Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage

[redwinter]

[FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]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?[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]COMMUNISM: [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]A Manifesto from[/FONT][FONT=Arial]
[FONT=Arial]the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]September 2008 [/FONT][FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]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 [FONT=Arial]not[/FONT] 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 [FONT=Arial]not[/FONT] 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.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Read on…[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial](from http://www.revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Blurb from [FONT=Arial]Revolution:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]"[FONT=Arial]Revolutionary Communism at a Crossroads: Residue of the Past. . . or Vanguard of the Future?[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]This fall, the RCP,USA will issue a major statement, a manifesto for our times. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]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."[/FONT]

[Die Neue Zeit]

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

[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 "[FONT=Arial]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.
[/FONT]

[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, "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.p...3&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 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" 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:

[FONT=Verdana]"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.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]"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….[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]"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”….”[/FONT]

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:

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 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)

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. 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, 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 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.