Chairman Avakian's memoir

[flyby]

rwor.org/a/1263/avakian-memoir-ad.htm

Bob Avakian has written a memoir containing three unique but interwoven stories. The first tells of a white middle-class kid growing up in ’50s America who goes to an integrated high school and has his world turned around; the second of a young man who overcomes a near-fatal disease and jumps with both feet into the heady swirl of Berkeley in the ’60s; and the third of a radical activist who matures into a tempered revolutionary communist leader. If you think about the past or if you urgently care about the future...if you want to hear a unique voice of utter realism and deep humanity...and if you dare to have your assumptions challenged and your stereotypes overturned...then you won’t want to miss this book.

"Bob Avakian is a long distance runner in the freedom struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalism. His voice and witness are indispensable in our efforts to enhance the wretched of the earth. And his powerful story of commitment is timely."

Cornel West
Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion,
Princeton University

"A truly interesting account of Bob Avakian’s life, a humanizing portrait of someone who is often seen only as a hard-line revolutionary. I can understand why Bob Avakian has drawn so many ardent supporters. He speaks to people’s alienation from a warlike and capitalist society, and holds out the possibility for radical change."

Howard Zinn
Author of A People’s History of the United States

[Andrei_X]

Wow, this is exciting! I've always wanted to know more about who Chairman Avakian is as the MAN- the HUMAN that he is, not just the revolutionary theorist and leader (although obviously this book will delve into that further!). It's one of those things I like to understand- what made people who they are today?

I wait in anticipation for it to be released in my area.

[flyby]

now available for ordering:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0976023628/qid=1105496902/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-3268465-2259232?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

A suggestion: post this information.

People everywhere need to know that our main man's memoirs are now available to buy online.

post it wherever you go.

[flyby]

Cornel West
"...his powerful story of commitment is timely."

Howard Zinn
"...truly interesting...a humanizing portrait of someone who is often seen only as a hard-line revolutionary."

About the Author
Bob Avakian is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. And he is more than that: he’s an innovative and critical thinker who has taken Marxism to a new place; he’s a provocative commentator on everything from basketball to religion, doo-wop music to science; and he’s a pit-bull fighter against oppression who’s kept both his solemn sense of purpose and his irrepressible sense of humor.

Product Description:
Bob Avakian has written a memoir containing three unique but interwoven stories. The first tells of a white middle-class kid growing up in ‘50s America who goes to an integrated high school and has his world turned around; the second of a young man who overcomes a near-fatal disease and jumps with both feet into the heady swirl of Berkeley in the ‘60s; and the third of a radical activist who matures into a tempered revolutionary communist leader. If you think about the past or if you urgently care about the future… if you want to hear a unique voice of utter realism and deep humanity… and if you dare to have your assumptions challenged and your stereotypes overturned… then you won’t want to miss this book.

[RedFlagOverTrenton]

Just FYI for everyone, it's out - at least at the NY bookstore. And though I'm only 50 pages into it, it's definetely a decent read.

Here I see how some people speculated that Avakian talks into a tape recorder and has everything edited later.. not because he does or because it rambles like that, but because the tone and the wording seems very.. conversational, more spontaneous (if that's the right word) than most autobiography's I've picked up. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, not really, because in alot of ways it makes the whole thing more approachable. A person I met who's reading it commented that it's in fact one of the less difficult of his works to "get", to really understand just immediately off the bat. Even as early as I am into it, I can see alot of the influences on political thinking and where alot of it comes from.

[flyby2]

I am also reading it and will (i assume) jump in when the discussion starts.

[1949]

This is going to sound a little bit blunt, and I don't want to be interpreted as being rude or anything, but I'm curious:

Are these memoirs really neccessary? How does Avakian writing them and us reading them help us?

I, myself, still have a lot of Avakian's theoretical work to read, and I shall be preoccupied with that in the coming months. I think those are a lot more important than just hearing the Chairman talk about his life.

[RedFlagOverTrenton]

S'ok, 1949. Don't be afraid of being rude if you have real questions or criticisms to bring forward. I think what you raised is a legitimate question and deserves an answer.

I've recently made a sort of ideological rupture with my old ideas and come to a sort of realization, after studying the Chairman's works more thoroughly, that what he's talking about does hold great importance and really is significant to what we're trying to do here. And at this point I've made it halfway through the memoirs and I've been talking to people about why they're important and how we want to approach bringing them to people. And admittedly I'm just starting on this so my understanding might be sort of limited, but let me tell you what I think.

For one thing, obviously, what Avakian is putting forth today didn't spring up fully formed in his head in 1968. The platform and line of the RU and later the RCP has not remained an absolute constant for the past few decades. They were developed throughout a period of great ideological and political struggle from within and without, during a time of tremendous upheaval and the beginnings of real revolutionary stirrings amongst the masses. So, in one sense, it's not JUST about Avakian's life, and how he liked sports as a kid and scuffled with the police or whatever, but about the organization as well and how its political line has developed and changed. So, having ideological and historical context from all these different periods Avakian and the RU/RCP go through helps in being able to understand what's being put forward now - why are these ideas valid? Where did they come from, and how have they evolved and been tested in the realm of practice over the years? etc.

Secondly, "I2M" as I'm going to call it from now on is being promoted and distributed in a different way than alot of the RCP's other stuff. Insight Press is a newly founded publishing group that's since put out this and Li Onesto's "Dispatches From the People's War". What it aims to do, as I understand it, is sort of break into the new intellectual climate that's been swirling about since the situation here became how it is, what with the deep entrenchment of various reactionary forces and the possible slide into fascism we're experiancing: the exploration of all these different and (some) new ideas that the left and the broad masses in general are taking up and struggling with. Avakian's memoirs and the way it's being promoted can, if this is done right and the work we do soon is taken up successfully. MLM can be more thoroughly and fully brought into that discource.

Marxism in and of itself is an especially radical philosophy, Maoism especially, and even progressive people who haven't gotten into this very deeply can wonder, "Wow. that's a really big rupture from where most people are coming from. How does someone get from here to there, how do they arrive at such a radical conclusion?" Obviously I2M isn't some kind of guidebook for the masses to Maoism that's going to lead them there like some kind of outta nowhere, smack-on-the-head revelation, but hearing a REAL PERSON and a revolutionary leader go very thoroughly and in depth to where he started and how he got to where he was has an impact: "You know, maybe this isn't as crazy as I thought. It comes from somewhere, it has a basis in reality." And even if a person isn't immediately won over, they still take things from it and those things enter their ideas and their discourse with others.

So, that's the way I see it. Any additional comments from anybody else who's reading this or who has a better idea of what we can DO with these memoirs with the broader world, would of course be greatly appreciated.

[Burningman]

That's a good question, but I think it's a good step towards dismantling the cult the RCP has built around him.

Bob Avakian is a man, and an important theorist of the international communist movement. Americans learn throught stories, often personal. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Outlaw Woman (by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz), Soledad Brother (George Jackson), Living My Life (Emma Goldman) and so many others. This is a way that we understand the choices leaders make, right or wrong and bring them back down to level.

I look forward to reading this book and have a copy on the way. I'll be sure and post my review here when it's written.

[flyby]

burningman writes: "I think it's a good step towards dismantling the cult the RCP has built around him."
I don't want to focus on polemicizing against THE WAY an argument is made. But look at this logic (which is implicit in burningman's post on this topic -- both the one in this thread, and the posts he has made on new york's indymedia)

This is not a quote from burningman, but a distillation which I hope even he will agree contains the essense of his argument:

"The RCP has build a cult that worships Avakian. His book presents him as a human being with experiences, development and complex personal dynamics. So this book must undermine what the RCP is trying to do with Avakian."

Such a logic is only as true as its premise. And (you won't be surprised to learn) the first sentence is wrong.

On the contrary, this memoir, is (instead) a prominent current example of HOW the RCP intends to promote and popularize this important leading comrade. (Which is why Avakian wrote it, and the RCP is distributing it etc.!)

The RCP wants people to wrangle with Avakians body of work. They are straining to grasp and apply the method and approach he is advocating (ideologically). But they also want people to know him as a person (to "de-iconize" him, if that is a word.)

Burningman writes: "Bob Avakian is a man, and an important theorist of the international communist movement."

That is true, as far as it goes. But there is (and not accidentally) an omission here: Bob Avakian is a leader -- a communist leader making a particularly important and even unique contribution at this point in history.

And this is communist leadership that is based on LINE (not on being the organization man making all the micro decisions), but it is not simply or mainly "theorist."

He is leading this party and playing a leading role within the international communist movement. He will lead the emerging revolutionary movement. And he will be the leader of the future socialist state (or if the revolution takes longer than his life), those who lead it will do so based on Avakian's approach, method and his rather important new developments and breaks in the understanding of socialist transition to communism.

And for those reasons too, it is important to understand him as a person. (After all, when the enemy tried to crush the hopes and struggles of the people, they will not just come after Bob Avakian's writings, but they will move on HIM, as a man, as a specific human, as rare communist leader. Broader and broader numbers of people need to know this so that our enemies will fail, and so we will win.

[Lurigancho]

The RCP may be promoting this book as a way of ‘de-iconizing’ Avakian. However, you also cannot deny that the way that Avakian has been promoted has contributed to a certain zombie-like approach to his leadership among many RCP supporters.

The fact is, that what you are doing with Avakian is profoundly contradictory. On the one hand, you are promoting the works of a critical and creative revolutionary thinker. Anyone seriously engaged with these works will be enriched by them.

On the other hand, the way the cult of personality has been constructed also promotes a certain amount of mindless, zombie-like behavior. One way this happens is that RCP supporters are expected to accept the uniqueness and correctness of Avakian even as they engage his work. This short-circuits a critical interaction with Avakian’s thinking. Thus, people can read reams of Avakian’s writings and listen to hours of his talks in a state of ‘Chairman-worship’ which is profoundly antithetical to the actual content of what he is writing/saying.

All this harping about the false uniqueness and apriori leadership of Avakian the saviour and angel just feeds into this ‘iconization’.

So this is clearly a very contradictory process. It seems to me like the zombie-like aspect of the cult is what is principle now. Maybe Avakian will succeed in countering that, maybe not. If he has to take himself down a knotch in order to accomplish that, will he be willing to do it?

You can go on and on about what the RCP intends with this biography and with how it promotes the cult of personality. But we’ve all seen the zombies, we all know they’re there. Like Avakian says, you have to face reality how it actually is, don’t deny it because ‘the RCP didn’t intend this result from its policies’.

[Burningman]

Lurigancho writes: The fact is, that what you are doing with Avakian is profoundly contradictory. On the one hand, you are promoting the works of a critical and creative revolutionary thinker. Anyone seriously engaged with these works will be enriched by them.

On the other hand, the way the cult of personality has been constructed also promotes a certain amount of mindless, zombie-like behavior. One way this happens is that RCP supporters are expected to accept the uniqueness and correctness of Avakian even as they engage his work. This short-circuits a critical interaction with Avakian’s thinking. Thus, people can read reams of Avakian’s writings and listen to hours of his talks in a state of ‘Chairman-worship’ which is profoundly antithetical to the actual content of what he is writing/saying.

This point is, unfortunately, lost on one audience: the only one that needs to grasp it.

I can appreciate Flyby's desire to not argue argument, but while he embodies the style the RCP wants: freeflowing, able to listen, willing to acknowledge particular points kind of and totally dedicated to his main man that even questioning it is heretical, or at least something to be humored with a patronizing listing of his virtues, both real and speculated.

Here's how the RCP has constructed an Avakian cult:

1) Beginning in the early 1980s, the RCP put up thousands, if not tens of thousands of posters around the country during a campaign to defend Avakian from some pretty heavy charges after the Teng demo.

2) Avakian went into exile, justifiably, and (partial speculation) then spent his time dealing with questions not just related to domestic concerns.

3) Avakian's "icon" was a single photograph of Bob emoting at the viewer. It was included in virtually every edition of the RW for 15 years.

4) Avakian is the singular "leader" promoted by the RCP as a party leader. Other members of the Central Committee are NEVER named -- nor their particular contributions, disputes, etc. Everyone else is a "spokesperson" or works in other spheres... If Avakian hasn't been able to gather more real "leaders" after 30 years, it wouldn't speak well to his capacity of "unleashing the masses." No?

5) The RCP has indoctrinated youth (at least as recently as the "Fear Nothing" tour) to repeat "The Party Chairman Says..." aphorisms called "TPCs". This cartoonish rip of "Burn" was bizarre and endemic. I personally witnessed and took part in discussion where people talked in these quotes to each other while prompted to say how "important and unique" Avakian's leadership was. It was pathetic and revolting -- and EXACTLY what Avakian seems to be speaking against.

6) The RCP has continued to do this as a defining characteristic of the organization. If you do not believe in the cult of personality, then you are not a "communist." Only the RCP is communist. Only those who uncritically and without condition believe that Bob Avakian is a "wrangling" messiah are to be considered among the advanced element. All others are weeded out, jacketed with some deviation or another -- and most importantly excluded from debates within the organizations -- which is the only place the RCP ever actually debates anything. Enthusiastic submission to the cult is the price of admission.

7) Other groups which have also done this include the Black Panther Party, a group which never elected a single leader and resolved their contradictions in grizzly ways, and also the Nation of Islam with Elijah Muhamed then Farrakhan. It's not unique to communists, in fact it's overwhelming non-communist and proudly reactionary. The leader-principle was most developed by fascists who at least had the self-consciousness to recognize what they were doing.

8) Since early summer 2004, the RCP has been on a tear with Avakianitis. I saw issues of the RW over the summer where every single article was a) by Avakian, b) an interview with Avakian, c) a promotion of a talk by Avakian, d) an article that talked about Avakian, or e) wasn't at all about Avakian, but still felt compelled to quote him just in case the other 90% of the newspaper missed you.

9) Unlike Lenin and Mao, who had their cults built either after death or at least after a successful revolution -- Avakian frontloads his. The idea that the USA will embrace a cult of Bob Avakian and engage in a revolution based on adoration is so beyond the realm of an even remotely conceivable reality I don't know how to argue it. It's like arguing what my own name is. It's just not possible.

---------

This is where the tragedy lies. The RCP has a national organization. It has significant numbers of top-shelf cadre and thousands of supporters. It is not a revisionist party and seems to be in no danger of becoming one.

But it is in danger of permanently consigning itself to irrelevance through exactly this sectarian habit.

I appreciate Flyby's magnanimous vibe -- but you want plain speaking and "wrangling?" Really? -- then ditch this cultism and help the people get free.

Either "Bob Avakian" is a communist leader looking to brush the dust of a halted movement's shoulders -- which can be seen in his recent writings, or he's a hypocrite of the first degree -- to judge from the cult he is clearly aparty to.

I don't want to "read between the lines" to see what Avakian is elluding to. I want self-criticism from the people who constructed this cult and a struggle against sectarian mindsets.

I want some fresh air in a movement defined by its failures and I'm not alone.

[Maz]

The word 'cult' strikes me as being a bit of a buzzword like 'brutal' - high on emotion and short on substance. Now I'm sure cults do exist, and I'm sure that some political groups have operated in culty-ways. I just don't think the RCP is one of them.

I must admit I don't have direct experience in working with the RCP, but I have spent time with their youth group, the RCYB, for extended periods working on various mass projects. And frankly, I don't know where Burningman is coming from. The RCYB youth struck me as being the most critical deep-thinking of any of the youth in these projects. They were the ones who were really trying to promote open, honest methodology in discussions and whatnot. They were the ones who would be there to politely suggest people investigate things thoroughly before coming to conclusions - and this was for all kinds of questions, not just for people who criticized the RCP. And I, as well as other people ,came to really respect them for that. And this wasn't feigned either. people would tell me this even when no RCYBers were around.

And sure, the RCYB would quote Avakian, but this wasn't some 'the chairman says' rote memory exercise that seems is being suggested, rather when Avakian was mentioned it was because it had to do with what we were talking about at the time. And for the couple times I can clearly remember the Avakian quoting, I gotta say I found it to be extremely helpful.

And, I'll even admit to plenty of Avakian-quoting myself. During the war there was no better source out there for navigating the political situation than Avakian. His grasp-rev/promote-production, flying without a safety net and the other talks of that period were invaluable. And without them we simply wouldn't have been able to do what we did. And because of this, plenty of non-maoists, non-communists and even non-revolutionaries got into his stuff - because they saw the importance and power of it.

This isn't blind adoration, this is recognizing the importance of a real leader that we need to check out if we want to make *revolution* - and not simply 'dust off the movement'.

[Burningman]

Maz -- I'm glad to hear that your experience is different. It's good to know that the RCYB continues to attract serious young revolutionaries. I had the pleasure of meeting a few brigaders last summer during the build up to the RNC and I was impressed at their discipline in conducting regular mass work in a variety of communities, the depth of their understandings and the way they kept their eyes on the prize.

These are political disputes. The term cult is being used precisely, not as a pejorative.

Cults are normal throughout the world. They are generally religions that demand all followers be acolytes, not just believers.

The translation to politics is when cadre parties are built that do not develop deep and organic ties with living communities of people beyond those defined by their adherence, or at least acceptance, of a particular creed.

The RCP is not now a vanguard party. It lacks the weight. It is not the leading element of the North American proletariat in a living way. They argue that because they are "on the road," they become the destination. Because Avakian has some insights, including a core message that is and dead on, he requires elevation.

Further, it is argued through practice that the way to engage "politics in the millions" is through the promotion of a personalized leader. I disagree, fundamentally -- as that is a misread of both North American cultures and also the nature of socialism.

Avakian's call for commuists to learn how to think is way overdue. That said, Lurigancho's rhetorical questions above were essentially correct.

In order for Avakian to be correct, his party has to rise above its own fetishism.

------

De-iconizing Avakian is my hope. Let the idol thaw so the water is clear. I think, after much thought and discussion with a wide range of revolutionary-minded people, that this method is stymying the more important because they are more liberating aspects of the RCP's line.

Dialectics doesn't mean that black becomes white. Idealism doesn't become materialism because it's Idea is Materialism anymore than proletarian agency can find its basic expression in "wrangling" adoration.

I don't mind flyby's re-articulation, but I can see why he's boiled my stew down to grool.

I also want to say to Maz that I the TPC was in caps for a reason. It was a thing to do and distribute -- the The Party Chairman Says. It wasn't an informal way of doing things. They were typed up and photocopied. That is real experience. Though, you may have experienced the YB marching through New York's Union Square during the RNC chanting "Follow Bob Avakian!" I caught that one and sighed.

I'm glad you don't quite get that I'm not exagerating. But I'm not sure if it's because you don't mind that kind of thing or because you don't think it defines the trend. I can't believe you haven't encountered other people who've noticed it...

It's that kind of adoration-politics that makes me paraphrase the man instead of quoting him outright.

In any case, I'm looking forward to actually reading his memoir.

[flyby]

There is much to say in this discussion.

Let me start with a few notes on lurigancho's post.

I agree with him when he writes: "you are promoting the works of a critical and creative revolutionary thinker. Anyone seriously engaged with these works will be enriched by them." Burningman has said similar things, and that needs to be acknowledged.

But, then, it is obvious that there are real (even over-riding) differences that need to be explored.

One note: I will simply ignore the hostile (and often insulting) tone of some posts. Lurigancho calls comrades "zombies" and whatever. Burningman snidely accuses the RCP of having a "leadership principle" (while knowing full well that he is using a term that was promoted by the Nazis in regard to Hitler.)

You will have to imagine what I think of such bullshit, and why i think that is the wrong way to deal with serious people and serious matters.

There is one comment I want to make:

Lurigancho writes: "It seems to me like the zombie-like aspect of the cult is what is principle now...we’ve all seen the zombies, we all know they’re there."

The line of the RCP (and particularly its chairman) is clearly and rather sharply opposed to dogmatism and metaphysics, or "worship" of anyone or anything. I simply don't think that's true.

I think anyone reading the writings and views of RCP supporters on this site and elsewhere, or the writing of the RW newspaper, or the recent statement on the Future (http://rwor.org/future) can get a sense that this is not some secondary aspect of that movement and trend.

If an approach of blind obediance, contentless upholding of Avakian that reduces him to an icon, dogmatism etc.) exists or were to come into being -- then it would be a matter of line, and it would be a line OPPOSED to the RCP's line, and to the method and approach that Avakian is fighting for (rather fiercely.)

I don't think I can say it more simply or clearly than that.

Avakian is fighting against dogmato-revisionist, semi-religious and mechanical approaches to Marxism -- and obviously one reason the fight is necessary is because it has had influence (over many decades, with deep roots in the Third International, but also since then, including in the Chinese party etc.) And another reason the fight is necessary is because something else needs to be forged and promoted and grasped and applied.

And if you are against dogmatism, and a religious approach to communism, (and also if you are opposed to relativism and the negation of materialism from THAT side) you should uphold him and what he is doing -- and you should struggle to grasp deeply what he is pulling together and synthesizing.
_____________________________________

The questions around Avakian, his work and his role are hard to get into, because (on one level or another) there are arguments that say it should be ruled out apriori. (Apriori means, essentially, that it is asserted before the discussion, not afterwards.)

Lurigancho writes (for example): "All this harping about the false uniqueness and apriori leadership of Avakian the saviour and angel just feeds into this ‘iconization’."

Well, i think it is true that his work is unique. I don't think that is "false" at all.

And i think it should be investigated whether that is true. It is a matter for materialist analysis, and struggle and debate.

In other words, I think we should discuss what is true and what is not.

I also don't think the discussion of Avakian's leadership has been apriori (here or anywhere else) -- after all we are thirty years into that discussion -- with a whole body of work to sum up, and decades of communist leadership (and his intense and forceful CURRENT activity) to sum up.

But on many levels, it is argued that the truth of the matter is irrelevent. And so it is hard to even get into the the question .

First example: It is said, we can't talk about Avakian playing an important (even a special or rare) role of leadership (in the U.S. or among communists) because "people won't stand for it."

By this it is meant that there are sections of the people (and really, this refers to certain groupings of movement activists in the social movements) who are dead set against having, or following leaders. And so any movement that has, or follows a leader -- and certainly one that talks about it, is just dead in the water.

And so, we should not talk about Avakian. And then we would be more acceptable to potential recruits.

However, of course, these same forces are not just hostile to the idea of communist leadership, they are also hostile to the idea of a revolutionary communist party, and to the idea that Marxism (especially MLM) is a revolutinary science.

And so (by this logic) there is a lot we will have to discard to make ourselves acceptable to these forces -- in essense we would have to abandon being revolutionary communists. And (of course) there have always been forces and pulls within the communist movement to abandon everything that is controversial within the surrounding social movements -- and we can discuss (here or later) where those impulses would lead us.

But on a deeper level: truth is not up for vote. We are not bourgeois democrats who think reality is just a collective hunch.

In other words, if we have a leadership that is crucial to the revolution, we need to say it. The masses need to know it, and so do communists. If there are crucial new developments in marxism and communist thinking, this needs to be known.

And if some people don't like that, well, we need to struggle with them. We need unity and struggle.

But we do need to uphold what is true, and we do need to be firm about the need to be revolutionary communists -- and this is intimately entwined with our stand and understanding of our main man.


continued