not, as Stalin believed, mainly consisting of old expropriated rich people and foreign infiltrators).
Maoist metaphysical analysis watershed. Apparently non-revisionist Marxism-Leninism is “mechanical” and the bourgeoisie has been magically transported into the Party. REVISIONISTS, not bourgeoisie, exist within the Party itself by infiltration either before or after revolution. They are not bourgeoisie because they do not receive capital from the labor of exploited employees. Bourgeois thought is not the same as being a “new bourgeoisie,” which seems to stem, again, from capitulation to the nonsense liberal theory of the Party becoming a “new oppressing class.” If revisionist thought were the same as being a new bourgeoisie then every worker in the U.S. would qualify as a member of the bourgeoisie.
As well, your assertion that Mao was the one who invented the theory of struggle within the party or even expanded on it is a crock. Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha all maintained that revisionists existed within the Party and purged them while Mao openly let capitalists inside the Party in terms of “correcting” their “incorrect” thoughts. Deng Xiaoping himself was purged several times and still let back in. Unfortunately it seems you now want to loosen Party discipline and not crack down on dissent and counterrevolution within the movement, which is the exact opposite thing we should be doing given the history.

[redwinter]

So to dispute a so-called relativist claim…you make a relativist claim? Your answer to a fundamental theory of Marxism—that what is called the “truth” is determined by social forces at work—is to use a relativist argument that moves in circles? Please explain what possible dialectic process there could be behind this. This is idealism. There IS NO TRUTH IN THE ABSTRACT, just like there is no abstract man. There is only truth and man with class character. It is impossible for a man in class society to see a truth without applying a class character to it—if it was we would live in a Hegelian world.

No, the truth is not decided by social forces at work - I'm not sure where you're getting that from. I think Lenin hit the nail on the head here in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism:

Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is agnosticism and subjectivism. The absurdity of this denial is evident even from the single example of a scientific truth quoted above. Natural science leaves no room for doubt that its assertion that the earth existed prior to man is a truth. This is entirely compatible with the materialist theory of knowledge: the existence of the thing reflected independent of the reflector (the independence of the external world from the mind) is a fundamental tenet of materialism. The assertion made by science that the earth existed prior to man is an objective truth. This proposition of natural science is incompatible with the philosophy of the Machians and with their doctrine of truth: if truth is an organising form of human experience, then the assertion that the earth exists outside human experience cannot be true.


But that is not all. If truth is only an organising form of human experience, then the teachings, say, of Catholicism are also true. For there is not the slightest doubt that Catholicism is an “organising form of human experience.” Bogdanov himself senses the crying falsity of his theory and it is extremely interesting to watch how he attempts to extricate himself from the swamp into which he has fallen.


“The basis of objectivity,” we read in Book I of Empirio-Monism, “must lie in the sphere of collective experience [emphasis added -redwinter]. We term those data of experience objective which have the same vital meaning for us and for other people, those data upon which not only we construct our activities without contradiction, but upon which, we are convinced, other people must also base themselves in order to avoid contradiction. The objective character of the physical world consists in the fact that it exists not for me personally, but for everybody [that is not true! It exists independently of “everybody”!], and has a definite meaning for everybody, the same, I am convinced, as for me. The objectivity of the physical series is its universal significance” (p. 25, Bogdanov’s italics). “The objectivity of the physical bodies we encounter in our experience is in the last analysis established by the mutual verification and coordination of the utterances of various people. In general, the physical world is socially-co-ordinated, socially-harmonised, in a word, socially-organised experience” (p. 36, Bogdanov’s italics).


We shall not repeat that this is a fundamentally untrue, idealist definition, that the physical world exists independently of humanity and of human experience, that the physical world existed at a time when no “sociality” and no “organisation” of human experience was possible, and so forth. We shall now on an exposure of the Machian philosophy from another aspect, namely, that objectivity is so defined that religious doctrines, ‘which undoubtedly possess a “universal significance”, and so forth, come under the definition. But listen to Bogdanov again: “We remind the reader once more that ‘objective’ experience is by no means the same as ‘social’ experience.... Social experience is far from being altogether socially organised and always contains various contradictions, so that certain of its parts do not agree with others. Sprites and hobgoblins may exist in the sphere of social experience of a given people or of a given group of people-for example, the peasantry; but they need not therefore be included under socially-organised or objective experience, for they do not harmonise with the rest of collective experience and do not fit in with its organising forms, for example, with the chain of causality” (45).

(http://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/two4.htm)

The point to draw from this passage in this case is that truth is not an organizing principle, even if you're organizing for revolution -- truth is not contingent on what class outlook you have. Plenty of people with a bourgeois or feudal class outlook have discovered important truths. 2+2=4 is not stamped with a class outlook. Before humans existed we know that certain things were true -- even before social classes existed -- what "class" does the truth that the earth revolves around the sun belong to? (Furthermore, if we go by this notion of "class truth": when we get to a communist classless society, does everything we know about the universe change because there's no "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie"?)


With the incorporation of Maoist philosophy, as well as deviation from that on several important subjects, and the new synthesis added on top of that, there are now significant deviations from the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism in the RCP. Now, it could be argued that several of the “heads” believed incorrect things, for example that homosexuality was a construct of bourgeois society—because they did not have access to the knowledge we have, and therefore it is essential from time to time to make a dialectical analysis of the situation. This is fine of course, because it is completely in line with Marxism.
However, the proponents of this argument overlook one essential fact: the belief that homosexuality was a bourgeois construct, or thinking that abortion should be limited to extreme cases are NOT integral parts of Marxism, whereas things like dialectical materialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are, and here my major concerns are revisions of basic doctrines such as that.
The RCP in its manifesto is arguing that dialectical materialism and particularly the dictatorship of the proletariat are integral to the science of communism. Where are the "revisions" you are writing about? If anything it's the forces in the international communist movement that they are polemicizing against that are "revising" these concepts.



This is pandering. Why even mention the “mistakes” of Stalin at all in your new synthesis? Do you mention the mistakes of Lenin? Mao? Bob Avakian himself? I don’t think so. The only mention of “mistakes” or “negative aspects” in the entire synthesis is on the subject of Stalin.
You don't think so? I'd recommend you read some more about the new synthesis....Conquer the World (http://revcom.us/bob_avakian/conquerworld/), On Epistemology...on Knowing, and Changing, the World (http://www.revcom.us/a/1262/avakian-epistemology.htm), Advancing the World Revolutionary Movement: Questions of Strategic Orientation (http://www.revcom.us/bob_avakian/advancingworldrevolution/advancingworldrevolution.htm)
I don't want to flood this with a bunch of links but maybe this can get you started if you think Avakian is only critiquing Stalin.



Maoist metaphysical analysis watershed. Apparently non-revisionist Marxism-Leninism is “mechanical” and the bourgeoisie has been magically transported into the Party. REVISIONISTS, not bourgeoisie, exist within the Party itself by infiltration either before or after revolution. They are not bourgeoisie because they do not receive capital from the labor of exploited employees. Bourgeois thought is not the same as being a “new bourgeoisie,” which seems to stem, again, from capitulation to the nonsense liberal theory of the Party becoming a “new oppressing class.” If revisionist thought were the same as being a new bourgeoisie then every worker in the U.S. would qualify as a member of the bourgeoisie.
As well, your assertion that Mao was the one who invented the theory of struggle within the party or even expanded on it is a crock. Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha all maintained that revisionists existed within the Party and purged them while Mao openly let capitalists inside the Party in terms of “correcting” their “incorrect” thoughts. Deng Xiaoping himself was purged several times and still let back in. Unfortunately it seems you now want to loosen Party discipline and not crack down on dissent and counterrevolution within the movement, which is the exact opposite thing we should be doing given the history.Once again, I'll refer back to the Manifesto (which I think people should really read before commenting on it):


Breaking once again with the “received wisdom” of the communist movement, Mao made the pathbreaking analysis that throughout the socialist period there would remain the material conditions that would pose the danger of defeat for the socialist revolution. Contradictions within the economic base, in the superstructure, and in the relation between base and superstructure of the socialist countries themselves, as well as the influence, pressure, and outright attacks from the remaining imperialist and reactionary states at any given time, would give rise to class differences and class struggle within a socialist country; these contradictions would constantly pose the possibility of society being led on either the socialist or the capitalist road, and more specifically would repeatedly regenerate an aspiring bourgeois class, within socialist society itself, which would find its most concentrated expression among those within the Communist Party, and particularly at its highest levels, who adopted revisionist lines and policies, which in the name of communism would actually accommodate to imperialism and lead things back to capitalism. Mao identified these revisionists as “people in authority taking the capitalist road,” and he pinpointed the struggle between communism and revisionism as the concentrated expression, in the superstructure, of the contradiction and struggle in socialist society between the socialist road and the capitalist road. Mao recognized, and emphasized, that so long as these material conditions and their ideological reflections existed, there could be no guarantee against the reversal of the revolution and the restoration of capitalism, no simple and easy means of preventing this, no solution other than to continue the revolution to restrict and finally, together with the advance of the revolution throughout the world, uproot and eliminate the social inequalities and other vestiges of capitalism that gave rise to this danger.
(http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)
and then another quote from an article celebrating the death of the capitalist-roader Deng Xiaoping:


The rise of people like Deng Xiaoping also revealed something that had not been understood before the time of Mao--that under socialism, a new bourgeois class arises and is headquartered right inside the Communist Party.


Not until Mao was it understood that antagonistic classes exist under socialism and that the era of socialism would be punctuated by sharp struggle and showdowns to determine which class holds state power. And one of Mao's theoretical discoveries was the understanding that the continuing inequalities in socialist society give rise to new privileged forces and a new bourgeois class-- whose core is right inside the party.
Why is this? Because the masses need a revolutionary vanguard party to lead the class struggle to change society. And under socialism, the party is the leading political institution in society and the main directing force of the economy. But exactly because of this, those in high positions of leadership who push a capitalist line are strategically placed to restructure economic and social institutions in a capitalist direction.


Mao developed the Cultural Revolution to deal with exactly this problem, by mobilizing the broad masses to expose, denounce, and overthrow capitalist roaders in the party.
Some people say, why didn't Mao just get rid of people like Deng Xiaoping? But Mao knew this wouldn't have solved the problem. He knew that if the masses don't learn to distinguish between the capitalist and socialist road, then you can knock off all the revisionists you want, but new ones will simply take their place, and nothing will have changed.


Mao said that the task of the GPCR was to overthrow the capitalist roaders. But the goal was to solve the problem of world outlook and eradicate revisionism.
The mass movements and mass debates of the GPCR were important exactly because they enabled the masses to grasp the critical issues at stake, especially the need to transform and master all aspects of society. The masses had to understand that they were the motive force in the whole revolutionary process, including supervising the party and preventing a return to capitalism. And through such political struggles and transformations, that the masses in their millions can become ever more conscious and ever more in control of society.

(http://revcom.us/a/firstvol/890-899/896/deng.htm)


And then I have to ask -- Stalin purged all the revisionists in the CPSU? Including Khrushchev and Zhukov and everyone else who led the coup against the socialist forces like Martov and Malenkov in the wake of Stalin's death? Unlike Mao who "let them in" as if you can prevent capitalist restoration by revoking party membership cards? It's not a question of "letting people in", there's a material basis for revisionism (if we're talking as dialectical materialists here) -- you seem to have an idealist notion of what revisionism is (similar to the lines of both Trotsky and Hoxha, actually). It's not just people getting corrupted, or infiltrating the party, or deposed bourgeois elements from the overthrown government...it's capitalist roaders struggling within the Communist Party who want to put the country on a different path, that through taking political power are able to exercise control over the country and institute changes in the superstructure that retard and reverse the active process of socialist transformation towards communism. Socialism isn't a static level -- it's always in transition, and it's either heading further towards communism or back to capitalism.