Eight-legged messaging: Against inefficient talk, backslapping chatter and hand-holding micro-management
April 11, 2001
A recent Dilbert cartoon--the cartoon strip about white-collar work in Amerikkka--shows a manager asking Dilbert to make a one-minute phone call for the manager and the manager spending five minutes explaining how to do it. For this Dilbert rightly criticized the manager.
It is this comrade's observation that we in MIM circles have this going on as well. We've made a lot of progress in all these areas over the years, including progress in knowing what ultra-democracy and subjectivism is to begin with, but we still have this problem. To obtain that progress there had to be "meta-discussions," discussions about discussions and why such discussions arise, but that should now be going on in RAIL Congress, not within the party.
It is especially galling to see people spending more time talking about doing things than actually doing them. As an example, I recently volunteered for a task, making a speech. I received nine messages about this once I volunteered outside of my usual ministries (bureaucratic turf). As it turns out not one message had the place where I was to make the speech in it. At most I could see getting two messages total about this, one for the event and one for the speech if someone else was writing it. When I complained, I was told in Maoist fashion I hadn't "done enough investigation."
When someone receives nine messages on a subject, it becomes necessary to conduct an investigation just to give a speech; however, the problem is not the lack of investigation but the reason why there has to be an investigation in the first place. If I am in touch with merely 100 masses and they each have five actions in a year they contact me about and each sends me 9 messages about the one action, that will be 4500 messages. If they are scattered over weeks, then I will have to "investigate" to know what is going on. (In actual fact, I have 2444 messages in 21 months in covert email accounts, not counting short ones, messages archived elsewhere and the ones I decided not to handle or security risks (PGPs) that I threw out. That is also excluding my public message accounts.) Of course, we should be talking to 1000 masses a piece. People who do not accept the leadership principle, spread false egalitarianism, whine for self-esteem massages--such people cannot be serious about having contact with the masses. How can we possibly be in touch with thousands of masses if we allow eight-legged messaging? The less professionalism, leadership, routine and foresight we employ, the less possible it becomes to be in touch with the masses.
Mao referred to the evil of intellectuals recently converted to the party who wrote "eight-legged essays" in deference to their own classical Chinese training. Fittingly enough in the Amerika of non-theory, we do not have eight-legged essays, but we have eight messages about the same non-theoretical thing--eight-legged messaging, which is kin to eight-legged meeting discussion. Then ironically, in some cases, if you do not send the requisite eight messages on the same subject, some people feel they were not consulted and complain ultra-democratically, lose enthusiasm and fail to carry out their project.
I can identify the roots of inefficient communication in the following areas:
1) Failure to grasp the leadership principle. (See accompanying Congress resolutions.)
The more people abandon the leadership principle, the more they will find themselves discussing small things in advance of action.
Unlike Dilbert's boss, most people in MIM circles are not just clueless parasitic time-wasters. Rather while parasitism is there in the background influencing the party's thought profoundly in an unfavorable direction, the problem stems from ultra-democracy and false egalitarianism.
"False egalitarianism" says that everyone is equal. It is also similar to believing all of us are the same or have nothing to do. It is false to believe that the party benefits by having everyone equally involved and interested in the same things. In fact the best leaders go forward with their work self-sufficiently. These leaders have their own reward, like the old adage "truth is its own reward."
2) Lowest common denominatorism: right opportunism When people fail to seize leadership roles in their domains, leaders will tend mistakenly to break projects into small pieces, like the one minute phone call. The failure to accept the leadership principle and the evasion by MIM leaders of people who do so is wrong on both counts. If there is a problem in recognizing leadership, breaking it into one-minute phone calls is not a solution. The question is how not to squash leadership when it arises and to encourage people to throw aside their bourgeois democratic and ultra-democratic prejudices about leadership.
Lowest common denominatorism is a holdover of ultra-democracy and right opportunism. If there are three people and two are busy for the best of reasons but they oppose an action that could be carried out by a third who raised the question, it is saying that the lack of time or energy by the two should squash the third. This is how lowest-common denominatorism works. People who have the energy should take leadership roles. If possible, the best roles are regular bureaucratic roles that do not require constant management from above. However, if a comrade finds him or herself with energy or time to do something or finds masses in the same situation, it is important to buck the tide, raise the blood pressure of the other comrades, and see to it that your initiative is not squelched by the genuine overwork or low ideological level of others. In this context, the one outvotes the two--every time; hence if the one wants to do something, s/he can do so, and in the best of circumstances do so without involving others and by fitting the work into the larger revolutionary enterprise. Such applies to work not being done at all that a comrade sees needs doing and knows how to do without committing other comrades to it. It is not desirable to start a new project that will mean someone else in the party has to bat "clean-up." The party has a desperate leadership shortage.
At all times we must remember that our class does not have a shortage of energy or time. Only individuals do. If we mismanage the revolution, we will never tap the energy of the class.
3) Failure to look forward Sometimes it is entirely predictable what people need and what will cause a project to get bogged down. Yet leadership fails to look forward. When no one has an eye on getting to the final goal as quickly as possible, it will break down into smaller and longer parts by entropy.
4) Disdain for theory and general line. People who would rather talk about what side to staple the leaflet are also contributors to this problem. People who want to consult repeatedly over small things are dodging the larger issues they should be wrangling over. This is a surefire road to revisionism and outright reformism. Grasping how revolution fits together and solves problems is not something that can be seen just from stapling leaflets.
5) Subjectivist, self-congratulatory back-slapping. People seeking a parasitic life of comfort evade stress over major issues by talking about small ones over and over again. (Imagine how it was in Earl Browder's Politburo when three dozen comrades voted for dissolution of the party without a whimper--and went off to their liquidationist futures.)
In the subjectivist back-slapping vein, numerous people have to be informed that someone is stapling leaflets or the leaflets won't be stapled for lack of self-esteem raising by comrades. MIM comrades are supposed to be in the movement for their own reasons. They are not here for the approval of their comrades. They are under obligation to say 2+2=4 if no other comrade approves (and to figure out when they mistakenly said 2+2=3). Comrades demanding the approval of others and their time to participate in what they are doing drag down the movement.
We don't want to spend time congratulating each other--and here we refer to in advance of a project's being done, talking about doing something or talking about talking about doing something. Meetings, email discussions etc. should not be mutual self-esteem raising sessions. People who need such sessions or refuse to do their work or sabotage work need to be dealt with politically on this point, not later in the details. Otherwise, we find ourselves having eternal and repeated conversations about details which all have in common the fact that they would not have been necessary had comrades taken the proper leadership role and had carried out their communist activity without gaining approval in discussions first.
Let the backslapping happen after work gets done, especially the downfall of U.$. imperialism and the advent of communism. Maoism has saved a nine digit figure of lives in the last three generations. Understanding Maoism scientifically is more important than understanding the difference between chicken-soup and HIV drugs. We do not gloss over it or save anyone from uncomfortable thoughts anymore than we do not mind telling people how they get HIV. People who do not have the stomach to tell patients of whatever beliefs that they are wrong if they think HIV is not spread by sexual contact (including not just same-sex contact)--such people are analogous to people evading Maoism as a science. Right opportunists would fail to tell some of their patients the truth about sexual and blood contact for fear of offending them.
If people are unsure of themselves, and that is why they seek approval from others, that is the question that needs to be dealt with. We should not alter our leadership and organizational principles to accommodate the lack of struggle over ideological questions. Leadership will definitely be making a mistake if to accomplish work in the short-run it compromises the means necessary for mobilizing the whole class. Even for the individual it is better to take the time out to carry out action on a correct basis, rather than to bury problems. Hence, leaders should not give in to self-esteem sessions or micro-management. The trick is to set up comrades to be self-sufficient and happy in their work routines, and not to have repeated discussion of each item of work to be completed. When action comes fast and furiously and when the masses are in contact with our leaders, our leaders will not need to be told why eight-legged messaging is no good. Instead, these leaders will also see why everyone needs to have such leadership roles, because of the large number of masses that need leadership and tasks that need to be done.
Contact MIM by writing mim@mim.org