Avakian Film Premiere: Same Old RCP=U$A

"Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About"
A film of a talk by Bob Avakian
2004

The premiere of this film was actually 2 hours of excerpts from the 11
hour film of two talks Bob Avakian did in the united $tates in 2003.  It is unlikely
that MIM will catch the full 11 hours anytime soon, so this is our take on
the premiere. Unfortunately, the most interesting topics were left out of
the premiere, judging by the titles of each chapter of the DVDs.

Bob Avakian is the Chairpersyn of the revisionist Revolutionary Communist
Party - USA (RCP=U$A), which claims to be the Maoist vanguard in the
united $tates. Over the years, MIM has written extensively to demonstrate
that the RCP=U$A is neither Maoist nor the vanguard of the international
proletariat anywhere. (1)

The bulk of the movie dealt with a cursory look at communism, the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the need for a vanguard party. If
you're not new to Marxism there is nothing new here and nothing too
controversial. He makes some good criticisms of the reactionaries, the
anarchists and those calling for ultrademocracy. Most sections dealing
with important historical questions and contemporary issues were left out
of the premiere, as were all of the audience questions. The last fifteen
minutes of the film is Avakian calling for people to build the RCP=U$A.

In addressing "Why it's neccessary," Avakian takes on the question of
voting and comes out against it. While we agree with the conclusion, this
analysis is one point where we see his distorted view of amerikans. He
brings up the fact that millions of people opposed the war in Iraq and yet
there were no candidates in 2002 that were taking that position. The other
day, anarchist historian Howard Zinn made the same point about this year's
presidential election. Zinn and Avakian both made statements in their
talks about how you can't win in an election. Avakian at least gets credit
for not turning around and calling for people to vote for John Kerry like
Zinn did. But both are making the false argument that the amerikan people
are not being represented in the national elections. Back in March of
2003, when Bush launched the recent invasion of Iraq, 70% of amerikans
supported the war. (2) And yet, Avakian and Zinn both use the pro-war
stances of all the candidates as evidence that they don't represent the
people. Even as support has slightly softened for the invasion of Iraq,
because of the armed struggle of the Iraqi people,
the fact remains that the united $tates is positioning itself to reap huge profits
from its new colony in the Middle East that will be seen in paychecks and
at the gas pumps across the united $tates--unless of course the Iraqi
people defeat the imperialists.

While explaining the contradictions that must be resolved during
socialism, Avakian brings up the question of manual versus mental labor.
He then justifies paying more for work which requires more education by
saying that a failure to account for that extra labor will cause your
economy to break down. He presumably got this idea from the correct
premise that it costs more to reproduce skilled laborers than unskilled
laborers because you must provide for the work that goes into educating
skilled labor. In a capitalist economy this is true for the proletariat.
But under socialism, this NEED to pay some laborers more is more of a
social relic not an economic law. When society can invest in education for
itself as needed, the individual will no longer require extra pay because
they took time to get an education unless that is the only way to motivate
them to work. This motivational factor is a relic of capitalist society
that has been prevalent among the educated petty bourgeoisie in socialist
societies.

[mim3@mim.org interjects: On a factual level, MIM has also pointed out that
unskilled workers in the united $tates earn more than skilled laborers
in India. The capitalists face no breakdown in the economy from hiring
Indian workers, which is to say that reproduction of the capitalist
economy can occur in the real world as it exists without paying
u.$.-standard wages. The breakdown and inevitable
economic crisis (not to mention environmental meltdown) 
comes as the imperialists hire more and more
unproductive sector laborers in the united $tates and similar countries.]

The second issue that Avakian ignores in his call for higher pay for those
with more education is that amerikans attend overpriced institutions that
usually do little to increase the skills necessary for production. Most
amerikan college students are destined to petty bourgeois and labor
aristocratic positions in society that are overpaid, often unnecessary and
rarely productive.(3) The context of this discussion makes his argument
even more faulty.

Most of the premiere version of "Revolution" focuses on amerikan society
in a very narrow way. Unfortunately, the international questions are cut
from this version, leaving an even more ameriko-centric version of
Avakian. But in this movie he never addresses the second question; "Why
it's possible." He continues to build the idea that the RCP=U$A has held
over the years that there is a latent revolutionary majority in the united
$tates. There is no mention of struggles in the Third World and their role
in the overthrow of imperialism in this movie. It focuses solely on
amerikan society.

Avakian stresses the degrading roles that work and school play in peoples'
lives in capitalist society. As a true populist, he rallies the privileged
around their discontent while ignoring the question of exploitation. He
does not address super-profits or the distribution of the wealth under
imperialism, therefore forgoing any claims to being an internationalist.
Rather he addresses the amerikan audience by saying, "our class, the
proletariat."

Since its inception, MIM has stressed with the RCP=U$A, and others, that
amerikan people are not exploited, but rather benefit from imperialism. In
response, the RCP=U$A has made it clear that it is fighting for the
interests of the majority of amerikans, while claiming to be part of the
struggle of the majority of the world. We at MIM say that the two are
irreconcilable. If you are fighting for more super-profits from
imperialism you can not be fighting against imperialist exploitation
around the world.

Notes:
(1) For extensive reviews of the RCP=U$A, check out our Crypto-Trotskyist
page of "What's Your Line?" at
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/wyl/crypto.html
(2) http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/iraq/antiwarpolls.html
(3) Here we use "productive" in the Marxist sense of directly producing
goods for society that contain surplus-value. The original meaning of 
"productive sector" was close to "necessary commodities sector," but Marx
synthesized that understanding to connect it to his theory of surplus-value.