Who took the RC out of the RCYB?

[just curious]

I didn't want to muck up the other thread about this Cleveland trial (which is obviously important.)

But reading Trentons post, I just wondered: why do members of the RCYB refer to their organization as YB?

Who took the red out and why?

[RedFlagOverTrenton]

Nobody took the red out. It's STILL the RCYB. But sometimes people just use YB as shorthand, just as in an informal situation where everybody knows what you're talking about you might say "the Party" instead of "the Revolutionary Communist Party" or "the RCP". That doesn't mean the RCP is no longer revolutionary or communist.

You do have a point, though, in that those first two letters are of vital importance, as revolutionary communism is really at the heart of everything the RCYB and the RCP do. And it would be wrong to gloss over or not acknowledge that. If it really bothers people that much, I'll edit the title, but I didn't think using the shorthand abbreviation was that big a deal since most people here know what it means.

[just curious]

shortening the Revolutionary Communist Party to RCP is not the same as shortening the Revoilutionary Communist Youth Brigade to "the Youth Brigade."

One leaves the RC in, and the other takes it out.

And I don't agree that "everyone knows what you are talking about" -- unless those who already are familiar with the group are the only ones that count.

The fight for the RC was the KEY fight in the founding of the RCYB -- with fierce revisionist resistance to putting the RC in. The revisionists (who ran the RSB -- Revolutionary Student Brigade) were bitterly opposed to calling the new youth organization "Revolutoinary Communist" anything -- and Bob Avakian was personally involved in the political struggle for the importance of popularizing revolutionary communism, publicly, boldly and fearlessly.

So, I'm not saying you (Redflagovertrenton) are against promoting communism. And I read what you wrote: that "everyone" expresses it as YB.

I'm just asking: what is the political impact and meaning of shortening the RCYB to YB?

What is the thinking behind this idea?

[RedFlagOverTrenton]

First off I said it was analagous to shortening RCP to "the Party" in a situation where people know precisely which one you're referring to; NOT that it's analgous to using the RCP acronym. And yes, I would be surprised if many people on this board weren't familiar with the existance of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, especially because it's referenced as such at the beginning of the body of the article.

I found nothing to disagree with in your argument that we should boldly and fearlessly popularize revolutionary communism, and that we shouldn't try to hide or obfuscate what we really stand for. It's referred to as the RCYB in almost every piece of publicity material I've read, from fliers to IndyMedia postings, and only as "the YB" in casual conversation with people who are familiar with it, or where it's already been referred to as the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade someplace else earlier. Like I said.. it's just occasionally used shorthand. I think this whole argument has the potential to become a serious distraction from the more pressing issue at hand; that one of our comrades could be going to fucking prison because he wanted to tell young people the truth.

I also ammended the title just so people don't get stuck on this for too long.

[just curious]

i agree that the trial and prison is important.

and i think we both agree that the "RC" is important.

nuff said, i guess.

[what was that]

Its never good to assume that everyone would know what you are talking about.

After all, the majority of people have never heard of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade or The Revolutionary Communist Party, or their Chairman, Bob Avakianbobavakian.net and the voice of the party -- Revolution newspaper revcom.us

That is something that desperately needs to change given the current conditions in society and it can only change through very focused work.

Wouldn't it be a huge leap in the right direction if Bob Avakian and his party were widely known?

The same goes for referring to a lot of other things. WTF is WITBD to someone who has never seen these acronyms before? They should at least be defined before moving on to using them in the rest of the text or conversation -- such as What is to be Done (WITBD).

Even after they have been defined earlier in conversations, I find it hard to recall what they were later in the conversations if the conversation has gone on for a while (a few hours, a long thread, more than a couple email exchanges and so on).

And it is also important to understand that online there are people who may be dropping into these conversations late and not have a clue what all the acronyms are about -- especially in extremely long threads where it may seem impossible to go back and do more than skim the whole thread.

[celticfire84]

So let my present a question:
We are revolutionary communists, right? Is promoting a singular leader, no matter how "great" the right way to get to a classess, equalitarian society of freely associating humans?

Label me a revisionist, a Trot, a economist, whatever you want - but ultimately for a number of reasons the CULT OF PERSONALITY (call it a "culture of appreciation" and you're full of B.S. - call it what it actually is!) serves the reaction.

Think about where cults of personality come from and how they develop into Party/state policy. Is it good to have an "irreplacable leader"? Is leadership for life, even when you are wrong?

What about Lenin and Mao who developed the concept of democratic centralism. What whould they think about having a leader self-select members of a Central Committee? Mao had a cult of personality, it was taken to such lengths in some places he was the new "god."

There is the story of the red guard who visited a peasent woman, and asked if her who lived in heaven, she responds "Mao."

That is the exact opposite of a scientifc approach to life and communist work. But Mao can be forgiven, it was an experiment and even communist tradition. But Avakian and the RCP as a whole should be able to sum up these leasons much better.

We need leaders and leadership, we need centralism. But not fake centralism, not self-aggrandized leaders.

celticfire.blogspot.com
www.massline.info

[repeater]

First of all Avakian is irreplaceable. He is irreplaceable because he is the only person in this country who is taking responsibility for leading a revolutionary movement.

This is fucking great! That we have someone who is at that level, struggling out the issues and cardinal questions of our movement and striving to bring us further is a good thing. And none of this is disconnected from the role of others in the Party, the masses, or of the international situation and our history. On the other hand it has never been said that his being irreplaceable is a good thing in the sense that we want it to always be so. It is simply an objective fact that Avakian is a singularity, but he is a universalizing singularity. The point of the cult of personality is exactly to make him not be irreplaceable. That is to say to everyone, EVERYONE, that you can deal with these issues of how to bring a liberating world to humanity. In this day and age there is no-one who has done more and tried harder to bring people to deal with the questions and issues that need to be dealt with for humanity to get free, than Avakian. And it is his example and methodology which needs to be grasped in order for more and more people to engage the changing of the world at the level it needs to be engaged.

Avakian is a militant subject in the same vein as Lenin, or Marx, or Mao. What people fail to see in his writings which are mainly simply reiterations of the accomplishments and theories of others, is the necessity for synthesizing all this and also the necessity for these things to be said again. To become new again. What Lenin, Marx and Mao brought to the masses is of no use if it is forgotten. In other words there is an aspect here in which, to quote Goethe, you could say, "Everything has been thought before, the trick is to think it again." Or to paraphrase Marx, "Humanity comes up with no new projects, it simply remembers what was always its purpose."

This is exactly what you find in the singularity of Lenin. With the exception of a few major theoretical works, Lenin's greatest theoretical accomplishments were to revive and defend a revolutionary understanding of Marx. Read "State and Revolution", there is virtually nothing there which is not directly taken from Marx. And with regards to Marx, he himself said that his greatest accomplishment wasn't to create anything new, but to synthesize reality as it was. Or to put it in Lenin's words, "to be as radical as reality itself".

The thing that makes Avakian unique in relation to Marx, Lenin and Mao, is that he is starting now at the points that they ended at. To understand this you need to understand that the way they worked and their entire world view was radically different than when they began, or that of their societies, or of most people today. In other words it is the method, and the act which defines their intellectual and theoretical brilliance. It is the actualization of the 9th thesis on Feuerbach.

Lets just say that you need to learn how read all over again to really understand. You need to learn how to think all over again in order to think reality.

Now I think there are problems with the singularity of Avakian and the cult of personality. The main problem is when the cult of personality is not seen and not acted upon as a universalizing project, but more to reaffirm the singular. It happens. But it's not the primary thing happening and I don't believe it is the purpose. There is a contradiction between singular and universal and in some ways the singularity, and more specifically our understanding of it, blocks a universalization. That is when you read only Avakian all the time, or talk only of Avakian, it becomes alienating and a wall is ironically created between Avakian and the masses. Or more abstractly between the singular and universal.

But then there are those who persist in thinking something aside from reality. Those who persist in glorifying the slavery which is democracy, or any of the other "gifts" the bourgeoisie have brought to us. As good as it was in its day, we communists are about getting something much, much better. And for those who see the world like this, those who look through the bars on their windows and proclaim themselves free, the question of Avakian is unbearable. That anyone would claim that one human being actually is doing something which could change the world in incredibly liberating ways, is just too much. After all why not Noam Chomsky? Why not some dead guy that is safe in anonymity or irrelevance? Fuck, one suspects that some of these "critics" would even suggest, "why not Oprah?" Or best of all, "why not nobody?" Once again reality will answer these questions for you if you have the guts to see it.

But of course what is simply far beyond the pail, is that Avakian himself would recognize the situation. That he himself would recognize his leadership role. Whatever happened to humility? Fuck humility. It has no place in a Revolution. If it is true that Avakian is a singular leader then it should be known and he himself should recognize it. If he and others were not to recognize this and let it be known that would be unnaccountable leadership.

It takes guts and an extreme personal risk to put yourself out as a leader of this nature. Any suggestion of self angrandizement is an insult of the highest degree. Avakian lives a life committed to this revolution in ways that you simply do not understand right now. I can only hope that one of these days you do understand what that commitment means, and what that responsibility means.

None of this is meant to suggest that every utterance or idea that Avakian has are true and correct, this is clearly not the case. But it is just as clearly not the case and not an aspect of the militant subject to be all knowing or to construct reality with their thought. As if they make a pronouncement and that makes it true, or that something is created by their thought like God in some stupid movie. This is the exact opposite of what it means to lead, and of how Avakian actually does lead. There is no suggestion of an absolute truth related to the process of Avakian. Only a structure, a form and a reflection of reality as best as we can know it now in order to change it.

[repeater]

All your comments about "leadership for life" and self selecting comittee members, etc. Has nothing to do with the RCP. These are claims and assertions that tell us more about you and your problems than anything about the RCP. As in: you really like formal democracy, and you don't like leadership or the cult of personality, therefore anything that exhibits these characterstics must be completely negated through the prism of your own values. Therefore they don't simply not practice formal democracy in the way you like, they make the most terrible transgressions against it. Again you've said nothing to prove these assertions, in fact you've been careful to simply infer them to the RCP rather than flat out saying that's what's going on. It's basically dishonest and unprincipled. And if you want a lesson in democratic-centralism try figuring out why people don't go around talking about things they don't know.

[a comment]

yeah, repeater.

For example "irreplacable" does not mean "unreplacable."

It is not a statement that some post has been formally assigned "for life."

It is a summation about a person -- about the contribution he has made, and the ONGOING contribution that only he can make. It literally is the result of a careful and thought-through assessment that there is no one who can "step into his shoes" (at the level of contribution he is making).

Is it "good to have an irreplacable leader"? as celticfire asks?

I'm with Repeater on this: First of all, it is something to fucking celebrate, that such a leader has emerged within our international movement at such a crucial time. It is not always true that there is such a leader (for example Engels did not play that role between the death of marx and the emergence of lenin, and Stalin did not play a role on that level between the death of lenin and the emergence of mao.) And it is certainly true (and i suppose even obvious) that not every party has such a leader, and in fact most parties (even genuinely revolutionary parties) in history have not (with all the implications of that).

On the other hand, understanding that someone is making contributions and leaps in our revolutonary science in ways head and shoulders above other leaders in his party, is not an excuse for complacency. (Let Bob do it.) It is a real struggle to keep up, to actually grasp, apply and popularize what is being developed within the science of revolution. If new breakthroughs are made, but not grasped, then all the potential of that is pissed away. (Think of the indonesian party in Mao's time -- which pissed away what Mao had synthesized, and pissed away the hopes of the people at the same time. Think of the German communists from World War 1 to Hitler, who never succeeded in carrying through and applying, let alone developing, the great break Lenin had fought for in the "traditions" of previously existing socialism.)

The understanding that a leadership has emerged on that caliber can't be separated from the need to ENGAGE what is being brought forward. Burningman has pointed out many times that the attacks on BA are almost universally EMPTY. Far too often the argument is "how dare you say something new has emerged" -- without every engaging "what has emerged" (whether by agreeing or not).

Celticfires approach to leadership rejects the very notion of promoting a particular communist theorist, without even contemplating or answering the assertion that this theorist may be bringing something forward WITHOUT WHICH the international communist movement will not take advantage of openings for communist revolution. It may be historically crucial to make certain new, pathbreaking, controversial LEAPS in communist theory the POSSESSION of communists all over the world. THAT was certainly the case with Lenin and Mao, and that was the reason why it was CORRECT and NECESSARY to promote them, their works, their approach and method -- in opposition to the lines embodied by virtually everyone else in their movements.

The situation now is not identical to any particular moment or conjuncture in the past (history doesn't work that way.)

But the truth is that communism hangs by a thread. Everything people have accumulated (at great and bitter sacrifice) for the cause could be wasted, pissed away, and turned into its opposite, if it is not connected to what is most advanced and visionary of communist thinking. Avakian's work is not done at random (!) -- he is landing blows (theoretically, ideologically, practically) exactly on the key issues NEEDED FOR VICTORY. (And needed to fight so that victory would mean something precious and different for the people.)

You may not agree. but if you are not engaging with the content, approach and method -- with all that is embodied in BA's new synthesis -- then you are not dealing with the REASONS why this leadership needs to be promoted and popularized.

What does "appreciate" mean? It's not like when you say to your mechanic "gee thanks I appreciate what you did." Here the word appreciate is meant in the sense of deeply engage, grasp and wrangle with what is being put forward. To "appreciate" the content of what is being developed in some depth. And to appreciate the uniqueness of it, the leap it embodies, the implications of where it diverges from what has been the "established truths" of communism so far.

[celticfire84]

First of all Avakian is irreplaceable. He is irreplaceable because he is the only person in this country who is taking responsibility for leading a revolutionary movement.

When I hear supposed communists use terms like “irreplaceable” it makes my stomach turn. Turning leadership into absolutist terms is a mechanical fallacy, not Marxism. Assuming Avakian once held truth, will he always hold truth? Is the truth only available through him? What about what he has got flat wrong, like the end-of-the-world or revolution thinking in the 80's? The treating of homosexuality like a disease of capitalist decay, or the “Stop the Busing!” attempts? Avakian has criticized himself on some of these things, but that isn't the point. He is not “irreplaceable” or a Marx-Lenin-Mao deity extolling the word of MLM to us sheep. And treating leadership in those terms only saps the movement, and gives Maoism a bad name.

This is fucking great! That we have someone who is at that level, struggling out the issues and cardinal questions of our movement and striving to bring us further is a good thing. And none of this is disconnected from the role of others in the Party, the masses, or of the international situation and our history. On the other hand it has never been said that his being irreplaceable is a good thing in the sense that we want it to always be so. It is simply an objective fact that Avakian is a singularity, but he is a universalizing singularity. The point of the cult of personality is exactly to make him not be irreplaceable. That is to say to everyone, EVERYONE, that you can deal with these issues of how to bring a liberating world to humanity. In this day and age there is no-one who has done more and tried harder to bring people to deal with the questions and issues that need to be dealt with for humanity to get free, than Avakian. And it is his example and methodology which needs to be grasped in order for more and more people to engage the changing of the world at the level it needs to be engaged.

You argue flat out that the point of the cult of personality is to not make him irreplaceable? This is Orwellian in its weirdness – truth is false, up is down and leaders are irreplaceable? The point of the cult of personality is to associate the object of the cult with the “Truth” and in politics this means the Party and State. If Avakian dies tomorrow, or next year or a decade from now, what will happen to the RCP? My guess is that it falls a part like a house of cards. The cult of personality is a manifestation of mechanical thinking. I can absolve Stalin and Mao for this, given the historical experiments and period – but Avakian should know better. Are communists just raw material to be sculpted by the omnipotent leader – or are they critical revolutionaries capable engaging theory and practice? I am not down playing or attempted to negate the role of leadership. Leadership is absolutely necessary to our movement, but not leadership that is absolute, that is presented as super-human, because we know what that looks like – North Korea – and guess what? The masses don't want that!

Avakian is a militant subject in the same vein as Lenin, or Marx, or Mao. What people fail to see in his writings which are mainly simply reiterations of the accomplishments and theories of others, is the necessity for synthesizing all this and also the necessity for these things to be said again. To become new again. What Lenin, Marx and Mao brought to the masses is of no use if it is forgotten. In other words there is an aspect here in which, to quote Goethe, you could say, "Everything has been thought before, the trick is to think it again." Or to paraphrase Marx, "Humanity comes up with no new projects, it simply remembers what was always its purpose."

Avakian has interpreted his spin on the historical communist movement and the writings of Marx, Lenin and Mao, and just doing that doesn't place him on the orthodox mantle. But in doing so, in claiming him to be a MLM god you sap the movement, you reduce it to who can remember the most Avakian quotes. And after reading Avakian's memoir, I have to wonder what Avakian would think of the RCP if he were a kid today.

If you rely for Avakian to explain away all your problems, it isn't going to amount to warm spit to the masses, and this is yet another reason why the RCP is so distant from the RCP. You can wrap Avakian in a nice red bow, it still doesn't make him the communist messiah. The content of his works is mixed. Some is, indeed, insightful and revolutionary, other is simply wrong. For example, his explanation of the cult of personality, he just says “there is a dialectical relationship, and besides, people that don't like it are intellectual snobs anyway!” That's bullshit. The cult stultifies the Party, makes it appear as a joke to the masses and makes communists look and act like zombie-robots programmed to repeat what ever the master want. A very bold act for people who claim to want to “liberate” humanity. I share Avakian's rejection of bourgeois projections of “totalitarianism” and share his distaste for out right revisionism, but that good doesn't overshadow the bad when it comes to Avakian.

But then there are those who persist in thinking something aside from reality. Those who persist in glorifying the slavery which is democracy, or any of the other "gifts" the bourgeoisie have brought to us. As good as it was in its day, we communists are about getting something much, much better. And for those who see the world like this, those who look through the bars on their windows and proclaim themselves free, the question of Avakian is unbearable. That anyone would claim that one human being actually is doing something which could change the world in incredibly liberating ways, is just too much. After all why not Noam Chomsky? Why not some dead guy that is safe in anonymity or irrelevance? Fuck, one suspects that some of these "critics" would even suggest, "why not Oprah?" Or best of all, "why not nobody?" Once again reality will answer these questions for you if you have the guts to see it.

Again, this is mystification of leadership. You suggest that there is some mystical “special” reason Avakian has emerged as your leader. There isn't. Chomsky, I think we can both agree, is worthless when it comes to advocating any concrete steps towards change. In this respect, Avakian is leaps and bounds more revolutionary. I don't have any use for bourgeois democracy. But I have use for a broad, meaningful proletarian democracy, one which gives space for political agency among the masses.


But of course what is simply far beyond the pail, is that Avakian himself would recognize the situation. That he himself would recognize his leadership role. Whatever happened to humility? Fuck humility. It has no place in a Revolution. If it is true that Avakian is a singular leader then it should be known and he himself should recognize it. If he and others were not to recognize this and let it be known that would be unnaccountable leadership.

There is so much metaphysical argument here I don't know where to begin! If Avakian didn't “realize” he was the leader then he would be “unaccountable”?

It takes guts and an extreme personal risk to put yourself out as a leader of this nature. Any suggestion of self angrandizement is an insult of the highest degree. Avakian lives a life committed to this revolution in ways that you simply do not understand right now. I can only hope that one of these days you do understand what that commitment means, and what that responsibility means.

This reminds me of when I argue with Christians, they tell me similar things, like “I pray one day you will find the light of the Lord and join us.” Avakian has been your Chair for nearly 30 years and you have it made it past small clique level. I would reconsider things after the very wrong 80's analysis.

All your comments about "leadership for life" and self selecting committee members, etc. Has nothing to do with the RCP. These are claims and assertions that tell us more about you and your problems than anything about the RCP. As in: you really like formal democracy, and you don't like leadership or the cult of personality, therefore anything that exhibits these characteristics must be completely negated through the prism of your own values. Therefore they don't simply not practice formal democracy in the way you like, they make the most terrible transgressions against it. Again you've said nothing to prove these assertions, in fact you've been careful to simply infer them to the RCP rather than flat out saying that's what's going on. It's basically dishonest and unprincipled. And if you want a lesson in democratic-centralism try figuring out why people don't go around talking about things they don't know.

Straw men aren't real arguments. Misrepresenting my views in order to argue them isn't a good method. You paint me as an anarcho-formalist/ultra-leftist. But is this really my views or ones you have characterized? I've never said, for example, I didn't like leadership. In fact I have repeatedly stated leadership is absolutely necessary in a communist movement. I have argued for centralism and discipline, alongside democracy and freedom. I think it is you who have a misconception about democratic centralism. It isn't a formal procedure where participants ritualistically, and obediently vote Avakian unanimously as the Supreme Leader. Democratic centralism is an operational procedure for a communist party, which combines democracy, the democracy in which participants can actually influence policy, not just “democratically” decide how to implement the Great Leader's line, with centralism (arrived at democratically as opposed to bureaucratically) and discipline. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

[flyby]

a reply to celticfire:

Celticfire writes: "When I hear supposed communists use terms like “irreplaceable” it makes my stomach turn."

Starting a discussion with visceral and emotional assertions is a statement of method. And the method is not scientific.

It is similar to someone starting a discussion of sexuality saying "Homosexuals make me sick." How likely is a scientific, rational discussion of line and reality?

I'm sorry your "stomach turns" -- but i urge you to think about what i'm saying.... not whether your preconceived notions cause you to be disgusted by me.

" Turning leadership into absolutist terms is a mechanical fallacy, not Marxism."

There is nothing absolutist about the RCP's approach to leadership. The RCP is clearly scientific about this and related questions. It opposes slavishness. It opposes the idea that someone is always right. It upholds the idea that developing correct line is a collective process (epistemologically).

I urge you to read their actual discussion of these things, and base your pronouncements on that (and not on your misreading of them).

One place to start is their "resolution on leadership"
rwor.org/a/firstvol/825/revolutionary_leadership.htm

"Assuming Avakian once held truth, will he always hold truth? Is the truth only available through him? What about what he has got flat wrong, like the end-of-the-world or revolution thinking in the 80's? The treating of homosexuality like a disease of capitalist decay, or the “Stop the Busing!” attempts? Avakian has criticized himself on some of these things, but that isn't the point."

Actually it is the point. It proves that your earlier assertion of absolutism is mistaken. No one argues that there is a magical approach to truth, or that someone who has made contributions is guaranteed to continue making contributions on that level.

And if you read Avakian you would see that he himself points to the example of Einstein, who made a major breakthrough on relativity, but then later in his life too the wrong approach on quantum physics.

But take the example of Pele in soccer-- or a Michael Jordan in basketball . They are unique, their role in the game is unique, and the game is different when they are in play. Does that mean that if Pele enters the game we are assured victory? nope. Does it mean that he won't make a mistake at a key moment? nope. Does it mean that the rest of the team is irrelevent? nope.

But it does mean that if Pele breaks a leg the night before a championship game, all might be lost. That you can't simply say "oh, no matter, we will go in and play our gameplan without him." cuz it won't work, and you are likely to lose without him.

And that is why, with key players, the opposing side tries to "take them out," and protecting them from this is a key part of being able to continue winning.

Because people are not the same. You can't just "pull out Jordan, and substitute him with a replacement" and expect the game to be won.

Of course, if Pele is crippled, you don't refuse to play. You adapt your game plan, you fight to win. But the fact is that the odds have just changed, in a very bad and perhaps fatal way.

"He is not “irreplaceable” or a Marx-Lenin-Mao deity extolling the word of MLM to us sheep."

It is wrong to equate these two things, or to imply that saying "irreplacable" means that no one else matters.

First, being irreplacable doesn't mean "deity."

If Pele's team lost him at a key moment, it might be decisive, and he is truly irreplacable (i.e. there is no one that can "come in" and simply do what he does.) This is a fact. It can be deduced from a materialist analysis.

does this mean Pele is a god? no. why should it imply anything magical or metaphysical.

Or to return to politics:

If lenin had died in 1914, there would not have been a Russian revolution. No one else in his party saw the opening in 1917. No one else could have fought to have the Bolsheviks adopt a position of going for power in october. He was irreplacable.

Does that make him a god? nope. It is just a materialist assessment of who was there, in his party, what their lines were, what their capabilities were, and in particular, it is an assessment of the unique and distinctive role he played (in the party and in these events.)

"And treating leadership in those terms only saps the movement, and gives Maoism a bad name."

On the contrary!

If it is true it must be said.

If you have a unique and irreplacable leadership, it needs to be made known -- because it has implications for what is possible (to do) and what is necessary (to do).

Otherwise the movement and the masses can't be prepared to defend such a leadership. Otherwise people are not prepared to assimilate and apply what is being brought forward.

Did the promotion of Mao give Maoism a bad name? Uh, no. It was a key part of what made Maoism possible. If no one had promoted Mao, and pointed out that he was making unique contributions in theory and practice, how could a Maoist movement have emerged?

The Maoist movement sang as its anthem "The east is red, arise the sun, China's given birth to a Mao Tsetung." It is worth thinking about that deeply.

How much was the chinese revolution possible BECAUSE a Mao emerged? Was it "more ripe" than india? Or was the question of leadership perhaps decisive?



Repeater wrote in answer to celticfire: "The point of the cult of personality is exactly to make him not be irreplaceable. That is to say to everyone, EVERYONE, that you can deal with these issues of how to bring a liberating world to humanity."

It is true that the point of our work around BA's synthesis is to help many many more people engage with it, and "travel with" him -- to play the role they can and must play, without a hint of slavishness.

However, even if we do everything right that would not magically make him "replacable." If we grasp and apply this new synthesis, if we fight for communism based on these new leaps of analysis... that will not negate the fact that the contribution he makes (and can be expected to continue to make) is unique.

In other words, we want to defend the chair. And we want to bring his analysis to many many more people (to engage and take up). But none of that will reverse unevendevelopment in the world, or the different levels of contribution that different people will be making.

Repeater writes "In this day and age there is no-one who has done more and tried harder to bring people to deal with the questions and issues that need to be dealt with for humanity to get free, than Avakian. And it is his example and methodology which needs to be grasped in order for more and more people to engage the changing of the world at the level it needs to be engaged."

I agree.

Celticfire writes: "You argue flat out that the point of the cult of personality is to not make him irreplaceable? This is Orwellian in its weirdness – truth is false, up is down and leaders are irreplaceable? The point of the cult of personality is to associate the object of the cult with the “Truth” and in politics this means the Party and State. If Avakian dies tomorrow, or next year or a decade from now, what will happen to the RCP? My guess is that it falls a part like a house of cards. The cult of personality is a manifestation of mechanical thinking."

I will ignore the tone of "totalitarian-baiting" and anticommunism in this reply.

First of all, Avakian is either irreplacable or not. How we handle or discuss his work does not make him irreplacable or not.

The point of promoting him is not to associate "the object of the cult with the truth" -- but to point out that someone has been bringng forward some unique insights which are true, and very necessary for those who want liberation.

Your whole approach is subjective idealism. And what is actually true never comes up in your discussion.

If someone has discovered important truths (including new truths) about the liberation process, and are continuing to dig and lead on that basis -- should this be known and said? I think, yes.

CF writes: "I can absolve Stalin and Mao for this, given the historical experiments and period – but Avakian should know better."

How generous and arbitrary. Now you are absolving the proletariat's leader, like some moral pope of the 21st century. And convenient. So you can slyly uphold Mao, even though his approach to the question of leadership is quite similar to the RCP's. Heh!

CF said: "Are communists just raw material to be sculpted by the omnipotent leader – or are they critical revolutionaries capable engaging theory and practice?"

It is tiresome, but let me point out again, that the RCP opposes any concept of "omnipotent." And inventing and affixing claims of religiousity doesn't make it true. Be honest. Don't lie or invent.

Let me put it another way: Will communists become critical revolutionaries in the world today if they don't engage with and take up the method and approach Avakian is fighting for? I think not.

CF writes: " I am not down playing or attempted to negate the role of leadership."

Of course you are. But lets be clear: "leadership" is not some rootless abstraction that floats through society like fog in a swamp. We are talking about a person who leads, who formulates line and policy, who forges unity and draws dividing lines, and who strains to connect our present with a communist future.

You may say 'leadership is necessary" -- but not this leader. so you uphold it in the abstract, while denying the concrete, historic and material way it has infact emerged and been concentrated (inthis person).

CF writes: "Leadership is absolutely necessary to our movement, but not leadership that is absolute, that is presented as super-human, because we know what that looks like – North Korea – and guess what? The masses don't want that!"

Simple challenge: give me one example of where Avakian is presented as "superhuman." Just one. Document it, and post it here.

And if you can't, admit that it is wrong to say this.

By contrast, the feudal monarchy in North Korea is full of supernatural statements (about flowers blooming in winter, and applause magically heard across sacred lakes, when leaders are born or die.)

But you falsely equate a religious revisionist mess, with a necessary and urgent fight for a new leap in Marxism.

So i repeat the simple challenge: show us any place where Avakian is treated metaphysically, as supernature, superhuman or "absolute"?

Because in fact, he is fighting against religious thinking and dogmatism among communists, for a scientific and critical approach, for opposing absolutist notions of inevitability, and so on.

CF writes: "If you rely for Avakian to explain away all your problems, it isn't going to amount to warm spit to the masses."

Another logical exercise: positing something that is not true, and deducing something that does not apply.

[celticfire84]

Glad to see your back too flyby! I will get back to your response soon.

[flyby2]

cool, celticfire.

a methodological suggestion for everyone: start with what is real, not how it fits into your personal schema and assumptions.

Also: to engage with people (even those you disagree with) let's all deal with their ACTUAL arguments, and when possible also with the best version of their arguments (rather than creating strawmen, distorting what they actually say, or picking on minor errors to cast aspirtions on major points.)

[repeater]

Just to clarify my position and my previous posts:

First, I meant the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach not the 9th, i.e. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

Secondly, regarding Celticfire, I said exactly what I meant, no more, no less. Your statements essentially show how rigid your thinking is, in that you don't in any substantive way engage what I said, but simply reasserted your a priori understanding of things.

Thrid, I think the points that "a comment" and flyby brought up point to my differences with them and their understanding of Avakian's leadership. I would like to get into this more, and to begin with will simply reiterate my previous point:

"Now I think there are problems with the singularity of Avakian and the cult of personality. The main problem is when the cult of personality is not seen and not acted upon as a universalizing project, but more to reaffirm the singular. It happens. But it's not the primary thing happening and I don't believe it is the purpose. There is a contradiction between singular and universal and in some ways the singularity, and more specifically our understanding of it, blocks a universalization. That is when you read only Avakian all the time, or talk only of Avakian, it becomes alienating and a wall is ironically created between Avakian and the masses. Or more abstractly between the singular and universal."

Now clearly, as you say, there is no magic involved in this and uneven development is a reality; a foundational reality which creates basis for and makes leadership necessary. Having said this Avakian's singularity HAS to be understood as universalizing. If it were to be understood primarily as singularity in and of itself it would in essence be carrying many of the defects which the cult of personality is criticized for. One way of putting this is culture of appreciation for whom and for what? Is it simply to make people "know that Avakian is this leader", or is it to not just know this leaders, but to unleash the masses to change the world on the basis of this leadership? How does a leader come to be? Through the struggles of the masses and through interaction with other leaders. But then what is a leader for? To lead the struggles of the masses. Clearly there is singularity and universality in all of this, but universality is primary in the last instance because history is made by the masses ultimately and not by Avakian.

This is true of every major communist leader, and it is not simply humility or platitude that every major communist leader has made this same statement. I don't deny that the Russian Revolution wouldn't have happened without Lenin, but neither Lenin nor the Revolution would have happened without the masses.

Anyway, I think the way in which the culture of appreciation has been brought forward by some has gotten this basic principle upside down. And as we all know in the GPCR the cult of personality around Mao, which was a structure in which much of the class struggle was arranged, was used by both friend and foe alike. While I don't consider the people with this upside down take on this issue to be counter-revolutionaries, I am saying that it will develop that way.