Capitalism, Revisionism & Revolution: Avakian's "Three Alternative Worlds"

The Bob Avakian Show continues full steam. In the latest edition of Revolution, the publication of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, they've printed a transcript of a talk that opens up the question of agency and socialism. What is, after all the difference between a social-welfare state and socialism as the dictatorship of the proletariat?

For the generations coming up with no living memory of 20th Century socialism and reared on the (neo-Conservative) end of history narrative, it's worth digging into how revolutionary communism developed in opposition to the welfare/police state model of "socialism" that was unfortunately not just a cariacture.

It's not just the ruling class and its courtiers that want to equate revisionism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, it's also every shade of opportunist you can imagine. Anything that turns the specter of the future into the ghost of the past...

"...the rights of the people cannot be reduced to the right to have a job and earn an income, as basic as that is. There is the question of are we really going to transform society so that in every respect, not only economically but socially, politically, ideologically, and culturally, it really is superior to capitalist society. A society that not only meets the needs of the masses of people, but really is characterized increasingly by the conscious expression and initiative of the masses of people."

Anyone with links to other leaders discussing this kind of vision, I'm all ears.

Three Alternative Worlds
by Bob Avakian
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

As the world exists today and as people seek to change it, and particularly in terms of the socialist transformation of society, as I see it there are basically three alternatives that are possible. One is the world as it is. Enough said about that. [Laughter]

The second one is in a certain sense, almost literally and mechanically, turning the world upside down. In other words, people who are now exploited will no longer be exploited in the same way, people who now rule this society will be prevented from ruling or influencing society in a significant way. The basic economic structure of society will change, some of the social relations will change, and some of the forms of political rule will change, and some of the forms of culture and ideology will change, but fundamentally the masses of people will not be increasingly and in one leap after another drawn into the process of really transforming society. This is really a vision of a revisionist society. If you think back to the days of the Soviet Union, when it had become a revisionist society, capitalist and imperialist in essence, but still socialist in name, when they would be chided for their alleged or real violations of people’s rights, they would often answer "Who are you in the West to be talking about the violation of human rights—look at all the people in your society who are unemployed, what more basic human right is there than to have a job?"

Well, did they have a point? Yes, up to a point. But fundamentally what they were putting forward, the vision of society that they were projecting, was a social welfare kind of society in which fundamentally the role of the masses of people is no different than it is under the classical form of capitalism. The answer about the rights of the people cannot be reduced to the right to have a job and earn an income, as basic as that is. There is the question of are we really going to transform society so that in every respect, not only economically but socially, politically, ideologically, and culturally, it really is superior to capitalist society. A society that not only meets the needs of the masses of people, but really is characterized increasingly by the conscious expression and initiative of the masses of people.

This is a more fundamental transformation than simply a kind of social welfare, socialist in name but really capitalist in essence society, where the role of the masses of people is still largely reduced to being producers of wealth, but not people who thrash out all the larger questions of affairs of state, the direction of society, culture, philosophy, science, the arts, and so on.

The revisionist model is a narrow, economist view of socialism. It reduces the people, in their activity, to simply the economic sphere of society, and in a limited way at that—simply their social welfare with regard to the economy. It doesn’t even think about transforming the world outlook of the people as they in turn change the world around them.

And you cannot have a new society and a new world with the same outlook that people are indoctrinated and inculcated with in this society. You cannot have a real revolutionary transformation of society and abolition of unequal social as well as economic relations and political relations if people still approach the world in the way in which they’re conditioned and limited and constrained to approach it now. How can the masses of people really take up the task of consciously changing the world if their outlook and their approach to the world remains what it is under this system? It’s impossible, and this situation will simply reproduce the great inequalities in every sphere of society that I’ve been talking about.

The third alternative is a real radical rupture. Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto that the communist revolution represents a radical rupture with traditional property relations and with traditional ideas. And the one is not possible without the other. They are mutually reinforcing, one way or the other.

If you have a society in which the fundamental role of women is to be breeders of children, how can you have a society in which there is equality between men and women? You cannot. And if you don’t attack and uproot the traditions, the morals, and so on, that reinforce that role, how can you transform the relations between men and women and abolish the deep-seated inequalities that are bound up with the whole division of society into oppressors and oppressed, exploiters and exploited? You cannot.

So the third alternative is a real radical rupture in every sphere, a radically different synthesis, to put it that way. Or to put it another way, it’s a society and a world that the great majority of people would actually want to live in. One in which not only do they not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or if they get sick whether they’re going to be told that they can’t have health care because they can’t pay for it, as important as that is; but one in which they are actually taking up, wrangling with, and increasingly making their own province all the different spheres of society.

Achieving that kind of a society, and that kind of a world, is a very profound challenge. It’s much more profound than simply changing a few forms of ownership of the economy and making sure that, on that basis, people’s social welfare is taken care of, but you still have people who are taking care of that for the masses of people; and all the spheres of science, the arts, philosophy, and all the rest are basically the province of a few. And the political decision-making process remains the province of a few.

To really leap beyond that is a tremendous and world-historic struggle that we’ve been embarked on since the Russian revolution (not counting the very short-lived and limited experience of the Paris Commune)—and in which we reached the high point with the Chinese revolution and in particular the Cultural Revolution—but from which we’ve been thrown back temporarily.

So we need to make a further leap on the basis of summing up very deeply all that experience. There are some very real and vexing problems that we have to confront and advance through in order to draw from the best of the past, but go further and do even better in the future.

Now I want to say a few things in this context about totalitarianism. Just as an aside here, I find it very interesting that you can read innumerable books delving deeply into the psyche of Stalin or Lenin or Mao—"What went on in the deranged minds of these people [laughter] that led them to think they could remake the world in their maddened image [laughter] and led them, in the name of some greater moral good, to bring great catastrophe on the humanity that they were affecting?" I don’t know how many books I’ve seen like that. I have never yet seen—maybe there are some, but I have never seen—a study of the deranged psyche of Thomas Jefferson [laughter] or George Washington: "How is it that a person could come to believe in their own mind [laughter] that they were benefiting not only humanity in general, but other human beings whom they owned? [laughter] What depth of psychological derangement must be involved in that? [laughter]. What is more totalitarian than actually owning other human beings?"

Or what about the study of the depths of the depraved minds of Lyndon Johnson or Ronald Reagan [laughter], who murdered millions of people, including vast numbers of children? "What must have gone wrong, somewhere in their childhood or somewhere else in their lives? [laughter] What demented ideas must they somehow have internalized that led them to believe that in the name of the shining city on the hill, or whatever [laughter], they had the right and the obligation to slaughter thousands and millions of innocent people?"

I have never seen those studies. Certainly I haven’t read about them in the New York Times Book Review section. [Laughter]

Still, there are some real questions that are raised about totalitarianism by the ideologues and the "intellectual camp followers" of the imperialists that do need to be taken on. In particular, they make the charge that in a society which they call totalitarian, but which is in reality the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is first of all an official ideology that everyone has to profess belief in, in order to get along in that society. And there is an official politics that everyone has to be involved in, in order to get along in that society and not get in trouble. Well, what about this?

Fundamentally, this is a distortion of what has gone on in socialist societies: why these revolutions were necessary in the first place and what they were seeking to accomplish and to overcome, and how they were going about doing that. The reality is that, for the great masses of people in capitalist (and certainly in feudal) society, they are barred from really being involved in any significant way in official politics and the politics that actually affect the affairs of state and the direction of society. And they are indoctrinated with an outlook and methodology and ideology that prevents them—discourages them and actively obstructs them—from really understanding the world as it is and changing it consciously. And that is what socialist revolutions seek to change, as well as bringing about fundamental changes in the economy and the social relations.

But what about this question of official ideology that everyone has to profess? Well, I think we have more to sum up about that from the history of socialist society and the dictatorship of the proletariat so far.

With regard to the question of the party, I think two things are definitely true. One, you need a vanguard party to lead this revolution and to lead the new state. Two, that party has to have an ideology that unifies it, an ideology that correctly reflects and enables people to consciously change reality, which is communist ideology.

But, more broadly, should everyone in society have to profess this ideology in order to get along? No. Those who are won over to this ideology should proclaim it and struggle for it. Those who are not convinced of it should say so. Those who disagree with it should say that. And there should be struggle. Something has to lead—the correct ideology that really enables people to get at the truth, and to do something with it in their interests, has to lead; but that doesn’t mean everyone should have to profess it, in my opinion. And this is just my opinion. But it’s worth digging into this a bit, it’s worth exploring and wrangling with the question.

Send comments directly to Revolution

This transcipt was originally published in Bob Avakian's Observations on Art and Culture, Science and Philosophy
 

Comments

[Read Capital]

I don't mean to sound like an asshole here, but I realize this might come off that way.

Speaking methodologically here:

It somehow doesn't seem correct that anyone who hasn't actually read Capital would consider themselves in a position to judge Avakian's synethesis and breakthrough vis-a-vis Marx's. Althusser, Badiou, and Lenin and Mao for that matter, are not sufficient stand-ins for the most basic and important, totally foundational, Marxist work.

I don't say that to pour cold water on the discussion. But, it just strikes me that this might be relevant.

This is not to invalidate anything that has been said, or to say that no one can have anything to say about Avakian or Marx without having read Capital (although I think those who have not read it will be surprised at the ways in which it will probably alter your perspective once you get to the other end of it). But, it seems a little funny, that Althusser and Badiou come up here, but then it comes out you said all this without even reading Capital.

Maybe I've still got a bit of the dogmatic, fundamentalist Marxist still in me. And if that is what is coming out here, criticize me for it. But really, reading Capital can be a life-changing experience. If you can struggle in through the first hundred pages (and don't get too hung up if you don't understand 100% of it), you'll be home-free.

[Chuck Morse]

That’s a very good point, Read Capital, and I don’t think that you’re being dogmatic at all (if it makes you feel any better, it was actually an anarchist—Murray Bookchin—who pushed me to read Marx (and Hegel) systematically). For my sake, I am often surprised at how little Marx many of the most passionate “Marxists” have actually read. I suppose this is one of the reasons why it is so common to read posts here defending very non-Marxist views with Marxist rhetoric.

Anarchists are frequently accused--often rightfully--of being anti-intellectual, but there is a power anti-intellectualism among dogmatic communists too (it is especially prevalent among the RCP and groups like them, with their leadership cults and emphasis on THE LINE). But there is no excuse for not reading widely and no revolutionary education is complete without a thorough study of Marx. The conquest of culture begins at home, comrades.

[jibaro]

by all means read Capital.

It is an important work -- both in the breakthrough it makes in the understanding of the contradictions of commodities, and in the way it analyzed the unique nature of a society based on the sale of labor power itself as a commodity.

It was a scientific breakthrough, and was (in that sense) foundational to subsequent scientific socialism.

But precisely IN THAT SENSE.

i think there is something to explore in your question "Maybe I've still got a bit of the dogmatic, fundamentalist Marxist still in me. "

In other words, there is a different way of viewing something as "foundational." In the sense that some people view Marxism as "an ideology based on what Marx wrote." And (from that perspective) it would make no sense to even try to evaluate new developments in marxism without being intimately acquainted with the original gospel.

Now I can't and won't pretend to know exactly how you are viewing it. Perhaps you should speak to that.

Capital is important. And MAINLY as a study in method. For example, the way that work proceeds from abstraction to detail is VERY different from the empirical view of "practice" that has been expounded by some on this site.

In other words, the scientific method of marx is not "accumulate piles and piles of practice, or data about practice, and then tease out a theory or two by piecing the bits together."

His approach is quite different. Based on deep study (overwhelmingly indirect knowledge, not direct personal "practice"!) he developed an overarching concept, a leap, a theory -- and then his work proceeds from that abstraction to the illumination of the rise and landscape of real existing capitalism. And the power of the theory is shown by its ability to illuminate and structure the discussion about the body of evidence.

Note: not the view of practice that starts with "what we are doing now." And not the view of "mass line" that confines political work and discussion to "what the masses already feel and care about."

But, while I think it is important to read Capital, I think it is profoundly wrong to assume that "those who haven't mastered capital can't really speak on communist theory and controversies, especially on the leaps taking place in MLM."

here are some reasons:

The main way of evaluating new developments in Marxism is in relationship to reality, not to previous expressions of Marxism. we may need to discard things that were previous held to be true, and even "foundational" within Marxism.

(As someone said: think of the transition from Newton to Einstein in the conception of space-time. Newton wasn't totally discarded, but you didn't evaluate Einstein on the basis of Newton either -- that wouldn't be scientific.)

Second: because these things have to be evaluated in relationship to where communism is today.... not against some "foundational" texts (seen in someways as prophetic in a non-scientific way.)

Someone said "so he says we should be truly scientific, what's so new about that, Marx said that almost two hundred years ago."

Well, every Marxist has said this since 1848. But... that doesn't mean that an epistemological break isn't needed, on precisely this point.

When

The difference on such issues is often not in "what people say."

What is being argued is that leaps need to be made -- even beyond lenin and mao in the theoretical understanding of what it means to be truly scientific, and in actually carrying that out.

In questioning concepts of "typical motion" (of which negation of negation is just one example), of reductionism, of denial of accident and complexity, and (even in the case of Mao expliticly) of theoretically upholding concepts of "class truth" (and with that the very widespread view of "political truth.")

(I can't find it online, but the assertion of "class truth" in Mao's May 16 circular on the GPCR is a major issue here.)

Similarly, what is called for is a leap beyond even lenin and mao in our understanding of socialism, and what the transition period is.

I.e. based on a radially new understanding of how to both lead and unleash, both "live with and transform," (concentrated in the concept "solid core with a lot of elasticity") -- based on that new understanding, actually working through a very very different concept of how socialism looks, and is led (different views of constitutionality and law, on the centrality of dissent, on understanding the importance of having opponents heard in their own words, on the fact that truth can come from opponents, and on the process of the masses themselves becomeing "fit to rule" in a process of expanding the "we" etc.)

My thought is not that there is an overblow ("breathless") assertion of "unique and irreplaceable" -- but rather on the contrary, a real lack of understanding of how radical the proposed rupture is.

Those who say (I assume honestly) that they think "it has all be said before by someone" (i.e. that marx said to be scientific so what could this "break" be) are not understanding yet how deep that break is, and that what is called for is not just a break from "revisionism" -- but from what has previously been the views of the revolutionaries among the communists (and even the best among the previous revolutionaries.)

Some people have grouched about the use of the word "revisionist" -- but what we are seeing and talking about here is not only a deepening understanding of dividing lines with revisionism today, but also leaps beyond what the anti-revisionists of the past (like Marx, Lenin and Mao) were saying and understanding.

Again: the point is not to "assert" this and "leave it at that."

But for the moment, my point is to indicate this.

In particular, (without this being meant personally at all), I just want to say that i see real value in the posts of Shine the Path, because (s)he so sharply captures and argues for the whole realm of ideas that are BEING BROKEN WITH.

for example: The reification of the currently existing class of workers (as opposed to an understanding of the proletariat as a historically emerging class.)

Or the clearly reductionist view of class analysis (or base-superstructure relations) that says, in a jaded and impatient voice, "how can you say this is the Bush regime when all the things we are talking about are an outcome of imperialism." (We might as well say "they are all an outcome of class society" and ban specific exposure of imperialism since it too is just a subset!)

The view BA puts forward on base/superstructure is a rupture from the past.

His view of complexity and accident is a rupture.

And I don't think the argument should be handled by criticizing the TONE of someone like STP -- the tone is part of the politics. For some people, MLM is kinda fixed, it is settled, our task is to learn and apply it. Changes are suspicious. Complex analyses are seen to be "rambling" (because, they assume, we COULD just tell the simple truths simply).

I think the analysis and the tone are one. And we should focus one the cardinal questions, and fight to get much more into the SUBSTANCE of this rupture, and what we think of it.

Just an example: BA says we should learn from John Stuart Mills on one key point: that views should be heard from the lips of their most ardent proponents, not from characterizations of their opponents (no matter how sincere their efforts to be accurate.)

this is a major rupture (do we need to spell out this fact?) -- with far reaching implications. (Does Rush limbaugh get to publish? What about a harshly critical press? If it isn't to be a privately owned press, how does this get worked out?)

Or avakian's disavowal of the "revenge line" (which is what the workerists call "class instinct") -- a kind of economist identity politics for workers. It is a view that assumes that workers will (more or less) rule OVER everyone else (and that this is what the d of the p means). BA's view is clearly very different. Not only is the task of the prol to emancipate humanity (not merely or MAINLY itself) -- but this will (of necessity) involve people of different strata (and viewpoints and even different parties) throughout the power structure -- within the overall framework defined by the "solid core"). He talks abut making a distinction between government and state (which has implications into communism when the state-as-state is gone, and democracy-as-democracy with it).

Also the whole way of stringing names (marx, lenin, mao... and then tacking on path or thought)...

Someone implied that BA was being (defacto) raised up in that way, just that it wasn't being said. I think that is mistaken in this way: look, I think BA's followers are into being blunt and unapologetic about how they view this, and if they thought "fourth sword" they would say it.

I think that what is implicit is something different: that he isn't to thrilled about the "heads on a bead" view of science. It is too linear, and too wedded to non-scientific views of "sequences of infallible prophets following each other."

His view of "different syntheses" is a rupture, an unappreciated one that is profoundly scientific and opposed to quasi-religious views of MLM ... (You know that before "Mao's immortal contributions" the rev science had not been CALLED a "synthesis" that way, unless I'm mistaken.)

there is much more, but this has already gone on too long.

[the burningman]

Well, Chuck – the LINE is right here.

Communists of the non-dogmatic type (or what I think you are calling "non-Marxist views with Marxist rhetoric" are right here. And I suspect that you have more than a little agreement with what Avakian is laying out, so rather than just admit it – you change the subject.

I haven't read all of capital, but along with the Communist Manifesto, What Is To Be Done?, and the "re-envisioning" of Marxism courtesy of Avakian, Capital is exactly what made me a "Marxist."

To return the favor, it was a founding member of the RCP who encouraged me to read Bakunin – to follow the (sectarian, conspiratorial, Idealist) logic of my own spontaneous logic and see where it lead. It was a fine innoculation.

I spent most every Sunday last spring and summer selling books and literature at an African drumming circle near my house. I sold plenty of Marx, plenty of Lenin, plenty of Mao – and more Avakian than you can shake a stick at. And DuBois, Robin Kelly, party pamphlets, and novels, poetry and picture books. I have long found an engaged intellectual culture among active communists that is frankly incomparable. Not contrary, not competing narratives — a drive to understand the world in its development, and the role of conscious activity in changing the game.

-----

Avakian is here arguing, quite persuasively, that the heart of the communist movement is in the agency of the people. The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is not fundamentally, simply a dictatorship over the bourgeoisie. It is the coming into social life of the proletariat. Not just as "industrial workers" in some re-hash of William Z. Foster-era Marxism-Leninism.

The point is not to proletarianize all of society, but to abolish the proletariat through the conscious activity of the people themselves.

This is not "non-Marxist." It is Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. It is the heart of what the "New Synthesis" is, even if that articulation is in development.

When we say MLM is a "living science," that is in direct contrast with the idea that communism is a "tradition", with a set of "classics" that we refer to and draw "guidance" like dropping a bucket in a well.

No.

In this sense, the crucial sense, Avakian is leading by putting out an engagement with these ideas – not a "referencing" of doctrinal strands irrespective of history.

In other words, it is the opposite of "cultism", of "anti-intellectualism."

I can't speak for how many "Marxists" have read how little Marx. I can only speak for myself and my own experience.

If the RCP promotes one word for intellectual endeavor, it is "wrangling." That's Avakian's style, and one I've tried to learn from.

Now forgive me while I burn some incense before the alter...

[jibaro]

one more note:

I wrote: "But, while I think it is important to read Capital, I think it is profoundly wrong to assume that 'those who haven't mastered capital can't really speak on communist theory and controversies, especially on the leaps taking place in MLM.'"

That is true as far as it goes.

But it is really only half true in this sense: You can't really make leaps in MLM without deeply assimilating the scientific work that has been done. BA studied, defended, analyzed, popularized, and concentrated what Mao had developed for a decade and more, and then ON THAT BASIS worked to make new leaps and criticisms.

Some have talked about "cherry picking" here -- I think one form that takes is dismissing BA's work without really assimilating it, or judging it as "a box of filled chocolates" (where you stick your thumbnail in one and say "i don't like that," and after sticking another pop it in your mouth.)

It is a synthesis, not a grabbag of prescriptions, and (as I said above) the depth of the rupture is far from appreciated.

I think we can learn from BA's approach to Mao -- deeply assimilate, grapple with, work through the whole arching body of work to grasp approach and method...

The "cherry picking" just means you are measuring things by your own, personal, subjective yardstick (i.e. in obvious semianarchist style establishing each establishing and taking OURSELVES as the center of the really important synthesis -- THE PERSONALIZED WORLDVIEW!)

[okay.. i gotta chime in]

Jibaro writes: "In other words, the scientific method of marx is not "accumulate piles and piles of practice, or data about practice, and then tease out a theory or two by piecing the bits together....blah blah profound..blah blah.. deep.. blah blah..profound.. blah blah"

What is even more striking is how much empirical data one does find in Marx's work. Marx was no empiricist, but he was a scientist. Anyone who even glimpses at Marx's work, or even Lenin's or Mao's, will find it strikingly different from Avakian's in this regard. This isn't to say Avakian is wrong, maybe his "break through" is just this much of a rapture.

Marx, Lenin, and Mao used the best available data whenever they could. This is seriously lacking in Avakian. Everyone here who is literate knows it. Chris Day once mentioned that this blog was "maddening" for similar reasons. It's like you have a bunch of semi-well read people bending over backward to heap praise on the very mediocre Avakian.

One wonders if this blog has a point except to proclaim how the profundity of Avakian's rapture. Proclaiming something "profound" for the 7,000 time does not make it anymore profound.

[jibaro]

actually marx's work on economics has particular data.

And the work by BA's party on that side of the theoretical explorations was done, but not under his name.

But his work is full of historical data, summations, and explorations.

His analysis of the current situation is drawn from wide sources... with the examination of information, events, evidence, experiences, trends, etc.

His theory is not "general crisis" theory -- where the base and the superstructure are linked at every level. And so his analysis of the trends in politics and geo-politics is not (mainly) linked to a specific analysis of trends in the base (other than the overall trends of turbocapitalism and global integration dealt with in the work called "Notes on Political Economy").

Frankly your criticizm of BA would apply eactly to the works of Mao. Though you try to fudge that point.

Where is Mao's work that is structured and footnoted like Capital? It doesn't exist. And it has been a basis for attacking Mao and his leap in marxism by those who have a mechanical view of science.

[Chuck Morse]

Incidentally, with respect to the intellectual culture in the RCP, has the Party ever sponsored a serious debate of Avakian’s ideas? (a forum in their bookstore or in their newspaper, for example). Why is no space set aside on their website for critically discussing Avakian’s works? I see the “Bob Avakian Toolkit” but no discussion forum. Why is that? Are they afraid of open discussion?

[the burningman]

RJ's questions are still hanging...

But one little comment has been nagging me since this thread developed, STP writes:

"On the single spark collective website, in an aritcle by a Mexican Maoist, Chavez Lopez I think, he categorizes this basic unapologetic utopianism as "Lennonism." I think that is a good insight on the basic fundamental ideological shallowness of RCP."

Years back, I was reading PL's newspaper Challenge and came across a letter to the editor titled "Lenin or Lennon."

And I thought, what bullshit. What a narrow conception of what it is we're fighting for.

I'm a Lennonist. I love John Lennon... (you can count me out... IN!)

This argument gets to what it perhaps the original "identity politics" – workerism. Or, the proletariat reified. It's the confusion of what it means to carry out a "proletarian line" in countries like Nepal where there is almost no proletariat, as such, to speak of... and why in the world sense we've always been defined by the hammer and sickle... It's why the "proletarian line" in 1930s China meant going deep among the peasantry, NOT just the industrial workers of the coastal cities.

Ready for this one?

[the burningman]

Chuck, I believe there is an online forum right here – where every comment from any anonymous person is not taken as "the party line."

Communists aren't afraid of debate, how else are we supposed to engage ideas?

Online debates should be independently conducted for all sorts of reasons, IMHO.

Two notable public debate forums on Avakian's ideas were conducted by young supporters (and critics) on the now-moribund Another World Is Possible bulletin board and the To Change the World forums regarding the RCP's programme. Particularly with 2CTW, it was unique in my experience. I can't think of any political party in recent years that has fostered that kind of discussion.

It inspired me to start this blog back when it came down of the internet.

[leftclick]

Actually, Chuck, as part of formulating their new draft program, the party set up a website a couple of years back with the explicit purpose of debate and discussion, esp. about Avakian.

They didn't maintain it after a certain point, goals having been met, but it was up for 2 years.

An annoying tendency among anarchists is to try and score cheap anti-communist points while pretending to be interested in honest inquiry. At least you don't disappoint.

[all evidence to the contrary]

"Okay I gotta chime in" says:

"One wonders if this blog has a point except to proclaim how the profundity of Avakian's rapture. Proclaiming something "profound" for the 7,000 time does not make it anymore profound."

Avakian says:

" "...the rights of the people cannot be reduced to the right to have a job and earn an income, as basic as that is. There is the question of are we really going to transform society so that in every respect, not only economically but socially, politically, ideologically, and culturally, it really is superior to capitalist society. A society that not only meets the needs of the masses of people, but really is characterized increasingly by the conscious expression and initiative of the masses of people."

I say:

Profound. (Repeat 6,999 times.)

[leftclick]

Thanks BM, I was referring to the 2changetheworld website.

[Criticism]

Burningman,

That is not a particularly helpful comment. There are serious weaknesses in the Chavez piece on the Single Spark website. And one of those weaknesses is the dismissal of the value of 'utopian' language and vision when such language is not connected to more scientific Marxist insights into the roots of oppression in the extraction of surplus value.

And I wish you would have said that.

But instead, we have a pretty thoughtful and 'higher level' thread for this blog, and then it gets interrupted by a petulant, uncomradely outburst. This happens here periodically, and often you are responsible. I think it brings down the overall level of discussion and does not make me and others want to read or participate. Especially as the host, I think you have a responsibility to be more mature in making comments like this.

Be more thorough and clear in your criticism. And leave aside dismissive, apolitical comments like "what bullshit."

[Chuck Morse]

Has the party ever published an essay critical of Avakian's views in its paper or sponsored a debate of them in its bookstore?

[jibaro]

i'm biting my tongue.

But perhaps it would be worthwhile to read what BA wrote on Lennon... http://rwor.org/a/ideology/mlm7.htm

And (consider the source) that essay produced a gush of offended dogmatist and workerist howls (that help lay bare the issues here):

http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/25cLetters.html

To be brief:
a) the economist distain for Lennon speaks volumes on their sectarianism, their view of socialism, their narrowness of mind, and their real hatred for sweeping changes in society. Their view of socialism is a place I wouldn't want to live in -- lunch box white bread tyranny in the name of "da woikas".

b) BA is equated with Lennon without even, or honestly, bothering to deal with what he actually says and writes on that issue. This says volumes about method and approach. Someone should comment on the Chavez Lopez polemic, because it does raise a few issues of substance that are worthy of answer.

But, as an aside, I am alone in thinking it is a shabby, embracing, piece of slander that doesn't even bother to grasp the line and stand of those it attacks? (Imagine it implies that Ray Lotta is waging a battle over communism in colleges and among academics because his political trend distains unsanitary farmfields? Silly, wrong and stupid. And the whole polemic is riddled with silly, wrong and stupid "reasoning from false and uninformed assumptions." It makes it very hard to patiently dig up arguments of substance. I'm personally embarassed for the people who posted and now quote that shabby piece.

BM why don't you link to it and make a thread, so it can be dissected as it deserves, and defended (if anyone can).

c)you proclamation of Lennonism, BM, is (typically) all elasticity, no solid core.

[the burningman]

To Criticism: Fair enough.

But really, what bullshit!

To draw out the economist disdain for cultural revolutionaries like John Lennon, who a PL supporter called "Multi-millionaire John Lennon," could be done...

But sometimes you just have to call "bullshit!" Imagine.

I hear the criticism. I guess I have my hot buttons just like everyone. I'll try to be more upright.

[jibaro]

i was just noticing the line from that CW polemic "Socialism does not say 'what is yours is mine, mine yours.' Socialism says that each person has the right to the fruit of their own labour. "

notice that: "each person has the right to the fruit of their own labour" -- class struggle boiled down to bourgeois right of the most personal kind. This is the root of economism and workerism -- adhering to the narrow confine of bourgeois right. (Or as Eldridge Cleaver used to describe revolution: "stick 'em up, motherfucker. We're coming for what's ours."

This is in fact the view SHARPLY opposed to communism and specifically RUPTURING "the living link."

[leftclick]

I want to reiterate a joke that I once heard from someone from the Eastern Bloc.

"Under capitalism, the bosses chain the workers to the machine. Under socialism, the workers chain themselves to the machine."

If that's your crippled idea of Leninism, give me Lennon any day.

[jibaro]

chuck:

Their stores have debates over this literally all the fucking time.

You should go some time. Sometimes they are pretty wild.

[jibaro]

lol, leftclick.

that is "the second model."

They also said: "The West is the oppression of man by man. Here in the USSR it is the other way around."

We need the third model -- a real rupture with EVERYTHING concentrated in that second model.

[Jimmy Higgins]

left click, anybody, not snark, folks really want to know. You made reference to 2CTW and "The Draft Programme"--what's up with that? A lot of promotion, a lot of work and debate and then...nada? Does this mean the old "Programme"--several aspects of which were sharply criticized in the process of discussing the "Draft"--is still in effect?

[the burningman]

Chuck – have you ever attended a conference where open communists were forbidden a platform to discuss anything, let alone their ideology as such?

Serious question. Have friends, co-ideologists or comrades of yours ever actively worked to support such bans – even for meetings or gatherings that had no explicit ideological commitments?

But I'm with you in the spirit of your question. I agree totally that there should be far more debates. Not just about Avakian, but between and among all sorts of political trends.

Back in 1983 (year?), the RCP co-sponsored a monumental debate here in New York City on the nature of the Soviet Union. Over 1,000 people attended to deal with some of the very issues Avakian is short-handing in the essay above.

The RCP printed not just their own summation of the debates, but all the main presntation by both sides.

When the RCP split, they published the major polemics of the group who left alongside their own.

In fact, they are practically unique among Marxist-Leninists for doing this on an ongoing basis, through their entire history. It comes from Avakian's best method – and is exactly about wrangling and engaging ideas. Not just as Ideas, or categories or traditions(!), but in the development of a revolutionary communist movement far beyond its current numbers and geography!

|| || ||

Jibaro: Lennonism!

Coming soon:
Burningman Does the Beatles, Or "Why We Got John"

As a former volunteer at Revolution Books right here in New York City, I have to second the plain fact that there is debate every single day at Revolution Books. It is one of the only places in New York you are guaranteed a debate every minute of every day. The whole bookstore is a debate.

That's why Revolution Books stocks far more than simply "trend" materials. It's why I was welcome to volunteer there as a non-member with decidedly unorthodox views on a whole host of questions.

Best debate I lost: I put on a Prince B-Sides CD, and got the evil eye when Irresistable Bitch came on. I mean, I love that song. I love Prince. But the debate we had for twenty minutes over whether that was appropriate for the store taught me it wasn't just about what I like.

Shit, imagine buying a copy of Revolution at Bluestockings. Good luck with that. I don't mean this in a snarky way – but imagine if every Infoshop in America stocked a full range of revolutionary literature.

You're right – let's take the debate everywhere.

Here's a practical suggestion: you could write a letter to AK Press today urging them to include Bob Avakian's Revolution DVD in their distribution catalogue. Or the new release by Insight Press on Evolution – it's excellent. Or Li Onesto's heroic journalism from Rolpa. People should be reading and debating this stuff.

|| || ||

I've taken part in public debates a number of times. Organized debates are something I'd offer any help I could to for folks willing to organize them. Not just Revolution Books, not just about Avakian.

Debates I'l like to see:

The left's response to Katrina

Popular Agency and the GPCR

Avantguards and Vanguards

Direct action after 911

The politics of UFPJ

and so on.

Oh yeah, and Why Bob Avakian is the baddest motherfucker in America (...or baddest motherfucking American wherever he is...)

[Federico]

Those who read Manuel's piece closely enough to criticize it should recognize that he is not criticizing Lennon (as can be seen, including in other works (he is a prolific writer in Spanish and an important Maoist intellectual in Mexico)) or Avakian in the same vein as PL or the folks on the website whose link was posted above. (In fact, as he makes clear in other places, he is a John Lennon fan.)

It is an unfortunate rhetorical synchronicity that his work does resonate with some other, much worse criticisms of Avakian, which also attack him for 'Lennonism.' However, one suspects it is not an entirely unintentional synchronicity. He must be aware of the comments the Peruvians have made along similar lines. (Although their own political economy makes AID look like Capital.)

Still, one suspects that a website with so much Spanish material on it would have a capacity for translation that would have allowed them to post the whole Chavez piece by now (some of the stuff on the USSR in Spanish is more interesting than what is already on their websitein English). One wonders why it is taking them so long to post the whole piece.

[the burningman]

Jimmy – If I'm not mistaken, you were a founding member of the RCP who left during the split. You also took part in the discussion on 2CTW.

Were you as a leading member of the split out of the RCP forbidden from posting to their discussion of their program, including some "sharp criticisms"?

I'm not asking to put you on the spot, but since you wandered by – I'm interested in your thinking on the RCP's interest in debate.

(I have no idea what the operating program of the RCP is right now, as a document. I do know that a separate position paper on some of the more problematic, incorrect old line were distributed and have been superceeded.)