Reading Clusters
The following essays and threads were all posted before January 1, 2011.
Kasama Reader 1:
Cores, Coalitions & Strategies for Revolution
Prepare Minds and Organize Forces for Revolution
- Let’s Do Up Some Revolutionary Strategy (August 7, 2010)
- Much-Needed Revolutionary Strategy: How Does It Get on the Menu (October 26, 2010)
- John Steele: Where’s Our Mississippi? (February 3, 2009)
- Do We Really Have Nothing? How About Potential? (August 28, 2010)
- Crisis and Consciousness: Reflections and Lessons from March 4th (April 18, 2010)
- Identifying Strategic Roads: The Tactics of Occupation & the Charge of “Outsider” (April 15, 2010)
- Remembering George Jackson & Re-Thinking Revolutionary Strategy (August 23, 2009)
- V.I. Lenin: Seeking a Path Up the Unexplored Mountain (May 9, 2010)
- Anti-Imperialism: Who Are We Uniting? What Are We Fighting? (June 22, 2010)
- No Cheap Shots (August 12, 2010)
- Communists & Mosques: Why Lenin Defended the Old Believers (August 27, 2010)
- Readings for the Social Forum: The Counter-Insurgent Function of Non-Profits (June 24, 2010)
- Execute BP? Or Demand Obama Curb It? (May 24, 2010)
- Bring the Ruckus: Against Sectarian Smears & Anonymous Rumors (April 26, 2010)
Where to Start
- What a Communist Beginning Might Look Like (September 2, 2010)
- Sites of Beginning Part 1: Are Communist Openings Structural or Evental
- Sites of Beginning Part 2: Nodules of the Advanced
- Sites of Beginning Part 3: Creating a Revolutionary Subject
- No Plan Survives Contact with the Event (September 11, 2010)
- Cracks Radiating from Border: Reconceive, Dig In, Hasten & Await (March 26, 2010)
- Needed: Primordial Soup for Revolutionary Chemistry (September 10, 2010)
- On Radical Eyes’ Proposal: How Should Communists Appear?
Power, Class and Agency
- On Economic Struggle & Economism Among Revolutionaries
- Revolution’s Core Outlaw Force: What is Needed? What is Possible? (June 26, 2010)
- Conceiving the Working Class: Unitary or Contradictory? (June 28, 2010)
- Where’s the Proletariat in Mao’s Long March or Nepal’s Revolution? (February 3, 2009
- Class Revenge or Communist Revolution? (July 18, 2009)
- Love or Rage: Revolution’s Face to the World (May 5, 2010)
- Avatar: A Story of Transformation and Struggle
Mass Line
- Two Concepts of Mass Line, Two Different Roads (March 25, 2010)
- Mao Zedong on the Mass Line (March 25, 2010)
- On the Bus: Putting the Mass Line Into Practice (May 27, 2010)
- Archive for the Mass Line
- Class Against Class? Real World Alignments for Revolution (August 19, 2009)
Revolution and Elections
- Communist Electoral Tactics Part 1: Specific Contradictions in the U.S. (September 28, 2010)
- Communist Electoral Tactics Part 2: Re-invented According to Conditions (September 29, 2010)
- Tellnolies: Electoral Work as Part of Revolutionary Preparation (September 19, 2010)
- They Expect Us To Eat Shit (October 28, 2010)
- Reaching the Advanced: Breaking Out of Protest Only
- Into Election Mudslides or Revolutionary Pole At a Distance (October 29, 2010)
- Supporting White House in Name of Progressive Base Building — A Theory of Indirect Allies (April 9, 2010)
- Can Our Revolution Use Elections to Organize? (September 7, 2009)
- Communist Work: Getting Ready for Conjuncture
- After the Party: Conclusions of a Practical Worker (June 28, 2010)
- They Expect Us to Eat Shit
Violence and Respectability
- A Discussion with Lorenzo: Fusing Militancy with a Rising People (April 13, 2010)
- Violence & Street Fighting: Who Says It Alienates the People? (June 29, 2010)
- Is Militant Street Fighting Always Infantile & Wrong? (April 11, 2010)
Working Class Organizing
- Ambush at Keystone: Inside the Coalminers’ Gas Protest
- “Didn’t You see that Spirit Descend?” — Being Communist in the Bible Belt
- Lightning Lane’s Last Day
- Linc and Me: On the Material Basis of Incorrect ideas
- The View from Dunne’s Porch
- On Communist Work: That Feeling of Stage Diving in the Dark
- Rape of Nature and the Need for a New Communist Approach
- The Dead Miners in Sago: Dying for the Bottom Line
- Untold Stories of Quecreek’s Flood: Coal Miners, Water and Heartless Capitalism
- Letter 5: Particularities of Christians and Fascists
Kasama Reader 2:
After Our First Century of Communist Revolution
- Socialist Democracy, Snowflakes & the Restoration of Capitalism (July 7, 2009)
- A Revolutionary People & the Problems at Its Periphery
- Cultural Revolution: Lessons for Our Regroupment? (January 4, 2009)
- The Historical Failure of Anarchism (September 25, 2008)
- Joshua Horn: The Mass Line in China’s Revolutionary Days (March 24, 2010)
- Nuclear Fallout in Maoist China: What Does That Reveal? (June 18, 2009)
- Vietnam: What Happened to the Revolution? (May 4, 2010)
- Mao Zedong: Should Reactionaries Have Free Speech? (July 14, 2009)
- Mao Zedong on Political Executions: Heads Are Not Leeks (July 13, 2009)
- Mao & the Dunce Caps: Real Contradictions of Real Socialism (July 15, 2009)
Soviet Controversies
- Investigate & Speak on the Soviet Union (August 10, 2010)
- On Socialist Methods and the Stalin-Era Purges (July 13, 2009)
- History’s Cruelty towards Trotskyism (January 5, 2009)
- Kronstadt: The Maturation & Dispersal of a Revolutionary Core (June 3, 2010)
- The Myth of Makhno and Its Price (May 30, 2010)
- Diverted from Lenin… to the Trotsky vs. Stalin Dispute (May 10, 2010)
- Historical Socialism (and Stalin) Need Better Defenders (November 5, 2010)
- On Socialist Methods and the Stalin-Era Purges (July 13, 2009)
- Shockwave: The Mixed Experience of Exporting Socialism (October 30, 2009)
- The Case of World War 2: Nukes, Scientists & the Tasks of a Revolutionary Core (June 15, 2010)
- Orthodoxies of Comintern Years: An Old Time Religion (July 20, 2010)
- Soviet Union 1956-1991: Socialist or Social Imperialist (December 10, 2010)
- A Counterpoint on Soviet Prisons: Take Me, Rehabilitate Me! (November 5, 2010)
- Socialism in East Germany? Is Obama Then Sorta Socialist Too? (October 29, 2009)
- From Archives: Describing the Soviet Prison System of the 1930s (November 5, 2010)
- J. Arch Getty: Creating Alternative New History of Soviet 30s (October 7, 2010)
- Lenin & Leftovers Part 1: Ingredients of Insurrection (August 3, 2010)
- Lenin & Leftovers Part 2: Getting Past Workerless Worker States (August 3, 2010)
60s, 70s: Lessons
- Youth Culture & Reefer: Subversive Lessons for Future Breaks (August 4, 2010)
- Woodstock & Revolution: Working on Correct Verdicts (August 18, 2009)
- A Critical History of New Communist Movement (July 24, 2010)
- Weather Underground: Revolutionary but Clueless(December 29, 2009)
- Woodstock and Revolution: Working on Correct Verdicts (Written on the 40th anniversary. August 2009)
Reconceiving the Next Wave
- New Forms of Democracy for a Future Socialist Mainstream (March 19, 2010)
- Future Socialist State Forms
- Conversation over Workers Control: Direct? Plebiscites? Continuing Revolution?
- Zizek: Contemporary China and “the party-state” (October 19, 2010)
- How Do People Rule and Criticize After the Revolution? (February 24, 2008)
- Socialism in One Country? How Precious? How Difficult?
- Art & Culture: Who Do We Learn From? Who Decides?
- The Communist Controversy over “Class Truth”
- Let’s Avoid Becoming Dogmatic Tyrants (September 21, 2009)
- David Harvey: Is Another Communism Possible?
- Iris Bright: What Communism Really Looks Like NOW?…In OUR World? (November 14, 2010)
Questions of Party State
- How Do People Rule and Criticize After the Revolution? (February 24, 2008)
- 2 Excerpts From Mao Zedong: On Dilemmas Within the Cultural Revolution (April 27, 2009)
- Antaeus Critiques Maoist Summation of Cultural Revolution (October 28, 2009)
- The Question of Building a New Type of State by Baburam Bhattarai (May 28, 2008)
- Badiou: The Cultural Revolution – The Last Revolution?
- In Defense of a Political Form: The One-Party State (February 21, 2010)
- Defense of the Party-State, Part 1: Avakian on Leninism as the Bridge
- Defense of the Party-State, Part 2: Avakian on Limitations of the Commune Form (October 3, 2010)
- Bhattarai’s “New Type of State” and the Maoist Re-envisioning of Communism by Rosa L. Blanc (July 2, 2009)
Kasama Reader 3:
Regrouping Around a New Revolutionary Pole
Shaping The Kasama Project: Contributing to Revolution’s Long March
- Letter 9: Traveling Light, Coming from Within (December 2007)
- Part 1: Grabbing Pitchfork or Theoretical Knife
- Part 2: Revolutionary Work and the Pull of the Sect
Marxism is…
Regroupment of Communists
- Communist Cadre and Professional Revolutionaries
- Party-Building: 20 Basic Questions on a Belief (December 2, 2010)
- Needed Fusion: Profoundly Non-Dogmatic & Starkly Revolutionary (October 26, 2009)
- From FIRE: We Are Now a Kasama Collective (December 18, 2010)
- Learning from Previous Wave of Communist Regroupment (September 26, 2010)
- A Critical History of New Communist Movement (July 24, 2010)
- Kasama’s Regroupment: How Broad? How Honest? (January 4, 2009)
- V.I. Lenin: Seeking a Path Up the Unexplored Mountain (May 9, 2010)
- Tiers of Communist Work: One Counter-Plan to Swamp & Sect (September 8, 2010)
- RIM is MIA: Seeking Communist Regroupment amid Fractures & Madness (May 9, 2010)
Communist Goals, Reconceiving the Ideas and Means
- Checking For Loopholes: From Conception to Reconception (October 10, 2010)
- Needed Fusion: Profoundly Non-Dogmatic & Starkly Revolutionary (Oct. 2009)
- Confronting Reality: Change is Inevitable, Liberation is Not. (Feb. 2009)
- The 4 Alls: A Capsule of Communist Goals (September 14, 2008)
- Badiou & Nepal: Battlegrounds Over Communist Reconception (April 5, 2009)
- Bill Martin’s Rubber & Glue 1: Recoiling Into a Dead End
- Heresy: On New Demarcations & Coherent Theory (October 24, 2009)
- Sexuality Among Communists: Muffled Voices or a Liberating Radicalism? (September 22, 2008)
- John Steele: Our relation to revolutionary tradition (Jan 1st, 2010)
- Does Our Optimism Require Belief in Communism’s Inevitability? (January 28, 2010)
- Confronting Our Role: Change is Inevitable, Liberation Is Not (February 6, 2009)
- The future of the communist hypothesis (September 30, 2009)
- Reply on Method: How Not to Evaluate Žižek (July 30, 2010)
- Sketches of Rural Exploitation: Capitalist, Feudal or Slave? (August 31, 2010)
- Our Planet, Our People Are Not Expendable! (August 25, 2010)
- Ecosystems of Revolution: Congealing Diverse Efforts (April 16, 2010)
- Samir Amin: The Feeble Rhetoric of Dominant Discourse (May 21, 2010)
- Radical Eyes: A Proposal for Action and Investigation (November 16, 2010)
- A Discussion with Lorenzo: Fusing Militancy with a Rising People (April 13, 2010)
Thinking About Theory
- Reconceiving Revolutionary Theory: What Can Be Seen From Among the Clouds? (September 28, 2009)
- Grasping the Theoretical Knife: A Response to Club Jacobin (January 3, 2011)
- On Real Limits and Real Value of Our Theory (October 19, 2009)
- Sniffing Out Pseudo-Science: Including Among Fellow Leftists
- Three Quick Examples of Leftist Pseudo-Science
- John Steele: Revolutionary Faithfulness and the Radically New (April 3, 2009)
- Letter from Marx: On Popularization & the Steep Paths of Theory (January 20, 2009)
- Heresy: On New Demarcations & Coherent Theory (October 24, 2009)
- On Real Limits and Real Value of Our Theory (October 19, 2009)
- Steele: A Rough Overview of Our Theoretical Project (August 27, 2008)
- Khukuri: Barack, Badiou, and Bilal al Hasan (June 18, 2010)
- J. Ramsey interviewing Bill Martin”What’s the Opposite of Bullshit?” (April 2009)
- Review: Žižek’s Living in the End Times (July 21, 2010)
- Sojourner Truth Organization: How to Think (July 11, 2010)
- Archive for Study Guides
Inherited Communism
- The Predicament of Inherited Maoism
- Communist Philosophy: One into Two? Two into One? Or Something Else?
- Focoism vs. Peoples War: Problems of Exaggerated Universality (October 14, 2009)
- Where’s the Proletariat in Mao’s Long March or Nepal’s Revolution? (February 3, 2009)
- What’s Normal for a Grain of Barley? On Negation of Negation (September 23, 2010)
- Orthodoxies of Comintern Years: An Old Time Religion (July 20, 2010)
Investigating Alan Badiou
- Alain Badiou: Another Take on Revolutionary Theory
- When Everything Seems to Change: Badiou and the Event
- A Taste of Alain Badiou
- Badiou & Nepal: Battlegrounds Over Communist Reconception (April 5, 2009)
- Badiou: The Communist Hypothesis
Into the Wild
- Into the Wild 1: The Debriefment of Maoism (April 27, 2010)
- Into the Wild 2: Willing to Reground(April 28, 2010)
- New Kasama Pamphlet: Bill Martin’s Into the Wild (April 14, 2010)
Kasama Reader 4:
Our Starting Point is the World
A World and A System
- Internationalism: Our Starting Point is the World
- Iran: They are Right to Rebel! And We Have Responsibilities. (June 17, 2009)
- A Question Over Iran: Can the People Make History or Not? (June 19, 2009)
- A Single Global Arch-Enemy or an Oppressive System? (August 7, 2010)
Learning from Nepal’s Maoist Revolution
- 101 Arguments Against Supporting Nepal’s Revolution
- Nepal: Learning From a Living Revolution
- Living Revolution or Sterile Orthodoxy: Questions Around Nepal (February 19, 2010)
- Nepal’s First Days of May: General Strike & Provocation
- Compare and Contrast on Nepal
- Nepal: Understanding Riptides of Transition
- Ben Peterson: Eyewitness Report from Maoist Army Camp
- J.B. Connors: Learning from the Maobadi
- New Pamphlet from New Zealand: Revolution in Nepal (March 17, 2010)
- Dissecting Some Easy Rejection of Nepal’s Revolution (February 1, 2009)
- Gramsci & National Democratic Revolution in the Philippines
- Is Marxism Eurocentric? A View from Latin America (December 4, 2009)
- Is Socialism Being Built in Bolivia? (April 9, 2010)
- A New Geometry of Power in Venezuela? (April 6, 2010)
- Leupp on Afghanistan War: Ignorance There…. and Here
- Iraq War Propaganda: Manufacturing Ignorance
- Gary Leupp: Grappling with what Happened in Haiti
- Gary Leupp: The Destabilization of Pakistan
- It’s Obama’s War Now
Kasama Reader 5:
Birth Pangs and Polemics
The RCP’s Turn to Cultishness
- A Comrade’s Letter: Life Inside the RCP’s End Game by Sophie
- When RCP Comrades Call: “Pick Your Stop, Time to Get Off” by Mike Ely
- Lurkers, Step Up: This World Needs Us to Break Old Walls by RedFlags
- Jagged Edges in a Divided RCP by Mike Ely
- RCP Describes Avakian’s Self-Coup Within the Party by Mike Ely
- Mike Ely Gets Personal with the RCP by Mike Ely
- The Strange Way It Started Fresh by Mike Ely
- RCP Constitution: Control, Cult of Personality & Revealing Silences by Nando
- New Constitution of RCP: Faltering Organization Stamped by Avakianism
- Revolutionary Communist 4 Tour: What the Heck Was That? By the Revolutionary Formerly Known as Akil
- Maoists and iPhones: On New Tech And Blaming the People by Mike Ely
Polemics over the RCP & forging new revolutionary trend
- 9 Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian’s Synthesis
- New Observation: RCP’s 9 Letters Polemic Was “Really Very Very Good” by Mike Ely
- On RCP Response: The Inventing of a Strawman by Sam S
- On RCP Response: Both Ahead of Itself and Behind the Curve by Zerohour
- The Communist Controversy over “Class Truth”
- Becoming Living Vanguard: Protracted Fusion or Last-Minute Telescoping
- Mike Ely’s ‘Flat Earth’ Approach to RevolutionThe Party’s Over by Mike Ely
- RCP: The Flight of the Worker Bees by JB Connors
- It’s like the Sun is Out by Iris
- Can we Imitate the Finland Station? by Mike Ely
- Sitting Thru Avakian’s Synthesis, and Getting Beyond It by DMC Ulises
- Official Notes: RCP’s “Political Truth” about Synthesis Event
- RCP: On Farragos, May Day 1980 and the Echoes Today
- RCP responses to 9 Letters ver. 3.0 : Still dodging substance
- Kasama coverage of RCP,USA list
On Religion
- Didn’t You See that Spirit Descend — Being Communist in the Bible Belt by Mike Ely
- Linc and Me: On the Material Basis of Incorrect Ideas by Mike Ely
- Avakian’s Away With all Gods: Critiquing Religion Without Understanding It (Part 1) by Pavel Andreyev
- Critiquing Religion Without Understanding It (Part 2) by Pavel Andreyev
- Debate Among Atheists #1: Mike Ely’s Letter 5 on Faith and the Black Church
- Debate Among Atheists #2: RCP on Faith and the Black Church
- Militant Materialism or Textual Literalism? More Communist Debate on Atheism
Kasama Reader 6: Essays on Black Oppression, Resistance & Visions
for a more full list
- John Steele: Where’s Our Mississippi? February 3, 2009 (pdf)
- Blacks and Jews — A Revolutionary View by Mike Ely, February 5, 2009
Needed: Fresh Theoretical Look at Race and Nationality by Mike Ely March 18, 2008
- Toward a Communist Theory on Racism & Liberation by Mike Ely, August 9, 2009
- I’ll Fly Away, O Glory! — Outlaws of the Underground Railroad by Mike Ely
- Finally Got the News: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers
- Ossie Davis: Eulogy for Malcolm X
- Kent & Jackson State 1970: A Firestorm They Could Not Contain
- When I Joined the Black Panther Party…. by Safiya Bukhari
- Black Like Mao: Red China & Black Revolution, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 By Robin D.G. Kelley and Betsy Esch
- Mao Zedong: On Martin Luther King & the Struggle of Black People January 18, 2010
- Watts 1965: Learning Among the Flames of Revolt by Mike Ely, August 29, 2009
- Mumia Abu-Jamal: Enemy of the State by Mike Ely, December 2, 2008
- French Translation: Mumia Abu-Jamal – Ennemi d’Etat
- Sept. 9, 1971: Attica Prison Uprising: 38 Years Later September 9, 2009
- The Slave Rebellion of General Nat Turner by Mike Ely, February 7, 2009
- Haiti: The Slave Army of Toussaint L’Ouverture by Mike Ely
- Birmingham Sept 15, 1963: The Racist Killing of 4 Little Girls by Mike Ely, September 16, 2009
- 150 Years Ago: Marx & Engels on the War Against Slavery
- Answer Old Racist Lies: This Was A Righteous War Over Slavery!
- Orthodoxies of Comintern Years: An Old Time Religion, by Mike Ely
- The Tulsa Massacre 1921: Mass Murder of a Black Community, by Mike Ely, April 4, 2010
- Learning from Previous Wave of Communist Regroupment, by Mike Ely, September 26, 2010
- George Jackson: Eyes on Communist Revolution
- Serious About Revolution: An Interview With George Jackson
- Remembering George Jackson & Re-Thinking Revolutionary Strategy by Mike Ely. August 23, 2009
- Linc and Me: On the Material Basis of Incorrect ideas by Mike Ely
Kasama Reader 7:
Today: The Historic Era of Women’s Liberation
- Rosa Harris: Nothing But Each Other — A Story From Our Lives
- Men Who Hate Women: Best-Selling Mysteries & Stieg Larsson’s Activist Days
- Egypt: What the Revolution Means for Women
- Sex, Race and Class
- Egypt: Women Take the Lead
- Global Report: Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 a Year
- The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies
- People’s War…Women’s War?
- Rape Charges Against Julian Assange: How Should Revolutionaries Speak?
- Book Review: Girls To The Front
Communism and the Problems of a Movement
- Still Deeply Unsatisfied: The Communist Approach to Women’s Oppression
- Misuses of the Erotic: Debate Among Revolutionary Youth
- Dunbar-Ortiz Interview: On Male Supremacy in Revolutionary Organizations
- Communist Theory: She Craves Not Spring for Herself Alone
- RCP’s Anti-Homosexual Line: Why Held So Long and Stubbornly?
- On Telling Each Other “How to Fuck”March 8, IWD: This Moment and The Oppression of Women
- Communist Theory: She Craves Not Spring for Herself Alone
- Rape, Murder and the Laughter of the Club by Ulises Subida
- Women’s Leadership in Nepal’s Peoples War By Parvati
- Question: Is This Really About “the Fury” of Women? By Mike Ely
- Dangers of Ingrown Community & Revolution’s Need for New Sexual Ways
Priests, Cops and Assassins
- Enemies Within: Informants And Misogyny On The Left
- Portrait of a Police Agent: Deceit, Manipulation, Sexism
- Outrage in Kansas: Assassinated for Serving Women
- Assassinations, Arson, Threats: And They Call It “Pro-Life”?
- Something Decent in Kansas: Conviction of Killer Roeder
- Catholic Hierarchy: Let the Little Girls Die
- The Unforgivable Sister Margaret: When The Church Excommunicates
Female in History
- The Radical Roots of Mother’s Day
- American Tortures in the Lexington Women’s Unit 1986-88
- Jim Crow, Rape and Civil Rights: A Forgotten History
- Revolutionary Women of the Young Lords Party
- Kollantai: Communist Morality Around Intimate Relations By Alexandra Kollantai
- 100 Years Ago: The Women of the Triangle Fire By Mike Ely
- American Tortures in the Lexington Women’s Unit 1986-88
South Asia’s Women in Revolution
- Jed Brandt From Nepal: Images From International Women’s Day
- Women’s Leadership in Nepal’s Peoples War
- International Women’s Day: Women’s Role in Nepal’s Revolution
- Interview: Women’s Liberation in India
- Hisila Yami :Women Leaders as a Catalyst Agent for Communism
- Women’s Liberation Theory from Nepal Revolutionaries
- Choosing the Maoists:Talking with Young Nepali Women Revolutionaries
- HBO Film Tonight on Nepal’s Revolution: Woman Rebel
- One More Reason for Revolution: Sex Trade in South Asia
- Life in the Maoist PLGA: Men Cook, Women Patrol
- India: The Story of a Rebel’s Birth
- WPRM Interview: On Women’s Liberation in Nepal
- Tank Girl: Anarcha-Feminist Punk From Nepal
- Eve-Teasing: The Struggle Against Sexual Harassment
- Crisis Hits Women & Youth In Asia
Qurbani said
Mike,I just wished to confirm that your views on a Socialist Multi-party System?Does Bob Avakian formulate the view of a Socialist multi-party State?I really wanted to confirm the viewpoints.Do you not feels that such aset up would oppose Leninism or Maoist Ideology?Do you have any assesment of the R.I.M?
zerohour said
I’ll let Mike answer for himself, but I wanted to make a point here.
There has been a tendency among communists to take historical experiences and turn them into an ossified models.
Up to September 1917, Lenin was still open to a socialist coalition government. When it became clear that no arrangement could be agreed upon with necessary urgency, the Bolsheviks took the lead in the revolutionary overthrow. The ensuing process of state formation was not pre-planned. As for the Chinese Revolution, the Communist Party initiated an early alliance with the Kuomintang when it was still headed by the greatly respected Sun Yat-sen. He died in 1925. I’m not sure if the CPC had a definite view of a future revolutionary polity at that point, but in power struggle within the Nationalist Party the reactionary clique around Chiang Kai-shek won out, no other political organization emerged with any significant mass support by 1949 making a multi-party system a non-issue. My point is that these practices were practical solutions to concrete problems, not just something that simply arose from ideologies.
In Nepal, the UCPN[M] are proceeding from a critical reading of the historical experience of communism to help inform their practice. In the process they have stated the obvious: a one-party state is no guarantee against capitalist restoration, and places serious restrictions on the political development of the masses as it has been practiced. They have opened up the question of revolutionary power and mass participation to a necessary re-thinking. Lenin once argued for a “concrete analysis of concrete conditions.” What could be more anti-Leninist than to pose an abstract form as a concrete solution?
As for Avakian’s or RCP’s views, they do not support the notion of a multi-party socialist state and have criticized the UCPN[M] for it. This pamphlet collects their polemics on this. For a more, I’d advise you to go to RCP’s site and see for yourself
Mike E said
Qurbani writes:
I wrote a piece on this called Socialist Democracy, Snowflakes & the Restoration of Capitalism which takes up this issue.
Among other thins it says:
more to come
B Clinch said
Look at the diversity of capitalist rule: constitutional monarchies, fascism, military juntas, presidential democracies, parliamentary democracies, religious theocracies, racial apartheid, revisionist-style state capitalism and more….. Why would we assume that socialist societies won’t have its own remarkable diversity of forms, reflecting both some inherent dynamics of socialist transition but also very particular histories and conditions producing various revolutions?
This is a mistaken view. The essence of socialism is proletarian dictatorship, which is proletarian internationalism and proletarian democracy. This is a distinction between essence, form, content and phenomena that seems to escape some comrades. Some forms are not in accordance with essence, and thus must be discarded. “constitutional monarchies, fascism, military juntas” might be forms that accord with the essence of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, but they are in sharp discord (antagonistic contradiction) with the essence of socialism. Equally, the content of bourgeois democracy (whose essence is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) is at odds with the content of proletarian democracy (the council system of power, be it Soviet, or the three-in-one of armed forces, Party and workers’ representatives). Form and content must be in synch with the essence of the socialist state – which is, as Lenin taught, a body of armed people in search of communism.
Morris William said
In pointing out that the rule of the working class has a variety of forms in the same way that the rule of the capitalist class has a variety of forms, Mike E was simply recognising the scientific law of uneven development.
In challenging this correct observation, B Clinch fails to understand that the socialist state not only contains a coercive equivalence to the capitalist state, it can also contain features of capitalist democracy, precisely because socialism is in transition from capitalism.
The main feature that it can carry is the anti-collectivist, bourgeois form of political centralism, which constantly evolves around the concept of government and opposition, leadership and opposition, all acted out by celebrity leaders.
This is why walking the revolutionary road means taking the way of revolutionary democracy for socialism, that is, to win the battle for democracy across the revolutionary socialist movement
Mike E said
I wrote originally:
To this Bill replied:
At the risk of restating my original point:
The rule of capitalists (and before them of feudals, or the rule by alliances of capitalists and slaveowners) was marked by a multiplicity of forms.
I see no reason why we will not see a multiplicity of forms for socialism.
And (in fact) we already have — since who can miss that the Paris Commune is different from the Soviet councils of 1918, or from the Soviet state during world war 2, and also different from say the variety of Chinese forms during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Bill seems to think that I am suggesting that socialism will have the same forms as capitalism — which seems an odd idea, and something I have not said.
I don’t believe that socialism is likely to have (for example) a fascist state as its form (for obvious reasons).
There is (as Bill is arguing) some relationship between form and content — and when (for example with the rise of Lin Biao in China) there is a danger of a militarist government emerging under socialism, I suspect it will pretty directly also imply a challenge to the existence of socialism.
Socialism will have its own forms. Not simply or mainly carry over forms from capitalism.
There was a phenomenon where capitalism was able to adapt and adopt forms that had emerged from feudalism in some cases: the capitalist “constitutional monarchies” were developments out of feudal monarchies. The capitalist parliaments were developments out of the far weaker parliaments that advised monarchs in the European middle ages. Even the German fascist rule of Hitler lifted (in many ways) forms and symbols from the earlier Wilhelmian Kaiser state (which had its roots in the earlier feudal Prussian state). Hitler’s Nazi symbolism and forms were adaptations (in many ways) of the monarchist past, under new conditions and with new twists (including the absence of a hereditary Kaiser, and in its place a non-hereditary Fuhrer figure).
There are reasons why forms are often lifted from the past — often with new content and new meaning, while maintaining historical continuity. In Hegel’s discussions this phenom is called “aufhebung” — (It can be translated as a “lifting up” of forms and structures from one period to another, different period. Some people use “sublate” as a translation — but who knows that word? Nobody.)
An example is the lifting up of many different cultural symbols from “classic” Greek and Roman slave society for reuse in the modern slave society of the American South (the mansion columns being just one obvious and superficial example).
There are reasons why the forms of feudalism were often relatively adaptable to capitalism — with changes of course. Both were oppressive class societies with an effective dictatorship of a small minority ruling class. And there was often (as in Britain or Prussia/Germany) a great deal of continuity politically and socially between feudal society and capitalist society.
But even with socialism, I believe we will find aufhebung and already have.
This is not in contradiction to Bill’s point that capitalism and socialism are radically different cultures, and there are certainly forms useful for capitalism that are unlikely to fit with socialism. (The example being a hereditary monarchy — despite the pretenses of the Kim Dynasty in Korea today and despite the fact that Kampuchea’s still reigning Prince Sinhanouk participated in the broad United Front against U.S. imperialism in Indochina in the 1970s).
But even here, i think we should ask whether there were similarities and continuities between the traditional Russian state (of the nineteenth century) and the revolutionary Soviet state that emerged in the twentieth century. Clearly there were major discontinuities (which were principal) — and those differences were rooted in the fundamental difference in the nature of society. But reading Soviet history it is hard not see continuities as well — in the ways the centripetal forces of a diverse continental power tended to require (and produce) a strongly centralized and aggressive state (including features like internal passports which seemed “normal” in Russia during both its capitalist and socialist periods).
The Russian state historically emerged (out of the Moscow principality) because of the pressures of invasion. Is it accidental that the Soviet state went through jolting processes of centralization in the 1930s in part in response to the growing danger of German invasion? Or that these changes would evoke cultural echoes from the past (including Eisenstein’s film portrayals of Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible)?
Part of the point is: The fact that the Soviet state emerged with particular structures, institutions, habits and assumptions does not mean that a universalized socialist form had been uncovered.
Or, for example, isn’t it likely that some forms of legality (jury trials, habeas corpus, etc.) might be adapted and adopted in a socialist state of North America — even while the essence of the legal and court system was being revolutionized?
For example, Bill writes:
Yes, the content of bourgeois democracy is at odds with the content of proletarian democracy. We agree.
However, this is also a bit complicated — because some features of the two are not inherently opposed: There is an extensive discussion to be had about the impact of a socialist state needing to uphold forms of bourgeois right during the transitional period, including wages, lingering class differences, operations of the law of value etc. And in some ways, there are operations of a bourgeois state within the functioning of a socialist state — in ways discussed with some subtlety by both Lenin and Mao.
Yes, capitalism and socialism are different. And the kinds of state serving one system are different (inherently and deeply) from the kinds of state that serve the other social system. And changes of state have accompanied major changes of social system throughout history (even when, in some cases, there were elements of “aufhebung” in the continuity of form and symbolism.)
But what does exactly does this really say about forms? How exactly do we know which forms from the past are incompatible with socialism? Can one deduce from that (quickly and automatically) that contested elections are impossible under socialism?
I’m always suspicious at the idea of deducing reality’s details and limitations from general inherited principles and assumptions — since we often deceive ourselves that way.
Obviously I think we can all agree that the Fuhrer system of Nazi Germany is incompatible with socialism (which in its militaristic authoritarianism and leader worship is deeply contrary to the need for critical thought, broad consultatoin and popular ferment under socialism). Or the hereditary monarchy of Tsarism (which in its hereditary nature if particularly tied to feudal property forms and a whole ideology of social patriarchy).
But, if capitalist democracy in the U.S. has nominating conventions, can we assume that this is anathema to socialism?
Here is an example: In the United States (a large and diverse country) there has always been a complex layered decentralization of power. Some matters (say speed limits and urban zoning) are decided at the local level, others (say marriage procedures) are decided at the state level, while others (like environmental laws or broadcast regulations) are decided at the federal level.
Is it inherently capitalist to have such a federal system? I don’t think so.
In North America, such a federal system could help allow for different rates of revolutionary change in different parts of the country (the way having an autonomous zone tried to do for Tibet in the 1950s in China).
I think several things (in conclusion):
1) socialism and capitalism are radically different societies (even though socialism, because of its transitional nature, has capitalist elements within it).
2) Forms of politics and state do (as Bill points out) need to be compatible with the character and nature of socialism.
3) There will inevitably be both continuity and discontinuity in political and legal forms — some forms can be adapted and adopted, some must be discarded. There are elements of “aufhebung” in the political changes — where things may reappear, but have new meaning in a new context. And there will be (at the same time) “socialist new things” that do not have obvious previous antecedents.
4)We can’t deduce which forms of continuity are incompatible with socialism simply from a few general principles or previous assumptions. Life will surprise you.
Harsh Thakor said
Today the International Communists Movement is plagued by a huge range of conflicting trends.This has affected the building of an International Communist Movement.True Marxism-Leninism is a developing Science but the very foundations and structure have to be consolidated rather than broken.
Multi-Party System
The most controversial trend within the Marxist-Leninist Movement is the finding fault with Comrades Lenin, Stalin and Mao and deploying of the multi-party System. Com.Mike Ely’s writings slander the achievements of Com.Stalin to a considerable extent ,and even deride Com.Lenin and Com.Mao on many an occasion. The Kasama trend almost reduces Com Stalin to a non-Leninist and all Mao’s contributions achievements as an anti-thesis of Stalinism..True, Kasama project is one of the greatest ever Marxist-Leninist efforts to create a forum for debate, which has been lacking in the history of the Communist Movement .and made a historic contribution by launching outstanding debates on Maoist polemics .
However such forces are forgetting the important contribution of Lenin on the dictatorship of the Proletariat and the revisionist character of parliamentary democracy.Infact it was Trotsky who promoted the multi-party system and the institutions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. By promoting multi-party system the proletarian revolutionary centre of power is denied and infact a Socialist State can be toppled. Let us remember the experiences of the Communist Movement in Nazi Germany or worldwide. It was the Leninist Party that promoted the building and consolidation of Socialist Societies in Soviet Union and China. Whether the Bolshevik Revolution,the civil War, the collectivization era, the Soviet World War Victory: all these achievements were the result of the foundation of the Leninist Party. Similarly in China although Mao called for continuous Revolution under the dictatorship of the Proletariat he called for a revolt within a proletarian party Structure. The sweeping victories of the Socialist Revolution,The Great Leap Forward, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were unprecedented in history and can be attribute to Comrade Mao’s persistence with upholding the Leninist Principles of the Dicatatorship of the Proletariat. True there were opposing factions of revisionist nature like Lin Biao ,Liu Shao –Chi Etc ,but the struggle against them through mass campaigns was led by the proletarian party. It was the revolutionary trend within the proletarian party that fought the Lin Biaost forces politically and the rise of Lin Biao or Liu Shao Chi cannot be attributed to the lack of a multiparty System. True ,it was defeated by Deng Xiaoping’s rightist forces, but a multi-party Sustem may have promoted such forces much earlier. In Soviet Union Comrade Stalin violated democratic Centralism to a considerable extent and any dissent was put down .Comrade Mao, tried to correct this by initiating a broad mass Movement of the Chinese masses against the reactionary Forces, and got several members of the party to go through self-criticism and reform. It was historic that a mass Movement was led within the very Communist Party ,unlike in the Soviet Union. Mao had learnt from the Stalin era that a revolutionary Movement was required even within a socialist System.Below I am reproducing a debate between Mike Ely and Joseph Ball . on the multi-party System.
Debate is a very important factor in the Communist Movement ,but it is needed to develop Marxism, Leninism as a Science and not to distort it. True forces like Kasama have created a platform for debate and healthy mutual exchange but have also been rather loose in their criticisms of Leninist Polemics. 2 crusaders in for the correct International Proletarian Revolutionary line were the late Shansmughtan of the Communist Party of Ceylon (He made a mistake in supporting the R.I.M,but was a crusader in fighting against Trotskyism and upholding the banner of Com.Stalin and Mao TseTung Thought) and the late Com.Harbhajan Singh Sohi(the best theoretician within the Movement) who refuted all those who found mistakes with Comrades,Lenin,Stalin and Mao and upheld proletarian polemics like carrying a red torchlight.
Quoting a revolutionary Journal the Comrade(1991 after the collapse of U.S.S.R and revisionist East European regimes )“A section of Communist revolutionary forces is getting engaged in analyzing and debating the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariatand the cause of capitalist restoration in the erstwhile countries ,and is ending up with he verdicts of the alleged mistakes of Comrades Stalin and Mao. That is tantamount to affirming in practice the very link between the recent developments in revisionist countries and he past practices of Socialism which need to be refuted, and so lends credibility to the propaganda plank of the bourgeoisie.
These comrades have hardly thought over what the alleged mistakes were of Stalin and Mao and the relevance of their reviews of the available theory and practice of Socialism to heir task of countering the bourgeois propaganda. It is not clear which target group they have in mind- ,which can hardly be the common masses of the people. Analysis and debate concerning the Theory and practice of socialism amongst Communist Revolutinary forces s necessary. However open debate is for correcting or refuting ideological deviations and not for seeking unanimity of views between contending sides.A so called friendly public debate serves only to add to the confusion of the people. It actually hides the character of the conflict of views behind it’s friendly signboard thus lowering the guard of the revolutionary masses against hostile ideological tendencies, secondly it invariably projects a lot of loud-thinking and tentative stands of the participants. Organised Communist Revolutionaries are expected to provide reliable leadership to the democratic revolutionary movement o he India people, can not afford too such a thing.
The current offensive of the bourgeoise is against the concept of the Leninist party, especially the class distinctive politics and the democratic centralist organization of the party.The Communist revolutionaries should come out in defence of the party concept, but give greater attention to the building o the party. That would be he most appropriate step in countering the bourgeoisie propaganda offensive.
The class enemy would train it’s guns at the dicatatorship of the proletariat, the party and the great revolutionary leaders. The class enemy’s frenzied attacks should make the Communist Revolutionaries better appreciate these precious assets and prompt them to grasp, defend and promote the same vein more firmly.They should never look back and only The criticism of the revolutionary masses, for the advancement of the revolutionary cause, should prompt Communist Revolutionaries to analyze and ponder over any faults and defects and where it lies.”
Jerry Spring said
All very fine to talk about the great debate, but ‘walk the revolutionary road’ seems to have stopped publishing comments despit being published on email.
Steve Swede said
A proletarian democrat party that wants to realize a classless society and world
must start today with what unites us. All we who are opressed keeping the valuemaking
machinery going must join all our forces against capital and imperial warfare.
And woe to those parties, movements, states that do not lead upward onto this road!
Harsh Thakor said
Mike,I really wished to know the analysis of Kasama project and your views on the Leading Light Communist Organisation which upholds third World Maoism and disqualifies Maoism and Mao Zedong Thought.I feel Lin Biao’s contribution and negative points need to be historically analysed.Some trends totally negate him,but the L.L.C.O even defends Lin to be the true Marxist after 1969 and claims that Mao veered towards revisionism after 1969.Is there any basis for disqualifying the role of the First World proletariat!
I would suggest that Kasama could initiate a debate on the role of Lin Biao in a historical perspective.It should shed light on what forces created him,his positive role and the evidence behind his later capitulationist role.A review could also be made of the 1974 anti-Lin Biaoist movement in light of the 2 line Struggle.I also suggest a study is made on the R.I.M. and the formation of a Communist International.