How Critical Should Revolutionaries Be of Each Oth

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members.aol.com/ScottH9999/essays/HowCritical.htm

[redstar2000SE]

Interesting piece.

The vicissitudes of life in class society teach us at a young age that any criticism directed towards us is usually followed by the loss of some potential reward or even the imposition of some unpleasantness on our person.

Rejecting criticism (except on trivial matters) as a matter of principle is almost a reflex action.

In Mao's China, for example, a sharp criticism of your political position on some question could be (and often was) followed by a couple of years of shoveling pig turds for a living.

It takes considerable courage, even to the point of reckless disregard for the consequences, to "speak up" and "make criticisms" in class society.

Among leftists in the U.S., the consequences are not so dire. You'll just be called a lot of "bad names" and, if you're in a party, you'll probably get the boot. (Your "party friends" won't talk to you any more.)

Nothing anyone shouldn't be able to live with.

[damian]

here is a claim by Redstar:

"In Mao's China, for example, a sharp criticism of your political position on some question could be (and often was) followed by a couple of years of shoveling pig turds for a living."

Now this is either true or it isn't.

and it is worth exploring it.

Though (before leaving it at that) I have three observations:

a) The concept of "sharp criticism of your political position" leaves unsaid WHAT "your political position" actually was. Are there people whose political actions SHOULD lead to repression?

b) The majority of the Chinese population were peasants, and this view of the countryside (a hostile and insulting view of "shoveling pig shit") actually relfects a hostile view toward the peasantry. Clearly in china the revolutionaries thought it was valuable for members of the government (cadre, officials, managers, party members) to know what most people lived like -- so they could represent and serve the people.

Was THAT wrong?

c) It is also worth thinking about what was Mao's policy. In other words, the expression "In mao's china" implies that RS is describing Mao's policy and views.

Here is an essay worth reading on just that point: It is a sharp discussion Mao has with someone who thinks open support for Chiang Kaishek (who had murdered many tens of thousands of communists and hundreds of thousands of masses, including mao's family) should be punished by labor reform. Mao disagrees (in this famous and influential exchange).

marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1970/haijung.htm

I also think we should discuss: What do WE think the response of revolutionary communists should be toward the expression of dissent and even oppositional views under socialism.

[redstar2000SE]

damian wrote: Here is a claim by Redstar:

"In Mao's China, for example, a sharp criticism of your political position on some question could be (and often was) followed by a couple of years of shoveling pig turds for a living."

Now this is either true or it isn't.

It's true...and worse.

I read a book not long ago by a Canadian journalist -- From Mao to Now I believe it was called -- in which she said that there was a law in Mao's China that punished pregnancy out of wedlock (in urban areas) with three years of rural labor...that is, shoveling pig turds.

damian wrote: The concept of "sharp criticism of your political position" leaves unsaid WHAT "your political position" actually was. Are there people whose political actions SHOULD lead to repression?

No question about it. But do you want to take the chance?

That is, you have every reason to believe that critical remarks about the leadership will likely result in you spending several years of shoveling pig-turds for a living.

Are you going to do it anyway? Or are you going to keep your mouth shut?

damian wrote: The majority of the Chinese population were peasants, and this view of the countryside (a hostile and insulting view of "shoveling pig shit") actually reflects a hostile view toward the peasantry.

Guilty.

Does the phrase "the muck of rural ignorance" ring a bell with you? Marx was as contemptuous of the countryside as I am and for the same reasons.

People who idealize rural life have never lived it.

Or even seen it up close.

damian wrote: Clearly in China the revolutionaries thought it was valuable for members of the government (cadre, officials, managers, party members) to know what most people lived like -- so they could represent and serve the people.

Was THAT wrong?

It was punitive...and everyone (in the cities) knew it.

People who lived in the cities of Mao's China probably lived much like working class Americans did in 1875 or 1900; Chinese peasants lived in material conditions little different from the way that western peasants lived in 1300.

What would you choose?

damian wrote: It is also worth thinking about what was Mao's policy. In other words, the expression "In Mao's China" implies that RS is describing Mao's policy and views.

Here you have a legitimate gripe; the phrase "Mao's China" is shorthand for China prior to Deng & Co.

Mao was the "big dog" (you would say "main man") but of course that doesn't mean that he was personally responsible for "everything that happened".

On the contrary, most of what happened there, "good" and "bad", was a consequence of material conditions of that era and would have been roughly the same if Mao had never existed.

It does seem to me that there was a more or less consistent policy of sending internal and external urban critics of the CPC leadership off to shovel pig-turds for a few years...and that this policy was actually seen as a humane alternative to Stalin's gulags and firing squads.

damian wrote: I also think we should discuss: What do WE think the response of revolutionary communists should be toward the expression of dissent and even oppositional views under socialism.

I think you should discuss discontinuing the use of the phrase "revolutionary communist" as applied to yourself -- you are a revolutionary socialist because socialism is what you intend to establish.

You mislead people when you call yourself a communist...as communism is not what your main goal actually is.

[Maz]

The Canadian journalist RedStar refers to is Jan Wong. She writes for the Globe and Mail (Canada's biggest national newspaper) and is a big-time reactionary and personality in the Canadian media. She uses her experience as a young Maoist in China in the 1970s as a kind of anti-communist capital.

Now I'm not saying that everything Jan Wong says is a lie, but people should be aware of who she is and what her role is.

Anyone who has read her main book titled 'Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now' can attest to its gossipy, inaccurate and overall insubstantial nature. In it, Wong claims to have been an idealistic young Maoist from Montreal, but it's pretty clear in reading the book that she didn't, and doesn't, know a fucking thing about Maoism. At best she comes across as a whiny spoiled brat who shirked any real work or hardship - "they made us work in the rain!" - oh, the horror.

More importantly though, the book relies on little more than her whining, gossip about Mao, conversations with the odd rude person, lies, and the occasional isolated acts to paint a real anti-communist, anti-revolutionary, and anti-progress-of-any-kind picture.

The book is full of that junk. Relying on it for information on the cultural revolution is like relying on CNN for the same.

[redstar2000SE]

Maz wrote: In it, Wong claims to have been an idealistic young Maoist from Montreal, but it's pretty clear in reading the book that she didn't, and doesn't, know a fucking thing about Maoism.

I agree. In fact, she's one of those cases where the appellation "petty-bourgeois" actually applies...her parents ran a chain of Chinese restaurants in Canada.

Maz wrote: More importantly though, the book relies on little more than her whining, gossip about Mao, conversations with the odd rude person, lies, and the occasional isolated acts to paint a real anti-communist, anti-revolutionary, and anti-progress-of-any-kind picture.

Well, she thinks capitalism was/is "progress".

Otherwise, however, her book suffers from the same shortcomings that any "first-person narrative" would suffer.

Are there any outright lies in her book?

In particular, the item that I mentioned -- three years of rural labor for having a child out of wedlock -- was she lying about that? If I remember correctly, she actually has Mao personally intervening to stop the sentence from being implemented...but, if so, we know that Mao could not have stopped all such sentences from being implemented, don't we?

Maz wrote: Relying on it for information on the cultural revolution is like relying on CNN for the same.

Well, I don't own a dummyvision set...so I don't rely on CNN for anything.

But look: there've been what, hundreds, of books published about "Mao's China" from a first-person "this is what I saw" point-of-view. Nearly all of those published in the west are likely to be pretty critical.

What are we going to "rely on"? The official claims of the Peking Review?

I would personally be delighted to read a few books by the "ultra-leftists" in that period; but even if such things were ever written (in Chinese), who would translate them and publish them in the west?

Inevitably, we are forced back on "plausibility"...does this particular account of this particular situation appear plausible in the light of what we've learned in our lifetimes about social realities?

And we are, granted, often misled...by people who have a class motive in misleading us.

But you won't get far by substituting faith for plausibility. If you read something critical of the cultural revolution and just dismiss it automatically as "bourgeois lies", where does that leave you?

[kasama]

it is important to view the socialist past with open eyes. uphold it historically overall. And then also, creatively grasp what we can do differently and better.

Two errors to avoid:

First, we can't adopt the stand of our enemy: view socialism through eyes that magnify every short coming and overlook the essential and historic leap that socialism has represented. We can see from our experience that socialism is possible, that it is liberating, and that there are powerful forces within the modern world brinigng a new society out of the madness of the old.

Second, we can't white wash the experience. "Cut the toes to fit the shoes." People expect and deserve a materialist analysis of the communist experience, and they want to know what we uphold and what we don't.

Part of it is this: the bourgeoisie lies about the socialist past. (And the idea that everyone in china feared instant labor camp for remarks and criticism is such a lie) But at the same time, they also use truths and real difficulties of early socialism to throw at us. And we have to analyze those things too, not just deny them.

Wehave all argues with Redstar before, and challenged his rather crude and uncritical acceptance of ANY anti-communist bullshit that is put in print.

But, at the same time, communists (including especially BA) have been analyzing that in China, under Mao, and in the cultural revolution there was too tight a rein on art and artists. there was not enough air to breathe, not enough room for experimentation and making provocative mistakes.

And it is a challenge how to allow much more ferment, wrangling and debate -- without allowing it to become the means for bringing back capitalism. That is the debate we are now focused on.

And it is what Bob Avakian has been challenging people to look at.

[redstar2000SE]

kasama wrote: We have all argued with Redstar before, and challenged his rather crude and uncritical acceptance of ANY anti-communist bullshit that is put in print.

Talk about crude! ;D

[kasama]

OK, perhaps my comment was itself a little crude.

But certainly, your approach to analyzing the socialist experience of our class embraces a lot of rather crudely bourgeois claims without much evidence of citicial and independent inquiry.

Remember your remark about how you didn't have the time to dig into the whole history of china, so had to content yourself with repeating what was easily available?

However, my point (as I hope is obvious) was and is not to diss you.

It is to get back to some basic issues:

BA applies a method that pointed to objective contradictions with the transition -- and raises sharply the question of how do we "handle" (and transform) those contradictions (and the underlying reality they represent), so that our revolution doesn't get "stuck" or "reversed" -- but presses ahead over the two humps (not just to socialism, but beyond it to a new worldwide stage of society.)

Part of the issue with you, redstar, is that you deny a lot of the materiality of those contradictions. You are like the guy watching mountain climbers with ropes and pitons trying to scale a steep cliff who says "why stick so close to the wall, why proceed step by step, why go over the rock face to get to thesnowy top!! What a failure of imagination! Who would choose to climb the mountain that cautious way?"

And when people say, "Uh, we don't CHOOSE to climb in stages, in phases, step by step, this method flows from the dynamics of the mountain, from the reality of gravity, etc." you reply, "No, you met. You poured over maps, you chose ahead of time to sticke to ropes and crevices. It is your choice. And what we really need is to choose something else: like going straight to the top, like not imposing gravity on people in your plans. What's wrong, don't you trust the climbers? Why not just skip all that?"

It is idealism.

I admire and share you desire to reach classless society (though I imagine that our sense of what that is differs).

But you both overestimate the obstacles of objective conditions (when you insist that revolution is impractical for decades, and there is little we can actually do to accelerate events.) And then you underestimate the objective necessity when you envision post revolutionary society and its contradictions.

Far too often (in the communist movement) the final goal is ignored. People just want to get a taste of justice (either in the form of reforms, or even in the form of a socialist society.) And theydon't consider that if we don't think from "communism back" and if we don't consider our approaches now in light of overcoming the 4 alls, the mental manual contradiction, etc. we will not make it.

Your thread about "despotism" in Che-Lives, where you get Avakian exactly wrong, is a case in point.

When he points out that revolutionaries (having won power) have a tenency to establish societies of "enlightened despotism" (not literally, he says, but still...) And when he argues that we must do something different...

you accuse him then of inventing and imposing "despotism" on people. Because to you, revolution is a magical spontaneous event, where no one wields power at the end, where there are not armies, commanders, power insitutions, revolutionary authority, etc.

But avakian (and some of the rest of us) are dealing with the problems of not allowing the inevitable (and even necessary) power that falls into the hands of revolutinaries become a basis for a capitalist restoration.

Pretending there will be no power in the hands of revolutinoaries, or suggesting that there can be revolution without the emergence of a new victorious power (and power center) doesn't help the discussion much.

How that clarifies some of these issues in a non "crude" or "dissing" way.

[redstar2000SE]

kasama wrote: Part of it is this: the bourgeoisie lies about the socialist past. (And the idea that everyone in China feared instant labor camp for remarks and criticism is such a lie).

We both agree that bourgeois ideologues lie about the USSR, China, etc. You certainly cannot take anything they say "at face value".

I do not claim that "everyone" in China or even the USSR feared "instant labor camp" for remarks and criticism.

For example, we know that "Stalin's wrath" was not directed against ordinary workers and I imagine it was much the same in China.

It was the party cadre who faced the greatest dangers by far. Whatever material privileges that they enjoyed were dependent on the good will of their superiors. Thus everything that they said or wrote was done with the understanding that a mistake could send them to the firing squad, the labor camp, or the more "humane" alternative of ordinary peasant life (in China).

It's no wonder that when criticism finally did break out into the open (in China), it took the form of criticism of figures in the distant past.

The modern equivalent would be something like a stinging critique of Thomas Jefferson or John Adams...really aimed, of course, at Kerry or Bush.

Does criticism mean anything in such an environment?

It's always been understood in class society that the way you avoid making problems for yourself is to tell your "superior" what they want to hear...there's a risk if you get caught lying but it is a trivial one compared to pissing off the boss.

Will the leaders of Avakian's "enlightened despotism" welcome honest criticism and make no attempt to retaliate against their critics?

Is that a reasonable expectation in the light of what we know about class societies?

kasama wrote: But certainly, your approach to analyzing the socialist experience of our class embraces a lot of rather crudely bourgeois claims without much evidence of critical and independent inquiry.

Remember your remark about how you didn't have the time to dig into the whole history of China, so had to content yourself with repeating what was easily available?

Yes I do remember saying something along those lines if not precisely those words.

To "do the job right", we'd not only have to be fluent in Chinese but we would need access to the primary sources...everything from the minutes of the Central Committee meetings to first-person accounts from ordinary workers and peasants and a lot of stuff in between.

To "properly investigate" and "speak with authority" about China (1949-1976) would be the work of a lifetime.

Neither I nor anyone in the RCP has done that or is likely to even try...the task will probably fall to academics in the second half of this century. If they happen to be bourgeois academics, then we shall have to read them critically and weigh their assertions on the scales of plausibility...because we have no other scales to use.

kasama wrote: Part of the issue with you, redstar, is that you deny a lot of the materiality of those contradictions. You are like the guy watching mountain climbers with ropes and pitons trying to scale a steep cliff who says "why stick so close to the wall, why proceed step by step, why go over the rock face to get to the snowy top!! What a failure of imagination! Who would choose to climb the mountain that cautious way?"

Argument by metaphor...the transition from capitalism to communism is "like climbing a mountain side".

Is it a valid metaphor? Is that what things will really be "like"?

Here's a different metaphor.

Imagine that you have moved into a construction shack with a set of blueprints for a fabulous new home. You set to work building this new house...but, life is hard living in a construction shack, so you start putting time in on improving it. You replace the walls and add a new roof and then start adding rooms. Meanwhile, your fabulous new home is still some concrete slabs and perhaps part of a wall.

The "shack" begins to look like a house (though an ugly one) and the new house (what there is of it) just languishes...weeds start growing through the foundations, cracking them. Weather starts eroding what little you have done. The blueprints for the new house begin to fade.

And then a "wiseguy" like me comes along and says, "had you concentrated your efforts on building the new house, by now at least part of it would be livable and the rest would be nearing completion. Why did you spend all that time and energy on what will never be more than a glorified construction shack?"

Is that a better description than yours?

Why settle for "socialism" when we could have communism?

kasama wrote: But you both overestimate the obstacles of objective conditions (when you insist that revolution is impractical for decades, and there is little we can actually do to accelerate events). And then you underestimate the objective necessity when you envision post revolutionary society and its contradictions.

Well, we have a difference of opinion on these matters...it's why we have horse races and message boards.

kasama wrote: When Avakian points out that revolutionaries (having won power) have a tendency to establish societies of "enlightened despotism" (not literally, he says, but still...) And when he argues that we must do something different...

you accuse him then of inventing and imposing "despotism" on people. Because to you, revolution is a magical spontaneous event, where no one wields power at the end, where there are not armies, commanders, power institutions, revolutionary authority, etc.

No, I don't "accuse" him of "inventing" despotism; indeed, I respect his blunt honesty in this regard. He certainly does intend to "impose" an "enlightened despotism" -- he, and you, believe it to be a "historical necessity".

You see "no other way" to proceed.

Whereas it seems obvious to me that the historical experiences of the Paris Commune, the February 1917 revolution, Barcelona, etc. point in an altogether different direction.

The working class has shown the potential of being able to "run the show" without a vanguard party or a special "core" of "experienced leaders".

And this, mind you, in circumstances which were far less developed than those of today, much less those of five or ten decades into the future.

kasama wrote: But Avakian (and some of the rest of us) are dealing with the problems of not allowing the inevitable (and even necessary) power that falls into the hands of revolutionaries become a basis for a capitalist restoration.

Yes, I understand his and your concerns. I simply don't think what you propose is possible. Again, appealing to history, it seems to me that "enlightened despotisms" become, after a while, just despotisms, period.

It's their "natural trajectory".#nosmileys