| Theory |
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Who Runs the Show "After the Revolution"? June 28, 2004 by RedStar2000 |
And here is yet another collection of posts in my on-going critique of contemporary American Maoism -- Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party.
As always, the real controversy is whether power in post-revolutionary society must actually reside in the hands of the working class itself or whether a "vanguard party" with a "correct line" and a "great leader" is a viable substitute for that.
That may be the most important theoretical question of our time.
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Chairman Avakian is the greatest Marxist this country has ever seen.
You need to get out more.
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In short, Chairman Avakian is the person best suited to lead revolution in this country, and as far as I'm concerned the only person who can. So should a cult of personality be built around him, and him promoted to the masses as the person that can get us out of this madness? FUCK YES!
Groupies of the world, unite!
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I find that most workers (and I'm a worker) understand that they need leaders to win. They want to know who heads the movement-- and what they are about. And they want to know the personality.
The plural of anecdote is not data -- a truth that can, of course, be turned against much of what I say as well.
The empirical test is: will working people in significant numbers follow Bob Avakian?
Or any other self-proclaimed leader?
It hasn't happened yet, but if you're right, then it will. If I'm right, then it won't.
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But it would be weird to equate bosses with leaders. I mean, our revolutionary leaders are the anti-bosses. They are the antithesis of what a capitalist boss is.
Not exactly; they claim to be "the antithesis" of what a capitalist boss is.
History is rich in examples of those who made such claims...and turned out to be liars.
Are you sure you want to make "just one more bet"?
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We workers are about unity, solidarity and common action. We believe in discipline and leadership. At least that is my experience.
People who really believe "in discipline and leadership" usually join the army, the police, or some other quasi-military institution (the RCP?).
Since most workers don't do that, I dispute your experience.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 15, 2004
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quote:
To be honest, I don't know the exact answer to this contradiction that I am posing. At this point, I don't even feel that I can speak to this problem and its solution in any kind of full way.--Bob Avakian
Well said...and remarkably honest!
In my view, the contradiction simply cannot be resolved within the Leninist paradigm -- as Avakian, with surprising candor recounts the experience of past Leninist parties. He doesn't even spare the Chinese party leaders...living in their special compound in the "Forbidden City" and riding around in limos "with the shades drawn".
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There is no correct line which does not recognize that this is an acute contradiction within socialist society, and that the spontaneous tendency will be for this contradiction of leadership/led to be continually reinforced and accentuated, rather than for it to be continually struggled around and finally overcome, through the advance to communism, worldwide.--Bob Avakian
Another way of saying that being (in the party and especially in the party's leadership) determines consciousness (of being apart from and superior to the masses).
If Avakian doesn't know how to resolve this acute contradiction within the Leninist paradigm, I certainly see no way that it could be done.
Sure, you can exhort people not to be elitist; you can even send them off to shovel pig shit for a year or two. (From the latter, they will doubtless learn to avoid such duties in the future with all the energy at their command.)
But how do you make people "internalize" one outlook when their material conditions daily promote an entirely opposed outlook?
Credit where credit is due...to Bob Avakian for recognizing this as a real problem.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 17, 2004
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But this is not what you are talking about because you are lumping together all leaders, amazing and mediocre, good and bad, then making this very general claim. In fact, reading what you have said the conclusion that I have come to is that you seem to feel that the masses cannot bring forward amazing leaders that have a very deep grasp of Marxism and are capable of leading the people to victory.
What does that say about the masses? If you think it through your logic, if the masses cannot bring forward such extraordinary leaders today under these conditions (who are the fruit and flower of their struggles) then your very assertion that the masses themselves would eventually all become such leaders falls flat on its ass.
The contradiction is apparent, rather than real.
You see, we have very different ideas of what a "leader" really is...and the confusion arises because we're using the same word to mean different things.
The traditional Leninist concept of a leader is a commander-in-chief...a kind of "field marshall" of the proletarian "army".
Ultimately, the "fate of the revolution" is thought to rest on "his shoulders"...it's his responsibility to give orders that are both clear and correct.
The publicity surrounding him must perforce be uniformly positive...the "morale" of the proletarian "army" depends on their confidence in their commander.
If "soldiers" stop to wonder if their officers know what the hell they're doing, then the "army" will not fight...or will only fight half-heartedly at best.
Underlying this view is the real error: the proposition that class war is "analogous" in some sense to wars between nation-states.
My view is that they are so different that transferring metaphors or concepts from one to the other is hopelessly mistaken.
So what is a revolutionary "leader" in my view? It is someone who can consistently come up with good ideas for advancing the struggle and who is effective in persuading the working class that the ideas indeed are good ones.
You understand that I'm using the word "good" in an objective sense...those ideas that the real leader comes up with actually "work" and really do advance the struggle.
Proto-leaders bubble up and then subside in the ferment of class struggle all the time. When class war reaches a boiling point, there will likely be tens of thousands of them.
A few of them will be "amazing", no doubt. But what would happen if we ceased to decide things for ourselves and put such a person "in command"? That's a real temptation; to shrug off the burden of political thought onto someone who seems to be far more competent than you "will ever be".
The effect of such a choice would be catastrophic...on you, on the leader, and on the revolution. You will subside into passivity -- carrying out your orders. The leader will, at least in his own mind, ascend into the realm of "greatness"...leaving material reality far behind. The revolution will be corrupted and then utterly lost...without a shot being fired.
Perhaps my view would be clearer if I rephrased it slightly.
It's not "leadership" per se that is so bad...it's when you institutionalize it and then begin glorifying it that you "summon the demons" of elitism, passivity, arrogance, corruption, and ultimate defeat.
When I suggest that it would be a disaster to set up a new centralized state apparatus after the revolution and the smashing of the old state apparatus, I mean to deprive any leader, no matter how "amazing", of a pedestal on which to stand and of any levers of power to enforce "his greatness".
Aren't you curious, by the way, why Bob Avakian doesn't come on message boards and argue his views like us "ordinary mortals" do?
Would that "diminish his aura"?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 21, 2004
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By all means, let us speak of method...it is a favorite subject on this board.
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Well, first of all, Leninism is not a tradition. There are NO "traditional concepts" in Leninism. This very view of communist ideology takes a living scientific method and reduces it to a religion.
No, Leninism is a paradigm -- a framework for ordering knowledge into a coherent outlook.
As such, it certainly does have "traditions" -- axiomatic assumptions that go unchallenged because to do so would potentially undermine and destroy the paradigm.
The outstanding assumption of Leninism is the crucial role of the party and its leadership.
Without a Leninist party under correct leadership, a successful proletarian revolution is "impossible".
A proletarian insurrection without a Leninist party leading it is "like" an army "without officers"...an undisciplined and chaotic mob who will "easily" be dispersed and/or be co-opted by the old ruling class.
That's basic Leninist dogma -- you can't abandon that without essentially abandoning Leninism altogether.
It's also the history of Leninist practice. After 80 or 90 years of this history, how could anyone pretend that this was not "Leninist tradition"?
quote:
Redstar made it up.
What would you have? You want to "quote joust"? You want a 1,200 page history of Leninism? On a message board?
How about this defense of Leninism and criticism of me posted by a Leninist on this board on March 16, 2004?
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You want to storm Normandy Beach without a plan, without a general staff, without diversions, without intelligence estimates. As if we can all just load up in canoes and challenge a modern machinery of war and oppression.
Get real.
Get real indeed.
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You invent a foolish and superficial argument for your opponent, and then you call them foolish and superficial.
Yeah, right.
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Specifically, Chairman Avakian is seen as the one person who has best worked to create a "living link" between this moment and the future goal of communism -- linking here and there. This is real communist leadership: looking at the moment, the struggle now, and approaching it with a bulldog grip on the question "how do we work now to prepare and develop the struggle so that it leads us to revolution and communism."
Well, perhaps if a "living link" could actually do that, s/he would certainly be a valuable resource.
I think it's the equivalent of claiming to be able to "prophesy the future" myself.
What we've actually seen of abortive proletarian uprisings thus far suggests that they are far too complex to be "prepared" by anyone.
Would you go into a pharmacy and purchase a product that claimed to "reverse the aging process"?
Me neither.
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Chairman Avakian works (tirelessly) to raise people's sights to communism and how to get there -- and on that basis unleashes them to lead others, and build the struggle in ways that hasten the moment when capitalism can be over thrown.
Oh, he doesn't sleep?
What other "god-like" or "super-human" attributes does "HE" possess?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 22, 2004
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The concept of "paradigm" is not a Marxist one, and corresponds to pragmatic ways of viewing ideas.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn is, in fact, an attack on the bourgeois concept of scientific progress as the gradual accumulation of understanding.
It posits that different scientific fields develop through the growth and destruction of "paradigms"...theoretically coherent frameworks within which data is gathered, tabulated, and incorporated, cause and effect arguments are formulated, etc.
Revolution in science comes when a given paradigm runs into difficulties -- contrary evidence, phenomena which it ought to be able to explain but can't, etc.
Suddenly one or several new paradigms emerge that purport to explain things better and the paradigms struggle. The one that explains things most clearly and coherently "overthrows" the old paradigm and defeats its new-born rivals. A new theoretical framework is in place...and progress resumes.
Needless to say, Kuhn provides considerable evidence from the history of science itself to justify his new paradigm.
If Kuhn is right (and I think he is!), science "works" by the unfolding development of paradigms...until they are overthrown by revolutionary new paradigms.
"Not Marxist"? I think Marx and Engels would have found Kuhn's idea an additional and substantial confirmation of their own view of social history. (They'd probably be tempted to re-phrase it in "dialectical" terminology...and unfortunately, they'd probably yield to the temptation.)
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 23, 2004
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Here it seems important to speak to another practice of the Paris Commune that Marx identified as a matter of decisive importance: the "replaceability" or "revocability" of leaders. Once again the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat has shown that it has not been possible to apply this principle in the strict sense in which Marx spoke of it, drawing from the Paris Commune, where officials were elected by the masses and subject to recall by them at any time. -- Bob Avakian
--emphasis added.
If Marx was right about the "decisive importance" of this principle, then what could possibly be meant by the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" in its absence?
If workers did not have the right to give their leaders the boot at any time for any reason, how can Avakian speak of "the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat" at all?
There wasn't any!
What there was was a bunch of guys who claimed to represent the "most advanced" interests of the working class.
Were their claims justified?
You know they weren't. Not only did they do nothing to promote the transition to communism but ended up restoring capitalism.
quote:
It must be said straight-up that it does not get to the essence of things if the masses have the formal right to replace leaders, when the social conditions (contradictions) are such that some people are less "replaceable" than others.--Bob Avakian
This is just metaphysical "great leader" crapola.
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To give an extreme example, if the masses in socialist China had had the right to vote Mao out of office, and if they had exercised that right foolishly and voted him out, they would have been confronted with the stark fact that there wouldn't have been another Mao to take his place.--Bob Avakian
The masses must be protected from the consequences of their hypothetical "foolishness".
Or, they are unfit to select their own leaders and therefore "good leaders" must be imposed upon them...at gunpoint if necessary.
Well, guess what? Sure, they couldn't "foolishly" depose Mao...and they couldn't depose the capitalist-roaders that replaced him either!
So they landed in the shit.
quote:
Voting Mao out of office would only mean that somebody less qualified--or, even worse, someone representing the bourgeoisie instead of the proletariat - would be playing that leadership role.--Bob Avakian
Oh? Mao was "the best they could do"? There were no working class intellectuals who could possibly have replaced him? Perhaps, being younger and more vigorous, done a better job of fighting the capitalist-roaders?
I suggest at the very least that Avakian is offering a grossly un-Marxist reading of the Chinese situation.
quote:
...still less does it mean that the leaders and not the masses should be seen as the real masters of socialist society.--Bob Avakian
What, in a platonic sense? In the realm of objective reality, the masses in the "socialist countries" had the same amount of real political power as they have in bourgeois countries...none!
In the Paris Commune, the masses did have the power. There is at least the possibility that something like that was also emerging in the Shanghai Commune...and Mao wanted none of that!
quote:
Yet, as important and pathbreaking as this was, the fact remains that throughout the socialist transition there will not only be the need for leaders-- and an objective contradiction between leaders and led--but there will be the possibility for this to be transformed into relations of exploitation and oppression.--Bob Avakian
--emphasis added.
Possibility? Thus far, the historical experience has been 100% certainty!
quote:
...if the party did not play the leading role that it has within the proletarian state, that role would be played by other organized groups--bourgeois cliques--and soon enough the state would no longer be proletarian, but bourgeois.--Bob Avakian
Presuming the masses had the freedom to elect and depose their leaders (as Marx suggested), why should they choose to be ruled by "bourgeois cliques"? In fact, why would they even permit "bourgeois cliques" to stand for public office at all? Why would they even permit bourgeois elements to exist?
After all, the whole purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat is to repress the bourgeoisie...not elect it to office!
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It must be said bluntly that, from the point of view of the proletariat, the problem with the ruling parties in the revisionist countries is not that they have had a "monopoly" of political power but that they have exercised that political power to restore and maintain capitalism.--Bob Avakian
What else could the revisionists be expected to do? If you have a monopoly of political power, what do you do with it except enrich yourself, your family, your friends and colleagues, your lackeys, etc.? Why wouldn't you see restoring capitalism as "the way forward"? Who's in any position to stop you?
Certainly not the masses...they have no power at all.
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This is a problem that cannot even be fundamentally addressed, let alone solved, by a formalistic approach.--Bob Avakian
Fuck off, Marx, you formalistic bastard!
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...this could not change the essential fact that, for a long historical period, there will persist differences and inequalities in socialist society which contain within them the potential to develop into class antagonism if a proletarian line is not in command in dealing with them.--Bob Avakian
The proposition that material "contradictions" can be overcome by "line" is fundamentally idealist and not materialist.
And that "long historical period"? Sounds like a perfect recipe...for a dynasty.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 24, 2004
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quote:
As a matter of fact, the members of the Chinese Communist Party, numbering in the millions and millions and including a very large percentage of workers and peasants, did have this formal right to vote Mao out of office. To be precise, they had the right to elect delegates to a Party Congress and these delegates who elected the Party Central Committee, had the formal right to refuse to elect Mao to that Central Committee.--Bob Avakian
So the masses were powerless. Party members had the right to elect delegates...but who picked the candidates? On what basis? Did the members even get to choose between different candidates for the delegate spots?
Like Joe Revisionist vs. Mary Hardliner, for example.
And once the delegates met, what of the candidates for the Central Committee? Did they nominate themselves? Did people run against each other -- Liu Runningdog vs. Lin Papertiger vs. Mao Massline?
No.
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...not form but social (class) content, rooted in underlying material contradictions, is the essence of the matter.--Bob Avakian
How about saying it this way: political forms reflect class realities.
The political forms of bourgeois "democracy" reflect the actual powerlessness of the masses over the bourgeois state apparatus.
Was it not the same in China?
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 25, 2004
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quote:
Why can't we all just think up Einstein's theories? Why do we need books? Why can't everyone just think up whatever is in the chemistry or history book?
We can't do all those things because the human life span is limited; it's been many centuries since a well-educated person could know or find out "all there is to know".
A great deal of human knowledge is now very highly specialized and takes much of one's lifetime to master even a very tiny portion.
But this response was not really relevant to my question. I didn't suggest that "everyone" could figure out "everything".
What I was getting at is something that everyone who's willing to give the matter a bit of thought can grasp independently: that one is exploited and oppressed in class society and at least a rough idea of who is doing it.
I understood even as a very young child that children are oppressed as children. Like Mao, I learned to rebel beginning inside my own family and in elementary school. As I grew into adolescence, I learned much more...including some lessons that my teachers greatly disapproved of. The more I looked around me, the more exploitation and oppression I saw...not to mention the growing suspicion that everything I had been told about social reality was bullshit.
By the time I began to read Marx, I was ready to listen. There was no "party" in my city to "win" me to communism...it was just a matter of finding the guy who "put the pieces together in a way that made sense".
Not being a genius, it's unlikely that I would have independently re-invented Marxism...but had there been no Marx, there would have been geniuses that would have done what he did and I would have benefited accordingly.
What conscious communists do is shorten that process...make sure that when someone is ready to take a serious look at communist ideas, the ideas are available.
The idea that by "force of argument" (or worse, "great leader charisma") that you can "convert" someone who is uninterested or even hostile to communist ideas is, in my opinion, mistaken.
It is the totality of life circumstances that create communists...and anyone can become one.
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Why are there pathbreaking theoretical thinkers who understand new things about problems everyone else is beating their heads against?
Well, there really are "geniuses"...and their appearance is rare and contingent. Aside from their "pathbreaking ideas", they seem to behave quite modestly, by the way. If someone claims to be a genius, it's almost certain that they aren't.
In a particular field, there is often abrasive controversy over someone's alleged "genius"...as always, history has the final verdict.
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Redstar seems to think that we all could (or can) just come [up] with the ideas we need, when we need them.
In the field of proletarian revolution -- where millions of people are active participants -- it does seem to me to be wildly improbable that "no one" will figure out "the correct line".
It's certainly possible that the "correct line" (if there's only one; there may be several) may be defeated in ideological struggle...temporarily. As you've told me on numerous occasions, history does not arrive with warranties attached.
As suggested, timing is also important...the correct line that's articulated too late is not going to help much, except perhaps in the next revolution. In the midst of great upheavals, the way ahead is often obscure.
But this should not be taken as either justification for a "vanguard" or as cause for despair. First, because there's no evidence that "vanguards" can actually do what they promise...see "the path ahead" any clearer than anyone else. And second, the class itself has proven remarkably creative in many struggles...I do not see that we "need" a "genius" (real or presumed) in order to "win".
The best chance of victory is conscious communist ideas wide-spread among the masses themselves...without that, I'm afraid that even real genius would help us but little.
We can do all that we can to spread those communist ideas...and that will help. We can participate in and encourage resistance to exploitation and oppression...and that will help even more.
But in the end, the masses are decisive...and no leader or party can ever change that.
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 26, 2004
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quote:
Can matter be influenced by thought?
Can material problems be solved if people grasp a correct line?
I say yes. In fact, that is the point of thought -- it is the way humans seek to grasp the real world contradictions of matter in order to transform those contradictions, and change the world in the ways they want.
Yes, but what gets changed?
The only way that thought becomes a "material force" is when it's actually applied to create material changes.
And it's those material changes that actually "change the world" in the ways we want.
In this limited sense, a correct line "resolves" a material contradiction by changing one or more of the elements of that contradiction in a material way.
Communist ideas among the masses, for example, don't become a "material force" until the ideas are actually implemented in the material world...by, for example, overthrowing the capitalist ruling class.
It's my perception that when "MLM" people speak on this subject that they mean "much more" than this by emphasizing "correct line".
They seem to be implying that, for example, you can have a class society that will "evolve" into a classless society through the rigorous imposition of a "correct line".
I do not think that is possible...and there's certainly zero historical justification for that hypothesis.
If you are the de facto ruling class in a class society, you will, sooner or later, conceive the idea that you are and "of a right ought to be" the ruling class.
Being determines consciousness.
If you don't want that to happen to you, there's only one way out of that contradiction: you must devolve material power to the masses and "take your chances" that they will "do the right thing".
In other words, you must consciously rid yourself of the material basis for becoming a new ruling class.
And, you must do it quickly! According to one historian, corruption raised its ugly head among the Bolsheviks as soon as the seat of power was moved to Moscow. (!)
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First posted at AnotherWorldIsPossible on June 27, 2004
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