Mao & Avakian Against the Shanghai Commune

[repeater]

[Mao] said: "I'm afraid that this commune form is not strong enough to suppress counter-revolutionaries." And he also said, "What are we going to do about international relations -- what about all the ministers we have that are like the foreign minister, who is going to appoint the foreign minister? I'm afraid all these other countries wouldn't recognize the ministers that would be appointed in this way."

Is this crap or is it really crap?

The Shanghai Commune had just suppressed the counter-revolutionaries who were running the city!

Too bad their "reach" did not extend to Peking!

And other countries do not, as it happens, give a fucking rat's ass "how you appoint your foreign minister".

One possibility is that Mao told the Commune to dissolve themselves or the army would come in and dissolve them...and the Commune did not wish to share the fate of their Parisian ancestors.

But there could be another explanation: after two plus decades of disgusting leader-worship, the Commune was dismayed that Mao did not support them!

They really believed that Mao would support them, poor bastards!

I'm actually very interested in discussing this very passage of "Dictatorship and Democracy, and the Socialist Transition to Communism" (http://rwor.org/chair_e.htm#democracyspeech)

For me this specific section of the speech seemed like a stretch. It didn't seem to add up. Redstar has a point (badly put) when he says that the fact of the January Storm shows an ability to combat reactionaries on some level.

And this question of foreign ministers is a little absurd. I think it is true that in an imperialist world these are questions that need to be dealt with, but these are not reasons for ending experimentation (even historically redundant experimentation ala Paris Commune).

But I think the form of the insurrection was not the same as the form of the Commune. Obviously so, since this conception of direct democracy could not be used to throw out the reactionaries and insurrection had to be used. So when viewing this subject I think Flyby may be on to something in making a distinction between the January Storm and the Commune form which was attempted in its wake.

I was skeptical of Avakian on this point. It seems like a stretch because he takes a couple quotes from Mao and expands it into this seemingly elaborate justification which on the surface does not necessarilly come from the quote he is getting it from.

And yet, the more I look at it and concieve of the uprising and the commune as two different forms, the less skeptical I become.

This was a really good point that Redstar raised, I sincerely wished he had raised it in a better way. Let's continue this discussion though. What do you think about this idea that the insurrection and its ability to combat reaction does not mean that the Commune form could?

I would also like to add that this speech we're discussing really blew my mind. It pointed to so many important questions, and made new leaps theoretically around the question of democracy and dictatorship, as well as new leaps around the summing up of Socialist history. I think we should discuss some of these other ideas at some point.

[repeater]

Redstar: You say in quotations in the 7th post: "Mao and the party's leadership endorsed 'the principles of the Paris Commune' in theory but 'backed off' when confronted with its provisional reality."

I don't see where the article you posted says this. The only thing I can find is an interesting sort of bait and switch in the logic of the article when it says this:

On January 9, thirty-two organizations jointly issued what was called an "urgent notice" which set forth a series of rules and apparently prepared the way for a new form of governing authority. The whole of the Chinese press published this document, and it was held up as a model by Mao Tse-tung himself. Jen-min Jih-pao of January 22, commenting on it, noted: "Of all the ways for the revolutionary masses to take their destiny into their own hands, in the final analysis the only way is to take power! Those who have power have everything; those who are without power have nothing...We, the worker, peasant, and soldier masses, are the indisputable masters of the new world!" On the walls of the city appeared the slogan: "All power to the Commune!"

Now the problem comes with assuming that the slogan on the walls of the city "All power to the Commune" can really be connected to the "urgent notice" put out on Jan. 9th. And therefore that the endorsement of the urgent notice was also an endorsement of the slogan "All power to the Commune". The article later goes on to say that the Commune wasn't announced until February 5th.

Have you read the document they're referring to, that was published on the 9th of January? Is it available anywhere?

Even the quote by Jin-min Jih Pao, does not explicitly endorse the slogan.

Redstar says: So...I must "tone down a bit" my enthusiasm for the Shanghai Commune while still noting that it was far in advance of what preceded it and what followed it.

I think that is the point that is being brought up by Avakian via his understanding of Mao's reaction. That is, the commune form was too far ahead of the global political and economic conditions of the time. Although my feeling is that an analogy strictly speaking to the Paris Commune and its fate is not entirely fair in that Shanghai was within a socialist state and was not threatened directly by outside invasion.

But there are considerations to be made about the generalization of the Commune form in China at the time and what that would have meant, and even its form in Shanghai around the very questions of "direct" democracy and its outcomes for class struggle.

What in the article made you to "tone down" your opinion? I'm surprised that a single article on this subject, which you have been so passionate about, with such unsurprising analyses would make you reevaluate your position.

I also don't see how you could come to the conclusion that "If the 'vanguard party' must choose between the masses and the party, it will always choose the party." At least I can't see how this article would lead to this conclusion.

[observer]

Redstar confuses things when he suggests that the masses of the shanghai commune were betrayed by mao, or that he did not back them.

This is not correct.

Mao's forces were leading that uprising. He upheld and welcomed their seizure of power. And he urged similar seizures to happen across the courntry. This was the culimination of the process he had unleashed, and urged.

So all this talk about "poor bastards" places reality on its head.

What mao did was struggle with his own followers (and their allies and the broader masses) about how to point the struggle, about what forms of power would best consolidate their victory, and how to "carry out the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" (including in a world where they were surrounded by very hostile and well armed enemies.)

Avakian's point on the "foreign minister" remark is that this does not refer (really or literally) to diplomatic recognision. It is a way of pointing out the continued existance of the imperialists, and the certainty that they would take advantage (including invasions and possible nuclear strikes) if the revolution unfolded in china in ways that gave them hopes and openings.

He could not say (for all kinds of reasons) "The fucking Soviet revisionists now have gathered three million on our bordres, and if we go this route of a commune in city after city, the results will be that we will be in too weak a position, and they will be tempted."

Yes, the uprising in January storm was powerful enough to overthrow the reactionaries in Shanghai. But Mao was pointing out that those were not the ONLY reactionaries the chinese revolution were facing. (So much for the rather facile argument that a mass form strong enough to overthrow a city government has therefore proven that it is the ideal form for consolidating the revolution and defending it against enemies.)

[observer]

on the comment: I think that is the point that is being brought up by Avakian via his understanding of Mao's reaction. That is, the commune form was too far ahead of the global political and economic conditions of the time. Although my feeling is that an analogy strictly speaking to the Paris Commune and its fate is not entirely fair in that Shanghai was within a socialist state and was not threatened directly by outside invasion.

I don't agree.

I think that the commune form isnever the correct form. It's not like "it is too early for this." I don't thnk communism will use the "commune form." And that the shanghai rebels were just bringing it too early.

Mao's point in response was that you always need a center, a core, a leadership, a party, in the socialist period. And a new form of revolutionary power that did not include that would be inherently to weak.

This is a point that Chairman Avakian digs into from many sides in the K Venu polemic. Where he is arguing that "mass democratic forms alone" are not the right way to envision revolutionary power during socialist transition. You need a center that unites the revolutionary forces, the most advanced and communist forces. Dissolving the party, overthrowing the party committees, and replacing them with alliances of mass organizations will not do the things that are needed. It will splinter, and fall.

[redstar2000SE]

Burningman wrote: You may be skeptical that we can learn from history, and care very much what events felt like.

In this and the immediately subsequent paragraphs of your post, I think you misunderstand my meaning.

It's not that we "can't learn" from history...rather that what we can learn from history is indeed usually mediated by an observer or even by an observer of observers.

Whatever was not written down was quickly lost...and even what was written down may pass through many mediators before it reaches us. Even when I or flyby speak about SDS, we do so through the prism of human memory...which has been scientifically demonstrated to be very far from "reliable" in an absolute sense.

And I should add, to avoid further misunderstanding, that when I say "how it felt to be there", I'm not speaking in some "gooey, touchie, feeley" sense. I speaking of a definite sense of "how things actually worked" in SDS.

You and flyby (and Marge Piercy) all argue that SDS was, essentially, a kind of "scam" -- that participatory democracy was rhetorical (or nearly so) and that a small group of "heavies" decided everything of consequence without ever being accountable to the membership...and that this was replicated on the chapter level as well.

The reason I reject those arguments is that I was there and did not see those things happen. I attended all the national conventions from 1965-69 and a substantial number of national council meetings during the same period. I talked to other SDS members from all over the country during that period...and, indeed, met some of the "heavies" and got to watch them interact with other members. I worked very closely with three chapters and somewhat closely with several others.

If it had been a "scam", I would have noticed!

It wasn't.

Burningman wrote: You mention Russia and the best history I'm aware of was Jack Reed's "Ten Days That Shook the World," and it gave an excellent invocation of how those days felt.

I agree. There are not many such texts but they do exist...and are extremely valuable. In this context, I might mention Marge Piercy's novel Vida...about the Weather Underground. It's not a "formal history" but more about giving a sense of "how it worked" and what it was like to be "part of it".

Burningman wrote: I'm not dismissing real experience, but I do think the power of science, whether social or natural, is in discovering necessary relationships instead of partial observations.

No doubt. But if "partial observations" conflict...then we must decide which observations appear to be the most reliable.

And what are we likely to give the greatest weight to, if not our personal observations?

Are you familiar with that famous "conformity" experiment? The subject is placed in a darkened room with a group of people who are actually part of the experimental team but who are pretending to also be "subjects". Two bright lines of obvious unequal length are projected on the wall...and everyone but the real subject claims that the lines are equal in length. Will the subject conform to the wrong opinion? Or will they hold out for their personal observation regardless of the opinion of the group?

I know what I would have done. How about you? Or flyby?

Burningman wrote: Maybe I'm reading too much into your argument, but I suspect you think any definitive statement (except semi-anarchist dismissals of definitive statements) is intrinsically oppressive.

Definitive statements that are wrong are usually also oppressive. Definitive statements that are true are usually also liberating.

Burningman wrote: But perhaps more importantly, I have extensive experience in "participatory" projects and when I read the histories of SDS I had a eureka moment. I knew the truth of how "participatory" structures cloud the power dynamics not because Kirkpatrick Sale said so, but because I saw the same shit using a slightly different vocabulary in movement after movement. Maybe it's also apparent after the fact that the people most wed to the "democratic" structures were the old guard honchos, while the decidedly less elite later waves gravitated towards democratic centralism, anti-imperialism and a recognition that in order to build a working class movement it might be important to build groups around line and process.

That's bad history and worse politics. Towards the end of SDS, all of the "honchos" gravitated towards "democratic" centralism of one sort or another (RYM II and PL mostly, but some towards RU). The "less elite later waves" departed SDS and its Maoist successors altogether for local collectives with a wide variety of politics and organizing forms.

I have no objective basis to dispute your own observations of "participatory" groups that appeared long after SDS...if they were "scams" as you suggest, then your contempt for them will draw no objections from me.

But if you think "democratic" centralism is "the best we can do" in "the real world", then it seems to me that all you are expressing is the simple willingness to exchange a "hidden despotism" for an open one.

In this context, "accountability" is a meaningless word...as is, for that matter, "line".

Burningman wrote: But the difference is that leaders in ML groups are accountable to the organization's general line and practice.

Oh? How would one go about demonstrating that? What would be your fate in the RCP if you challenged the Avakian cult? Can you spell e-x-p-e-l-l-e-d?

Consider the polemic that Marge Piercy wrote...could you imagine such a document being written and circulated within the RCP? Or any Leninist party? Ever?

Especially written by someone who was "not a honcho"?

Burningman wrote: SDS was never able to rise above being a "resistance" organization. They didn't have a vision of how society should be put together, the social base to work among, or even an across the board respect for the orthodoxies of participatory democracy.

Further, from what I remember, SDS shattered with PL taking formal leadership. Even if you think that method is so great, it's hard to not notice that a skilled faction hijacked it.

I agree with the spirit of these observations. We did indeed suffer from a woeful lack of theoretical clarity about the kind of new society we wanted...and were accordingly defenseless in the face of competing Maoist orthodoxies.

And, worse, we didn't even really understand why participatory democracy made sense...it was something that just "happened" with very little thought at all.

You could say it was a "culture" more than a real theory.

In fact, I think that these things are what needs to be learned from the history of SDS. You really can't survive as a revolutionary movement without an explicit concept of what you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish it.

Lenin himself was quite right to insist on the importance of revolutionary theory...it's just that his theory proved inadequate.

Burningman wrote: By adopting a "left" position against hierarchy, discipline, unity of action, governance as such, etc -- this "democratic" line leads into pretty open counter-revolution. The bourgeoisie gets to rule, we get to complain and feel self-righteous and on it goes.

More bad history. The "successful" Leninist parties had all of those things that you admire...and the bourgeoisie got to rule anyway. And you get to "complain" while the RCP feels "self-righteous".

But it will not go on.

Burningman wrote: In participatory politics, meetings don't generally decide anything.

Perhaps that was your experience; you want to follow my "bad example" and generalize it into "universal law"?

Burningman wrote: Practically, this is why ten cops can wade into a crowd of five hundred people and disperse them. Without unity of action agreed upon and led, people are a mob, smart or otherwise.

Excuse me for interjecting a small bit of material reality into this hyperbole but...um, cops are armed.

It makes a difference.#nosmileys#nosmileys

[redstar2000SE]

Repeater wrote: That is, the commune form was too far ahead of the global political and economic conditions of the time.

Do not all new forms have such an appearance? Whenever the masses rise and seek to take power into their own hands, are there not always people who say "wait, that's going too far!"?

But what did Marx and Engels say about the Paris Commune? They said it didn't go far enough!

Now, we can always "Monday morning quarterback" and say, "yeah, it was too much; if the Shanghai Commune had endured and even spread, then the Russians would have conquered China, blah, blah, blah".

That's all pure speculation, of course...but people do have a lot of fun in doing it.

Meanwhile, what we know is that there was enormous sentiment in favor of "All Power to the Commune" and there were rudimentary organs established to implement that sentiment.

Evidently to the dismay of Chairman Mao...and Bob Avakian.

Repeater wrote: What in the article made you to "tone down" your opinion? I'm surprised that a single article on this subject, which you have been so passionate about, with such unsurprising analyses would make you reevaluate your position.

Too many "cadre" still in positions of power in the Commune...a more proletarian body would have told Mao to take his "3 in 1" committees and stick them where the sun never shines.

At least that's what I think.

Repeater wrote: I also don't see how you could come to the conclusion that "If the 'vanguard party' must choose between the masses and the party, it will always choose the party."

It seems to me to logically follow.

1. Mao calls upon the masses to overthrow the capitalist-roaders.

2. In Shanghai, the capitalist-roaders are overthrown and a commune established.

3. Both the capitalist-roaders and Mao suddenly realize the implications: the end of the party as a political force and direct rule by the masses themselves.

4. They put a stop to the commune, replacing it with "3 in 1" committees...dominated by the military "delegate", of course. The masses must not be allowed to "get out of hand" again.

5. Therefore, when the party must choose between the masses and the party, it will always choose the party.

Q.E.D.

Observer wrote: Redstar confuses things when he suggests that the masses of the Shanghai commune were betrayed by Mao, or that he did not back them.

This is not correct.

Mao's forces were leading that uprising. He upheld and welcomed their seizure of power. And he urged similar seizures to happen across the country. This was the culmination of the process he had unleashed, and urged.

He backed them initially...but then he "cut and ran" when he saw what it was really going to mean.

And his supporters who probably did initially lead in the formation of the Commune turned right around and dissolved it. None of that "consult the masses" crap this time; it was shut down.

The people who voted to dissolve the Commune should have been promptly taken out by the masses and hanged!

Observer wrote: Avakian's point on the "foreign minister" remark is that this does not refer (really or literally) to diplomatic recognition. It is a way of pointing out the continued existence of the imperialists, and the certainty that they would take advantage (including invasions and possible nuclear strikes) if the revolution unfolded in China in ways that gave them hopes and openings.

Avakian is already gathering his "interpretors", I see.

Very well, let's assume your gloss on his text is accurate.

So what? By failing to support the Commune -- "be down for the whole thing" -- both the Maoists and the ordinary workers and peasants in China lost everything.

Except their precious party, of course -- now about as "progressive" as the fucking Democrats.

Observer wrote: But Mao was pointing out that those were not the ONLY reactionaries the Chinese revolution were facing. (So much for the rather facile argument that a mass form strong enough to overthrow a city government has therefore proven that it is the ideal form for consolidating the revolution and defending it against enemies.)

Yeah...the Shanghai Commune was not able to reach all the way to Peking -- the headquarters of the reactionaries who won.

As to "the ideal form of consolidating the revolution"...I believe even Avakian now admits that when you start talking about "consolidating", your next stop is Capitalist Restoration -- "end of the line".

Observer wrote: I think that the commune form is never the correct form...I don't think communism will use the "commune form."

Consistency is always to be applauded.

And what do you prefer?

Observer wrote: Mao's point in response was that you always need a center, a core, a leadership, a party, in the socialist period.

Communism as well, right? (That's rhetorical, folks, as we already know this path never leads to communism.)

Observer wrote: Where [Avakian] is arguing that "mass democratic forms alone" are not the right way to envision revolutionary power during socialist transition. You need a center that unites the revolutionary forces, the most advanced and communist forces. Dissolving the party, overthrowing the party committees, and replacing them with alliances of mass organizations will not do the things that are needed. It will splinter, and fall.

Unlike China...? They had a "center". So did the Russians. So did the Yugoslavs. So did all the rest.

Like the Russian "joke" -- socialism is the transitional period between capitalism and capitalism.

[flyby]

there is a lot to respond to.... and i can't at the moment.

But I do want to just touch on two points (and deal with others later).

Burningman wrote: "But the difference is that leaders in ML groups are accountable to the organization's general line and practice."

Redstar wrote: "Oh? How would one go about demonstrating that? What would be your fate in the RCP if you challenged the Avakian cult? Can you spell e-x-p-e-l-l-e-d?"

You are so sloppy and flip. You charge things without evidence or basis.

FIRST: are you suggesting that it is wrong for a party to have a unified basis of unity? Is this some big sin of communism you want to stamp out?

More tothe point, what kind of a party would this be: if it had a leadership like this and DIDN't take it seriously.

What would we think if a Bolshevik Party unit had members who said "fuck lenin and his approach" -- and didn't struggle hard over that to win them over? Would that party be worth a fuck?

Or if the Communist party of China had not challenged and defied the revisionists who opposed and hated Mao? We have just been debating the Shanghai Upsurge and its January Storm -- Was it wrong for communists in Shanghai to overthrow a party committee that opposed Mao, and his line and the cult of personality around Mao (which was a key form for bringing his line to the masses of people, and breaking the revisionisst stranglehold)? Was that so wrong?

The RCP has "the three ours" -- and that it is united around the importance of its main man -- the role and contribution of Bob Avakian. And if it wasn't, the party wouldn't be worth warm spit. It would be a revisionist party that rejected what was best about it, and worse that had turned itself into something that could not likberate the people.

Is it so wrong to uphold such a leadership?

At the same time, you casually imply the RCP purges internal critics in a crude "get in bob's way you're gone" kind of way. And you imply all that without any respect for reality.

You imply that if people challenge the line of the party (including on the cult of personality) they are just expelled.

Well what the fuck do you know about it? where is your evidence for such a crude and hostile charge?

You don't have any evidence, cuz it ain't true.

Where are the bitter expelled people who describe being treated like this?
Where are their position papers?
Where are the people who were denied internal debate in the RCP, who were just tossed out in crude organizaitonal ways and expelled? It doesn't happen, so you don't know of any.

Can you name anyone who was expelled? A single person expelled from the RCP on an unprincipled basis? Not even one?

[You were so desperate that you invented party membership for Lurigancho, so you could portray his outsiders complaints as a rare inner snapshot of the horrors of RCP-dom. What bullshit and dishonesty that little episode was! When his document clearly showed he was never a member. And when he himself did embarassed self criticism when he saw how disonestly you exploited him. You invented this, without evidence, and you apply the same method now!]

I don't doubt some people have been asked to leave at various times for many things (when their revolutionary will degrades, or when they develop a whole different opposing line or whatever) . But I can name only two people expelled: Bergman and jarvis (in the whole thirty years of the RCP) -- and they clearly and obviously deserved public expulson, and even in their case it came after protracted and intense struggle to win them over, give them a chance to struggle for their line.

(Interestingly: One of the criticisms of them was that they did NOT fight for their line in an open and principled way within the Central Committee, and they were specifically criticized for not even bothering to produce key documents opposed to the "REvolutionaries are Revolutionaries" position paper of Avakian!)

But where is your evidence of people being tossed out the way you describe? I mean, what a sick and unjustified portrayal of things.

And based on what? What exactly are you talking about?
And (once again) if you don't know shit... how do you dare run such bullshit? Don't you have any sense of being principled?

Don't you know that poor schmuck wandering in might even mistakenly think you know what you are talking about?

[flyby]

Redstar writes: "You and flyby (and Marge Piercy) all argue that SDS was, essentially, a kind of "scam" -- that participatory democracy was rhetorical (or nearly so) and that a small group of "heavies" decided everything of consequence without ever being accountable to the membership...and that this was replicated on the chapter level as well."

No. not at all.

SDS was not a scam. It was an explosively growing radical mass organization. It did not have a leading core of any kind, so its differences and challenges ripped it apart. But it was a group that made a huge contribution to the struggle -- and produced wave after wave of revolutionaries who went on to give life and consciousness to a great many things -- including among them the founding of the RCP.

It is often true in these discussion that when we discuss an objective process, you hear it (or see it) as the evil will of someone, or an assumption of evil will.

My view on participatory democracy when I was in SDS was that the theory was a joke. The huge mass meetings were important and exciting. Many people learned politics, and had to fight through what they thought about the different lines that fought.

These chapter meetings, and larger regional meetings, and the national conferneces, the big rallies that decided take-overs or whatever -- all of this was important political life. And an important part of the times and scene.

It was not a scam. It was, what it was: i.e. a mass democratic organization (i.e. not a cadre organization with democratic centralism). It operated operated (somewhat primitively) as just that a mass democratic organization. And since it didn't have a consolidated, trusted leading core, it kept trying accrete one.

The point is that (as Bob Avakian has told in humor ways, in his recollections) someone came to those meetings with agendas. Meetings were held before hand to decide what would be discussed (and often what would not be discussed). There were networks of people (formal and informal) within the larger chapters that congealed and fought for their lines. Very often, the meetings would lean one way, and in practice the decisions would be wrenched another way.

Objectively, inevitably, leadership structures emerged (and competing leadership structures emerged). And because they were not formalized they operated informally (sometimes they were denied, sometimes they were acknowledged, sometimes they worked by credibility of local leaders.)

And it is true that there were several sides:

first there were often hidden networks of "heavies" who pulled strings.

Second (as redstar points out) the leaders often couldn't pull the mass behind them. When the weatherman group took power in SDS and put forward their elaborate plans (days of rage or whatever) they couldn't pull the rank and file behind them.

So the point is not "it was a scam." The point is that mass democracy without a stable leading core ends up producing (objectively, of necessity, from the needs of the moment and the limitations of such forms) networks of half-hidden, unaccountable, often inofficial leaders and cliques. And it produces an organization that is unable to make a decision (and didn't succeed in any unifed national actions, ever -- at least after Kissinger organized the 1967 march on washington).

it was a weakness not a strength.

"Participatory Democracy" was not a great new theory, a vision of what was possible. It was a grand name applied to the primitiveness that dominated.

SDS was great. I loved it. and so did hundreds of thousands.

When it tore itself apart, we were furious. It was unnecessary.

And yet the ground had not been laid for it to hold together on a principled basis (again because of the primitiveness of the times.)

The SDS had to die so that organized communist trends could emerge. And any new mass organization will be formed on a new basis -- because we now have a party, and a line, and an ideology and a leadership. We are not blinking all in the blinding light of consciousness like the early SDS. We are not simply feeling our way all new again. We have accomplished a lot, we have a lot to build on. And the SDS experience was a great, early, seminal, highly contradictory, heroic and wonderful part of what the revolution is being built on.

Again on the larger point: Whenever we point to objective necessity, you act like we want that to be the case. When we say that something happened out of necessity and real world contradictions, you still see it as a charge of dishonesty and scam.

Does that help?

[Burningman]

Ditto.

The point isn't that participatory democracy is a "scam." Scare quotes aren't quotation marks and it would be wise to avoid using them to describe someone else's ideas incorrectly.

Flyby hit the nail on the head. But to bring out the issue a little more deeply, RedStar assumes that the relationship between leaders and led is inherently exploitative. This implies that leaders, whether as representitives of line, facilitators or "heavies," are somehow getting over on people.

But that is the opposite of how things work. Leaders enable activity, and without them, there often is little more than sentiment. So movements that reject dynamic leadership tend to be subcultural and scene-y. Custom substitutes for direction.

Where I disagree with Flyby, I think, is in the way that RCP believes you can substitute the party for the conscious activity of the people. Avakian's whole "benevolent despotism" line and so on. If we reject the idea of facilitative leadership, we confuse form for essence, either by fetishizing "participatory" forms or through thinking line is everything.

[Burningman]

I'd also add that participatory movements provide the necessary training in how to think about line and leadership. It is very noteworthy that many of the Marxist movements best thinkers had their formative experiences in exactly those partial and insufficient formations.

Many of the Maoists I've met who were recruited into democratic centralist organizations were good at following orders, but not so good at engaging complex ideas, social movements or even life beyond their ideological cohort.

Once the RU had papers all over the country and scores of people learned how to publish, write, distribute, etc. Once that is consolidated, the number of people who learn to think goes down. Instead of Mass Line, we get "the line, the leadership and the program." Saying that like a mantra is a lot harder than making it true. Like makes like.

[flyby]

Burningman:

If you read between the lines of the main man's recent work (expecially the reaching series, the grasp promote series, and some other things) and even if you just read the lines (and not so "in between the lines")....

I think you will see that he is fighting, hard, for a critical, creative, initiative-taking style of work.

I don't think that issues of blind obediance, "tolling the bell" in a routine way, getting stuck in ruts (ideologically or practically) or many other problems like that are inherent in democratic centralism -- they come from a number of sources, but are fundamentally matters of line.

And clearly the RCP is figthting, hard, to adopt and apply his call for such "interrogation and self-interrogation," for taking initiative and allowing initiative, and many related issues. And it is a fight.

And in that fight, BA is leading the way to root out stultifying and semi-religious dogmatism, "communism as a rigid mindset," the idea that "because we are communists it means we just know" (regardless of what the topic is), and so on. It is an attempt to wrench communism to a new place, and accompanies an attempt to reenvision socialism and communism themselves.

And if you are concerned by such issues, you really owe it to yourself to dig into those works, and get a sense of where he is leading to, and what he is arguing for.

[Denver]

What pains me, and what I imagine truly pains Burningman and many others, is that we can read and appreciate some of this stuff by Avakian. But then we see the RCP actually getting worse on this stuff since his return to the US.

These are important issues he raises, but it seems ironic that you, the most unwilling to critically entertain the ideas of non-RCP folks of all the people who post here, would be the one to champion these works of BA's. If anything, the RCP has used the magnification of the Bob cult to become more closed-minded and less willing to listen to others than before. You have the truth and the people need to hear it, end of story. This is what has been amplified about the RCP with the Bob cult campaign, not the very excellent content of many of his writings, particularly the 'reaching' and GRPP serieses.

[flyby]

gee, what a thing to be labelled: "flyby, the most unwilling to critically entertain the ideas of non-RCP folks"

Is that really your impression?

you write: "You have the truth and the people need to hear it, end of story."

That is more complexted, imho. First, communism, MLM, the RCP and its leadership does have some truth. And I think people need to hear it. But (a big but) that is not the end of the story, and that is what we are talking about.

I have worked hard to inject some communist arguments into these internet discussions. To help create a space where some real debate goes on -- and one of the ways of creating that space is to work to raise the level of arguments, to dig into what people are really saying (even if I disagree with them) and to try to focus attention on cardinal questions (of line and revolution.)

I think we have been able to do some of that (on 2ctw, now on awip, on many other places) and this needs to happen on many many more. But the dialogue i envision does not require communists to beat up on themselves, or act like they don't actually know something important, or pretend that they don't actually disagree with people (who may also and actually have important truths to share and insights.)

Finally, helping people connect with Bob Avakian (as a leader and as a thinker) is not in opposition to upholding and applying his views on things like "reaching" and "grasp promote" -- in fact, if we don't put him out there, if we don't ourselves actually struggle to recognize what is unique about what he is doing (and if we dare to say "hey, something unique and rare has been concentrated here in this person and his work" -- then these views, these new syntheses won't get out.

There is nothing inherently dogmatic or wrong about a cult of personality. especially if the personality being promoted is all about critical thinking, agonizing over complex truths and contradictions, putting scientific methodology in the hands (and minds) of others. etc.

This is anything but an effort of blind obediance or more "rigid mindset."

And perhaps that doesn't come through -- if it isn't done well. And if so, you should get in the habit of telling folks where their approach and method separates from the approach and method they claim to uphold.

[redstar2000SE]

Flyby wrote: You imply that if people challenge the line of the party (including on the cult of personality) they are just expelled.

Well, I can't speculate on the rituals that are performed prior to the actual falling of the ax.

And perhaps it's a rare occurrence...one would have to be pretty dense not to know what joining the RCP was letting you in for.

Not to mention the consideration that people who are within the RCP know (after a while) how "democratic" centralism "works"...and dissidents simply walk away without putting you to the trouble of expelling them.

What would be the point to a "struggle" that could not be "won" under any circumstances?

Flyby wrote: Where are the bitter expelled people who describe being treated like this?
Where are their position papers? Where are the people who were denied internal debate in the RCP, who were just tossed out in crude organizational ways and expelled?

Beats me. What such people often do is conclude that the whole idea of revolutionary politics is "fucked" and just fade back into their private lives.

Besides, flyby, you know as well as I do that even if I produced a parade of "witnesses", you would just denounce them as "liars", "frustrated careerists" and, if you were really pissed off at them, maybe "cops" or at least "sinister".

Flyby wrote: You were so desperate that you invented party membership for Lurigancho, so you could portray his outsider's complaints as a rare inner snapshot of the horrors of RCP-dom.

I referred to him as your "comrade" -- he spent seven years working with you on the campaign against police murder.

redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1094424905&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&

Flyby wrote: And when he himself did embarrassed self criticism when he saw how dishonestly you exploited him.

If he felt that I "exploited him", why did he not say so?

What did I do to "exploit" him? You suppressed his views on this board and I re-posted them at Che-Lives...at his request.

I think your response to his criticism was typical Leninist behavior.

For all your rhetoric about "consulting the masses", I think you demonstrated how you would behave if you actually had the power to do so.

And you really wish to say that I am "unprincipled"?#nosmileys

[Denver]

Getting in the habit of telling folks where their approach and method separates from the approach and method they claim to uphold is precisely what led to my ostacization from the RCP. This tendency seems to have gotten worse, not better, despite numerous statements to the contrary.

In an earlier statement to Red Star, you mentioned that he cannot name people who have been kicked out of the RCP in an unprincipled way. While he cannot, we all know that this is not the end of the story. Obviously, those of us who can name those names will not. Suffice to say that we all know they exist, and even you recognize that in what you are saying about Avakian's current 'cultural revolution' within the RCP.

Your claim that young comrade Lurigancho's criticisms were mere 'outsider's complaints' is wrong-headed, despite the fact that he was not formally a member. But since all that was ruled off topic here, why get into it...

I agree that some of your internet work has raised important issues of line and helped develop our common science. On the other hand, exchanges on listserves that degenerate into 'fuck you' as a form of defending Bob Avakian perhaps do not advance the science...