Rejected by comrades: My love was just love
Posted by kasama on July 10, 2011
Kasama has received the following recollection. We are attempting to excavate and understand a hidden and denied history within our previous communist movement.
“The point of contention for me was with the accusation that I was my love for Mark (and possible future love for another man) was a concentrated expression of misogyny that stood as an obstacle to the emancipation of women. I never understood that argument with its twisted logic.
“My love for Mark was just love. It had nothing to do with my feelings for women in general or my commitment to fighting sexism or the transformation to a new society. It was just love for someone who was a great guy who I sorely missed and wished every day was there with me.”
* * * * * * * * * *
by Andrew Copper
After reading Libri’s painful account of her time in the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and the pressure that was placed on her to change her sexual orientation, I feel compelled to tell my own story.
I was active in the Revolutionary Union, the precursor to the Revolutionary Communist Party, as a college student and then, years later, with the RCP. During those intervening years I was out of touch with comrades from the RCP and so it was no surprise that they didn’t realize I had come out as a gay man and that I was living with male partner, Mark, who had first been my college roommate and then become my lover.
Mark’s sudden death in an accident in the late 1980s forced me to reconsider the direction my life had been taking. I had been so involved in the details of my life, my education and nascent career, and everything else in life, that I had stepped back from political activity (temporarily) and never returned.
I decided to get involved again and began to volunteer at the local Revolution Books Outlet. Within a few months I was taking the Revolutionary Worker newspaper out every weekend, selling door to door and organizing against the invasion of Panama. A national speaking tour of Revolutionary Worker journalists [1991] was being organized and I volunteered to work on the project. This became almost a full time job and consumed my life for more than a year. I loved the work though and enjoyed getting to know the writers who’s reporting I had followed over the years; hearing their stories first hand made me even more committed to the kind of solution we were working towards.
Hoping to join
Several years after returning to the work with the RCP, and after an appropriate amount of self-criticism for previous decision to withdraw from politics for a spell, the leader of the group within the RCP that I worked with agreed to meet with me to talk about joining the party. I knew it was a big decision and not one to be taken lightly. After a series of conversations with this leader and others (both within our small group of party members/supporters and with leaders from other areas of the party), people seemed convinced that I was serious and was not planning on dropping out and disappearing again like I had as a youth.
As part of this process of joining the party I had a sit down meeting with a party leader in which I was interviewed about my personal background including my education and work history and, interestingly, where I had lived and with whom I had lived. This whole process seemed a little excessive but still perfunctory until I mentioned that Mark had been my lover.
Honestly, I don’t know how and why I never realized that the party had an anti-gay stance. It just never came up.
Most of the work I was doing revolved around the anti-war movement (Panama and then the Gulf War) and promoting the party newspaper. My sexual orientation and the “homosexuality question” had never been raised as an issue. I had never been very involved in identity politics and so I usually called myself a revolutionary communist or something of that sort when I had the rare occasion to self-identify. I knew I was gay but since I wasn’t dating anyone it just never really came up. And now, four years after getting involved in the party again it was all of a sudden a huge issue.
As a youth being around the RU, I wasn’t out and wasn’t even aware of my own sexuality and so whatever discussion had happened about the homosexuality question then had gone in one ear and out the other. I vaguely remembered some discussion of lesbianism right when I first became involved in the party again, but at that time I was so wrapped up in the newness of getting reacquainted with the Left and my new comrades that I had missed the whole 1988 Revolution Magazine article that outlined the RCP’s reactionary stance on sexuality.
Several things happened at once
My request to join the party was “put on hold” (as my leader put it) and I began the first of a series of meetings with my leader, a party member who was a former lesbian, and several others from the party to discuss the Homosexuality Question.
At the same time there was a clear shift in the way that party leaders interacted with me; I was obviously out of favor, so much so that it was noticeable to a bookstore volunteer who remarked, after the local spokesperson reamed me out for some mistake at a campus book table,
“Wow, that’s crazy, what did you ever do to deserve that? There’s no way that anger is all about you forgetting to pack a box of books.”
The argument of concentrated misogyny
The discussions on the Homosexuality Question were about what you’d expect: there was little actual discussion.
We read through the Revolution Magazine article. ["On the Question of Homosexuality and the Emancipation of Women," 1988]
We talked about what it meant and how it applied specifically to our lives (well, to my life). The party member who was a former lesbian told me her story of being hurt by men, turning to women to avoid pain, feeling like women were superior to men and wanting a society of just women who loved and nurtured each other, etc. The punch line of her story, of course, is that she realized she was wrong and joined the party.
I thought the discussions were ridiculous and I said so.
No one had realized I was gay during the previous four years because they all though my friend Mark who died was just my roommate/best friend and since I had been so wrapped up in building the party I hadn’t had sex in years and didn’t have any promising prospects to pursue in the immediate future. In my thinking: it wasn’t interfering with anything, so why bring even bring it up?
One of the discussion participants (a party member, not a leader) said that being gay made me vulnerable in a way that heterosexual men were not as I could be arrested for having sex (we lived in a state with sodomy laws). Just like the RCP’s “points of discipline” for party members forbade the use of illegal drugs to avoid being set up for legal problems, I was told that any decision I made to have sex in the future could have a legal impact on me and the party and thus put us both at risk.
This seemed rather dramatic. But at the time, I agreed with them that it was a possibility. I had a friend who had been arrested and charged with lewd acts for having sex with his partner at a state campground (while camping) even though they were in their tent and no one was around (other than a nosy state ranger).
The point of contention for me was with the accusation that I was my love for Mark (and possible future love for another man) was a concentrated expression of misogyny that stood as an obstacle to the emancipation of women. I never understood that argument with its twisted logic.
My love for Mark was just love.
It had nothing to do with my feelings for women in general or my commitment to fighting sexism or the transformation to a new society. It was just love for someone who was a great guy who I sorely missed and wished every day was there with me.
Separated, isolated, cut loose
Since I clearly wasn’t going with the program I was separated from the group (within the RCP) that I had been working with for the past couple of years.
I was totally isolated with no contact from anyone and was told not to go to the bookstore or to any public events. This shunning continued for months. People were told not to talk to me.
I ran into a comrade at the gas station and he said hello but didn’t want to engage in conversation. At a protest I happened to stand near two people selling the Revolutionary Worker and they quickly moved away from me; I approached one, a woman I’d known for years, and asked why she didn’t want to talk to me. She’d been told specifically not to talk to me, she said, for “security reasons.”
That was the moment at which I realized it was all over.
The party wanted nothing to do with me and it seemed to all be because I was gay and because I dismissed the official arguments regarding the homosexuality question. Were there other issues? I don’t know.
I know that I ruffled some feathers when, after several months of meetings to discuss the homosexuality question, I simply refused to talk about it anymore. I know that people suspected I had hid information because I never mentioned that I was gay for four years. I know that made some leaders very suspicious of me.
This major part of my life that consumed much time and energy and was so transformative for me personally ended unceremoniously one day at a Starbucks. I met with a party leader (the one who had organized the homosexuality discussions the year before) at a prearranged time. I turned in my key to the bookstore. (I heard years later that they had already had the locks changed months before that when it was remembered that I still had a key!) I returned some books and videos that belonged to the bookstore and various people in and around the party, as well as $18 that I’d collected from a party supporter as a contribution for an event that had happened the month before which she’d missed (I ran into her at the supermarket the week prior and she didn’t know I’d been put aside by the party, I didn’t have the guts to tell her so I accepted her donation and passed it on).
And with that, it was over.
Gary said
What to make of all this?
A teenage girl gets brow-beaten for her attraction to another girl in the Brigade, even interrogated about her masturbatory fantasies. A man who’s devoted a year of his life to supporting the RCP and is sincerely eager to join the party is questioned, as a matter of routine procedure, about his sexual history and coldly ostracized when he mentions living with a deceased male lover. People earnestly hoping for honest re-examination of the “homosexuality question” do not welcome the 1988 article so touted by the party, or the 1991 “self-criticism” but see them as shamefully lacking, even insulting to the intelligence.
Maybe the RCP reaction to these testimonials will be something like this. “Yes, we were wrong, but many others were wrong too; look, the U.S. military is only now allowing homosexuals to openly serve. And we were influenced by traditional communist theory on the issue and by “workerism.” We were tailing after the attitudes dominant among the working class. And we were not wrong in our security concerns about illegal behavior. Some of our cadre may have mishandled situations like those of Libri and Mark, but the party was never anti-gay. During the time these things happened, the majority of the party had not really embraced Bob Avakian’s method and approach and so committed errors.”
The problem is, former members give specific instances of Chairman Bob’s references to “faggots” and suggestion that gays should in fact be called “dismals.”
The RCP will, when this is brought up, refuse to discuss “attacks on individuals.”
Remember how, on May Day 2001, the RCP published it’s “draft program” and invited discussion? And soon afterward announced it’s new line on homosexuality?
The program was never adopted. Now there is a “Constitution” but no new program. By default, the 1981 document remains the program. (It famously includes this passage:
“As for homosexuality, this too, is perpetuated and fostered by the decay of capitalism, especially as it sinks into deeper crisis. This is particularly the case because of the distorted, oppressive man-woman relations capitalism promotes. Once the proletariat is in power, no one will be discriminated against in jobs, housing and the like merely on the basis of being a homosexual. But at the same time education will be conducted through out society on the ideology behind homosexuality and its material roots in exploiting society, and struggle will be waged to eliminate it and reform homosexuals.”)
The RCP established a website, for a time very lively, in which people could discuss the draft constitution. That was, I thought, a great idea. But it didn’t last long, and again, the new program was never announced.
I’m wondering how central the issue of homosexuality was to this collapse of the program effort.
Michael said
Shame on the RCP! Shame on everyone who tries to destroy revolutionary leanings and rebellious spirits!
Tell No Lies said
The RCP is not “the party.” If one is in a generous frame of mind, it might be “a party.” Calling it “the party” confers on it a standing it has not earned. This might seem a quibble, but it is a marker of peoples thinking still orbiting this organization, if only unconsciously.
Mike E said
TNL: I agree. The RCP was a communist organization — but it was never a party in any meaningful sense.
We discussed this in the 9 letters (including especially Letters 2 and 3):
The analysis of the RCP was essentially that to be a party you needed a developed line and program. Which is relatively easy for a small group to fulfill and falls far short of building an actual organization that politically represents and leads the people.
In some ways, I have thought that the New Communist Movement had a potential for forming a party (coming out of the 1960s and early 70s) — but failed for a number of reasons. And the RCP continued on as a kind of small propaganda sect — performing revolutionary tasks, creating an uneven body of theoretical work, contributing to a specific regroupment of some Maoists internationally and with great energy attempting some significant practical experiments on the ground. But none of this ever led the RCP to solve the problems of preparing for revolution in the U.S., or finding its way to a partisan social base, or achieving the ability to act on a larger political stage as a real actor.
Tell No Lies said
Mike,
While I am in agreement that RCP was never actually a party, my point was more trivial — that the use of the definite article “the” in “the party” supposes common membership in a milieu still orbiting the RCP. Its a habit former members often carry over that I think is worth overcoming as much for those trying to complete their break as for the rest of us who never thought of it as “the party.”
CWM said
In my view, the RCP has had a negative influence on the Left to the extent that it has had any influence at all. I see nothing to celebrate in its legacy whatsoever. Indeed, reading these accounts of how the RCP tormented its LGBT members underscores what I despise and have despised about the group.
But it surprises me to see that some people are evidently shocked to read accounts like Libi’s or Andrews. It was an explicitly homophobic, authoritarian cult. Of course, it would humiliate, marginalize, and pathologize its LGBT members. To expect that it would behave otherwise is very naive and, for people who were in the group, more than a little self-serving.
Mike E said
Well, Chuck, exploring the weaknesses and errors of the RCP provide an occasion for you to fly by with a onesidedly negative one-liner.
But if we were to have the parallel discussions of the strengths and contributions of the RCP it would be harder. Because both aspects existed (as they often do in life).
The point here is not “shock” (or blame) — but excavate and sum up. Sometimes people say that “everyone makes mistakes, so if it is criticized let’s move on.” But really we also need to excavate how the mistake was made, and understand what its implications are — so that moving on is not covering up. And so that problems can be avoided. IMHO, just saying “what do you expect” is its own way of “just moving on” — and presumes that with your politics all would be avoided. I don’t find that believable or satisfying.
CWM said
Well, Mike, my politics *did* avoid the RCP-style queer hating and, in fact, most of the Left has managed to avoid it for the last forty years.
I also think it would be good to look at how “the mistake was made,” as you suggest. Part of that mistake occurred at an organizational level: i.e., the group embraced authoritarian, homophobic, and cultish policies. But there was also a mistake at the member or supporter level: i.e., people *joined* an authoritarian, homophobic cult.
It would be good to know why people who evidently wanted to improve the world would join such a group and, when they did, why they expected it to behave differently than it did.
Mike E said
CWM wrote:
I think there was a problem at the organizational level — and it comes up precisely we ask “why did it go on so long?”
there was no mechanism, no channel, no moment to demand an accounting or a change — the leadership was simply in charge and unaccountable. No congress, no internal discussion bulletin, no way to influence policy, no votes.
And I think that is worth summing up.
And the contradiction is that we (meaning the oppressed) need discipline, secrecy, leadership, security, forms of centralism nonetheless — because of the nature of politics, and the nature of class struggle. And so summing up that we should simply eshew communist organization is not helpful — the issue becomes what kind of communist organization, how it should be organized. And that discussion and summation needs to be more nuanced than simply denouncing the communist experience (as a whole) or denouncing the RCP simply as an ugly cult from the beginning.
Carolyn Riccardi said
I question how the RCP went from boldly publishing a book, covering all sides of there split with the RWH to being a party w. zero channels for debating this issue (the RWH similarly published the documents in Red Papers 8). This seems like a shocking level of degeneration of political culture on every level.
CWM said
Well, maybe it’s not helpful to you, Mike, but I—like most on the Left—believe that any discussion of contemporary political alternatives must begin with a repudiation of Leninism. I’m glad to see that Kasama rejects Leninism/democratic centralism in practice, but why not do so in principle?
Indeed, you need to ask what is the relationship between RCP lunacy and the Maoist doctrine you wish to defend. As I understand it, you think that the RCP were bad Maoists and your task is to help make better ones.
Personally, I think that’s naive. With respect to gender and sexuality, I can’t think of a single Maoist organization that had an emancipatory take on these issues. Can you? And there is a reason why groups that practice democratic centralism so frequently become authoritarian cults. The RCP is not particularly unique in this area.
For all its many and profound failings, at least in the anarchist movement there is (and has) been consensus that debate must occur, that decisions must be made democratically, and that LGBT people must be defended and embraced. Yes, of course, there are many other problems, but at least those things are a point of departure. This is one of the reasons why I have been active in the movement for close to three decades and never would have even considered joining a Maoist group.
Mike E said
Frankly i think there was always very little internal membership influence — once the federated RU got consolidated into a single national apparatus (which took until after the 1977-78 split over China and economism).
This was a very “militarized” organization (not in the sense that it was armed etc, but in the sense of its discipline).
I don’t remember any real ability to remove unit leaders (even in cases when they were seriously disabled by alcoholism or mental illness). Voting on leadership was utterly proforma, and very rare. Most leadership was chosen by “cooptation” by a higher body (with what was called “democratic consultation” — meaning the decision was elsewhere, but some members were sometimes informally asked their opinion.)
Discussions were not initiated before decisions (allowing a hundred flowers kind of frisson with ideas bubbling up). they were almost always taken after decisions were made — so that new positions or policies were presented as a fait accompli.
The organization may have been committed to publishing all sides of a split (and that is a good thing and a postivie advance for communists). But that does not mean that the internal life had any room for the circulation of opposing ideas (except for very very brief periods before very very rare party congresses.) And (needless to say of course) the RCP did not publish or circulate “both sides” of this most recent and perhaps final line struggle over “Bob avakian as the cardinal question” — but fell back to old school 1930s arguments that their critics and political opponents (including Kasama) are simply “counterrevolutionaries.”
And in particular what stand out it the failures of accountablity — that organizational failures were responded to by superficial summation (if that at all) and then some new brainstorm. “Let’s just move on” — was not just a method for dealing with “the Homosexual Question” — but also the failure of May Day 1980, or the insistance that the 1980s would be world war or revolution, or the decision to withdraw from Mumia support, or the long-term failure to grow.
The RCP was an organization that was (essentially) at its biggest point on the day it was formed in 1975, and then declined year to year over the following decades. And there was really never any mention of that, or summation of that. There was talk about going to get a partisan political base (which is good!), but never any serious discussion of why that failed over and over.
And (where is where I agree with Chuck) i think it is profoundly structural. This was not (in any way) an organization with any democracy or accountability. And it made it possible to keep their membership ignorant about some very basis truths concerning their own movement (including the death of the RIM in the 1990s for example, or the actual policies applied toward gay people, or why Avakian really stayed in exile, or whatever).
CWM said
Mike, given all these problems, why didn’t just leave the RCP and join a group that was democratic, in which you could have helped make decisions, and that supported LGBT liberation?
You could have left the RCP any time, nothing was keeping you there, and so many groups have those qualities. Why didn’t you join one of them?
Mike E said
CWM writes:
Kasama is not organized in a democratic centralist way — it is barely organized.
But that is hardly a “rejection of Leninism/democratic centralism in practice” — anymore than being single is a rejection of marriage in practice.
The question here (as on so many questions) is “what is meant by democratic centralism?” or “which democratic centralism?”
There is not one thing described by that term. And (imho) most familiar forms of democratic centralism had little connection to the actual practice of Lenin or his Bolsheviks.
I don’t use terms that have lost a precise meaning — and that are therefore more confusing than helpful. If we (or I or you) say the words “democratic centralism” everyone in the room gets a picture in their head – but everyone gets a different picture (based on their assumptions, experiences and leanings).
I find it better to simply describe organizational principles we want to adopt and develop. We need structures with leadership that have democratic accountability and summation, we need unity and discipline based on a common politics, strategy and program, we need a culture that allows debate, dissent and new ideas, and so on. Defining and developing what we want is more important (to me) than debating which label to put on it.
And (for me) this horrible experience of a revolutionary organization (with a sincere and dedicated membership) carrying out these ugly policies (in the shadows of organizational secrecy and individual isolation)…. is something we need to excavate and understand.
to me the problem with saying “the party” is both parts: first the RCP was not a party in any serious sense. But “the” (as TNL remarks) implied that there is some magical uniqueness about a communist party that allows it to have the presumption of correctness and destiny. It is mysticism, and has been used to wrap a fog of credibility around a leading core that often didn’t deserve it (and certainly should have been forced to earn it).
Tell No Lies said
Chuck,
Like you, I wasn’t particularly shocked or surprised at these revelations. While I hadn’t heard these particular accusations, they are the sort of thing that you would expect in an organization with the level of discipline of the RCP in possession of such a terrible line on homosexuality. And I don’t necessarily disagree with the characterization of the RCP as in certain respects an “authoritarian cult.” But I don’t think it really illuminates much. Its a characterization that has as its main purpose ending a discussion rather than starting one. The Institute for Social Ecology had its own cultish qualities as you’ve acknowledged previously, but I don’t think identifying them tells you more than a small piece of what you would want to know about that group.
Similarly I’m unsure what the point is in chastising people for having joined or stayed in a group when they are in the process of critically analyzing it. It seems like you think Mike owes somebody an apology for the time he spent in the RCP. The RCP is hardly the only group on the left to embrace a crappy line on an important question. When I joined the anarchist movement (well after Mike had joined the RCP) the prevailing understanding of race and racism was characterized by a “white blindspot” the size of a barn. There was for all intents and purposes NO serious engagement with the question beyond the shallowest of liberal platitudes. In a country like the US where the oppression of Black people is central to the whole social order do you think that is more forgivable than Mike’s decision to stay in the RCP?
People join and remain in groups with problematic views and practices sometimes because they don’t see the problems, and in others because they think they are outweighed by other considerations. It seems pretty clear that Mike thought the strong points of the RCP’s program and its understanding of “what it will take” to actually bring down capitalism and imperialism outweighed a position that he thought was wrong and that none of the available “democratic” formations had the potential to take on the specifically revolutionary tasks that the RCP prioritized. It wasn’t my calculus, but I don’t think it was a crazy one. More importantly I don’t think treating it as crazy helps us excavate the lessons that are to be found in the RCP’s experience.
Mike’s comment about this discussion giving you an opportunity to make a driveby comment goes to this. Can you name a single anarchist organization where the former members have made even a fraction of the effort to critically and constructively analyze and learn from their experiences that the former-RCPers here have? The fact is that while you are looking for confirmation of what you already believed, others here recognize that the important thing is still to be good at learning. Instead of just cranking out anarchist boilerplate why don’t you tell us something about, say, the dynamics that allowed the ISE to go years without developing a serious analysis of racism and how they are similar or different from those that people are describing in the case of the RCP’s anti-gay politics?
Miles Ahead said
Comment 5, by TellNoLies:
I agree with TNL, and don’t think his comment was trivial in the least.
This is not a matter of semantics, but embodies a whole outlook, unfortunately one beaten into members, supporters or even some on the periphery to that organization.
“The” party becomes an orthodoxy.
“The” party outlook and verbiage, has everything to do with the line and practice, and the preparation (of minds) of a particular organization’s forces. It is a significant effort to not only blindfold its members and supporters, but to further isolate the likes of Andrew and Libri.
And the “the” mentality doesn’t just apply to former members, or those who may still be “orbiting” around say the rcp. On the other hand, I don’t recall reading where “the” Bolshevik party, under Lenin’s leadership, was simply posed as “the” party for all time and everywhere.
Part of the reason that the rcp (and other dogmatic orthodox organizations) has had any success in carrying out its line is because the cadre comes to believe that “the” party is infallible, and is “the” only party of any worth.. It doesn’t take all that long to segue into “the” (this) party and its omnipotent leadership (who cadre are supposed to “serve and protect” at any cost) to be elevated into being most important, above not only the fray, but above all else.
You don’t have to take my word for it (and I hope you don’t just take my word for it), you can read the rcp’s constitution, the writings of Bob Avakian, the endless diatribes about the proletariat (lower case “p”), but foremost ITS Leadership and Vanguard Party. (Cap L, V and P.)
And if you happen to be a member, or supporter of another party or organization (or “lifestyle”), you can expect to be dragged through the mud, stigmatized and superficially labeled, even purged –(is this a “the” party version of bulimia?)–before the revolution (in the U.S.) has even begun. After all, groups like the rcp (especially concentrated in its leadership, but constantly promoted amongst its ranks) think they have a monopoly on truth, as after all, they are “the” vanguard party, right?
Eons ago on the RW some of us were trying to come up with a headline on an exposé of Reagan. A 3-hour “discussion” ensued—“The” American Hitler” vs. “An”American Hitler.” If only things had been as controversial, even finite, when it came to “the” party (i.e. the rcp) or “a/an”—revolutionary communist party.
There’s a whole friggin’ world out there….and although a party like the rcp thinks they put the “the” in “the”, they’re not calling the shots, by a long shot. And if your party/organization isn’t struggling as a whole or amongst its ranks, collectively studying with more open debate and analyses over different lines, events and formations, with some accountability–most especially accountability of its leadership, then that “the” party is even further away from calling any shots, even if they continue to call themselves “the vanguard.”
Mike E said
On the question of apology: I do think that the RCP, and those of us who were in it, owe gay people an apology — and also we owe an apology to those people whose respect we didn’t live up to.
In the conversations book Avakian makes a protracted and shameless refusal to apologize for his protracted insistence on an anti-gay policy of bigotry.
He may not dare a clear self-critical break with his own errors. He may incapable of denting his own grandious self-image. But the rest of us who were part of that can make such a break in his absence, acknowledge our responsibility — and (most important) help extract whatever lessons that experience contains.
But I don’t feel apologetic at all for having been part of the RCP — which I believed (and believe) was an important and significant attempt to develop a revolutionary movement inside the U.S.
The terrible things we are working to excavate here don’t negate or disappear the many other positive and often lofty actions of thousands of RCP activists over many years.
I stayed inside the RCP until the moment when I realized (a) the RCP was on a crazy track that it would be incapable of reversing, and (b) that I thought any expanded influence for this organization (and its leadership) would be a bad thing. At that point, I got off the bus, and worked to create a different platform for conducting creative communist politics.
I think we should learn from the good and the bad of our own experience (and from the experience of many others).
Miles Ahead said
Want to add something re why a lot of people stay in an organization, even if they have some disagreements, big or small.
And I think this has to do with being beaten down with the “the” factor…
About 4 years before I actually quit the rcp, had given much thought to quitting back then. My disagreements were outweighing my agreements. I went to a leading person–who I am sure I consciously chose because he was not arrogant, bombastic, rhetorical, etc. and this is going to sound really crazy, but he also had a great sense of humor. But even he said to me–
“If you quit, where are you going to go? There’s nothing else out there…”
And that to me is PART of the fear factor that is drummed into people…people who haven’t given up their commitment to being part of a revolutionary process and a the making of a better world. You begin to think that the world stops and starts with your particular party or organization….
CWM said
TNL, I don’t think people who were in the RCP were crazy necessarily, but it is difficult for me to understand why someone would remain in an authoritarian, homophobic cult when there were so many other options. There was the anarchist movement, the non-sectarian socialist left, the greens (for a period), etc., etc. There were so many other possibilities. Staying in the RCP would be easier for me to understand if it had been successful on other fronts—if it led mass strikes or something. Even under those circumstances, I think staying in the group would have been a mistake, but it would at least be a little easier for me to make sense of. However, the RCP was an authoritarian, homophobic cult AND, as Mike said, declined consistently since its founding in 1975. What could possibly keep someone? I simply don’t see the “lofty actions of thousands of RCP activists over many years” that Mike mentions. Was it Bob Avakian’s charisma that kept people ??!?! I can understand being under the sway of a charismatic leader, but Bob Avakian? Really?
CWM said
I see what you’re saying, MA, but it’s difficult for me to understand why someone couldn’t see the range of political options available outside of the RCP. Of course, no ONE group would be perfect, but most would be at least formally committed to fighting homophobia, more democratic, etc. etc.
Gary said
Mike, this sentence “And I think Avakian’s protracted and shameless refusal to apologize for his protracted insistence on an anti-gay policy of bigotry” seems incomplete.
Do you mean to say “And I think Avakian’s protracted and shameless refusal to apologize for his protracted insistence on an anti-gay policy of bigotry” is… I don’t know what adjective or expression you’d want to use…
wrong?
reprehensible?
cowardly?
an arrogant assertion that he’s above reproach, and that to be honest about his personal homophobia and engage in honest public self-criticism would endanger the New Synthesis and the future of humanity by allowing enemies to attack him (in, of course, “unprincipled” fashion)?
laurie said
well, there was, at the time, to my knowledge, no other group that appeared to have a cogent analysis and mechanism for taking the monster down. that is, from what i saw over my 15+/- years as an rcp supporter, the left was fragmented, and, for the most part revisionist. i never felt comfy w/the anarchist movement b/c i am a COMMUNIST. that doesn’t mean i was down w/the lbgt line; i chose to “blip” over/overlook it b/c there were other, more important analyses i felt were more important in the scheme of what was going on in the WORLD (not bedroom).
having said that, i’ve always identified myself as a bisexual. however, i never thought my personal sexual identity was more important than, say the overall analysis–which i thought held great merit– of global capitalism and communism. in that sense, i put others’ struggles above my own sexual identity. and i’m not saying that was right.
but it was — and still is — the elevation of avakian to this diety level that was a breaking point for me. among other things that were LESS IMPORTANT.
so, i’m raising this as a bisexual person, saying that i put up w/the idiotic line on lbgt b/c i thought other lines were more important at the time.
laurie
Mike E said
CWM writes:
Laurie points out that there wasn’t a range of options — for a revolutionary. And i would also say that the RCP was precious and should not have been lightly discarded.
I get it: you don’t like communist politics, so you don’t see why anyone embraces and pursues communist politics. You want to argue that these problems and polices arose because of the nature of communist organization, so your conclusion is that we should reject communist organization (and should have done so long ago).
* * * * * * *
In fact we are dealing with real contradictions — with what happens when revolutionary organizations make serious mistakes. And this is not solved by just “leaving” — as an individual. (And obviously it is also not solved by staying — and ignoring or passively accepting serious problems.)
I don’t want to minimize the things we are discussing. I don’t minimize them — that’s why I have worked to bring them to light.
But let’s also not pretend this is an RCP-only problem. We are dealing with the fact that revolutionary organizations are not automatically revolutionary — we are excavating a lack of “automatic” correctness.
That sense of “automatic correctness” is part of what allowed this bigotry to dominate RCP policy without more struggle.
Living organizations can do terrible things. History and political life is full of such problems.
I remember well when a respected leader of SNCC and the Black Power movement announced that “the only position of women in SNCC is prone.” That was the theory, what do you imagine the practice was?
Or we could discuss how very contradictory the Black Panther Party experience was (for its members, for its supporters).
Or, this: It is little known that both the early Chinese revolution and the later Philippine communist base areas had episodes of anti-infiltrator witch hunts in which significant numbers of innocent cadre were accused of treason and executed.
The conclusion to draw from these episodes is not that “bad things happen so no big deal” — but on the contrary, they underscore the need for accountability, vigilance and struggle. And they dispel any naive sense of automatic correctness (which as TNL touched on elsewhere, gets embodied in assumptions about “the party.”)
* * * * * * *
And it is easy (and very common for anti-communists) to simply dismiss and condemn it all.
How can you support a movement where xxx happened? How can you support a revolution where zzz went down? How can you belong to a revolutionary party when you disagree with xxx?
And the answer is that we are working through contradictions in real life.
Here on Kasama, we have tried to get real about communist experiences and contradictions. — because it is needed, and the layers of self-deceptive mythology are exhausted.
But if the result of our airing of problems (whether in the 1990s RCP or in twentieth century socialism) is simply a cynical negation — then the airing of problems will not have contributed to new wisdom (or to a process that can, hopefully, avoid similar errors).
* * * * * *
When I listed shortcomings in the RCP’s accountability or internal democracy, CWM writes:
First of all, some things were not as clear to me then, as they are now. Some of these problems are much more clear in hindsight (from the outside of the organization, with the benefit of a couple decades).
Why not leave? Because the RCP was precious (the result of a tremendous amount of work over years), and because the solution to problems (within living movements) is not flitting (as an individual) from place to place, to find the best perch.
Because we need to build communist movements and structures — and through a collective process refine and prepare them. Put another way, I agree with Mao’s view “the individual is subordinate to the organization” — and my sense of necessary political democracy is not some reversal of that.
I regret (as I have said) not confronting this anti-gay policy earlier and more forcefully. But I don’t think leaving was the correct solution — or that leaving would have helped build a better revolutionary movement.
Fighting that policy in a more disruptive way may have meant I was forced to leave (as I eventually was!) — but that is different from just viewing these things from the point of view of an individual.
Building radical social change will inevitably involve mistakes and living with disagreements. Just think of staying in the Chinese Communist Party through the waves of different wrong lines in 1925-35 — which led to setbacks on a large scale, including many deaths of communists and supporters among the people. “Why not just leave?”
I stayed because I thought the RCP was precious. Because I knew it could not be easily replaced. And also because I was fully aware that the discipline of the RCP enabled a small group of people to have a disproportionate impact — and because I was not interested in some structure where we spent our time on endless internal consultation and process.
The RCP was focused on accomplishing some things — and overall we had a very high level of unity, and (I thought at the time) a high quality of leadership.
And we are discussing a serious adverse current within that, (an underbelly) which grew more and more intolerable over time (as the rest of society changed its position of LGBT matters) and whose implications have only become clearer with excavation and exposure.
But I still want political combat organization with discipline and common purpose (while thinking through how to avoid the problems of self-entrenchment, arrogance and coverup that obviously and increasingly characterized the inner circles of the RCP.)
CWM said
Mike wrote:
Mike, over the course of the RCP’s lifespan, there were/are a whole range of non-Leninist revolutionary groups and some very dynamic and militant mass movements. For the most part, ALL of these groups were more democratic than the RCP and NONE pathologized LGBT people. You could have left the RCP to work with any of these groups/tendencies at any time.
I know that the RCP long tried to make its members believe that there was only one choice to be made: you either join the RCP or you support the system; you either support Avakian or you support fascism! This trope is ubiquitous in RCP literature and was evident in the email from the former RCYB member just quoted in “Suzie’s story:”
“Suzie” wrote:
However, there were and are MANY other options and the RCP-think that asserts otherwise is nothing more than a self-serving opportunistic fiction that perfectly reflects the cult qualities of the group. You really didn’t have to choose between the RCP and, as you put it, “some structure where we spent our time on endless internal consultation and process.” There were (and are) other options, but you chose the RCP.
I think it is likely true that there weren’t many other functioning leninist sects to choose from over the years, but I also believe you are naive to think there can be a Leninist sect that has a vibrant internal democracy and an emancipatory take on gender and sexuality. I don’t think it’s possible.
Tell No Lies said
Chuck writes:
“there were/are a whole range of non-Leninist revolutionary groups.”
Oh yeah? Name them. Name a single non-Leninist revolutionary organization that was around for the duration of Mike’s tenure in the RCP (from the 70s until the middle of this past decade.
Name a single non-Leninist revolutionary organization that demonstrated anything like the organizational capacity of the RCP — its national presence, its press, its bookstores, its “mass formations”?
The idea that there was a whole range of other groups that Mike and others could have just signed up with is ridiculous.
I know this because I took a very different path from Mike. I saw the need for a serious revolutionary organization. I rejected much of what I understood was meant by Leninism and I rejected the RCPs anti-gay line and never once seriously contemplated joining the RCP. And in the mid-1980s I made a pretty exhaustive survey of the organizational options and they weren’t pretty.
[The rest of this comment has been moved to its own thread]
Mike E said
[moved to its own thread]