a reply to celticfire:
Celticfire writes:
"When I hear supposed communists use terms like “irreplaceable” it makes my stomach turn."Starting a discussion with visceral and emotional assertions is a statement of method. And the method is not scientific.
It is similar to someone starting a discussion of sexuality saying "Homosexuals make me sick." How likely is a scientific, rational discussion of line and reality?
I'm sorry your "stomach turns" -- but i urge you to think about what i'm saying.... not whether your preconceived notions cause you to be disgusted by me.
" Turning leadership into absolutist terms is a mechanical fallacy, not Marxism."There is nothing absolutist about the RCP's approach to leadership. The RCP is clearly scientific about this and related questions. It opposes slavishness. It opposes the idea that someone is always right. It upholds the idea that developing correct line is a collective process (epistemologically).
I urge you to read their actual discussion of these things, and base your pronouncements on that (and not on your misreading of them).
One place to start is their "resolution on leadership"
rwor.org/a/firstvol/825/revolutionary_leadership.htm"Assuming Avakian once held truth, will he always hold truth? Is the truth only available through him? What about what he has got flat wrong, like the end-of-the-world or revolution thinking in the 80's? The treating of homosexuality like a disease of capitalist decay, or the “Stop the Busing!” attempts? Avakian has criticized himself on some of these things, but that isn't the point."Actually it is the point. It proves that your earlier assertion of absolutism is mistaken. No one argues that there is a magical approach to truth, or that someone who has made contributions is guaranteed to continue making contributions on that level.
And if you read Avakian you would see that he himself points to the example of Einstein, who made a major breakthrough on relativity, but then later in his life too the wrong approach on quantum physics.
But take the example of Pele in soccer-- or a Michael Jordan in basketball . They are unique, their role in the game is unique, and the game is different when they are in play. Does that mean that if Pele enters the game we are assured victory? nope. Does it mean that he won't make a mistake at a key moment? nope. Does it mean that the rest of the team is irrelevent? nope.
But it does mean that if Pele breaks a leg the night before a championship game, all might be lost. That you can't simply say "oh, no matter, we will go in and play our gameplan without him." cuz it won't work, and you are likely to lose without him.
And that is why, with key players, the opposing side tries to "take them out," and protecting them from this is a key part of being able to continue winning.
Because people are not the same. You can't just "pull out Jordan, and substitute him with a replacement" and expect the game to be won.
Of course, if Pele is crippled, you don't refuse to play. You adapt your game plan, you fight to win. But the fact is that the odds have just changed, in a very bad and perhaps fatal way.
"He is not “irreplaceable” or a Marx-Lenin-Mao deity extolling the word of MLM to us sheep."It is wrong to equate these two things, or to imply that saying "irreplacable" means that no one else matters.
First, being irreplacable doesn't mean "deity."
If Pele's team lost him at a key moment, it might be decisive, and he is truly irreplacable (i.e. there is no one that can "come in" and simply do what he does.) This is a fact. It can be deduced from a materialist analysis.
does this mean Pele is a god? no. why should it imply anything magical or metaphysical.
Or to return to politics:
If lenin had died in 1914, there would not have been a Russian revolution. No one else in his party saw the opening in 1917. No one else could have fought to have the Bolsheviks adopt a position of going for power in october. He was irreplacable.
Does that make him a god? nope. It is just a materialist assessment of who was there, in his party, what their lines were, what their capabilities were, and in particular, it is an assessment of the unique and distinctive role he played (in the party and in these events.)
"And treating leadership in those terms only saps the movement, and gives Maoism a bad name."On the contrary!
If it is true it must be said.
If you have a unique and irreplacable leadership, it needs to be made known -- because it has implications for what is possible (to do) and what is necessary (to do).
Otherwise the movement and the masses can't be prepared to defend such a leadership. Otherwise people are not prepared to assimilate and apply what is being brought forward.
Did the promotion of Mao give Maoism a bad name? Uh, no. It was a key part of what made Maoism possible. If no one had promoted Mao, and pointed out that he was making unique contributions in theory and practice, how could a Maoist movement have emerged?
The Maoist movement sang as its anthem "The east is red, arise the sun, China's given birth to a Mao Tsetung." It is worth thinking about that deeply.
How much was the chinese revolution possible BECAUSE a Mao emerged? Was it "more ripe" than india? Or was the question of leadership perhaps decisive?
Repeater wrote in answer to celticfire: "The point of the cult of personality is exactly to make him not be irreplaceable. That is to say to everyone, EVERYONE, that you can deal with these issues of how to bring a liberating world to humanity."It is true that the point of our work around BA's synthesis is to help many many more people engage with it, and "travel with" him -- to play the role they can and must play, without a hint of slavishness.
However, even if we do everything right that would not magically make him "replacable." If we grasp and apply this new synthesis, if we fight for communism based on these new leaps of analysis... that will not negate the fact that the contribution he makes (and can be expected to continue to make) is unique.
In other words, we want to defend the chair. And we want to bring his analysis to many many more people (to engage and take up). But none of that will reverse unevendevelopment in the world, or the different levels of contribution that different people will be making.
Repeater writes
"In this day and age there is no-one who has done more and tried harder to bring people to deal with the questions and issues that need to be dealt with for humanity to get free, than Avakian. And it is his example and methodology which needs to be grasped in order for more and more people to engage the changing of the world at the level it needs to be engaged."I agree.
Celticfire writes:
"You argue flat out that the point of the cult of personality is to not make him irreplaceable? This is Orwellian in its weirdness – truth is false, up is down and leaders are irreplaceable? The point of the cult of personality is to associate the object of the cult with the “Truth” and in politics this means the Party and State. If Avakian dies tomorrow, or next year or a decade from now, what will happen to the RCP? My guess is that it falls a part like a house of cards. The cult of personality is a manifestation of mechanical thinking."I will ignore the tone of "totalitarian-baiting" and anticommunism in this reply.
First of all, Avakian is either irreplacable or not. How we handle or discuss his work does not make him irreplacable or not.
The point of promoting him is not to associate "the object of the cult with the truth" -- but to point out that someone has been bringng forward some unique insights which are true, and very necessary for those who want liberation.
Your whole approach is subjective idealism. And what is actually true never comes up in your discussion.
If someone has discovered important truths (including new truths) about the liberation process, and are continuing to dig and lead on that basis -- should this be known and said? I think, yes.
CF writes:
"I can absolve Stalin and Mao for this, given the historical experiments and period – but Avakian should know better."How generous and arbitrary. Now you are absolving the proletariat's leader, like some moral pope of the 21st century. And convenient. So you can slyly uphold Mao, even though his approach to the question of leadership is quite similar to the RCP's. Heh!
CF said:
"Are communists just raw material to be sculpted by the omnipotent leader – or are they critical revolutionaries capable engaging theory and practice?"It is tiresome, but let me point out again, that the RCP opposes any concept of "omnipotent." And inventing and affixing claims of religiousity doesn't make it true. Be honest. Don't lie or invent.
Let me put it another way: Will communists become critical revolutionaries in the world today if they don't engage with and take up the method and approach Avakian is fighting for? I think not.
CF writes:
" I am not down playing or attempted to negate the role of leadership."Of course you are. But lets be clear: "leadership" is not some rootless abstraction that floats through society like fog in a swamp. We are talking about a person who leads, who formulates line and policy, who forges unity and draws dividing lines, and who strains to connect our present with a communist future.
You may say 'leadership is necessary" -- but not this leader. so you uphold it in the abstract, while denying the concrete, historic and material way it has infact emerged and been concentrated (inthis person).
CF writes:
"Leadership is absolutely necessary to our movement, but not leadership that is absolute, that is presented as super-human, because we know what that looks like – North Korea – and guess what? The masses don't want that!"Simple challenge: give me one example of where Avakian is presented as "superhuman." Just one. Document it, and post it here.
And if you can't, admit that it is wrong to say this.
By contrast, the feudal monarchy in North Korea is full of supernatural statements (about flowers blooming in winter, and applause magically heard across sacred lakes, when leaders are born or die.)
But you falsely equate a religious revisionist mess, with a necessary and urgent fight for a new leap in Marxism.
So i repeat the simple challenge: show us any place where Avakian is treated metaphysically, as supernature, superhuman or "absolute"?
Because in fact, he is fighting against religious thinking and dogmatism among communists, for a scientific and critical approach, for opposing absolutist notions of inevitability, and so on.
CF writes:
"If you rely for Avakian to explain away all your problems, it isn't going to amount to warm spit to the masses."Another logical exercise: positing something that is not true, and deducing something that does not apply.