Post by repeater on Mar 22, 2005 0:28:50 GMT -5
Intellectual Ferment in the Party
A Conversation with Bob Avakian
Revolutionary Worker #1272, March 27, 2005, posted at rwor.org
Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the question and answer session following a recent talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party. This talk was given to a group of supporters of the RCP who are studying the historical experience of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and preparing to take up the challenge of popularizing this experience and engaging in discussion and debate with others about it, particularly on campuses but also more broadly.
This excerpt has been slightly edited for publication in the RW. The complete text of Bob Avakian's talk "DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY, AND THE SOCIALIST TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM" and the complete Question and Answer session is online at rwor.org.
QUESTION : I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit to how--while not throwing out democratic centralism or something like that--how do you have the party in the mix of all of these ideas? You went to China and you talked to these people around how China was opening up to the West and saying Marcos was a great leader and this, that and the other, and you were asking these people in the Chinese party and they didn't have the answers. And part of it is: did those people not have the answers, or did they have some questions on it, but they were more debating it internally and they couldn't talk to you about it? How can you have the mix of people being able to be in the midst of all the questions that are going on, intellectually--political questions, but also in the ideological realm--without breaking democratic centralism? How do you have people in the mix of that, being able to engage it and even in some ways go off in the wrong direction in order to eventually get to the right direction, but then not have that cause a splintering effect. You know?
BA: Yes, I do. As far as the specifics about China, I think it was some of both. I think that the people we were talking to were not in a position to just respond, because they would have been violating the principles of the party, the principles of democratic centralism; but they could have taken it up higher and come back and at least given us an answer, even if it were a restatement of official policy. They did give us a sort of general rap, but it was very general and frankly meaningless in that context. There was a question of democratic centralism inside the party, which we did recognize. But somewhere, on some level, somebody should have been able to engage the things we were raising and to give a reply to them. And that didn't happen.
But the more general point is--look, this is one of the big problems of socialism. You're living in this fucking world of imperialists, and everything you do is used by the enemy. They pour over everything you say to look for vulnerabilities. And this makes it difficult to openly discuss a lot of things, in socialist society. To be honest, the decision to do the "opening to the West" was probably made by a tiny handful of people. It was not made through the process of having discussion among the masses broadly. And the reason for that is not because Mao, for example, didn't believe in that process. But this involves a lot of "state secrets." If you are worried about the Soviets attacking--let's get down on the ground here--if you're worried about the Soviets attacking you at any moment, and you let it be known that you're starting to negotiate with the U.S. to try to counterbalance that, maybe you would precipitate a Soviet attack quicker, before you can get anywhere with that, with those discussions and negotiations.
You're operating under a lot of constraints there. This was a very real threat, and to precipitate an attack before they felt they were as prepared as they could be, would be a bad idea. On the other hand, the result of that is that this is a very restricted group of people that's discussing and debating and struggling over this--and falling out over it, frankly. The split in the Chinese leadership with Lin Biao had a lot to do with this. And his line wasn't any good either--it was sort of a pro-Soviet line in that context. Not that he thought the Soviet Union was so great, but that the way to deal with the Soviet Union was more to move in its direction rather than to "provoke" it. So this is the problem: Here you have a society that you want to be run by the masses of people, and yet one of the biggest decisions that's made is not made by the masses of people, it's made by a tiny handful--because of the reasons that I've talked about, and not because you had leaders who didn't want the masses involved in this discussion. If they had had the freedom to do so, I can guarantee you that, given his overall approach to things, Mao would have had massive discussions for a few years before they resolved the question. But, in the real world, they might have been attacked in the meantime.
So that's the problem you're dealing with, that's one level of what you're raising, one level of contradiction. It's a really knotty problem. It's a really vexing problem, and you could stay up late at night--I myself have agonized over this for 30 years, without exaggeration. [ laughter ] And I still am not at ease with it. It's easy to see some mistakes were made, that's not what I mean. But I'm not at ease about how you correctly handle this, because there's not an easy answer to it. I literally have been thinking about this and agonizing over it for 30 years, and I still don't feel that I'm that much closer to knowing the answer to it. To the degree they could, over every question and issue they could, under Mao's leadership they would involve the masses very broadly in these things. But there were some spheres where they did not, where they had not yet wrenched the freedom to do this. When we get down to the point where it's a question of how to finish off the few remaining enclaves of the imperialists in the world, we can probably afford a lot of debate about it. But we're a long way from that point, and it's very difficult at this stage, when you're fighting uphill all the time. And it's remarkable the things that were achieved under those circumstances, but we still have to do better. And you can't just say: "Well, what do you expect? That was the necessity, so that's all that could happen."
But it's not an easy answer. Not only have I agonized over this for 30 years, but other people have agonized over it, and we don't have an answer, a satisfactory answer yet. So we have to keep working on this problem. But it's a reflection of the fact that you are still where you are in the process. And, as I said, the masses being the masters of socialist society is relative and not absolute. This is one of the sharpest expressions of it. This is a case where representatives who hopefully act in the interests of the masses are, in their very small circles, debating and deciding this--and then taking it down through the ranks of the party and the army, and in some form among the broader masses. So that's one point.
A Conversation with Bob Avakian
Revolutionary Worker #1272, March 27, 2005, posted at rwor.org
Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the question and answer session following a recent talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party. This talk was given to a group of supporters of the RCP who are studying the historical experience of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and preparing to take up the challenge of popularizing this experience and engaging in discussion and debate with others about it, particularly on campuses but also more broadly.
This excerpt has been slightly edited for publication in the RW. The complete text of Bob Avakian's talk "DICTATORSHIP AND DEMOCRACY, AND THE SOCIALIST TRANSITION TO COMMUNISM" and the complete Question and Answer session is online at rwor.org.
QUESTION : I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit to how--while not throwing out democratic centralism or something like that--how do you have the party in the mix of all of these ideas? You went to China and you talked to these people around how China was opening up to the West and saying Marcos was a great leader and this, that and the other, and you were asking these people in the Chinese party and they didn't have the answers. And part of it is: did those people not have the answers, or did they have some questions on it, but they were more debating it internally and they couldn't talk to you about it? How can you have the mix of people being able to be in the midst of all the questions that are going on, intellectually--political questions, but also in the ideological realm--without breaking democratic centralism? How do you have people in the mix of that, being able to engage it and even in some ways go off in the wrong direction in order to eventually get to the right direction, but then not have that cause a splintering effect. You know?
BA: Yes, I do. As far as the specifics about China, I think it was some of both. I think that the people we were talking to were not in a position to just respond, because they would have been violating the principles of the party, the principles of democratic centralism; but they could have taken it up higher and come back and at least given us an answer, even if it were a restatement of official policy. They did give us a sort of general rap, but it was very general and frankly meaningless in that context. There was a question of democratic centralism inside the party, which we did recognize. But somewhere, on some level, somebody should have been able to engage the things we were raising and to give a reply to them. And that didn't happen.
But the more general point is--look, this is one of the big problems of socialism. You're living in this fucking world of imperialists, and everything you do is used by the enemy. They pour over everything you say to look for vulnerabilities. And this makes it difficult to openly discuss a lot of things, in socialist society. To be honest, the decision to do the "opening to the West" was probably made by a tiny handful of people. It was not made through the process of having discussion among the masses broadly. And the reason for that is not because Mao, for example, didn't believe in that process. But this involves a lot of "state secrets." If you are worried about the Soviets attacking--let's get down on the ground here--if you're worried about the Soviets attacking you at any moment, and you let it be known that you're starting to negotiate with the U.S. to try to counterbalance that, maybe you would precipitate a Soviet attack quicker, before you can get anywhere with that, with those discussions and negotiations.
You're operating under a lot of constraints there. This was a very real threat, and to precipitate an attack before they felt they were as prepared as they could be, would be a bad idea. On the other hand, the result of that is that this is a very restricted group of people that's discussing and debating and struggling over this--and falling out over it, frankly. The split in the Chinese leadership with Lin Biao had a lot to do with this. And his line wasn't any good either--it was sort of a pro-Soviet line in that context. Not that he thought the Soviet Union was so great, but that the way to deal with the Soviet Union was more to move in its direction rather than to "provoke" it. So this is the problem: Here you have a society that you want to be run by the masses of people, and yet one of the biggest decisions that's made is not made by the masses of people, it's made by a tiny handful--because of the reasons that I've talked about, and not because you had leaders who didn't want the masses involved in this discussion. If they had had the freedom to do so, I can guarantee you that, given his overall approach to things, Mao would have had massive discussions for a few years before they resolved the question. But, in the real world, they might have been attacked in the meantime.
So that's the problem you're dealing with, that's one level of what you're raising, one level of contradiction. It's a really knotty problem. It's a really vexing problem, and you could stay up late at night--I myself have agonized over this for 30 years, without exaggeration. [ laughter ] And I still am not at ease with it. It's easy to see some mistakes were made, that's not what I mean. But I'm not at ease about how you correctly handle this, because there's not an easy answer to it. I literally have been thinking about this and agonizing over it for 30 years, and I still don't feel that I'm that much closer to knowing the answer to it. To the degree they could, over every question and issue they could, under Mao's leadership they would involve the masses very broadly in these things. But there were some spheres where they did not, where they had not yet wrenched the freedom to do this. When we get down to the point where it's a question of how to finish off the few remaining enclaves of the imperialists in the world, we can probably afford a lot of debate about it. But we're a long way from that point, and it's very difficult at this stage, when you're fighting uphill all the time. And it's remarkable the things that were achieved under those circumstances, but we still have to do better. And you can't just say: "Well, what do you expect? That was the necessity, so that's all that could happen."
But it's not an easy answer. Not only have I agonized over this for 30 years, but other people have agonized over it, and we don't have an answer, a satisfactory answer yet. So we have to keep working on this problem. But it's a reflection of the fact that you are still where you are in the process. And, as I said, the masses being the masters of socialist society is relative and not absolute. This is one of the sharpest expressions of it. This is a case where representatives who hopefully act in the interests of the masses are, in their very small circles, debating and deciding this--and then taking it down through the ranks of the party and the army, and in some form among the broader masses. So that's one point.