Mao & Avakian Against the Shanghai Commune

[redstar2000SE]

Burningman wrote: 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 representatives 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.

I though this was the most salient response to my posts on SDS.

Yes, burningman, I have observed that the "relationship between leaders and led" is inherently exploitative.

There are underlying material reasons for this, to be sure. In a class society, "upward mobility" is one response to general oppression. And one way to achieve that "upward mobility" is to become "a leader" of the masses.

Many people (including all Leninists) think there can be such a thing as a "good leader" -- one who really "cares" about us and our welfare, who will make the "hard decisions" that we're "not smart enough" or "not knowledgeable enough" to make, who will never sell us out to our enemies for his own personal gain.

It's my view that this is a myth...and one that specifically derives from the realities of class society itself.

We have grown up and lived our entire lives in hierarchal relationships with the humans around us. We have been vigorously taught that we are "superior" to some and "inferior" to others...and that obedience to our "superiors" is imperative. (How we treat our "inferiors" is up to us...we can be "nice" or we can be "nasty"...either way, they still have to obey us.)

Naturally, we "conclude" that there "must" be such people as "good leaders" and we need to find one and follow him if we are ever to get "out of the shit". For thousands of years it was literally unthinkable that we could ever do anything ourselves.

And then there was Marx (and some other guys, but mainly Marx)...and the first faint stirrings of a new understanding of social reality and class society -- that we could emancipate ourselves.

The spread of this idea, through many changing circumstances, may be the clearest single sign that the end of class society itself is (historically speaking) "in sight".

SDS was a reflection of that.

"Leaders enable activity"? Ah, if they would but limit themselves to that, we would hardly have an argument.

But "upward mobility", once underway, rarely recognizes limits of any kind. An ordinary capitalist simply wants to own the whole world. The leader is not content, ultimately, with anything less than apotheosis!

Yeah...becoming a "god". When you can "move millions" with a single gesture, are you "still human"? When your frowns cause "fear and trembling", what are you? When people are terrified of your wrath and flatter you outrageously to avert it, what have you become?

No aspiring leader starts out this way, of course. It generally takes decades of unbroken success on a large scale to manage it.

But the whisper of class society is insistent: if people treat me like I am superior, maybe I really am! And after a while, the "maybe" can be dropped.

At this time, I would agree with you that "leaderless movements" probably do have a fairly strong tendency to be "sub-cultural" in nature...the "instinctive revulsion" towards the very idea of a "superior" who "must be obeyed" is new born and appears only briefly and sporadically even in the most advanced capitalist countries.

But it gives us a hint of what classless society will be like...the social custom will be one of participatory self-direction, not obedience to "superiors".

It will be a society "without gods or masters"...or any combination thereof!#nosmileys

[redstar2000SE]

Flyby wrote: My view on participatory democracy when I was in SDS was that the theory was a joke.

That's a rather odd statement coming from a participant...we don't normally participate in groups that we think are guided by theoretical "jokes".

Flyby wrote: 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 conferences, 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.

That sounds like something I would say.

Flyby wrote: 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 (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.

Are you suggesting that we were "unconsciously looking for leaders"?

That's a very bizarre suggestion...especially in light of the slogan "we're all leaders".

Flyby wrote: The point is that (as Bob Avakian has told in humorous 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).

I have no doubt that informal caucuses emerged in the larger chapters and tried to fight for their line in the course of particular struggles. But the fact of their informality means that they couldn't "ascend to power" on an on-going basis, much less a "formal basis".

They had to persuade the members of their chapters or the delegates to a convention that their line was a good one. And even then, if a particular chapter thought the convention was wrong, it could go its own way and there was nothing to stop them. There was no "command structure" in place in SDS...and I never heard even the proto-Maoists ever suggest that there "should be".

Flyby wrote: 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 unofficial leaders and cliques. And it produces an organization that is unable to make a decision (and didn't succeed in any unified national actions, ever -- at least after Kissinger organized the 1967 march on Washington).

Messy!

C. Clark Kissinger was the president of SDS and the principle speaker at the 1965 march on Washington. He did not "organize it"...though I believe he was one of its main proponents at the December 1964 National Council meeting in New York City. (Yes, I was there.)

SDS did not "fail" in organizing "unified national actions", it lost interest in them. The trend after 1965 was towards concentrating on local actions and year-around campaigns...primarily campus based but on some notable occasions spilling over into the community.

And you mentioned the "Days of Rage" -- that was organized by RYM I (later the Weather Underground) after the split in June of 1969. The membership of SDS was never consulted at all about that one...probably because it had mostly ceased to exist.

Actually, SDS made quite a few decisions...some better than others, of course. But they were "line decisions", not decisions of immediate strategy or tactics. We did it that way because we recognized that we could not "micro-manage" the struggles that we were involved with on hundreds of campuses. I recall discussing this once with a national "honcho"...and I made the point that greater tactical militancy was more practical in some places than in others but it was crucial that the line be sharply anti-imperialist in every chapter.

Not surprisingly, he agreed with me.

Flyby wrote: 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.

Well, you seem to be of two minds here -- it was "unnecessary" but it was also "necessary".

I think it probably "had" to happen, though not for the reason you put forward.

In my view, we paid the usual price for our own lack of theoretical clarity...collapse.

Next time, perhaps we'll do better.

[Burningman]

"Yeah...becoming a "god". When you can "move millions" with a single gesture, are you "still human"? When your frowns cause "fear and trembling", what are you? When people are terrified of your wrath and flatter you outrageously to avert it, what have you become?"

I've become a temp.

So, what do you make of all those folks who make a distinction between leaders based on where they lead? And who find great liberation in collective, directed work? Are we all sheep?

Judging from the fear and trembling in your purple prose, I'd say you do. Which must be quite a challenge for you, having transcended the god-mongering of the multitude...

[Burningman]

Perhaps the title of this thread should be modified to Mediation, Epistemology and Politics. This is all really a themed discussion provoked by a flare on Shanghai.

Redstar writes: I think [the end of SDS] probably "had" to happen, though not for the reason you put forward. In my view, we paid the usual price for our own lack of theoretical clarity...collapse. Next time, perhaps we'll do better.

Well, the "next time" has done been here. It's been five years since the Battle of Seattle and a multi-faceted movement with thousands of activists and hundreds of thousands of participants, informed by anti-authoritarian principles, has given us some fresh meat to chew.

What's startling is how similar the "movement" phenomenon is. Attempting to make the movement everything, whether by "participatory democracy" or "consensus" and "direct action" seems to play out in roughly similar ways.

Do you have any thoughts on how it's gone?

[flyby2]

yes, this is about methodology and epistemology.

Because our different summations are not rooted in "different experiences" in some narrow sense, but mainly (imho) in how to look at the world.

some quick notes:

Flyby wrote: "My view on participatory democracy when I was in SDS was that the theory was a joke.

redstar responded: "That's a rather odd statement coming from a participant...we don't normally participate in groups that we think are guided by theoretical "jokes".

Not at all. Because what defined SDS (for me and many) and what attracted us was not the rap about "participatory democracy" that some in the organization theorized -- but the militant, fighting and increasingly anti-imperialist nature of SDS.

The chapters I saw close up had (by the time I saw them) almost no one who mouthed the words "participatory democracy" -- it was all about anti-imperialism, revolutoin and increasingly whether to form a van or not. There was struggle between currents that were "community organizer anti-imperialists" (who over time evolved into more openly social democratic forces) and forces who were more focused on how to build a mass revolutionary movement with deeps roots in the Black community and multinational working class.

Even before I joined SDS, I was focused on becoming a communist, and was seriously tryng to understand what this "Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought" was all about.


Flyby wrote: "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 conferences, 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."

Redstar adds: "That sounds like something I would say."

With all our disagreements of summation, it is worth pointing out similarities of perception. We are describing the same phenomenon, much of which we perceived in simiar ways. But the leap to conception (i.e. the summation of what this represented, why it changed, how it changed, its internal necessary dynamics, and the elements of political choice) has resulted in different views and summations.

Flyby wrote: "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 (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."

Redstar asks: "Are you suggesting that we were "unconsciously looking for leaders"?' That's a very bizarre suggestion...especially in light of the slogan "we're all leaders".

And here is the methodological difference. That which I perceive as an idealism in redstar's outlook (i.e. idealism meaning the notion that it is all a battle of ideas and intentions, with little objective necessity governming developments.)

Often people do things despite their conception.

In particular: For example, if you build a movement that does encourage debate, critical thinking, indepdent analysis and initiative.... If you do not have a style of work and an outlook that "embraces but does not replace" the profound contributions and insights of people in many spheres.... then EVEN IF YOU SEIZE POWER, you can't do anything good with it.

Your intention of having a "dictatorship of the proletariat" will (sooner or later, in one way or another, despite intentions going into it) put you in a position of acting like a dogmatic tyrant -- and (even in the service of "good policies" and revolutinary changes) deepen the divide between the new state and the masses, and drive the masses (including intellectuals and non-proletarian masses) OUT of political life.

So people can end up doing thing (by the objective "logic of the logic") even if it is (at the start) contrary to their conception, contrary to their desires, they end up (as Lenny Wolff said in his recent article on "traveling with avakian") in a place they swore they would never go.

And that is an argument for clearsighted materialism -- not allowing ourselves to fool ourselves with "political truths" that are invented, and divorced from reality. We need to actually seek truth (in the sense of "summations and conceptions that actually correspond closely with the real working of reality.") And not be comfortable with things taken on faith, or repeated out of mere loyalty, or expressed cuz we wish they were true... etc.

And there has been a great deal of "political truths" in the communist movement (meaning "expressions formed in a practmatic and instrumentalist way, independent of what is really true"). And it is even true in much of the "left" today, which is having trouble looking clearsightedly at the rapid changes, politically, around us in the U.S. -- and drawing some difficult, startling and challenging conclusions.

To return to our example at hand:

The folks in SDS started out wanting to have "participatory democracy" -- which basically what a form of "bottom up rule" in a rigid sense, and a sense spokespeople but not real leaders, and a sense of local autonomy etc rather than concerted and unified organizational efforts.

In fact, that conception does not work. You can't build the movement we increasingly wanted, you cant have the results most of us wanted, you can't have the impact we needed to have, on that basis. Cuz you don't have unity of will, cuz you don't have a real vetting of ideas, cuz you often have the most advanced and correct ideas extinguished by the relativism of democratic illusions.

And so, while people TRIED to make it work, the objectivie contradictionsof that process kept producing (accreting was my earlier word) the leadership that each trend and line needed to carry out its program. this happened because objective necessity called it into being -- not because "people said they didn't want it, but unconsciously wanted it. (I.e. it was not a psychological war of mixed intentions, it was a clash between intention and need. One ofthe problems of all such "mass democracy only" visions is that what people want is often not what they objectively need. What people can vote on as a plan, is often not the road and path that reaches their objectives. Which is a reason why one needs to train, identify, and develop a leadership core (in dialectical relationship with training and developing the understanding of the rank and file, and also summing up the experience of everyone in order to develop summations and approaches.)

[redstar2000SE]

Burningman wrote: So, what do you make of all those folks who make a distinction between leaders based on where they lead? And who find great liberation in collective, directed work? Are we all sheep?

No, I am not among those who label people that I think are mistaken by the names of domestic animals.

Are Workers "Sheep"?

The subjective sense of "liberation" is only indirectly related to objective reality...that much we know at least. The Germans under Hitler certainly knew what it was like to be "directed" -- and yet, as the famous book-title put it, "they thought they were free".

Perhaps for some of the participants you describe, "liberation" simply means "freedom from responsibility". When one follows a "leader", one does not need to bother oneself about the "hard questions"...that's "the leader's job". The follower's "job" is simply to follow...preferably with enthusiasm but it's not a requirement.

What I think is really going on here is kind of a "disconnect" between someone's nominal political outlook and their actual behavior.

Let's face it: communism, on paper, is a rebellious and liberating outlook. The more you "dig into it", the less servile you become in every way. It affects how you live (and with whom!), what you do with your time, how much bullshit you're willing to tolerate (less and less!), the whole way you look at everything around you.

But imagine the person attracted to communism who gets "detoured" into a Leninist party. At best, their dissatisfactions with capitalism are properly deepened and reinforced -- that's the good part. (Some Leninist parties don't even manage to do that!)

But they spend their political lives carrying out instructions in a way that's not all that different from just having a second job. They "sell the paper", "hand out the leaflet", "go to the demo", "applaud the leader's speech", etc. They rarely have any sense of thinking about what they're doing and why...much less actually deciding "what is to be done".

They may have communism "in their hearts" but the norms of behavior in class society remain firmly entrenched in their brains. Leninist practice does nothing to change that but, on the contrary, reinforces it. The "bigger" your "leader" is, the smaller and more insignificant you are.

For most people (in the "west"), this becomes an irreconcilable "contradiction" -- you've heard it before and so have I. Communism becomes "a beautiful dream" but the struggle for it is "just a racket"...like everything else!

And so they leave...in enormous numbers. I read once that a million people passed through the old Communist Party USA between 1930 and 1950.

They turned out not to be "sheep" after all.

Nor, by the way, did that mean that they all "put their tails between their legs" and crawled back to the ruling class. They raised their kids to be rebellious...and many of those kids ended up in SDS.

I've addressed your question concerning the "distinction" between leaders based on what "direction" they lead people in; this is one of Mao's unique "contributions" to Leninist theory.

In a word, it's bollocks. Why? Two reasons. The first is that leaders (no matter what their intentions) are human (no matter what their pretensions) and cannot avoid error. The "good personality cult" posited by the Maoists is "un-Marxist" because it assumes that the leader never fucks up and is even incapable of fucking up.

It's also un-Marxist in a deeper sense; it assumes that the leader is utterly indifferent to his own material circumstances. It assumes that being idolized "has no effect" on the human personality at the receiving end.

But you know very well that it does have an effect...and a very bad one. The people in the RCP are completely unaware of it -- but their extravagant praise of Bob Avakian will have a terrible effect on Avakian himself. Even now, his head may be so swollen that he can't get through a normal doorway without endangering his ears.

And things will get worse.

Burningman wrote: What's startling is how similar the "movement" phenomenon is. Attempting to make the movement everything, whether by "participatory democracy" or "consensus" and "direct action" seems to play out in roughly similar ways.

Do you have any thoughts on how it's gone?

Not too good so far...partly because an SDS-type formation has yet to emerge. What seems to exist now are "fragments" of a movement that only talk to each other about a week before an action. And the actions themselves appear to be disconnected from any base or form of on-going political work.

Yet the real problem is still the same one that plagued SDS itself -- weak theory!

Would you like to argue the case that a movement "cannot by its very nature" develop a coherent revolutionary theory? Or "borrow" one from some other source?

Do you want to amend Lenin's axiom so that it reads "only a revolutionary leader can develop a revolutionary theory"?

There doesn't seem to me to be any reason, in principle, why a movement can't generate theoreticians...who could, in turn, develop a coherent revolutionary theory. This may not have happened yet (I can't think of any examples myself)...but I do not see anything that keeps it from happening "for all time".

Do you?

[redstar2000SE]

Flyby2 wrote: The chapters I saw close up had (by the time I saw them) almost no one who mouthed the words "participatory democracy" -- it was all about anti-imperialism, revolution and increasingly whether to form a van or not. There was struggle between currents that were "community organizer anti-imperialists" (who over time evolved into more openly social democratic forces) and forces who were more focused on how to build a mass revolutionary movement with deep roots in the Black community and multinational working class.

Even before I joined SDS, I was focused on becoming a communist, and was seriously trying to understand what this "Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought" was all about.

Ah, most interesting. I agree with you that the "theorizing" about participatory democracy had largely disappeared by 1968 or so...and that the appeal of Maoism was very much "on the rise". I think it was still practiced...though perhaps less so in the large chapters on the east coast.

And while there was a growing interest in the idea of a vanguard party, I can't ever recall anyone suggesting that SDS itself should go that route.

As I noted in an earlier post but want to emphasize even more here: the prestige of Mao and Maoism, the Vietnamese, and the Black Panther Party did have a tremendous influence on the last year or two of SDS's political development...especially among many of the most committed and serious members.

In retrospect, I see that as unfortunate...but I confess that I was not nearly so critical at the time. I "felt the pull" like many people did.

Flyby2 wrote: Often people do things despite their conception.

They sure do!

Flyby2 wrote: In particular: For example, if you build a movement that does encourage debate, critical thinking, independent analysis and initiative....[but] If you do not have a style of work and an outlook that "embraces but does not replace" the profound contributions and insights of people in many spheres.... then EVEN IF YOU SEIZE POWER, you can't do anything good with it.

Your intention of having a "dictatorship of the proletariat" will (sooner or later, in one way or another, despite intentions going into it) put you in a position of acting like a dogmatic tyrant -- and (even in the service of "good policies" and revolutionary changes) deepen the divide between the new state and the masses, and drive the masses (including intellectuals and non-proletarian masses) OUT of political life.

Most curious; you are turning one of my own crucial arguments "against me".

Why do you think the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat" that I advocate will result in a despotism "despite my best intentions"? After all, what do I propose other than the direct rule of the proletariat as a class...with a minimum of "mediation"?

Would the Shanghai Commune have ended in despotism even if it had won?

Flyby2 wrote: The folks in SDS started out wanting to have "participatory democracy" -- which basically what a form of "bottom up rule" in a rigid sense, and a sense spokespeople but not real leaders, and a sense of local autonomy etc rather than concerted and unified organizational efforts.

In fact, that conception does not work. You can't build the movement we increasingly wanted, you can't have the results most of us wanted, you can't have the impact we needed to have, on that basis. Cuz you don't have unity of will, cuz you don't have a real vetting of ideas, cuz you often have the most advanced and correct ideas extinguished by the relativism of democratic illusions.

Yes, I already gathered you didn't like the idea. But merely asserting that certain things "must" or "can't" happen is not "real world evidence".

The conception that you criticize in such absolute terms did have an "impact"...and one that far exceeded anything that's happened since.

What we lacked was not "unity of will" but fake "unity of will". When people participated in an SDS activity, they actually agreed with it...they didn't do it because it was the party line that everyone "had to do it".

I will grant that we didn't have "a real vetting of ideas" -- but that was a common weakness of the period and, for that matter, now. But I don't see that as an obstacle in principle to participatory democracy. If you take revolutionary theory seriously, then you'll develop a coherent theory over time regardless of your organizational structure. It may not be a good theory or the best theory possible, but it will be coherent.

And it's not necessarily inevitable that the "most advanced and correct ideas" will "often" be extinguished. In fact, participatory democracy leaves the option open for an advanced and correct idea to make a "come-back" in a way that's not possible under "democratic" centralism. An idea that's defeated on the national level can still be implemented on a local level...and if the results are promising, then people at the next convention will listen more attentively. In addition, of course, a "backward idea" that is temporarily "victorious" but yields disappointing results can be reversed fairly easily and quickly...unlike the case with Leninist parties that often can't change their lines short of catastrophic failure.

Flyby2 wrote: One of the problems of all such "mass democracy only" visions is that what people want is often not what they objectively need. What people can vote on as a plan, is often not the road and path that reaches their objectives. Which is a reason why one needs to train, identify, and develop a leadership core...

Yes, the masses can be wrong.

But so can the "trained" and "developed" leaders.

Which side are you on?#nosmileys

[Maz]

Earlier Burningman made an interesting point about how "after line is consolidated, the number of people learning to think goes down". (I'm paraphrasing, but I think that's the essense of it).

It does seem to me that a period of extremely intense theoretical and organizing struggle will have a tendency to produce very high-quality leaders. When there's nothing to ground yourself on, and you have to do everything from scratch you do seem to end up with people like Lenin, Mao, Gonzalo, and Avakian.

For the next generation, things are a bit easier, since a lot of the answers come "pre-made". For example, Avakian did not have A World To Win and the RW, but we do, in no small part to his contributions.

But I don't think that this some kind of curse. The thing about reality and line struggle is that it's always changing - and there's plenty going on to enable the next generation to learn to think! This will be especially true when things really change in a significant way, and revolution advances in waves, bringing new situations and problems.

But there is a concern here, more in relation to socialist than capitalist society. After the revolution, will conditions emerge for a new generation of revolutionary leaders to carry things forward? For example, in China, were any significant leaders of the GPCR politicized after the seizure of power in 1949, or were they part of the first generation of leaders to emerge along with mao?

[flyby]

these are (imho) important questions.

Lemme stick in some comments:

Maz writes: "Earlier Burningman made an interesting point about how "after line is consolidated, the number of people learning to think goes down".

I think the idea of "line is consolidated" underestimates the dynamic and creative process of theory during revolutionary preparations and beyond.

It is true that rev parties consolidate, and develop initial lines and leaderships.

but if you look at something like the RCP.... I'd have to ask, when exactly was their "line consolidated"? And hasn't the change been considerable over time. Both leaps through party founding process, then the struggle with the Menshiviks (0ver economism, the restoration in china and issues of social chauvinism etc.), and then in the 80s over where to focus and how to build a base, and now over the last decade with major new theoretical developments on how to look at socialism, how to view method, how to build united front....

It is not like "now it isn't consolidated, but now it is."

And in fact, there are sudden twists (look at the controversy over the main man's analysis of the Christian Fascists, morality, the elections and its outcome, and this moment!!). And when new twists happen (in a world defined and marked by such leaps!) new analysis/theory/struggle are needed.

I don't think people"stop thinking" cuz line is developed and consolidated.

But there are particular lines (particularly dogmato-revisionist lines) that shut down thinking, oppose critical thinking, trample on initiave, train people in non-scientific methods and non-materialist analysis.

if thinking is "shut down" it isn't cuz "line is consolidated" (whatever that means) but because a REVISIONIST line has been consolidated (or at least has influence).

If a truly revolutionary communist line is in command, and people are being trained to apply it (which REQUIRES CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING AND INQUIRY) -- then thinking does not "shut down" (but quite the contrary).

mas writes: "It does seem to me that a period of extremely intense theoretical and organizing struggle will have a tendency to produce very high-quality leaders. When there's nothing to ground yourself on, and you have to do everything from scratch you do seem to end up with people like Lenin, Mao, Gonzalo, and Avakian.

Well, I feel you. But with some additonal thoughts:

first, it is quite possible (and even common) to have intense theoretical and organizing struggle WITHOUT producing high-quality leaders. They don't emerge automatically. There is a greatr deal of "accident" in the process. And they often don't emerge.

Most parties in history have not developed leaders of that caliber. (THink of the KPD in germany, which certainly had both theoretical and "organizing" experience of quite vast amounts. But never produced a leadership capable of charting a course or leading a rev.)

Maz writes: "For the next generation, things are a bit easier, since a lot of the answers come "pre-made". For example, Avakian did not have A World To Win and the RW, but we do, in no small part to his contributions."

I think this is confused, though there is clearly some truth to it.

First, there is MUCH for each "generation" to solve and chart. Reality flows on. Answers are never "pre-made" -- and this view of "answers and questions" does not quite grasp how theory and practice relate. Or what we are seeking.

Certainly, on another level, things are DIFFERENT in important ways, when you have Party and you have an Avakian. It is precious. It can be squandered. It can be overlook and disparaged.

Great advances can be treated or portrayed as trivial or unimportant (as our debates here have shown).

But it is also important not to view advances in line as pre-made munchies. And certainly Avakian has worked (in both form and content) to have his body of work NOT easily transformed into pablum. Or treated as "answers" in that way.

He is charting a course. He is indicating a method of analysis and a path of inquiry, and a revolutionary road of actual class struggle. But not as a seqence of "answers" to be inshrined as new dogmas from the mouth of a new icon.

(I am not implying that this is what you are saying or believe.... I'm just saying outloud what I would NOT want people to take from your remarks.)

Maz then writes: "But I don't think that this some kind of curse. The thing about reality and line struggle is that it's always changing - and there's plenty going on to enable the next generation to learn to think! This will be especially true when things really change in a significant way, and revolution advances in waves, bringing new situations and problems."

Exactly. And this paragraph you wrote shows how we are essentially on the same page on that point.

Maz writes: "But there is a concern here, more in relation to socialist than capitalist society. After the revolution, will conditions emerge for a new generation of revolutionary leaders to carry things forward? For example, in China, were any significant leaders of the GPCR politicized after the seizure of power in 1949, or were they part of the first generation of leaders to emerge along with mao?"

There is an element of "defend and develop." There was a new generation, emerging from the GPCR (exemplified by the Four -- Mao's closest followers.)

And this development of leadership developed from the practice of leading. From experience leading in real struggle -- including under conditions of socislism.

And it also takes place on the basis of fighting to defend, uphold and apply the leading line -- and in the case of China -- uphold Mao (as a person, leader, line and approach).

This raises the importance of the "cult of personality" -- because this person had come to concentrate (objectively, not by decree) the key ideological and political line needed to advance.

And a cult of THAT personality (and an authority emerging from that which is NOT based on blind obedience but on consciousness) was crucial, and was a key element for the emergence of that next generation of leaders.

Those leaders (like Quai Da Fu) who led by rejecting the line of Mao could not (and did not) do any good, and ended up on the wrong road.

If you don't defend MLM, you can't develop MLM. [typo fixed]

Lenin upheld Marxism against Kautsky and ON THAT BASIS (and only on that basis) was able to make new developments (including some that contradicted Marxism as it was understood at that time).

Similarly, it is impossible to understand the new advances made by Avakian without seeing htem in the context of his intense defense of Mao and his work of synthesizing (correctly) what it was that Mao's immortal contributions were. (And on that basis, making a synthesis that was itself new, and that provided a basis for even criticizing a number of things within Mao and the GPCR that need to be transcended.)

Some in the name of a "new generation" want to treat the party and the leadership as "obstacles" often without even deeply dealing with it on the level of line. Anarchists and semi-anarchism obviously do that. Much of the anti-globalizaiton movement tries that, as if they must "reject all that" and go for "something new" (when in fact the "new" they resurrect is some very very old and disarming social democratic stuff.)

Anyway, those are some thoughts.



Logged

[flyby]

maz writes: "The thing about reality and line struggle is that it's always changing - and there's plenty going on to enable the next generation to learn to think!"

There is always lots of material (in a constantly changing universe) for us to think about (analyze).

But whether we think about it, how deeply, and how correctly we analyze depend on our method, our approach, and what political and ideological line leads.

Let's be blunt: far too much "communist" activity has been by rote, soaked in dogmatic methods and mechanical thinking (what someone called "rigid mindset").

Marxism is scientific, but "Marxists" often are not. And their vision of "Marixsm" has often been a state religion (with or without a state.)

So we need to wrench ourselves out of that.

That is part of why Avakian needs to be promoted among communists -- because he is fighting fo this, on many levels. He is putting forward a method and approach that is shocking -- when compared to what has passed as "communist" or "MLM" or "scientific."

he says why shouldn't we change summations when they prove flawed? And why should it be so rare, so hard, so stubborn?

There is always matter and change for us to think about. But do we? And how do we do it?

We really need to talk about this MUCH more -- and rupture with what has been the norm for communists, and what still is the norm for far too much of communist thinking.

[Burningman]

That sounds so great. It really does.

But I'd urge you to shake a little harder. Shake off the signifiers of the rigid mindset: the cult of personality being the most obvious and glaring one.

Just shake it off.

[Epistemological Rupture]

I just wanted to make 2 quick points on the Shanghai Commune.

(I'm probably spelling all these names wrong...)

1st, Whether or not you like the Shanghai Commune it's just objectively true that people following Mao's road played the leading role in Shanghai not just with the January Storm but going back years prior.

The mayor of Shanghai (I think his name was Ko?) was a staunch supporter of Mao's line, he died in May of 1965 or so. The January Storm was in January 1967 so this was not like some areas where the revisionists had been entrenched for years and years. Also even though Ko had died, an ally of his was still on the scene, even though he had been pushed aside by the revisionists; that ally was a certain Chang Chun Chiao.

It was Chang and those grouped around him that played a leading role in the January Storm. He played an important role in the founding of the Shanghai Commune.

It's worth reading what Mao says to Chang (and Yao Wen-yuan) in MAO TSETUNG TALKS TO THE PEOPLE. It's very interesting, they were discussing the Commune and Mao was criticizing the Commune (he wasn't attacking Chang or expelling him or anything else of that nature by the way) which Chang, an ardent supporter of Mao had helped create! I won't get into Mao's criticisms which have been touched on above but Chang was won over to Mao's position.

Also even though Mao analyzed that the Commune form wouldn't work, that it wouldn't be able to supress counter-revolution in that form he didn't just dump all over the Commune, or the Cultural Revolution. He was very dialectical in pointing out the strengths and weakness of of what was goingon in Shanghai. Mao worked like hell to promote Chang to higher levels of leadership after this whole Commone incident.

2nd, objective reality exists. What do I mean by this in relation to the Shanghai Commune? During the Cultural Revolution the Commune was a form that developed in Shanghai, other forms developed in other parts of the country, like the Revlutionary Committees. In some places capitalist roaders still had the upper-hand and they developed forms as well. Were all these forms equal? Was one as good as another? Of course not. The Revolutionary Committee was a form developed by the masses that Mao popularized nationwide.

So here's the question, should whatever forms that developed locally have just been encouraged to do whatever they wanted? Is one thing as good as another to getting to communism? Does it matter if the line leading in factories is "Grasp Revolution Promote Production" vs. "To Get Rich is Glorious"? Yes it does.

So if there's objective reality (which there is) then you can't say everything is everything. You can't say one form is as good as another. And if you agree to that, then it's illogical to criticize Mao for implementing the Revolutionary Committee over the Commune form. You can disagree that the 3-in-1 was the best form. You can say that the Commune should have been implemented nationally but you can't criticize Mao for implementing a form because had he implemented the Commune form nationally then that would have meant disbanding the Revolutionary Committee in this part of the country and disbanding a different model in another part of the country, etc. Unless of course you want to make the absurd argument that every form that was developed across the country best corresponded to the areas where they arose. Because if you're gonna say that then you're gonna have to argue that capitalist forms were the best for certain sections of China.

Since this is moving into discussion of Avakian I would like to jump in on that as well but will do so in a seperate post.

[redstar2000GUEST]

Epistemological Rupture wrote: The Revolutionary Committee was a form developed by the masses that Mao popularized nationwide.

I don't think that's a true statement.

As I understand the matter, the "3 in 1" committees were initiated by the party headquarters to bring the masses under control -- the army was the dominant member of the "3" or, at least, present to make sure that the other "2" did not "get out of hand".

This happened after the Shanghai Commune.

Epistemological Rupture wrote: Unless of course you want to make the absurd argument that every form that was developed across the country best corresponded to the areas where they arose. Because if you're gonna say that then you're gonna have to argue that capitalist forms were the best for certain sections of China.

Why is this an "absurd" argument? Indeed, objective reality exists and it is obviously different in different parts of a sprawling and heavily populated country like China.

If any argument is "absurd", it is one that would suggest otherwise.

Granted, there is a problem here. Should the center impose (1)the most advanced formation on the whole country regardless of local conditions? (2) the most backward form? or (3) some "middle way" between the most advanced and the most backward?

Or should the center not impose any form at all...letting the class struggle determine the outcome in each locality -- but perhaps providing some material assistance to the supporters of the most advanced form in each locality.

For example, the Shanghai Commune could have been granted "autonomous area" status with other cities to follow -- much as Deng & Co. later created "economic zones" for the restoration of capitalism. Such "communist zones" would then have gradually expanded into the countryside as the rural population advanced...just as capitalist zones do now.

Perhaps this perspective simply never occurred to any of the participants...or perhaps they thought that the "whole country" had to be "uniform" in its institutions.

But one thing we know without a doubt: Mao's "middle way" was abandoned by the masses after Shanghai and there was zero significant resistance to Deng & Company when they took the capitalist road "for good".

That can't be just a coincidence.



The Redstar2000 Papers

Revolutionary Left Forums

[RedFlagOverTrenton]

As I understand the matter, the "3 in 1" committees were initiated by the party headquarters to bring the masses under control -- the army was the dominant member of the "3" or, at least, present to make sure that the other "2" did not "get out of hand".

I don't think this is true, or necessarily the way things actually worked.. at least not at the factory or institutional level where it would be most important.

For one thing, in many cases it simply wasn't "the army" at all. At the workplace level it was members of the local militia, who, like the other two segments, were elected and subject to immediate recall at any time and were generally unarmed when performing their RC responsibilities.

Secondly, the Committee wasn't as a bloc responsible for all the day to day operations of the work place. The three segments actually had rotating responsibilities: Administration, dialoguing with and addressing the worker's concerns and problems (the Complaint Department I guess you could call it), and engagement in actual productive labor. So, for example, one week the militia would be in charge of administration, the worker segment would man the CD, and the party cadre would work alongside the workers for their normal hours in the factory.

This constantly shifted and rotated so it was supposed to be a proof against beurocratization. Sure, the cadre and militia could "lord it over" the workers, and do ridiculous things like cutting pay and raising hours, but...

A: They could simply be kicked off the committee
B: They'd have to deal with those changes themselves once their functions rotated to the "actually working" part
C: The worker portion could just reverse their decision when they took over administrative tasks.

At the provincial levels, the military portion did indeed come from the army and was appointed from above. But at the lower levels it seemed more like an attempt to align the interests of the cadre and militia/military more closely with that of the workers and prevent another crusty, entrenched beuracratic class with interests above and apart from the workers from forming.

Why did they fail? I dunno, I haven't really read that far yet. But I'm sure there's no shortage of Maoists around who have something to say about that ;D

[JC]

"I don't Think this a true Statement "

You have no idea . These maoists ( whom i have major political diffrence with ) present mounds of written testimonial's from china in the late 60's and early 70's to witch you reply " thats a damned lie and you know " .

How can you expect them to debate with you if countinualy dismiss there testemony and present no evidence of your own ... Gee , thats srikingly similar to the way christian facists argue.