Bob Avakian and The Cult of Personality

[RedWinter]

Many people have criticized RCP and its allies of "worshiping" Bob Avakian, or having a "cult of personality" around him. This phrase was originally devised by Khrushchev in his criticism of Stalin. In Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956, where he denounced Stalin, he quoted Marx who rejected the "cult of the individual" when people were trying to put "superstitious" faith in him. By this token, can we say that a "cult of personality" is based on blind faith in an individual as opposed to upholding revolutionary principles and line? The faith that many communists have in Bob Avakian as a leader is not based on superstition but on what he has concretely done and on his line (at least, it should be).

I am interested in hearing what other people have to say about the role of Avakian's leadership, the theory of a "cult of personality," and how it relates to Chairman Avakian, especially in refuting such arguments as being Avakian-worshipers or cultists.

[Snitza]

RedWinter said:

By this token, can we say that a "cult of personality" is based on blind faith in an individual as opposed to upholding revolutionary principles and line? The faith that many communists have in Bob Avakian as a leader is not based on superstition but on what he has concretely done and on his line (at least, it should be).
quote]

Regardless of what has "been done" on Avakian's part, what would happen if he, by some stroke of magic, infused the ridicuously-reactionary American proletariat to revolution, and created his "transitional state"?

Firstly, Avakian would of course assume power, acting in his own words as a "benevolent despot". While he may have all sorts of "good things" planned for the working class once he becomes "Dear Leader", what has happened in the past every time such a leader takers power? Haven't every single one of them become corrupt with power?

Shouldn't we actually learn from the failure of 20th century Leninism, and throw out the vanguard presupposition?

The absense of "faith" in a leader is knowledge and logic. The RCP knows this, and "silences" anyone who speaks out against Avakian within their own group. Suddenly, if you don't believe in "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" you're an anarchist! (and a counter-revolutionary, to boot)

Further, "faith" in anything or anyone is empirically illogical. Hell, even stepping foot into the waters of "faith" is going towards theological funadmentalism.

Is that the way we want to go?

[flyby]

Let me start with the observation that Snitza's claim is simply not true:

"The absense of "faith" in a leader is knowledge and logic. The RCP knows this, and "silences" anyone who speaks out against Avakian within their own group. Suddenly, if you don't believe in "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" you're an anarchist! (and a counter-revolutionary, to boot)."

Chairman Avakian has great authority and respect within the RCP. Which has been earned through struggle and exprience over a long period of time, including especially the huge challenges and developments of the last period.

And the existance of such great authority and respect, has never meant (within communist parties) that there was not great controversy over the approach, method, and leadership of pathbreaking communist leaders. How can the work of people like Lenin, Mao or Avakian not be controversial -- even in their own parties?

However the assumption that people are simply silenced within the RCP, theat they are labeled "anarchist and counterrevolutionary," or that there is not principled and serious struggle over line.....

Well, all I can say is: that is your fantasy. And you are putting your little anti-communist fantasy, without a shred of knowledge or evidence. It is how you "imagine" it is -- because you have actually not understood how Avakian leads, and how he has insisted on waging line struggles, and how the RCP sees the importance of fighting through issues.

But let me add, that my argument is not based on your lack of ANY evidence. It is actually an argument based on the rich evidence of what Avakian's method is -- a method he is clearly struggling to have his followers apply.

Let me give you examples and places to look:

Avakian argues that it is very iimportant that views not simply be caracatured bytheir opponents. He argues that it is important to hear views (even reactionary views!) as articulated by their most passionate and articulate defenders. Even if they are views that he thinks are wrong, or are in fact objectively wrong.

That is why the RCP has always printed the documents by their opponents in serious line struggles (the recent K Venu polemic is an example -- the RCP has done this going back to their first line struggle with the Fraklinites in 1969, and the Menshiviks in 1979. Always publishing the documents of both sides of a dispute! -- so that people can actually see the richness of the dispute, and compare-and-contrast the opposing lines. This is not done out of some adherence to hypocritical principles of bourgeois democracy -- but from a materialist and communist appreciation that this is the only way that truth can emerge and that people broadly can learn to tell the true from the false, the correct from the incorrect.)

It is also why Avakian fights so that polemics or arguments are never done by "cheap shots." He argues that communists should argue against the most sophisticated, articulated and well developed versions of a line (not pick an easy target, and make a cheap argument aimed at their silliest errors). He even argues that if opponent can't forumlate the best argument for their line, that the RCP should still seek to polemicize against the best possible argument for that position.

Because the point, after all, is getting at the truth -- not just "winning points" or "suppressing" opposing view.

This is a point he has hammered home over and over in the last period -- most starkly in the new work just published in the RW on epistemology.

Bob Avakian in a Discussion with Comrades on Epistemology-
On Knowing and Changing the World rwor.org/a/1262/avakian-epistemology.htm

The whole heart of this is the quote that heads that new essay: "EVERYTHING THAT IS ACTUALLY TRUE IS GOOD FOR THE PROLETARIAT, ALL TRUTHS CAN HELP US GET TO COMMUNISM."

That is an argument AGAINST the suppression of debate and views. It is a method sharply (even militantly) opposed to easy answers, and half-truths, or convenient explanations (that are not really based on the facts.)

Avakian's whole method of writing and analysis (which some find difficult to read, and follow) has been developed exactly because he refuses to go for cheap arguments and rhetoric -- but wants to dig into the real contradictions and views at hand, from all sides, including by learning from opponents!

And I suspect that he keeps repeating all this (hammering and hammering at it) because it is opposed to how communists have operated and is controversial among communists.

Or to put it another way: one of the main things that is controversial about Avakian's method and approach is his insistance on pursuing the struggle over ideas toward the actual truth of things -- no matter where it leads, no mater what sacred cows it slays, and no matter what doors it rattled.

(which is exactly the opposite of what Snitza is claiming!)

And this standard (this method and approach of Avakian) is a difficult, challenging and sometimes scary thing to carry out -- even for communists, or perhaps especially for communists, since the communist movement has a thick legacy of NOT doing this, but in trading in politically convenient "truths" which often prove to be not really so true.

So to repeat: if ANYTHING, Avakian and his followers are openly fighting against the cheap, organizational "suppression" of opposing views -- including within their own movement, and in their vision of future socialist society, and in their approach to opposing views in society today.

And if you fantasize that he (and his followers) are "supporessing" opponents with easy labels and cheap shots -- you have not been paying attention to the whole project and incredible new work that he has been doing -- (including, i'd like to repeat, this intense essay on "epistemological break" which deal with PRECISELY this issue.)

I suggest every one examine the challenging views Avakian is putting forward on this. And that we try to have that standard here in this message board. And also that we struggle over whether this method is correct.

Far too much of "communist postings" is apologia. (The whole board and line of E-G strikes me that way, as a negative esample). And it is important to dig deep, into reality but also into the arguments (and possible insights) of our opponents.

[observer]

I think we need to get right into WHY it is important to promote and popularize key leaders....

why the masses need to know about them (not just their books, but them AS LEADERS and PEOPLE).

And why, in that sense, we need a "cult of personality" -- and it is something we shold be bold (not defensive) about.

We don't need a cult of blind obediance (the "dear leader" korean-style that sonofrage keeps refering too).

And the value of such a C.O.P. varies -- depending on WHAT THE PERSONALITY CONCENTRATES.

Promoting a revisionist is worthless.

Promoting a leader of real vision who is raising new, needed developments of Marxism is necessary and liberating.

so, i know its controversial..... and lets get into it.

[Deleted]

Even after almost 100 years, Deb's words still ring true:

Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again.

[flyby]

Glad to see you still posting here, sonofrage! There is real value in your participation and the issues you raise.

SOR posted a quote from an early U.S. socialist leader, Eugene Debs, who said: "Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again."

I think it is worthwhile joining this issue.

First, I think Debs is exactly wrong. And in fact, his weakeness on exactly this question (on the kind of party and leadership a revolution needs) was one of the major errors that separated him from the most advanced communist thinking and action of his time.

In the movement Debs belonged to (the Second international, and parties like the German Social Democratic Party and the U.S. Socialist Party) there was a stark divide between the revolutionary Left and the raw reformist right. And there was a "center" current that had leadership (and was represented by Kautsky.)

One thing that was widely believed by BOTH the "left" and the "center" was that revolutions just happened, when times were ripe. The job of socialists was to build organization (through elections, trade unions, cooperatives, newspapers, agitation, etc.) and then, at a certain point, the burdens and outrages of the system would just be too much -- and the mass socialist movement would break the bounds of the old society (like a snake breaks through its old skin), and the old order would be shed.

they often hoped it could be done relatively bloodlessly. They even assumed it might take the form of an electoral victory that was then defended by workers militia etc.

But in particular, the "left" forces like Debs (and most notably Luxemburg) did not think they had any special role (as LEADERS) to create an organized core to prepare a "revolutionary people" for the actual revolution , to organize an insurrection, to lead the insurrection, and to then lead the complex twists and turns of communist revolution afterwards.

They greatly overestimated the role of spontaneity in the process, and greatly underestimated the role of conscious preparation.

There was one exception to that set of views: and that was Lenin. His polemics with the so-called "Mensheviks" were essentially polemics with the dominant views of the international socialist movement.

As a historical figure, Debs has a lot to praise. He was a class fighter. He dared oppose World War 1 and was jailed for it. He welcomed the first socialist revolution (when it broke out in the Tsarist empire). etc.

But as a leader, Debs' assumptions led to real and fundamental abdication of the kind of leadership the revolutionary process and the masses need. People need communist leadership. They don't just need hardworking activists and organizers and agitators. They need leaders who connect the final goal to the current moment -- in a living link. Because without that connection, the current struggle gets coopted and reabsorbed by this system -- no matter what (subjectively) the masses and the socialists THINK they are trying to accomplish.

So, i want to thank you for posting this quote by Debs. It is useful because it is so exactly wrong. Because it tries to mock communist leadership by implying it is somehow a throwback to religious dreams of Moses.

In fact the real revolutions of our times have produced leaders of high caliber. The communist revolutions have produced a Lenin and a Mao. The wave of anti-colonial revolutoin produced a Ho Chi Minh, and a Castro. And the lines and approaches (including the errors and weaknesses) of such leaders (and their comrades) have a huge impact on where the struggle of the people goes -- and whether it takes the road of "all-the-way revolution."

It is an issue we need to return to: the overestimation of spontaneity (which often leads to reformist work under a very thin veneer of socialist or anarchist agitation) on one side, and the struggle to appreciate, emulate and follow genuine communist leadership on the other hand.

The Maoists in china used to sing: "Sailing on the sea depends on the helmsman, making revolution depends on Mao Tsetung Thought."

And it is worth thinking through that popularization of communist theory: you need a ship to sail, you need a determined crew, you need a goal, you need a sail, you need a wind, you need many things. And it won't do to try without them. But if you don't have a helmsman, a science of navigation, with charts and experience and vision -- you just won't get where you are going -- but will wander the world despite great efforts and despite the great potential for actually getting somewhere.

People struggle heroically. History as marx said is a history of class struggle. But struggle does not automatically produce victory. There have been many more ripe and promising revolutionary movements wasted and discarded than successfully seized. The Germany of Luxemburg's moment, 1919, is one of the best and most bitter examples.

The theory of spontaneity (the theory of Debs) is a theory that makes us passive when we need to lead. It makes us spectators when we need to be urgently taking action. And it leads people to believe that their goals will come to them automatically, by the spontaneous instinctive actions of the masses, when in fact our goals will only be reached by careful strategic plans, long preparation, organizations built wisely and well, and above all, the thing that makes all the previous possible >>>>> the training and development and promotion of communist leadership.

[flyby]

Two more points:

1) Debs is wrong when he says "such a leadership will not come."

I think we now have the kind of leadership that literally millions of people bitterly and hopefully have been looking for: in Bob Avakian.

And it would be a crime to have such a leadership and not to realize it.

Marley sings the sad and important question of the masses: "How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?"

Bob Avakian is not a "prophet" in some mystical or religious sense. But the questions is otherwise very valid.

(2) I think it is true that the people can be "led back out again."

I think that is objectively true, and will be true -- no matter how they got "in" in the first place.

The danger of capitalist restoration (being led back out of socialism) is real, no matter how we enter into the socialist experiment.

You can't avoid the danger of capitalist restoration by rejecting the need for communist vanguard leadership. (and this is exactly what Debs is claiming)

The opposite is true! The real and objective danger of capitalist restoration (through the whole transition period) underscores the need for communist leadership, and the need to NOT rely on spontaneity in the struggle.

Under socialism, reliance on spontaneity is literally and precisely the road to capitalist restoration. (This is a big topic we can discuss in its own right.)

The only way to make revolution is with communist leadership. And the only way to keep making revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat is to fight for a communist line, to expand the "we", to bring on new generations of communists and communist leaders to press ahead under new conditions.

The idea that a Debs would refrain from leading the masses, and claim that by doing that he was thus protecting them from the danger of future capitalist misleadership and restoration.... -- well, the complex and bitter history of the whole last century shows how mistaken that is. It is exactly wrong, and the worst advice possible.

[Deleted]

I think Debs has been proven to be exactly correct by history.

What has happened in every one of these so-called "revolutions" by Leninist parties? They were "led out" and led right back into capitalist restoration by their so-called vanguard party.

This "communist leadership" has failed miserably every time. They successfully got themselves into power, but any kind of workers power or move towards socialism was nowhere to be found. State capitalism seemed to be the best they could do.

[MundoQueGanar]

SoR--

I'm curious as to whether or not you think that capitalist restoration is a problem, and if it is, how it will be avoided, because your response to flyby doesn't address that question at all.

Do anarchists have a plan for how capitalism will be dismantled, how we will move away from commodity-based production, and the relations of exploitation that this engenders?

I'm asking because when I was an anarchist, I wasn't even aware that these questions existed. I thought that we just needed people to freely enter into non-exploitive realtionships with each other, and that people's creativity was sufficient to handle any challenges that arose. But I had no idea how that would happen--what the nature of those challenges could be, or how we would deal with them. I was very idealistic in that sense. Now admittedly, I wasn't exposed to a lot of theory, so anarchists may deal with these questions somehow, I don't know. But I'd LIKE to know!

I'm also asking because I think that this is exactly where the question of leadership hinges--on the correct grasping of how material reality works. On what other basis can the proletariat transform reality in their interests? Do they not need leaders to do this?

While I disagree with your conclusion that communist-led revolutions inevitably lead to state capitalism, and think that your statement that "any kind of workers power or move towards socialism was nowhere to be found" is fundamentally untrue, I'd like to hear what you propose as an alternative so we can actually get into some real debate. So, my basic question is, how will the proletariat be able to build socialism, and guard against the restoration of capitalism by bourgeois forces?

We all are here because we want a way out of this fucked up system. I think we owe it to ourselves to really engage these questions and not just dismiss each others theories. And I'll be honest--I haven't really seen you put forward anything positive to debate. I've only seen you diss Avakian and the RCP, without proposing any alternatives. I'm not schooled in formal debate or anything, but it seems to me that if one person says, "It's like this" and all the other person says is, "No it's not!", without offering an alternative view, we're not getting any closer to the truth.

[Deleted]

MundoQueGanar said:

SoR--

I'm curious as to whether or not you think that capitalist restoration is a problem, and if it is, how it will be avoided, because your response to flyby doesn't address that question at all.

Of course it's a problem, I'm not denying that. What I'm saying is that the Leninist model has failed to prevent it every time. As a matter of fact, it created a machine for a new ruling class to develop.

I believe in workers' control. Instead of creating a new state, power should be excersized by the proletariat (and only the proleteriat) directly in their own directly democratic organizations (whether they be Soviets/Workers Councils, industrial unions, community councils, etc.). Of course revolutionary Anarchists/Sociailsts/Communists should be present and active in this, but should not have an institutionalized power of command in the form of a state.

Do anarchists have a plan for how capitalism will be dismantled, how we will move away from commodity-based production, and the relations of exploitation that this engenders?

I don't think this is possible if we do not overthrow and abolish features of capitalism that have always been kept by Leninists in the past. We must not build a new centralized state. We must abolish the wage system.

I'm asking because when I was an anarchist, I wasn't even aware that these questions existed. I thought that we just needed people to freely enter into non-exploitive realtionships with each other, and that people's creativity was sufficient to handle any challenges that arose. But I had no idea how that would happen--what the nature of those challenges could be, or how we would deal with them. I was very idealistic in that sense. Now admittedly, I wasn't exposed to a lot of theory, so anarchists may deal with these questions somehow, I don't know. But I'd LIKE to know!

This is a common problem among Anarchists (at least in my experience). There is a current in Anarchism which takes their disdain for the arrogant "we know the way" attitude of Leninist parties to the opposite extreme of putting everything in an idealist faith of the spontaneity of the masses, sometimes to the point of rejecting organization completely (see Murray Bookchin's Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm.)

There is also the problem of being so sectarian as to reject Marxism completely and not take advantage of what is useful and has parallels to Anarchism. I, for example, am very interested in the Autonomist Marxism of Harry Cleaver, the Council Communism of Anton Pannekoek and Paul Mattick, and the Marxist-Humanism of Raya Dunayevskaya and C.L.R James.

I'm also asking because I think that this is exactly where the question of leadership hinges--on the correct grasping of how material reality works. On what other basis can the proletariat transform reality in their interests? Do they not need leaders to do this?

I think it's a misconception that all Anarchists and other Libertarian Socialists reject leadership completely. What I am against is hierarchy and instituionalized leadership where some "Party" would have power of command. Good leadership helps people to lead themselves, not make them followers. Eugene V. Debs used to say that he wasn't trying to lead by rising from the masses, he wanted to rise with the masses.

While I disagree with your conclusion that communist-led revolutions inevitably lead to state capitalism, and think that your statement that "any kind of workers power or move towards socialism was nowhere to be found" is fundamentally untrue, I'd like to hear what you propose as an alternative so we can actually get into some real debate. So, my basic question is, how will the proletariat be able to build socialism, and guard against the restoration of capitalism by bourgeois forces?

No matter how great and benevolent a leader is, power corrupts. While, depending on your analysis, either Stalin or "revisionists" led to the restoration of capitalism in Russia, it was Lenin who helped build the machine to make this possible.

We must learn from history. The Leninist organizational model has not worked. Why? The Leninist answer seems to be that "they didn't have the correct leadership." The libertarian socialist answer is that you can't replace one form of tyranny for another and expect to have real change.

We all are here because we want a way out of this fucked up system. I think we owe it to ourselves to really engage these questions and not just dismiss each others theories. And I'll be honest--I haven't really seen you put forward anything positive to debate. I've only seen you diss Avakian and the RCP, without proposing any alternatives. I'm not schooled in formal debate or anything, but it seems to me that if one person says, "It's like this" and all the other person says is, "No it's not!", without offering an alternative view, we're not getting any closer to the truth.

Regardless of whether alternatives are offered, I believe it's always valid to criticize what you disagree with. I don't think Avakian and the RCP offer any new alternative. I see the same old model just with a different leader.

[Deleted]

flyby said:

Glad to see you still posting here, sonofrage! There is real value in your participation and the issues you raise.

Oops, I forgot to comment on this. I have been very busy over the past few months. My level of involvement in both the Socialist Party and the IWW have continued to increase and my duties have taken enough of my time that I have to prioritize my online activity (plus I am now working full time). I have been putting more time into Che-Lives than AWIP because it has a larger membership. So, while the level of discussion here is significantly higher, more people can be reached through Che-Lives right now.

[redstar2000GUEST]

Flyby wrote: In the movement Debs belonged to (the Second International, and parties like the German Social Democratic Party and the U.S. Socialist Party) there was a stark divide between the revolutionary Left and the raw reformist right. And there was a "center" current that had leadership (and was represented by Kautsky.)

One thing that was widely believed by BOTH the "left" and the "center" was that revolutions just happened, when times were ripe. The job of socialists was to build organization (through elections, trade unions, cooperatives, newspapers, agitation, etc.) and then, at a certain point, the burdens and outrages of the system would just be too much -- and the mass socialist movement would break the bounds of the old society (like a snake breaks through its old skin), and the old order would be shed.

They often hoped it could be done relatively bloodlessly. They even assumed it might take the form of an electoral victory that was then defended by workers' militia etc.

I think this critique of the 2nd International parties (including Debs' Socialist Party) needs to be sharper.

From what I've read of them, revolution was not "on their agenda" from c.1900 onwards -- they didn't just "hope" that an electoral victory would "be" the "revolution"...they really thought that's how it would happen.

Revolution might be necessary in "backward despotisms" like Russia (which is probably why they tolerated Lenin's "extreme rhetoric" since he himself limited it to Russia). But in "modern civilized countries" they saw revolution as an "anachronism"...both bloody and "unnecessary."

In other words, they were subject to a grotesque misunderstanding of the real nature of bourgeois "democracy".

They took seriously the bourgeois cant about "the rule of law"...even though there were plenty of counter-examples even in their own time.

In a country where the Ludlow massacre (1915) took place, how did Debs imagine that he would even be permitted to occupy the White House had he won in 1916?

In short, I think flyby's criticism of the 2nd International parties is misplaced. The problem is not that they were wrong about spontaneity...but rather that their whole paradigm of social change was fundamentally reformist.

If you tell people that the way to change things is "vote for me", that's very often exactly what they'll do...and nothing else!

In one respect, the critique of spontaneity is justified -- it is rare that ignorant spontaneity will ever accomplish anything useful. People in Petrograd in February 1917 knew they wanted to rid themselves of the Czarist autocracy...and they succeeded brilliantly in that project. More than that was terra incognito to them.

If we want the masses to spontaneously overthrow capitalism in our own time, then the masses have to know that's what they want to do...and why.

They might very well figure that out eventually (if Marx was right, they will figure that out...eventually).

But this is where I think the role of conscious communists emerges; we are "midwives" of the new society because we are in a position to tell the masses what's really at stake.

Not because we are "great men", "geniuses", "leaders" or whatever; it was chance and circumstance that led to our encounter with revolutionary ideas sooner than most others.

There is "nothing special" about us except for the fact that we know some things that most people, right now, don't know...and desperately need to learn. Somehow, we need to find ways to tell them what we've learned...that's the truly urgent task of our era.

Trying to sell people on the idea that one of us is "a great leader" and "following him" will lead to liberation is, at best, a distraction. When most people have the idea of where to go and how to get there, they'll find their way easily enough.



The Redstar2000 Papers

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[flyby2]

let me put it this way:

we don't need blind obediance. We need exactly the opposite.

But at the same time, we do need a culture of appreciation and popularization and promotion of our key leadership -- in particular the person, the body of work, the method and approach of Bob Avakian.

If we do that, our chances of success in the revolution change in powerful ways. If we don't do that, our chances diminish, greatly, especially in this "go-round"

[Conghaileach]

Guest-flyby2 said:

we don't need blind obediance. We need exactly the opposite.

But at the same time, we do need a culture of appreciation and popularization and promotion of our key leadership -- in particular the person, the body of work, the method and approach of Bob Avakian.

You seem to be splitting hairs here. What really makes blind obedience different from "a culture of appreciation"?

[flyby]

flyby: "we don't need blind obediance. We need exactly the opposite. But at the same time, we do need a culture of appreciation and popularization and promotion of our key leadership -- in particular the person, the body of work, the method and approach of Bob Avakian."

Conghaileach wrote: "You seem to be splitting hairs here. What really makes blind obedience different from "a culture of appreciation"?"

I think that is an excellent question.

Here are some ways there is a complete opposition between "blind oediance" and "a culture of appreciation of Bob Avakian."

First, it is different because Avakian is completely opposed to blind obediance. We are talking about struggling to understand and apply the method he has developed and fought for -- rooted in critical thinking, scientific approach to reality, self-interrogation, dumpting of unjustified dogmas and old verdicts. etc.

So if someone says "we must bring truth and critical thinking center stage in communist work" and we say "let's dig into what he is saying" -- can you see why that is the opposite of promoting "blind obediance."

It is an offensive against dogmatic thinking -- and rightism. For putting a vivid and clear communist vision (vision of a new society) back onto the political stage. For dumping deception and self-deception and wishful thinking. For daring to be self-critical, for looking at old verdicts again, and for putting truth at the measure of things.

For example, some people say, "You just can't promote a leader in the U.S. left, people won't stand for it."

But can we, or should we, restrict what we say about reality based on what some people may or may not "stand for"?

If it is true that someone has developed a radical new and visionary approach to making revolution -- should we say it or not? Isn't the issue whether or not it is true, not whether it is immediately popular in all quarters?

Also, when I used the word "appreciate" I did not mean it in the sense of "I appreciate it when you help me pick up the couch" (i.e. not in the sense of thanking someone). I mean "appreciate" in the sense of actually digging into the meaning and content of something.

Like a full "appreciation" of what a thinker has developed -- a "deep study"

I think we should promote a deep study of Avakian's work -- and his method and approach. His opposition to proof-texting, and cheap superficial "answers" (that really aren't answers at all). His method of viewing our political decisions and challenges as contradictions in the reeal world -- that can't be simply dismissed or ignored, but have to be "worked through" in all their dynamic complexity.

Far too much of so-called "marxism" has become lazy caplets and religious tenets. A list of pre-digested "verdicts" (some of which aren't true, and others which are drained of truth by being simplified and dogmatized.)

We need to break with all that -- if we are really going to reach millions, understand reality around us, and change it. And if we are going to grasp what to uphold and what to discard in the communist movement.

That is what Avakian is putting in front of us. And it is what he has taken the lead in actually DOING. (I.e. he doesn't just raise doutbs or criticisms of previous analyses, but is developing strategies, analytical models, new verdicts, etc.)

Digging into that is exhilarating and very challenging. And it is the opposite of "blind obediance."