In 1976, the forces of Mao Zedong were overthrown in China. And two years later, Deng Xiao-ping initiated a sweeping set of changes that pushed through the dismantling of socialist relations throught the society. This is the bitter thirtieth anniversary of those “reforms” — that have had such a profound impact on the people of china and on the world. This is the second in a series of articles Kasama will be publishing to discuss the nature of this system and its effects. This was originally posted on Nickglais’ blog Democracy and Class Struggle.
Contemporary China – What is its social character is it capitalist or is it socialist?
by Nickglais
Let us look at China’s Response to the current economic crisis. Has the crisis of global capitalism made the Communist Party of China think of a return to socialism and regulation and control its capital markets ? .
Here is the Chinese State Council response as reported in Time Magazine by Bill Powell its Shanghai correspondent. on Tuesday October 7th 2008
“Earlier this week Beijing sent a clear signal that, notwithstanding the mess in the U.S. and Europe, it still seeks to develop, slowly but surely, a more sophisticated capital market. China’s State Council has approved a plan to allow margin trading and short-selling, giving domestic investors in China’s A-share market “new opportunities to hedge and leverage their positions,” says Jing Ulrich, head of China Equities at JPMorgan Securities in Hong Kong”.
“Part of the question here is whether our target even is ‘THE SYSTEM’ and its ruling class — or whether our real enemies are, as Eric Mann puts it, “a bunch of pasty-faced fascists, all white and yet not seeming to notice the absence of any Blacks and Latinos.” And if we view our enemy as mainly the most racist, fascist and chauvinist sections of white people in the “red states” — then Martin Luther King’s argument kicks in, and the enlightened imperialists of New York and DC seem like “a positive factor.” “
by Nando Thrall
The value of Eric Man’s second post is that, in some ways, it clearly articulates a view that I think we should not adopt.
We should not, in general, form a strategic united front with one liberal section of the ruling class against the other conservative bloc of ruling class politicians.
I think this is not a matter of morality or principle: meaning that there are moments when we should consider acting tactically, because the immediate victory of one of the other might swing events against us, and because we have a critical mass that can make a difference when we make such tactical shifts.
But in the most profound way, forming a strategic united front with the liberal imperialists is an abandonment of revolutionary politics, and an entry into the real morass of reformist politics — regardless of justifications raised to the contrary.
Eddy Laing contributed this post as part of our discussion of Thanksgiving and our excavation of how reactionary ideology is constructed. It is an excerpted description of the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 (from (Robert Rydell, All the World’s a Fair. 1984):
At the public dedication, held 12 October 1892, Potter Palmer, Gage’s successor as president of the World’s Columbian Exposition and owner of Chicago’s most fashionable hotel, expressed the enthusiasm he and the other directors felt for the educational value of the exposition: ‘May we not hope the lessons here learned, transmitted to the future, will be potent forces long after the multitudes which will throng these aisles shall have measured their span and faded away?’
Francis J. Bellamy, the editor of Youth’s Companion, substantially aided the realization of these hope when he devised a plan whereby schoolchildren across the country could feel themselves a part of the exposition’s quadricentennial liturgy. He urged that the dedication day of the fair be set aside as a national holiday and that children congregate in their schools and churches to celebrate Columbus’s achievement and the fair designed to commemorate it. To make the event truly national in character, Bellamy drafted the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States.
The Federal Bureau of Education circulated copies to teachers throughout the country. Presidential candidates Harrison and Cleveland endorsed the operation, as did the exposition directors. At the ceremonies themselves schoolgirls dressed in red, white and blue formed a living flag.
First, thanks to Mike Ely and Kasama’s readers for such a rich, engaged discussion.
I read every comment and felt I could spend another article just writing responses, but let me make a preliminary response to some of the critiques being made against my arguments.
I think one major disagreement we have is that I see the U.S. as an imperialist racist white settler state. I see the national question re oppressed people inside and outside the united states as the primary contradiction. If a white mob is yelling, “Off with his head,” what kind of communism or socialism or revolutionary ideology would say we should sit out that fight?
The Legacy of Boston Bussing 1975-76
Of all the comments, the one that moved me the most was the reference to the Boston bussing situation and the RCP’s support for Louise Day Hicks and the white racist mobs.
This article was mentioned by RedFlag’s in our discussion of Avakian’s analysis of Thomas Jefferson. It is a discussion of how we view the American Revolution — and how to evaluate its bourgeois democratic revolution that remained based on slavery and genocide of Native people. this piece originally appeared in Monthly Review July-August 2003.
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
We were like Custer. We were surrounded.
—Sgt. James J. Riley explaining why he ordered surrender in an engagement in Nasiriyah, Iraq on March 23, 2003.1
At the onset of the U.S. military invasion of Iraq, Senator Robert Byrd emotionally queried: “What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomacy when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?”
As a historian, I would have to respond to Senator Byrd that 1776 or thereabouts was when. Many admirable U.S. anti-imperialists have been making the same point as Senator Byrd. An erasure of history is at the heart of some of the most anti-imperialist critiques of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Continuity is hidden, and a small departure is exaggerated. From Gore Vidal to Manning Marable to Michael Moore “lost democracy” is a refrain. Edward Said writes: “The doctrine of military pre-emption was never voted on by the American people or their representatives… It seems so monumentally criminal that important words like democracy and freedom have been hijacked, used as a mask for pillage, taking over territory and settling scores.” Said ends his essay by, correctly, stating: “Bush looks like a cowboy.”2
This piece also appeared on Counterpunch.org and dissident voice. Its original title is: “Palin v. Ayers: The Specter of the Sixties.”
by Gary Leupp
Like over 3000 other academics, I’ve signed the “Support Bill Ayers” statement defending Ayers from the desperate, opportunistic attacks of the McCain campaign. I think it important to combat the depiction of a distinguished scholar as a “terrorist” by the likes of Sarah Palin, whose ignorance and extremism terrify many. But I also think that the campaign might be doing us all a favor by drawing our attention to the 500 pound guerrilla in the room: the ’60s.
Or more properly, the ’60s and early ’70s: that era shaped by an unpopular imperialist war and massive social movements demanding racial and gender equality. The antiwar and civil rights movements mobilized millions and influenced everybody. Without the gains of those years, arguably, a black man would not be leading in a presidential race today. The public would not reject the Iraq War as a wrong war based on lies but rather rally around the flag, trusting the leaders.
John McCain 1967
John McCain has built a political career on one episode in his life: his plane was shot down in October 1967 as he was bombing a power plant in a heavily populated area part of Hanoi. (In 1995 the Vietnamese government estimated that two million North Vietnamese civilians died during the war, mainly due such bombing.) His downed plane landed in Truc Bach Lake, and his life was saved by a Vietnamese civilian. The Vietnamese, realizing the McCain came from a distinguished military family, granted him special medical treatment although he had suffered no mortal injuries. He was held as a POW to 1973. During that time he publicly praised his captors for providing him “very good medical treatment.” While he has claimed to be the victim of torture, and claimed his statements acknowledging war crimes were forced, he has also opposed the release of his government debriefing that might shed light on these subjects. He was reportedly bound by ropes, and subjected to beatings during his confinement. But no one has suggested he was terrorized by attack dogs, sexually humiliated, water boarded or subjected to the refined torture tactics used in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib. It is doubtful that his treatment would fit the Bush administration’s current (very narrow) definition of torture.
This article comes from Robert Jensen’s Homepage. Originally titled: “Taking politics seriously: Looking beyond the election and beyond elections.” Posted on Common Dreams, October 23, 2008.
“The conventional political wisdom — Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative — is deeply rooted in the denial of the severity of these crises and hostility to acknowledging the need for radical change. Such a politics of delusion won’t generate solutions but instead will lead us to the end of the road, the edge of the cliff, the brick wall…. it’s never pretty.”
by Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood
We have nothing against voting. We plan to vote in the upcoming election. Some of our best friends are voters.
But we also believe that we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that the most important political moment in our lives comes in the voting booth. Instead, people should take politics seriously, which means asking considerably more of ourselves than the typical fixation with electoral politics.
First, we won’t be coy about this election. Each of us voted for Obama in the Texas primary and will vote for him in November. We are leftists who are consistently disgusted by the center-right political positions of the leadership of the Democratic Party, and we have no illusions that Obama is secretly more progressive than his statements in public and choice of advisers indicate. But there is slightly more than a dime’s worth of policy differences between Obama and McCain, and those differences are important in this election. The reckless quality of the McCain campaign and its policy proposals are scary, as is the cult of ignorance that has grown up around Palin.
We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack. Ayers is a nationally known scholar, member of the Faculty Senate at UIC, Vice President-elect of the American Educational Research Association, and sought after as a speaker and visiting scholar by other universities because of his exemplary scholarship, teaching, and service. Throughout the 20 years that he has been a valued faculty member at UIC, he has taught, advised, mentored, and supported hundreds of undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. students. He has pushed them to take seriously their responsibilities as educators in a democracy – to promote critical inquiry, dialogue, and debate; to encourage questioning and independent thinking; to value the full humanity of every person and to work for access and equity. Helping educators develop the capacity and ethical commitment to these responsibilities is at the core of what we do, and as a teacher he has always embraced debate and multiple perspectives.
All citizens, but particularly teachers and scholars, are called upon to challenge orthodoxy, dogma, and mindless complacency, to be skeptical of authoritative claims, to interrogate and trouble the given and the taken-for-granted. Without critical dialogue and dissent we would likely be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings to this day. The growth of knowledge, insight, and understanding— the possibility of change— depends on that kind of effort, and the inevitable clash of ideas that follows should be celebrated and nourished rather than crushed. Teachers have a heavy responsibility, a moral obligation, to organize classrooms as sites of open discussion, free of coercion or intimidation. By all accounts Professor Ayers meets this standard. His classes are fully enrolled, and students welcome the exchange of views that he encourages.
This is the third and final part of this series. The author writes: The Revolutionary Communist Party describes Bob Avakian’s latest essay, Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, as an “unsparing critique of the history…of American society.” Having “engaged” Away With All Gods! six months ago, I’d like to respond to this seriously as well.
by Pavel Andreyev
Jefferson as (Eighteenth-Century, Bourgeois) Rebel
One can observe with Aptheker that the American Revolution did not transform the new country’s society. But the model of government established with the Constitution of 1787 was a significant advance in the construction of bourgeois democracy and influenced the French constitutions of 1789 and 1791, among many others.
Isn’t it important to recall that more than any U.S. leader, Jefferson embraced the French Revolution, the greatest and most influential of bourgeois-democratic revolutions? Even as his colleagues’ enthusiasm waned after the public executions of the French king and queen, Jefferson maintained a revolutionary perspective. He asked in 1793, has “ever such a prize [been] won with so little innocent blood?” He declared that while he regretted the deaths of innocents, “rather than it [the French Revolution] should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is.”
This article was written by Eddy Laing for the Kasama Project and is the third part in a series. For part 1 and part 2 click the links.
Economic Crisis, Part 3:
Thieves fall out — Growing Imperialist Contention.
By Eddy Laing
“The development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still “reigns” and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the “geniuses” of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialized production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit . . . the speculators.” (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. “I. Concentration of production and monopolies.”)
The present financial crisis has drawn the governments of all of the imperialist powers into action; first to deny its systemic nature and then to commit huge sums of money-capital from the national treasuries in attempts to slow its growth.
The character of the current crisis is global and systemic, and the allegation that the current crisis is primarily the result of defaulted home mortgages is false. The speculation in debt extends vertically and horizontally throughout finance capital and is cascading through every economic sector. Similarly, the present crisis is moving through one national economy after another, articulating the global nature of finance capital. And so, early press conferences to the contrary, the cross-national assemblies such as the G7, G8, G10 and G20 are as revealing of global competition and contending interests as they are of any shared interest in stanching the open wound of debt defaults.
The current crisis is rooted in the parasitic features of the imperialist system; not only consumer debt, but much larger and extensive matrices of ‘finance capital’ which enmesh the globe. In order to paint an adequate picture of those matrices, we need to look under the hood, so to speak; at the balance sheets and SEC 10-K reports where capitalists talk to each other. In the course of this look, we will be able to discern the larger patterns of the current crisis, and of the system that spawned it. Read the rest of this entry »
This is the second of a three-part series written for Kasama.
The author writes in Part 1: ”The Revolutionary Communist Party describes Bob Avakian’s latest essay, Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, as an ‘unsparing critique of the history…of American society.’ Having ‘engaged’ Away With All Gods! six months ago, I’d like to respond to this seriously as well.”
by Pavel Andreyev
Misunderstanding the Louisiana Purchase
“In reality,” Avakian declares, “Jefferson’s agrarian society turned out to be a society based on slavery and ruled by slaveowners.” This overstatement ignores thesections of U.S. society that were in fact based on yeoman agriculture. [22]
But Avakian proceeds undeterred:
“One striking example that a number of people have pointed to in this regard is the Louisiana Purchase (the purchase by the United States government of the Louisiana Territory from the French in 1803).”
Notice the fuzziness of the wording: “in this regard” Avakian isn’t merely noting what all American historians recognize — that parts of the Louisiana Territory became slave states.
Avakian is broadly hinting without having to be too specific thatJefferson purchased the territory with the expansion of slavery in mind.Note too that this is in fact the only example he gives to substantiate the allegation that “Jefferson consistently acted in the interests of the…slaveholding class.” And note that while he peppers his talk with references to Isaac Kramnick, R. Laurence Moore, Edmund S. Morgan, and David Brion Davis on Jefferson’s ideas and questions of race in Virginia, he cites no scholar on this topic of the Louisiana Purchase whatsoever.
The following article appeared on CounterPunch.org — thanks to Doug for pointing it out.
“Senator Barack Obama said Wednesday he would order a surge of U.S. troops – perhaps 15,000 or more – to Afghanistan as soon as he reached the White House.”
* * * * *
Which Candidate Supports Petraeus, the Bailout, the Death Penalty, Nuclear Power, the Occupation, the Cuban Embargo? Name That Candidate
By JOE MOWREY
This week came exciting news. Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Yippie! The blogosphere is all atwitter. Our guy has worked hard, taken solid positions on all the most important progressive issues and managed to convince the exalted Mr. Powell to throw his support our way. Celebrations are in order. We’re one step closer to the Oval Office thanks to this latest breaking development. Oh, and for those of you who may have forgotten who Colin Powell is (history is so boring, isn’t it?) let’s take a moment to highlight some of his stellar qualifications as a supporter of the Left.
The new issue of Red Star has just appeared. We will be posting a number of its most significant articles on our Revolution in South Asia site.
by Red Star Reporter
The political conflict in Nepal is sharpening. The conflict between two different types of forces, one wants to go forward from the present transitional phase, and the other wants to stop things where they are at present. This conflict has emerged just before the process of drafting a new constitution.
Three years ago, the CPN (Maoist) and seven other political parties had reached an agreement to restructure the country through the Constituent Assembly (CA). Later, when the King surrendered and the seven parties came to power, the CPN (Maoist) agreed to a ceasefire and to hold negotiations. As the CPN (Maoist) is a Revolutionary Communist Party, its goals are clear; forward to a People’s Republic to Socialism and ultimately Communism. But the CPN (Maoist) had agreed to struggle peacefully and try to achieve its political goals according to the people. They had clearly stated that a Federal Democratic Republic will be a transitional phase and will proceed forward by peaceful means. A large majority of the Nepali people approved of the Maoist agendas and the CPN-(Maoist) wants to establish a more people’s oriented republic, a republic orientated towards the people.
In 1976, the forces of Mao Zedong were overthrown in China. And two years later, Deng Xiao-ping initiated a sweeping set of changes that pushed through the dismantling of socialist relations throught the society. This is the bitter thirtieth anniversary of those “reforms” — that have had such a profound impact on the people of china and on the world. Kasama will be publishing a series of articles discussing the nature of this system and its effects.
This is the first of a three-part series written for Kasama.
by Pavel Andreyev
The Revolutionary Communist Party describes Bob Avakian’s latest essay, Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, as an “unsparing critique of the history…of American society” and is promoting it with the same urgency it devoted to the author’s Away With All Gods! earlier this year. According to the RCP, it
“…needs to get out broadly into many streams of political and academic life: campuses, high schools, progressive movements, the legal community and intellectuals, and among the oppressed people in this country, opening up debate about the real nature of this system and the need for communist revolution.” [1]
Having “engaged” Away With All Gods! six months ago, I’d like to respond to this seriously as well. [2] What follows is a contribution to a critique, addressing approximately the first quarter of the work (dealing with Jefferson, his life and thought) rather than a review of the entirety. [3] I’ll raise some questions about how we should relate to historical facts, the issue of “progress” or “directionality” in history, and the evaluation of individuals in historical periods far removed from us. In AWAG! Avakian remarks provocatively that if Jesus were alive today we wouldn’t and shouldn’t like him very much (mainly because he accepted slavery). [4] Similarly he would like us to dislike Thomas Jefferson, whom he depicts as a cynical, demagogic, slave-owning oppressor. But his depiction of the individual (whatever its own merits) is less the issue than the useof this depiction to broadly characterize and explain over two centuries of “Jeffersonian democracy.”
The following was excerpted from a comment in our discussion of the RCP’s recent statement “What is a Counter Revolutionary.” The comment was signed using the pen name “Ignorance Fallacy.”
Avakian declares that he has developed a new communist synthesis, and yet there is no depth to that declaration. Where is the struggling with the major works that have come before? What does Avakian have to say about Capital? What does he have to say about State and Revolution? What does he have to say about the numerous works of marxists that have grappled with the difficulties of the Soviet experience, or the failures of revolutionary movements in the West? Where are his footnotes grappling with Althusser, Gramsci, Lukacs, or even modern day theorists like Zizek, Badiou, Laclau, or even Chavez’ 21st Century Socialism?
What does Avakian think about the Shining Path? How many more decades must pass before he is willing to enter into and clarify line differences with that movement? What about Nepal, or India? When will Avakian weigh in on the burning issues of the international movement?
In a certain sense, his silence on all these issues speaks volumes both about his own sense of self importance, and about the seriousness with which he grapples with difficult ideas, or even opposing ideas.
This interview mentions the “party’s tag” — by which they mean the word Maoist, that has always been part of the name of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The issue of the Party’s name is now part of a larger struggle over which road the CPN(M) will not take.
The interview was originally published by Naya Patrika Daily, October 21, 2008. It was posted online by Democracy and Class Struggle.
* * * * * *
You are considered as a hardliner in the Maoists’ Party. Tell us briefly where and on what account you differ sharply with the party?
Kiran: I feel that conspiracies are on to foil the Maoists’ established credentials. After I was released from the Indian prison, talks of artificial division in and among the hardliners and the liberals have cropped up. I think specifically the revolutionary ideology of the Maoists is being targeted deliberately. The trend has been that if one talks on ideological grounds he or she is labeled as a hardliner.
As far as differences are concerned, I do not have any objection to the party. And of myself who would always tell my mind without hesitation. However, the moot questions remain intact. There is the great danger that in the name of liberalism whether the party will loose its basic ideology? Are we forgetting our commitments? Whether our commitment to National Sovereignty is on the continuous wane? Is the party falling into the trap set by the Rightists? These are not my personal concerns, instead should be the concerns of the party as a whole?
In 1976, the forces of Mao Zedong were overthrown in China. And two years later, Deng Xiao-ping initiated a sweeping set of changes that pushed through the dismantling of socialist relations throught the society. This is the bitter thirtieth anniversary of those “reforms” — that have had such a profound impact on the people of china and on the world. This is the second in a series of articles Kasama will be publishing to discuss the nature of this system and its effects. This was originally posted on Nickglais’ blog Democracy and Class Struggle.
