My advice is to stay as far away from these freak as possible.
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I'm new to this board so I'm sorry if this topic has been discussed a million times already but I am curious about a number of things concerning these two groups:
1) What are your feelings and thoughts on these two groups, the Maoist Internationalist Movement and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. Are they serious about trying to bring about a revolution in the US? How effective are their tactics?
2) What are the theoretical differences between these two groups?
3) The RCP, USA claims to be part of an international (con)federation of Maoist parties called RIM- the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. Is the RIM engaged in anything more than appearing on a website together? What are your feelings about RIM?
4) Apparently the MIM was once a part of a group also called RIM, but changed their name after the RCP took up the acronym. The MIM group has its own internationalist group called Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. What is the deal with that and what is the RAIL doing to bring about a revolutionary transformation?
5)MIM seems to be constantly railing (pun intended) against what they call "crypto-Trotskyists," which they also accuse the RCP of being guilty of. What specifically are they talking about? What characteristics are they trying to describe when they refer to crypto-Trotskyism?
6) If the RCP and MIM are both serious about bring about a Marxist Leninist Maoist tranformation, why do they not link up. It is obvious that sectarianism weakens the movement?
7) Are there any other Communist organizations in the US that I should look into? Just how influential are the RCP and MIM in the Communist movements in the US?
Sorry, that was a rather large question...
DocBenway
My advice is to stay as far away from these freak as possible.
Here is a acticle from one of are member RedStar2000 about the MIM
http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.ph...rt_from=&ucat=&
So many times that I can't even remember the name of the dead horse we've been flogging.
I think they think they are serious, but I don't see either organization having any kind of effective strategy or tactics. The RCP really has no strategy for building a revolutionary movement, apart from getting everyone to follow Bob Avakian's ideas. And the MIMmites seem to have no problem with the "One Big Gulag" solution for the U.S.
Well, I think the main difference is that the RCP believes there is a proletariat in the U.S. and the MIMmites do not. Beyond that, they should define themselves.
Well, given the the CoRIM also includes the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Communist Party of Peru, both of which are still engaged in "People's Wars" in their respective countries, I think they're engaged in more than just Internet work.
RAIL is part front group, part youth group. It's basically the MIMmites and their close contacts, and has no independent existence.
Anything the MIMmites disagree with often ends up being called "crypto-Trotskyism" by them. I think that, in the case of the RCP, it is the fact that they accept that there is a working class in the U.S. is what makes them guilty of "crypto-Trotskyism".
Because it's about egos on both sides. The RCP has "Chairman Bob"; the MIMmites have "MC5" (I'm not kidding!
Depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for Maoist groups, your choices are rather limited.
Feh. No problem.
Miles
The RCP seems like its serious about wanting to bring a revolution, I guess. The MIM does not, from what I understand MIM is like 5 middle class white dudes sitting on a computer all day or something. The RCP's tactics seems to be to try and build popular movements with other non-radical lefties, i.e. they had a large part in creating World Can't Wait, Not In Our Name etc. which are pretty effective anti-war groups but aren't revolutionary at all. From what I've seen, the MIM's tactics consist of 1. producing some kind of radio program 2. attacking every other leftist of being a crypto-Trotskyist.
Well, I'm not a Maoist so maybe someone who is can go into the finer points of their ideological divergence. I do know that MIM tends to look at the world as one big class hierarchy, free of national and economic boundaries, and thus considers most white American (and first-world) workers to be "bourgeois" even if they sell their labor and what not. Which is something I haven't seen the RCP extol.
Other people can answer this better than me. From what I understand however, the Maoist guerillas in Nepal that are close to taking power are members of RIM as well. Whether or not there is coordination between the RCP and the Nepalese Maoists, I have zero clue, but at the very least RIM is actually relevant in other parts of the world I guess.
No idea, my guess would be, not much....
Of being left of them I guess? I think they disagree with the Trotskyist ideas of worldwide revolution being necessary, of mass uprising vs. armed guerillas, etc. It's one of those terms that can be applied to anyone they hate I guess and is left ambiguous enough that its impossible to defend oneself or something, if one wanted to I guess. I myself am a proud open-Trotskyist.
Probably cause they have "irreconcilable (theoretical) differences" :-P. Also MIM seems to be uber-sectarian and hates everyone. They seem to be to Maoism what the Spartacist League are to Trotskyism.
Do you consider yourself a Maoist? If so, then RCP is, I beleive, the biggest Maoist group in the US, so I guess thats your best bet. If you are not a Maoist, then yes, there are like several dozen Commie groups you might wanna look into, lol...
Which failed; I went to jail at the age of 15
A young buck selling drugs and such who never had much
Trying to get a clutch at what I could not... could not...
The court played me short, now I face incarceration
Pacing -- going upstate's my destination
Handcuffed in back of a bus, forty of us
Life as a shorty shouldn't be so rough
But as the world turned I learned life is hell
Living in the world no different from a cell
-Wu-Tang Clan "CREAM"
I could be wrong, but I thought it was because the RCP advocates the need for revolutions in the third world to eventually be extended to the first world.
"Getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't." - Harvey Pekar
May they both be destroyed in our near future. ^_^
::: Formerly DJ-TC ::: IWA-AIT :::
Провери обим злонамере непријатеља
и његову снагу о кремени брид своје. — Oskar Davičo
I'm not exactly looking foward to a Leninist party despotism under Bob Avakian; any hope for true revolution is only possible when these Leninist parties die out. Fortunately that isn't too far into the future.
We are not afraid of ruins. Workers built the palaces and cities of Spain and America. We can do it again. The bourgeoisie can destroy their world before abandoning history's stage but we have a new world in our hearts......a world that is growing every moment. It's growing while I talk to you.
You only get what you're Organized to take.
Whenever I see a topic come up on the Maoist groups I can't help but think of that Monty Python flick, "Life of Brian".
"Yeah, down with the Judean People's Front!"
"I thought we were the Judean People's Front?"
"No, idiot, we're the People's Front of Judea!"
Something like that anyway...
I'm not going to answer all your questions, but here's my short $.02:
Both the MIM and RCP are focused on "soft" activism, that is spreading message through publishing and the internet. The RCP initally got the ball rolling on the World Can't Wait marches, but leftists shouldn't give them too much credit. It was encouraging to see it come together, but most of the legwork was done by "non-communists".
If you're into sitting around and beating your head against a wall and *****ing over technicalities, then by all means, check out the Maoist route. In the meantime, I'll be over here trying like hell to get the stench these assholes have left off our Movement.
You could always ask MIM members and ask about the MIM at this forum http://irtr.org/
The spiritual atom bomb which the revolutionary people possess is a far more powerful and useful weapon than the physical atom bomb. - Lin Biao
Our code of morals is our revolution. What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice
- Dr. George Habash, founder of the PFLP.
Sweet Jesus
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido
LOL. I actually would be able to overlook the petty attempt to escape discrimination through language if the ideas were there. But please, most women in the first world are actually "men"? and are gender oppressors? .......
Which failed; I went to jail at the age of 15
A young buck selling drugs and such who never had much
Trying to get a clutch at what I could not... could not...
The court played me short, now I face incarceration
Pacing -- going upstate's my destination
Handcuffed in back of a bus, forty of us
Life as a shorty shouldn't be so rough
But as the world turned I learned life is hell
Living in the world no different from a cell
-Wu-Tang Clan "CREAM"
I highly disapprove of the Bob Avakian's Trotskyist tendencies as well as RedStar2000's petit-bourgeois outlook. Both of them are phony Communists who are to be harshly condemned for their sabotage of the revolutionary movement. Just observe the following comment by RedStar:
Here he falsely suggests that the proletariat of the German Democratic Republic approved of the annexation by NATO's occupied zone of Germany. In reality, much of eastern Germany today is in despair. Unemployment and poverty are rife. Just because a few hundred thousand people are emphasised by the bourgeois media, it does not necessarily render such demonstrations as being massive in that the whole of the population is supportive. It would be safe to say that the majority of those in the GDR would like for their socialist fatherland to be re-established. Redstar is a bourgeois social democrat if I've ever seen one. His first-world chauvinism is particularly offensive.
In concern to MIM, I can connect with their opposition to Trotskyism. However, I've always perceived Maoism to have petit-bourgeois tendencies in nationalism and anarchism. Maoism, manifested by the 1968 French revolution, seems to be disconnected from the proletariat. The Maoist movement seems to be composed of immature sectors of the university campuses meaning that it is ultra-bourgeois.
<<1) What are your feelings and thoughts on these two groups, the Maoist Internationalist Movement and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. Are they serious about trying to bring about a revolution in the US? How effective are their tactics?>>
Feelings and thoughts? RCP are middle class students, glorified activists. They are falling into the same traps that the movement fell into in the 60s and 70s (becoming nothing more than leftist anti-war groups), only they don't have the level of support or power. They have no links with the working class, no union involvement, not much really. Asthetically their paper is quite nice though.
The MIM are fucking freaks. I try to limit my vulgarity when on this board, if you met me in person you'd see that I swear a hell of a lot, but there is few other ways to describe the MIM. Their conclusions are based on a whole lot of fatally flawed assumptions, their international critiques are incredibly flawed (due to ignorance, mainly), their inability to spell properly makes me laugh (as most of their explinations do not stack up with the realities of the origins of the word) as well as their overwhelming arrogance. I'd say the MIM is around 15 students in a couple of cities in the US of A. I'd put money on them having no contact with any of the Maoist revolutionaries that they support so much, in addition said parties are unlikely to support most of the things that they say.
Serious about bringing a revolution in the US? I'd say the RCP are serious, but have a snowballs chance in hell. The MIM say that a revolution in the USA is impossible. Both parties tactics are awful.
<<2) What are the theoretical differences between these two groups?>>
The RCP are essentially watered down '70s American Maoists, that is to say fairly Orthodox. They have taken on board some stuff written by the Communist Party of Peru, they were major supporters and campaigners for the Peruvian revolution in the US, but that has been largely dropped. However they do believe that there is a Proletariat in the USA, while the MIM does not. They believe that around 80% of teh USA (i.e. all the whites) are a 'labour aristocracy' who are parasites living off the profits produced by the workers in the 'third world', which has not real basis in reality.
<3) The RCP, USA claims to be part of an international (con)federation of Maoist parties called RIM- the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. Is the RIM engaged in anything more than appearing on a website together? What are your feelings about RIM?>>
The main function of RIM, as far as I can see, is to keep people in various countries on the ball with what is happening in various countries. Obviously there isn't a whole lot of reporting done of the Nepalese revolution and most of it is very bias, so RIM keeps people up to date. Behind the scenes money may flow, but I don't think you could say anything definately.
<<4) Apparently the MIM was once a part of a group also called RIM, but changed their name after the RCP took up the acronym. The MIM group has its own internationalist group called Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. What is the deal with that and what is the RAIL doing to bring about a revolutionary transformation???
MIM used to be called RIM, but the second RIM stole their name, somthing they're awfully bitter about. I find this incredibly funny. RAIL does nothing.
<<5)MIM seems to be constantly railing (pun intended) against what they call "crypto-Trotskyists," which they also accuse the RCP of being guilty of. What specifically are they talking about? What characteristics are they trying to describe when they refer to crypto-Trotskyism?>>
Anything and anyone that they don't like. I can't say I'm a big fan of the RCP, but Crypto-Trotskite? Oh come on...
<<6) If the RCP and MIM are both serious about bring about a Marxist Leninist Maoist tranformation, why do they not link up. It is obvious that sectarianism weakens the movement?>>
Very, very old bad blood going back to when they were bothf airly orthodox Maoist parties. Now they have unbridgable ideological, tactical and membership divisions. Plus MIM hates everyone and the RCP have a cult like worship of Bobby Avakin, the most overrated American Marxist thinker in recent history. Actually most Amercan Marxist thinkers have been fairly useless with a couple of exceptions, but that's beside the point.
<<7) Are there any other Communist organizations in the US that I should look into? Just how influential are the RCP and MIM in the Communist movements in the US?>>
The Progressive Labour Party (http://www.plp.org) and the Industrial Workers of the World (http://www.iww.org) would be my personal suggestions. The Freedom Road Socialist Organisation [Freedom Road] (NOT [Fight Back]) Look to be quite interesting in their proposals of rejection Marxist-Leninism as a narrow and dogmatic term and trying to achive what they have termed 'left refoundation' (http://freedomroad.org)
"In reality, the difference is, that the savage lives within himself while social man lives outside himself and can only live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the feeling of his own existence only from the judgement of others concerning him."- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.”- Flora Tristan
"Both those on the East and those on the West should be clear with the fact that we are not moving away from our road that we beat the path for in '48. That is to say, that we have our own ways. We always bravely say what is right on this side and what is not, and what is right on the other side, and what is not. It should be clear to everyone that we cannot be an appendage to anybody's politics, that we have our own point of view and that we know the worth of what is right, and what is not right."- Josip Tito
The MIM is 100 times crazier than the RCP, and have 100 times fewer members.
I have suspicions about MIM being a government infiltrated organization.
If you are a Maoist, I recommend the RCP over the MIM. I can actually have a conversation with an RCPer (I'm a trotskyist) without being called all kinds of names.
I forget who said it, but s/he really hit the head on the nail with it. "MIM is batshit insane".
Unfortunatly I agree with everything thats been said here (Especally the Monty Python comparason, and the statement "the MIM is batshit insane").
My (limited) personal experiences with both organisations led me to the same conclusions that so many here have already expressed: The RCP is an Avakianist cult, and the MIM is most likely 10-15 middle class American white kids (Its funny: before we heard anyone make this statement a friend of mine and myself came to this exact conclusion over the phone, LOL!
If your comparing just them though, the RCP wins hands down. While I can honestly say that 9 out of 10 RCPers I meet call me a cocksucker (and if I meet them online, block me) if I disagree with something Avakian says, they actually have some decent members here and there, and you can actually find some good things they've assisted with (the WCW for example). The MIM... well, their just batshit insane :P
Dunno. With their security? Doubt it. Unless they were government from the start, like the "Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands". For more info on that:
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffa...0canl?version=1
In either case, I wouldn't really see the point of the government bothering with that, because no sane person would join MIM. Hell, it would be funny if somebody did try to join them.
New guy: Hey, I'd like to join your party.
MIMite: OMG! $omon actually trid to join! Di, ou fa$ci$t pig infiltrAItor of th "unitd" $naKKK$ of gnriKKKa!!!
*gunshot*
Has a MIM member ever actually been spotted on the internet? I've seen tons of people advertising IRTR, but not because they're "official MIM spokespersyns", they just happen to agree with them.
Do they actually physically participate in any actions? I kind of have the feeling that the only actions performed by "members" would go like this:
MIMite walks around on his college campus. He looks around suspiciously, making sure nobody is watching. Then he quickly takes out a copy of MIMNotes, puts it on the table, and walks away. Another victory in the great struggle of MIM.
What's the matter Lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?
That might be true now...but says nothing about the visible enthusiasm at the time of re-unification.
Especially when West Germany agreed to pay East Germans Deutsch Marks in a ratio of 1:1 for their old East German currency.
Denying what actually happened is not a "good sign" for anyone who aspires to be a Marxist.
Get in line, guy.
Or just head on over to MIM...I suspect you'll feel "right at home".
Listen to the worm of doubt for it speaks truth.
The Redstar2000 Papers
Also see this NEW SITE:@nti-dialectics
When I saw the thread title, for some reason I had this mental image of 3 MIMites and 3 RCPers fighting a no-holds-barred Rage In A Cage match
That actually wouldn't be a bad idea, come to think of it. Who would win? the pious disciples of St Avakian or the foaming at the mouth MIMites?
My money would be on the nutters :P
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It is good that you recognize the issue of the labor aristocracy and also the importance of fighting first world chauvinism. I am not sure what Maoists you could be referring to. Maoists in the u$ go for the lumpen, especially oppressed nations people, migrants, prisoners, and so on. There is a specific focus on prisoners in MIM's paper. Questions about MIM's views should be addressed to MIM though.
