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Avakian's Conquer the World part
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[From Bob
Avakian's Conquer the World @
rwor.org/bob_avakian/conquerworld/]
V. Some
Questions Related to the Line and Work of Our Party and
Our Special Internationalist
Responsibilities.
First of all, a point on how to
evaluate the battles around May 1st, the Revolutionary
Worker and internationalism (internationalism on the one
hand is an integral part of our overall work, certainly
of May 1st and the Revolutionary Worker but, on the
other hand, it is a key focus in its own right as well).
I would like to make an analogy to the Great Leap
Forward in China which also had its 3 banners of the
Great Leap Forward, the people’s communes and the
general line for moving socialism forward. This is not
an exact comparison and I don’t want to encourage
mechanical thinking, metaphysics, forcing analogies,
cutting the toes to fit the shoes, and so on, but I’m
still going to make the analogy which is that in a
certain sense we also had our 3 banners: May 1st, the
Revolutionary Worker and internationalism. And to be
clear about it, my impression is that there’s a lot of
struggle still going on about: “did we really make
leaps?” just like in China— “was there really a Great
Leap Forward or was it a fiasco?” (Mao made the point in
the middle of the struggle over the Great Leap Forward
that Chin Shih Huang built the Great Wall in China and
then he was overthrown, and now we’ve had the Great Leap
Forward, are they going to overthrow us for that
too?)
It seems to me that there’s a question of
how to evaluate these things and I think you can look at
it this way. Mao talked about all the excesses and
problems of the Great Leap Forward and how everything
didn’t work out the way that the revolutionaries were
struggling to make it work out: a lot of the advances
couldn’t be kept on the level they were, some couldn’t
be consolidated at all, to take just one example, a lot
of the canteens which they were trying to use to push
things forward to more socialized forms of distribution
collapsed and couldn’t be maintained. Mao said, for
example, I thought that steel could walk by itself, I
forgot about the problem of transport, getting so
carried away with trying to produce so many tons of
steel. But the important thing, he said, was that the
masses were mobilized and their political consciousness
and activity was aroused and raised.47 Drawing the
analogy we’re all familiar with of the Paris Commune,
saying that Marx thought the Commune would be good, even
if it only lasted a short period of time because it was
the first proletarian dictatorship, Mao remarked that if
you assess it from an economic standpoint the Commune
wasn’t worthwhile either.
The way I feel about
it, we set out with the basic target in 1980 to have
10,000 people, mainly from the working class, out there
leaving work, rallying and demonstrating on May 1st and
making that kind of impact on the country and the world.
And we fell short in a quantitative sense of that goal.
We set out after that, in trying to go forward from
there, to expand distribution of the Revolutionary
Worker on a regular basis to 100,000 weekly and it
appears now that we’re falling short of that and we have
to consolidate on a lower level. And, we set out to make
internationalism a clear line and standard in the
movement, and I can’t think of too much bad to say about
that, we haven’t done so badly at that, it seems,
although there are still some backward forces who think
we should talk about petty reforms or maybe
psychological space and other equivalent
problems.
But let’s take the question of May 1st
and the RW. On the one hand, we set out to reach this
May 1st target quantitatively at 10,000 and there is an
interpenetration with quality. We didn’t succeed in that
goal of 10,000, but we did succeed in making May 1st a
big social question inside the proletariat in the U.S.,
even with international implications, not just among the
left “movement,” many of whom tried to ignore it or
slander it, but especially among a good section of the
masses, especially in the more advanced masses in the
U.S. We did succeed in making that a big social question
and in making a big impact politically on that day and
then again the next year on May 1st. And we succeeded so
well that we actually have a tactical problem, because
this coming year May 1st falls on a Saturday and we
don’t know what to do. In a certain funny way that’s a
measure of whether or not and to what degree and how in
fact we did make an advance. And May 1st is a big social
question, especially in the more solid social base for a
proletarian revolutionary internationalist line; it’s
something that already, I’m sure, people are looking
forward to and increasingly will be; it’s become a day
where the question of revolution is put center stage,
not literally in the majority of people’s thinking, but
on the minds of large numbers of people and with an
impact on even still broader numbers.
In terms of
the RW, we didn’t succeed apparently in being able to
consolidate on the level of 100,000. It is sort of like
Mao with the steel: we went out there and put it out
boldly to the masses and put the newspapers literally on
the street and called the masses forward to take them,
and there were inspiring examples over and over again of
that happening. But, you know, like Mao said, he forgot
that steel couldn’t walk and apparently we forgot that
papers don’t pay for themselves. So we ran into some
problems where we weren’t able to consolidate on that
level and maintain the distribution on that level, but
we are going to be able to come out of it with a real
leap quantitatively and, more than that, qualitatively.
First off, the Revolutionary Worker and the whole
central task has taken a qualitative leap in terms of
our own grasp and application of it. And secondly the
whole trend as concentrated around the newspaper and as
represented by the Party has become a much broader
force, a material and ideological force among growing
numbers of the masses. If before, the central task was
much less grasped and very much more unevenly applied,
through the whole struggle, including the 100 Flowers
campaign, it certainly is true in a qualitatively
greater sense that the central task and the work around
the newspaper and the whole line it represents have
become much more a real force, both in terms of our own
grasp and application and in terms of its impact among
the masses. [The “100 Flowers campaign” refers to a
debate in the pages of the Revolutionary Worker in 1980
over the central task and, in particular, the role of
the newspaper.]
Similarly with internationalism.
We have actually made internationalism a question
throughout the U.S. and with an impact throughout the
world; literally with no exaggeration it is an
inspiration to people from all over the world that right
in the heart of the U.S. there is an internationalist
force. We made internationalism a decisive question, a
question taken up by people who come into struggle
around particular questions or issues, and a question to
which generally broader forces, including in the
“movement,” have to respond or have to deal with. So I
feel that we can find a narrow basis for assessing these
things and saying they weren’t worthwhile, but from any
Marxist-Leninist standpoint, from any view of correctly
assessing our overall goal, these were not only
worthwhile but were indeed real important qualitative
leaps that have to be built off.
Just to go back
to the last point about internationalism and the full
point about how the newspaper and the central task have
taken a qualitative leap in theory and in practice, I
think that the trend, as represented by our Party and as
concentrated in the newspaper, has become a real
political trend in the U.S. (from everything I can
gather) and that’s a growing thing, it’s not just a
flash in the pan. Now I would like to say that I think
we should sharply contrast our trend not only to
straight up bourgeois politics, but also, rather than
simply contesting the phony communists and saying
“they’re not communists, we’re real communists,” we
should to a certain degree and in a certain context, let
the revisionists have the “communist” banner. And what
we should say is, “yes, there are different tendencies:
there’s the socialists and the social democrats, some of
them are in power in different countries, you can see
what they do, they’re more or less a straight up
bourgeois trend; then there’s the communists, that is,
the revisionists, they’re in power in some countries
too, and in other countries they want to be in power on
the same basis, you can see what they’re about; and then
there’s our trend, which is the revolutionary
communist/proletarian internationalist trend.” I say
this not at all facetiously.
To a certain degree
the revisionists have the banner of communism—well, to a
certain degree and only to a certain degree, we should
say “yes, there’s the social democrats and the
socialists, there’s the communists, (that is the
revisionists), and there’s the revolutionary
communist/proletarian internationalists,” and push that
trend out and make it even more of a force in that kind
of way. Because that in a certain sense is breaking more
out of doing this all within a more narrow context, and
seeing the question of that trend becoming a big trend
and an actual pole around which will gravitate and rally
the advanced forces who are taking up revolution and
internationalism more consciously. That’s just something
to think about…
I want to go back to this
question of the Party and put it in the context, in
particular, of the central task and then move on to
conclude. The central task as we know is encapsulated in
the formulation, Create Public Opinion… Seize Power.
There’s a question of how to view this in its broadest
implications: What do you mean by a task, in particular
a central task, and what’s its relationship to other
tasks? The way I look at it, central task, in the sense
that we’re using it, is something which has to be viewed
in an overall way and it’s something which comprehends
all of the work that’s carried out in that entire
process of Create Public Opinion… Seize Power.
In
other words, to me the central task is not creating
public opinion now and then, (tomorrow or at some point)
we will be seizing power. Nor can the central task be
reduced to the work around the newspaper as the main
weapon that we’re using now. The central task is
precisely a process (or corresponds to a process) which
encompasses all the work we have to carry out in
creating public opinion and seizing power—which, at
different times and in different circumstances, finds
more or less emphasis on different aspects of it, and
includes a number of more specific tasks. Another way
that we put this is: “preparing minds and organizing
forces,” which, should be pointed out, we consciously
reversed from—and I hope genuinely rendered somewhat
more profound—Lenin’s formulation in an article where he
talked about organizing forces and preparing minds. We
put the two in the opposite relationship, preparing
minds and organizing forces, which is more in line with
Create Public Opinion...Seize Power. But viewing the
central task in this way enables us to grasp more firmly
and deeply the role and the importance of party
building.
I see party building as being in very
close dialectical interpenetration with the overall
orientation, the importance of which I’ve come to see
even more deeply, of what I’ve formulated as “taking
responsibility for the movement as a whole,” that is,
for the overall task of building a revolutionary
movement. This has been a strength of ours historically,
going back even to the Revolutionary Union before the
Party was formed, a strength that not even the
Mensheviks, and the conditions that made their influence
grow in strength, were able to extinguish, though they
were certainly able to suffocate and smother it to a
significant degree.
To stress the importance of
party building and to give it the kind of emphasis that
unfortunately it has not been given—certainly not
consistently—in our own understanding and in our own
work, it must be said that Party building is not only a
key part of the preparation of revolution; to put it
another way, if you want to talk about preparing minds
and organizing forces, it is the key part of organizing
forces. The question need only be asked to answer
itself: how clearly and how consistently have we grasped
that and acted upon it as an organization
overall?
This is very much linked in my mind to
the question of what a revolutionary situation looks
like in terms of its complexity and the diversity of the
forces involved—the kinds of things we’ve been trying to
stress and that are spelled out, or at least spoken to,
in the Programme. Take the problems that were posed for
the Marxist-Leninist movement in Iran with the upsurge
and then the overthrow of the Shah, and the aftermath of
that down to the present. Here I’m not talking in a
narrow mechanical sense about the fact that there wasn’t
a party per se in Iran or putting emphasis on
organization narrowly. But due to the savage repression
by the Shah and other factors, the Marxist-Leninist
movement there was fragmented and diffuse so that it was
not a powerful trend as such within the society at the
time when things developed to a revolutionary situation
and the actual overthrow of the Shah. I’m not talking
about already having the adherence of the majority (or
the majority of the working class), I’m talking about
being a major force politically in society as a whole.
And one only needs to look at that to see how much
further along the revolutionary movement would be in
Iran were the Marxist-Leninist movement and a clear
Marxist-Leninist line in particular, and an organized
force representing that, much more of a force in the
upsurge which overthrew the Shah. Which is not to get
metaphysical and say, “only if we’d had this…”;
nevertheless, it is a way of illustrating a point and
urging us to maximize the freedom we have and to take
every correct step and necessary step to greatly
intensify and push forward our work in building the
Party.
Re: Avakian's Conquer the World part
5 « Reply #1 on Oct 26, 2005,
5:08pm »
[From Bob
Avakian's Conquer the World @
rwor.org/bob_avakian/conquerworld/]
Now this
point has been strengthened from the draft Programme and
Constitution to the final. But concentrated attention
and work is needed on this point from now forward.
Attention needs to be focused on the question of why, in
party building, quality is the key link; and that means
in particular that line and the training of Party
members and those drawn toward the Party in theory and
in practice is the key link in party building. But also,
and if secondary, still extremely important and
interpenetrating with the qualitative aspect, is the
question of building the Party quantitatively. To put it
in simple terms, building its membership, bringing in
new members continually, building up the quantitative
aspect of the Party is crucial to being able, even first
of all, to gauge the developments—specifically the mood
of the masses—toward a revolutionary situation and of
course to carry through whenever a revolutionary
situation does develop—which, as we’ve seen from
experience, can develop suddenly and without much
warning—and certainly without permission!
The
question of the relationship between the party and an
overall upsurge in society has to be understood clearly.
By that I mean you can’t build the party in a hothouse,
or by will or self-cultivation, and generally you can’t
build the party, you can’t bring people in and around
the party—beyond a certain point in any case—in the
absence of a general ferment in society and a general
growth of the social movement and upsurge in society.
I’m not saying you can’t have a party and you can’t
build it at all, but there is a relationship there. And,
again, it’s not as if there isn’t any ferment in the
world as a whole and even in society in the U.S., in
particular.
But with all that, there still is the
basic truth and principle that the party is in fact the
vanguard, it is not the same as and can’t be reduced to
whatever the level of struggle and consciousness is at
any given time—even of the advanced, let alone of the
broadest masses. In line with the central task and our
understanding of it, as I touched on before, we should
be able to see more clearly the importance of building
the Party precisely as the vanguard, and this has to be
developed and strengthened both qualitatively and
quantitatively in correct relationship to political work
among the masses, social upsurges and social ferment,
social movements and social questions.
As I said,
this is concentrated and comprehended in the central
task as correctly understood, but it has to be grasped
and acted upon that this is not only a key part of
carrying out the central task, or to put it another way,
preparing minds and organizing forces, but is the key
aspect of organizing forces. This question, too, has to
be taken to the masses, both in the form of addressing
it openly in a concentrated way in the newspaper, and
also not in a hothouse but precisely in correct and
dialectical relationship with the growing ferment and
upsurge in society and in the world, it must be made a
question and a challenge particularly to the advanced
who come forward, and especially from the proletarian
masses.
The trend as represented especially by
the newspaper has to be more than just a loose trend and
a general sentiment; it has to have organized
expression. People inside our own ranks and more
broadly, particularly those who do gravitate towards
this trend, have to grapple with and come to terms with
the question that whether or not we can actually “do the
dog,” as we say, and whether or not we can, in any case,
contribute the most to the overall international
advance, has everything to do with how much this trend
not only becomes a force politically and ideologically,
but takes organized expression which furthers the
dialectic of our being able in fact to both feel and
quicken the pulse of the masses as the objective
conditions provide more and more of a basis for
that.
If these questions are not put out to the
masses, as well as struggled out and grappled with
within our own ranks, we cannot go into the storms that
will be erupting ahead, including the possible
development of a revolutionary situation in this
country, as strong as we can and, in that sense,
must—not only in this country but internationally as
well. This is a question that has been underrated and
which we cannot afford to underrate any longer or fail
to pay consistent and intensified attention to—without
turning it into some kind of new gimmick or using it as
a way of turning away from the road on which we’ve been
taking not only crucial steps but actual leaps. Rather,
this is a further continuation and a deepening of the
carrying out of the central task as understood in this
broad and all-encompassing sense.
So in
conclusion, then, I want to return to the theme running
through all this: the crucial importance of our
internationalist orientation and the way that infuses
all of our tasks and the carrying out of our work in the
light of our basic analysis of spirals leading to the
heightening of contradictions and the shaping up of
conjunctures on a world scale—which is not just a
general analysis but a concrete analysis of developments
in the world today and our special responsibilities. Not
only does there have to be a clear identification of our
trend, but we have to make a real living thing among the
masses of the question that we have a Party which is
ours and which we have to join and build and strengthen
as a crucial part of preparation for revolution, without
falling into the tailist notion of “it’s your Party”
(i.e., the Party of the “average workers”) that the
Mensheviks tried to carry out, that we have a Party that
actually expresses our proletarian and internationalist
outlook and interests, and whether it stands or falls
and whether it can play its role depends on us and not
just on it as an external abstraction, or at least an
external to us—all this must be made a real living thing
to the masses, particularly to the
advanced.
Although I don’t want to force
everything together, there is also the question of
“roads to the proletariat” which touches somewhat on
this question of party building as well as building the
movement among the advanced forces more generally. This
applies in the U.S. as raised in the talk “Coming From
Behind to Make Revolution.”48 But in closing I want to
touch upon it in terms of its international dimension.
It’s really not a principle that “no one can touch a
single hair on the social system of anyone else or any
other country,” or no one can “interfere” in anybody
else’s internal affairs. There is the question of what
methods we use in building the movement internationally,
as well as in the different countries—that is, the
correct versus incorrect methods. But part of that is
precisely recognizing and taking responsibility for what
kind of country the U.S., in particular, is. It is a
country which has certain features we can seize on to
turn into their opposites for the advantage of the
international proletariat and to advance its struggle.
It is the kind of imperialist country that not only
plunders the whole world and squeezes the life out of
people but also, at the same time, drives large numbers
of people into it.
Take the example of Central
America. The complexity and contradictoriness of things
is such that sometimes people literally right out of the
revolutionary struggle in these countries are driven
into the U.S. at the same time the U.S. is the target of
the struggle they’re part of. And there’s a question of
how that can be concentrated and spread back out on the
other hand to places where the subjective factors and
Marxist-Leninist movement are presently not
strong.
It’s not a question of violating the
“Bergman law” [a leader of the Menshevik clique]: that
no one, least of all us, should think that we have
anything to say to anyone else in the whole world, any
ideas that anybody else might possibly find worth
listening to. It’s not so much to violate that law as a
matter of principle—though as a matter of principle it
should be violated. It’s much more the question that if
we are really grasping this proletarian internationalism
and its material and philosophical basis, we have a
responsibility to do this in a correct sense. Not that
we tell everybody what to do. I mean, if we tell people
and it’s good advice, that’s good and maybe they can use
it to make advances; if we tell them and it’s not good
advice, maybe they can negate it with good line. In any
case, that’s not the heart of the question.
The
heart of the question is we have a responsibility to
figure out how to advance the movement internationally
and that includes taking advantage of some features of
this imperialist monstrosity and nerve center that our
Party is in, and working to strengthen the
Marxist-Leninist movement where it is not as developed,
at the same time as we learn from where it may be
quantitatively and even, in a certain sense
qualitatively, weaker overall (or where it may be
stronger in an overall sense in a particular country).
It’s not the question of petty competition and bourgeois
rivalry, even turned inside out á la Bergman and false
modesty. That is all beside the point. The question is
how to carry out our responsibilities and how to turn
something into a strength for the international
proletariat out of the hideous features of this
monstrosity of imperialism, and U S. imperialism in
particular.
In an overall sense, and to close
with this, while we have to do everything possible
toward revolution in the U.S., it’s not just that that
we have to do. And it’s not just that our greatest
contribution to the world struggle is to make revolution
in the U.S. Even that’s too narrow, though in a more
limited sense there’s truth to it. We have to look at it
even more broadly. In fact, even seeking to make
revolution in the U.S., even that has to be done as part
of the overall goal and with the overall goal in mind,
of doing everything possible to contribute to and
advance the whole struggle worldwide toward communism
and in particular to make the greatest leaps toward that
in the conjuncture shaping up. Footnotes
1.
Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (Peking: Foreign
Languages Press, 1977), p. 76. 2. Cited in R. Palme
Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution (San Francisco:
Proletarian Publishers, 1974), and in Karl Marx,
“Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne,”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 11
(New York: International Publishers, 1979), p.
403. 3. Bob Avakian, “The Prospects for Revolution
and the Urgent Tasks in the Decade Ahead,” excerpts of
documents from the third plenary session of the Second
Central Committee of the RCP, USA, Revolution, Vol. 4,
No. 10-11 (Oct./Nov. 1979), p. 6-19. 4. Mao Tsetung,
“Directive on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
in Shanghai.” in Joint Publications Research Service,
Miscellany of Mao Tse-Tung Thought (1949-1968), part 2
(Springfield, VA.: National Technical Information
Service, 1974), p. 452. 5. Ibid., p. 454. 6. C.R.,
“China, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and
Professor Bettelheim (Or How Not to Criticize
Revisionism),” The Communist, No. 5, May 1979, pp.
171-238. 7. Miscellany, op. cit., p. 453. 8.
Miscellany, op. cit., pp. 453-54. 9. “The Line of the
Comintern on the Civil War in Spain,” Revolution, June
1981, pp. 32-70. 10. Revolutionary Communist Party,
How Capitalism Has Been Restored In The Soviet Union And
What This Means For The World Struggle (Chicago:
1974). 11. J.V. Stalin, “Marxism and the National
Question,” Works, Vol. 2 (Moscow: Foreign Languages
Publishing House, 1953), pp. 300-381. 12. Lenin, “
‘Left-Wing’ Communism—An Infantile Disorder,” Collected
Works, Vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p.
88. 13. Lenin, “Better Fewer, But Better,” Collected
Works, Vol. 33, pp. 487-502. 14. Lenin, “A Great
Beginning,” Collected Works, Vol. 29, pp.
411-434. 15. Lenin, “Our Revolution,” Collected
Works, Vol. 33, pp. 476-479. 16. Bob Avakian,
“Outline of Views on the Historical Experience of the
International Communist Movement and the Lessons for
Today,” an excerpt from “For Decades To Come—On A World
Scale” (report adopted by the Central Committee of the
RCP, USA, in the end of 1980), Revolution, June 1981,
pp. 4-9. 17. Stuart Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks
To The People (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974). 18.
J.V. Stalin, “Dizzy With Success,” Works, Vol. 12, pp.
197-205. 19. The History of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union—Bolsheviks (1939) (San Francisco:
Proletarian Publishers, reprint), p. 314. 20. J.V.
Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union
(Calcutta: New Book Centre, 1975). 21. Fernando
Claudin, The Communist Movement (London: 1975, Penguin),
pp. 201-205. 22. R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social
Revolution (San Francisco: Proletarian Publishers,
1974). 23. “On the Question of So-Called ‘National
Nihilism’: You Can’t Beat the Enemy While Raising His
Flag,” Revolution, June 1981, pp. 20-27. 24. J.
Werner, “Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao
Tsetung Thought: Comments on Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism
and the Revolution,” The Communist, No. 5, May 1979, pp.
1-103. 25. J.V. Stalin, Economic Problems of
Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (Peking: Foreign Languages
Press, 1972). 26. Bruce Franklin, The Essential
Stalin (New York: Doubleday Co., 1972), pp.
508-511. 27. William Z. Foster, History of the Three
Internationals (New York: International Publishers,
1955). 28. “Bettelheim,” The Communist, No. 5, op.
cit. 29. Mao Tsetung, “On Policy,” Selected Works,
Vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), pp.
441-449. 30. Mao Tsetung, “Talk With the American
Correspondent Anna Louise Strong,” Selected Works, Vol.
4, pp. 97-101. 31. Robert Daniels, ed., A Documentary
History of Communism—From Lenin to Mao (New York: 1960,
Random House). 32. Bob Avakian, Mao Tsetung’s
Immortal Contributions (Chicago: RCP Publications,
1979). 33. Bob Avakian, “In Today’s World Especially
‘Slow Patient Work’ Cannot Be Justified,” Revolutionary
Worker, No. 107, May 29, 1981, p. 3. 34.
Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile and Revolutionary
Communist Party, USA, Basic Principles For The Unity Of
Marxist-Leninists And For The Line Of The International
Communist Movement (a draft position paper for
discussion) (Chicago: RCP, 1981). 35. A Proposal
Concerning The General Line Of The International
Communist Movement (Peking: Foreign Languages Press,
1963). 36. “Bob Avakian On May 1st, 1981” (from a
taped message), Revolutionary Worker, No. 103, May 1,
1981, p. 1. 37. Bob Avakian, Communists Are Rebels,
April, 1980. 38. Communist Unity Organization, Sooner
Or Later (Cambridge: New Outlook Press, 1980). 39.
Lenin, “The National Pride of the Great Russians,”
Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 102-106. 40. Lenin,
“The Junius Pamphlet,” Collected Works, Vol. 22, pp.
305-319. 41. Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and
the Renegade Kautsky,” Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp.
227-326. 42. “Crisis and War: The Mood and Conditions
of the Masses,” excerpts from a chapter in the
forthcoming book, America in Decline, Revolution, Vol.
5, No. 2-3, February/March 1980, pp. 17-31. 43.
Central Committee of the Communist Party
(Marxist-Leninist) of China, “By Putting the Party on
Trial, the Reactionary Force Following the Road of
Capitalist Restoration Has Itself Been Indicted, A World
To Win, No. 1 (Nottingham, Great Britain: Red Star
Publications, 1981), p. 43. The second pamphlet referred
to appeared on page 3 in the Revolutionary Worker, No.
120, September 4, 1981, under the headline, “Message
from China’s Revolutionary Underground.” 44. Lin
Biao, Long Live The Victory of Peoples’ War! (Peking:
Foreign Languages Press, 1966). 45. Bob Avakian,
“What’s Wrong With Impatience in the Service of the
International Proletariat?” Revolutionary Worker, No.
102, April 24, 1980, p. 3. 46. Bob Avakian, “Crowns
Will Roll On the Pavements … There Will Be Nobody To
Pick Them Up,” Revolutionary Worker, No. 115, July 31,
1981, p. 3. A reference to Lenin, “Prophetic Words,”
Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 494-499. 47. For these
references see, Stuart Schram, ed., Mao, “Speech at the
Lushan Conference,” Chairman Mao Talks to the People, p.
142. 48. Bob Avakian, Coming From Behind to Make
Revolution (Chicago: RCP Publications, 1980).
Re: Avakian's Conquer the World part
5 « Reply #2 on Oct 26, 2005,
5:10pm »
Quote:
This is not an exact
comparison and I don’t want to encourage
mechanical thinking, metaphysics, forcing
analogies, cutting the toes to fit the shoes,
and so on, but I’m still going to make the
analogy ...
If
Avakian does not want to encourage sloppy thinking, then
he ought resign as chairpersyn of the rcp=u$a. He ought
to stop pretending to be a Maoist and just do what he
does best: He ought to travel the liberal lecture
circuit telling liberals that their leaders are
hypocrites, bourgeois democracy is a lie, and militarism
threatens the whole world, etc. As MIM has said, rcp=u$a
should dissolve itself into NION. Right now, since the
rcp=u$a doesn't engage in material analysis, all they
are left with are forced analogies, cut toes, and hype
-- so much so that they seem like a bizarre pyramid
scheme. They reject Stalin and Mao on truth and
practice, instead they rely of pre-scientific
opportunistic hype. They reject the Marxist approach of
reasoning from material conditions to strategy. This is
the real meaning of what Avakian calls his
"epistemological rapture." It is the complete rejection
of the Marxist theory of rational knowledge.
Quote:
The way I feel about
it, we set out with the basic target in 1980 to
have 10,000 people, mainly from the working
class, out there leaving work, rallying and
demonstrating on May 1st and making that kind of
impact on the country and the world.
What
first world working class? What amerikan proletariat?
Avakian still hasn't asked question that appears on the
very first page of the first volume of Mao's Selected
Works: Who are our enemies and who are our friends?
Quote:
And, we set out to
make internationalism a clear line and standard
in the movement, and I can’t think of too much
bad to say about that
What
is "internationalism" according to Avakian? 1. Socialism
can't really work in a single country. 2. Socialism in
the third world requires first world help -- Avakian
adopts the theory of productive forces. 3. Building an
Avakian led Comintern or world party in a Trotskyist
style -- where imperialist agents and opportunist
elements can easily maneuver to disrupt people's war.
Quote:
Similarly with
internationalism. We have actually made
internationalism a question throughout the U.S.
and with an impact throughout the world;
The
rcp=u$a does publish stories on the people's wars in
Peru and Nepal -- but mostly for rcp=u$a's own benefit.
Since rcp=u$a is so ideologically bankrupt and stuck in
their pre-scientific dogma and opportunism, one of the
few reasons revolutionary minded people support the
rcp=u$a at all is because they think they are helping
third world Maoists. The truth is that the rcp=u$a is so
inept, that even if they wanted to advance people's
wars, they could not. This is Avakian's old trick of
"cred" by association. In the past, Avakian misused the
Panther name to prop himself up, today, he misuses
Maoists around the world.
Quote:
literally with no
exaggeration it is an inspiration to people from
all over the world that right in the heart of
the U.S. there is an internationalist force.
Think
about how absurd the above is. Avakian is saying that
his infantile clique of really clueless posers are an
inspiration to Maoists all over the world. Delusions of
grandeur? So, in the early 80s, Avakian was talking
about inspiring movements around the world -- in the
third world. And, now it is 2005, and Avakianites are
whispering that they are leading people's wars
worldwide. More than once, Avakianites have tried to
take credit for the people's war in Nepal in one way or
another. They have suggested that Prachanda owes some
kind of intellectual debt to Avakian -- which is absurd.
They have also suggested that Avakian is some kind of
world leader directing people's war worldwide -- which
is also absurd. There are genuine Maoists behind enemy
lines in the first world, but they aren't the rcp=u$a.
Quote:
We made
internationalism a decisive question, a question
taken up by people who come into struggle around
particular questions or issues, and a question
to which generally broader forces, including in
the “movement,” have to respond or have to deal
with.
Avakian
tries to hide his chauvinism here by saying he has made
internationalism decisive to their movement. But what
kind of internationalism is it? The kind of
internationalism he's talking about is one which not
only places the first world at the center of world
revolution, but more specifically, makes the world
revolution hinge on revolution in amerikkka.It's a false
internationalism that not only serves to justify
continued first world chauvinism and imperialism, but it
also puts Avakian and his party at the center of
leadership. If you think, like Avakian or Trotsky, that
the third world really can't build socialism on its own
without amerikkkan (or at least first world) help, then
it makes sense that the amerikkkan revolution takes
precedence and that Avakian, an amerikkkan, should be
directing revolutions from New York, London, or France.
Of course, if you believe this, then you should call
yourself a Trotskyist, not a Maoist.
Quote:
To stress the
importance of party building and to give it the
kind of emphasis that unfortunately it has not
been given—certainly not consistently—in our own
understanding and in our own work, it must be
said that Party building is not only a key part
of the preparation of revolution; to put it
another way, if you want to talk about preparing
minds and organizing forces, it is the key part
of organizing forces....... Which is not to get
metaphysical and say, “only if we’d had this…”;
nevertheless, it is a way of illustrating a
point and urging us to maximize the freedom we
have and to take every correct step and
necessary step to greatly intensify and push
forward our work in building the Party.
The
rcp=u$a can't separate party building from other work.
Why? Because at bottom they have no basis for anything
else besides their irrational promotion of Avakian and
themselves.
Quote:
But concentrated
attention and work is needed on this point from
now forward. Attention needs to be focused on
the question of why, in party building, quality
is the key link; and that means in particular
that line and the training of Party members and
those drawn toward the Party in theory and in
practice is the key link in party building. But
also, and if secondary, still extremely
important and interpenetrating with the
qualitative aspect, is the question of building
the Party quantitatively. To put it in simple
terms, building its membership, bringing in new
members continually, building up the
quantitative aspect of the Party is crucial to
being able, even first of all, to gauge the
developments—specifically the mood of the
masses—toward a revolutionary situation and of
course to carry through whenever a revolutionary
situation does develop—which, as we’ve seen from
experience, can develop suddenly and without
much warning—and certainly without permission!
The
rcp=u$a can't distinguish party building from any other
kind of activity. The infantile cult around Avakian is
exactly what you would expect of an organization like
the rcp=u$a. Ridiculous claims by Avakianites that Bob,
their "main man" is "a living breathing Marx" or
"irreplaceable" or "precious" is exactly what we should
expect -- not to mention the ridiculous calls that the
masses "need to know and love Avakian." What else could
party building mean to an organization lacks any
scientific analysis?
Quote:
But with all that,
there still is the basic truth and principle
that the party is in fact the vanguard, it is
not the same as and can’t be reduced to whatever
the level of struggle and consciousness is at
any given time
Rcp=u$a
a vanguard? A quick look: Homosexuality will be
eliminated under socialism according to the rcp=u$a's
old program-- this should be no surprise considering
that the Avakian clique was notoriously anti-homosexual
and even passed out anti-homosexual flyers in its RU
days. They kicked homosexuals out of the movement
throughout the 80s. They tried to appeal to racist
Bostonians by standing with white supremacists in order
to oppose bussing. In the 80s, they often downplayed and
denied the importance of Mao. They embraced Trotskyism
in everything but name. Raised the slogan "revolution in
the 80s, just do it!" They meddle with other parties. At
the critical point when Gonzalo was captured in Peru and
the police tried to stop the people's war by forging
peace letters, the rcp=u$a called the police hoax to end
people's war part of a two line struggle. They are so
ideologically bankrupt that consider surrender,
capitulation and liquidation to be mere deviations -
even when the origin of such positions are the police!
They and the intelligence operatives working with them
caused all kinds of confusion in the international
communist movement. They bagged Stalin. They deny the
self-determination and national liberation to Aztlan,
First Nations, and other captive nations. They don't
think that the third world can build socialism without
first world help. They are straight up white first world
chauvinists. And, the infantile persynality cult around
Avakian continues to grow to ever new heights. In all
this time the rcp=u$a hasn't bothered doing a serious
investigation of class in the u$. They haven't bothered
to do a global calculation of surplus value. And, what
do they do today? They have launched a World Can't Wait,
throw out George Bu$h on November 2nd campaign. They are
tailing the cp=u$a, leading activists right into the
hands of the Democratic Party.
Quote:
But in closing I
want to touch upon it in terms of its
international dimension. It’s really not a
principle that “no one can touch a single hair
on the social system of anyone else or any other
country,” or no one can “interfere” in anybody
else’s internal affairs. There is the question
of what methods we use in building the movement
internationally, as well as in the different
countries—that is, the correct versus incorrect
methods.
True
enough. But how is this applied by Avakian? Avakian
denies that oppressed nations within u$ borders have the
full right to self determination and national
liberation. For Avakian, not only does the first world
have a right to interfere, but it is necessary for them
to do so in order for the third world to build socialism
-- this is the real meaning of Avakian. Yet, Avakianites
say that oppressed peoples have no right interfering
with the affairs of the white nation! In their backward
oppressor logic, they have even equated the rule of the
international proletariat over the first world as akin
to plantation slavery and the prison system.
Quote:
It’s not a question
of violating the “Bergman law” [a leader of the
Menshevik clique]: that no one, least of all us,
should think that we have anything to say to
anyone else in the whole world, any ideas that
anybody else might possibly find worth listening
to. It’s not so much to violate that law as a
matter of principle—though as a matter of
principle it should be violated.
What
Avakian means by giving advise is really directing. And,
the directing only goes one way: from the first world to
the third. Avakianites resist tooth and nail the
suggestion that the international proletariat should
impose their will over the first world labor aristocrats
and petty bourgeoisie. Yet, they are absolutely okay
with Avakian's denial of self-determination and
nationhood to Chicanos. Avakian is a classic Trotskyist
who thinks that the first world revolution is most
important and that first world organizations should have
a say on running third world and oppressed nation
organizations. Avakian's vision is himself at the head
of a world Trotskyist party. He is the class enemy, and
the sooner he is fully exposed the better.
« Last Edit:
Oct 26, 2005, 5:15pm by prairiefire
»
Re: Avakian's Conquer the World part
5 « Reply #3 on Oct 26, 2005,
6:04pm »
I agree
with everything prairiefire said. Prairiefire definitely
handles line on RCP=U$A in a similar fashion as the
etext.org MIM cell.
On a different note, this
section reminds me of some occasional narrowness we see
on IRTR and everywhere there is struggle with people
running down each other's work without seeing the whole
diversity of proletarian struggle. The job in the party
is to see the whole picture and not allow proletarians
to shoot down proletarian work.
In particular,
there is the idea that we cannot do anything because we
can only go after about 20% of the population inside
u.$. borders without getting into too much white
nationalism and exploiter demands. What Avakian says
that is correct is that the u$a is drawing in people
from all over the TW. Ho, Zhu Deh, Zhou Enlai, Deng etc.
all these spent time abroad--even Lenin. It's in many
ways easier for us in imperialist countries to organize
though we have proportionately fewer interested people.
We would still have a duty to do even if we could not
win 0.0001% of the white petty-bourgeoisie. Our duty on
public opinion work continues despite the situation with
the oppressor nation. Then there is the whole aspect
where people need to think about how it was possible to
do things inside Nazi Germany even when public opinion
was on the wrong side--and it won't always be public
opinion work.
My other comment pertaining more
directly to the subject at hand and not just struggles
I've seen in MIM circles is that I don't see much hope
in the RCP=U$A. It's not just Avakian.
Earlier in
this essay by Avakian he talked about the '60s and where
it all went. What is lacking is a sense of the 1960s'
generation of ineptitude and how to measure it and also
more importantly, how to know when you are dealing with
a whole class phenomenon, not just ineptitude. Until the
Avakianites learn to say "petty-bourgeois vacillation,"
they're not going to have an explanation for May 1968
and the aftermath. Their failure to deal with it shows
that they still hanker for petty-bourgeois vacillation
as a substitute for proletarian revolution.
We
should all know that Avakian started with a major
portion of SDS leaders from the 1960s. In our view, the
Avakian line could hardly be better calculated to run
down and dissipate what there was. They need to pretend
to be Maoists and that given what they had they did more
with it than what MIM or others did with what they had.
Otherwise, there is no point in making a leadership or
ineptitude argument. So even here, on the question of
leadership supposedly so central to them, have they said
anything concrete and systematic? Are they following
Mao's leadership principles where the duty is
integrating the universals of M-L-M with concrete
conditions or are they taking what Lenin derided as
Trotsky's "people-centered" approach? Is it any accident
that so many of Trotsky's and Avakian's positions
coincide?
Avakian still hasn't
asked question that appears on the very first
page of the first volume of Mao's Selected
Works: Who are our enemies and who are our
friends?
He
has answered it. He claims that the R¢P=U$A's friends
include 90% of the U$'s population. Which just goes to
show that the R¢P=U$A is not a communist
party.
Quote:
Think about how
absurd the above is. Avakian is saying that his
infantile clique of really clueless posers are
an inspiration to Maoists all over the world.
Delusions of
grandeur?
Quite
right. Even those of us who have contributed more than
Avakian to the proletarian cause cannot sensibly go
around claiming to be an inspiration to Maoists all over
the world. And if we were, there'd be no reason to talk
about it; the fact would speak for itself.
Re: Avakian's Conquer the World part
5 « Reply #5 on Oct 27, 2005,
11:38am »
Quote:
[ServethePeople] He
has answered it. He claims that the R¢P=U$A's
friends include 90% of the U$'s population.
Which just goes to show that the R¢P=U$A is not
a communist party.
Well,
they have given an answer - that is true enough. But,
they still haven't done any class analysis to back up
their answer. They just opportunistically assert it -
which is just another reason, as you also get at, they
have no business claiming to be a Marxist party in any
sense.
Quote:
[mim3] On a
different note, this section reminds me of some
occasional narrowness we see on IRTR and
everywhere there is struggle with people running
down each other's work without seeing the whole
diversity of proletarian struggle. The job in
the party is to see the whole picture and not
allow proletarians to shoot down proletarian
work.
I
agree very much with this. The idea that there is just
one thing that revolutionaries should be doing is
incorrect. There have been big differences, even some
hostility on IRTR, among those who want to carry forward
revolutionary work in accordance with the three cardinal
principles. I think there is still a great diversity of
work that can be done for the revolutionary movement
whether you think that we should shoot to lead 20% or
even less. The idea that there is just one kind of
revolutionary work that we should be doing is a narrow
outlook.
I would also say that people should not
be pessimists just because we are surrounded by class
enemies. There are many people who can be won to our
movement - especially with the strength of our line. Our
social base certainly is small, but there are a
surprising number of scientific and altruistic people
who can be won over. Or, there are those who suffer from
national oppression who should be open to MLM to various
degrees.
Also, people need to organize work on
their own. And, if they need help, they can write IRTR
or ask in the organizing forum, but there is no reason
to wait for approval or get tied up wondering if such
and such is okay with IRTR. This conversation belongs in
the organizing section though, so I will cut my comments
short.
« Last Edit:
Oct 27, 2005, 11:38am by prairiefire
»
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