Sunday, January 20th: Kasama 2
Posted by eric ribellarsi on December 7, 2012
Two tigers are better than one.
Kasama began as a simple blog in December 2007, publishing Nine Letters to Our Comrades, and initiating a conversation over how to overcome two great absences: the absence of a revolutionary movement and organization, and the absence of a revolutionary strategy.
Five years and 5.6 million unique page views later, Kasama has developed an organizational network separate from this website, along with projects and collectives of many kinds and unities throughout the country.
Just after our five year anniversary, we will be launching a new, completely re-vamped site. Kasama has long out-grown the simple blog format, and it is time to experiment with something new.
It will launch as a beta, and some things will still be a work in progress. The old Kasama site will continue to live on archive.kasamaproject.org. The new Kasama site will revolve around three distinct spheres, aimed at contributing to the reconception of communist theory and strategy, and the regroupment of revolutionaries into future serious revolutionary organization:
1. Kasama Main: A radically redesigned magazine style communist publication that will both be more fun to read, and will aim at featuring higher levels of discussion and debate.
2. Kasama Threads: An open blogging platform aiming to allow participants on the Kasama site to do their own blogging and participation, while at the same time fostering the culture of principled and comradely struggle that has come to characterize Kasama.
3. Kasama Social: An independent revolutionary social network built into all aspects of the site, aiming to allow networking, parallel communication, real-time chat, a platform for study groups and organizing, and a lot more. We’ll also be looking at ways to have integration with existing social networks in ways the protect security.
To make all of this happen, we’ll need a new layer of moderators, authors, participants, contributors, and donors (shit is seriously expensive, total costs were about $8,000 plus $2,000 a year for our server). Hit us up and volunteer. Hit that donate button in the top right corner.
In the meantime, the current Kasama site will be slowing down as we prepare for launch.
Here we go! Lal salaam.
Kasama 
Zack said
Fucking pumped!
andrewraygorman said
Very excited! I have been waiting for this. The blogging platform I am particularly interested in – this all sounds like a great chance for us to network better.
thegodlessutopian said
Sounds awesome, will be looking forward to it highly!
Liam Wright said
This is very exciting. I’m really looking forward to the new site!
exval said
Woah, this is very exciting. Any timeline on the release?
Otto said
I’ve really enjoyed visiting this blog. As a Maoist living in Wichita, KS, where I’m pretty much the only serious Maxists I know living here at this time, I’ve enjoyed being able to discuss and debate issues from Marxist all across the nation. I’m looking forward to the new site.
Harsh Thakor said
I wish the very next to this new Kasama site.The Kasama project has been one of the best and most interesting blogs in the Communist camp which consistently fosters the spirit of dissent and debate,so much needed in the Communist Movement.Inspite of great achievements even China in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution did not develop the adequate level of debate,dissent or democratic functioning required in a Socialist Society.Infact the approach is living upto what Bob Avakian advocates of the need for dissent within a Socialist Society.I appreciate Kasama allowing the publishing of so may spheres of thought within the Communist movement and the posts upholding the Maoist era in China and in solidarity with the world people’s struggles.No revolutionary site promoted such a range of views within the leftist camp.
I really wish the next site could do even better than this one.However I still stress that Kasama has a weakness in its grasp of Marxist Leninst polemics and often veers away from the roots of Marxist Leninist polemics towrads revisionism-be it the concept of the vanguard party,the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the role of Comrade Stalin.I wish Kasama could defend the role of Stalin with a greater Marxist Leninist approach rather than drift towards the understanding of the New Left.Infact Kasama needs to critically examine the new left camp like Loius Althusser or Charles Bettleheim.The polemics of Marx,Lenin and Mao have to be defended much more staunchly.
harshthakor said
I reccomend that the new Kasama places greater importance to the mass line and the scope of debate to counter erroneous tendencies within the Marxist -Leninist camp.I would reccomend the postings of the writings of Com.Gonzalo of the P.C.P on the peoples war and the mass line,the writings of the Communist Party of Phillipines on rectification of line towards armed struggle and open work,the writing sof Charu Mazumdar,Kanhai Chatterjee,T.Nagi Reddy and Harbhajan Sohi from India and finally the writings of Com Mao in 1963 on the International Communist Movement.These writings would educate cadres in the concept and need for proletarian dictatorship and the party as a vanguard.In 2013 we commemorate 50 years since the C.C.P.introduced the general line of the International Communist Movement,so it is all the more significant.
I also recommend that Kasama makes a concrete evaluation of Bob Avakian’s New Synthesis and his concept of a Solid Core with lot’s of elasticity.A well evaluated analysis has been made by ‘workersdreadnought’ and a further reply in defence of it by a Ceylonese comrade,Rupasinghe.I also wish that Kasama posts the refutation of ‘Demarcations’ journal on Bernard d’mellows article on Maoism where it is critical of the author calling Marx,Lenin and Mao as radical democrats and nor proletarian revolutionaries.It is also critical of d’mellows upholding of bourgeois democratic thought in place of proletarian dictatorship.Although it wrongly upholds the new Synthesis in its article the demarcations journal upholds some of the fundamental tenets of Mao in the G.P.C.R.and Lenin ,similar to what Raymond Lotta did in Set the Record Straight.
I really wish that in this new work Kasama sharpens it’s grasp of Marxist Leninist polemics,particularly on the concept of the proletarian dictatorship.Debate needs to be promoted but with full grasp of polemics.
All the best again to this great site.
eric ribellarsi said
“I also recommend that Kasama makes a concrete evaluation of Bob Avakian’s New Synthesis and his concept of a Solid Core with lot’s of elasticity.”
Harsh: are you aware that Kasama began with a polemic, Nine Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian’s New Synthesis? A core problem of Bob Avakian’s synthesis is its absolute idealism and lack of any root in the actual practice of revolutionary movements. It is very wrong, in my view, to critique Avakian’s New Synthesis on its own terms and assumptions, rather than rooting it in an understanding of the history and decline of that previous trend (the RCP). In other words: let’s study matter in motion, not the idiosyncracies of a trend which retains no more relevance to making a revolution.
http://kasamaproject.org/pamphlets/9-letters/
Harsh, if you have suggestions of pieces, you can always send them to us at kasamasite@yahoo.com.
andrewraygorman said
“The polemics of Marx,Lenin and Mao have to be defended much more staunchly.”
Why? Why should we have to engage in apologetic – especially with regard to Stalin. We should not turn ourselves into an irrelevant debating society, but into individuals of action. We can utilize history in defense of how to go about the struggle, but I’m not so sure you and I would agree on strategy.
I find two concepts that Stalin advocated, the popular front and “social fascism” to be erroneous and historical failures.
redbean91 said
I don’t believe that it is simply “apologetic” to critically analyze our past, esp. if we are to gain any sort of following at all. To be seen as credible the [Marxist-Leninist] left has to explain Stalin, Mao, etc. within in the broader context of the 20th century communist movement.
All too often are explanations left out or watered down in the interest of presenting either a purely negative or positive view of Marxism-Leninism, an ideology that honestly has a lot to answer for in the eyes of non-communists.
A failure to explain, say, the rise of a powerful and corrupt party bureaucracy in the former Soviet Union that stifled the revolutionary gains of 1917 and straitjacketed the nation’s full potential will only be detrimental to the long term goal of rebuilding the Marxist-Leninist left.
People want answers, and it is up to us to adequately explain the ups and downs of the past. It would be dishonest to hide behind the tired and ultimately rigid narrative IMHO that from 1917-53 the Soviet Union was on an uninterrupted revolutionary path until Khrushchev allegedly betrayed socialism following Stalin’s death. This narrative often ignores or leaves out the negative aspects of C.P.S.U. rule under both Lenin and Stalin in the sole interest of highlighting the positive.
As communists we should strive to be historians, or at the very least stray from dogmatic approaches when explaining the past. We risk otherwise coming off as uncritical purists whom only care about advancing a narrow party line, instead of fostering creative debate.
What I like about Kasama now is that it dares to be critical of the past, and to this day it continues to hold up a complex analysis of Marxism-Leninism, ranging from interpretive, critical essays on the Bolsheviks to Chinese land reform. Nothing is spared from a critical eye.
I hope to see this continue with Kasama 2.
A good basis for what I’m addressing (critical analysis) is the engaging and well-written book Fanshen, by William Hinton. William Hinton took extensive notes on Chinese land reform and village life in the late 1940’s(which was seen as highly subversive at the time during the Second Red Scare) and only managed to finish the book in 1966, over decade after his first visit to China. Combining careful analysis with a critical eye for detail, William Hinton thus did not ignore the abuses of power and/or corruption by communist party cadre, nor did he spare Mao Zedong and/or the communist party in later books/essays from serious criticism and analysis.
Kasama should seek to do the same when reaching back into the past. It is not acceptable IMHO to present the rich yet complex history of Marxism-Leninism etc. in a purely positive or negative light based solely on faulty analysis or worse yet, exaggeration or even distortions.
To paraphrase Karl Marx: “Question everything.”
Hmm said
I ran into this quote and wondered what Kasama comrades think of it:
“Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion — and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again reverts to a new minority.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
Morning Window said
What is the basis for this claim?
“the majority is formed by gangs who have no opinion”
I don’t believe this. If I did, what kind of world would I fight for?
Hmm said
I think the author of the quote was speaking in favor of the oppressed – the minority at that time. I’m just trying to understand if Kasama comrades thinks the truth is in favor of the oppressed.
Hmm said
Well hopefully we will see some strategic line with Kasama 2.
Mike Ely said
I’m not sure what this means:
” I’m just trying to understand if Kasama comrades thinks the truth is in favor of the oppressed.”
Want to explain?
Gary said
Hmm:
I think Kierkegaard (who was in the same class and Friedrich Engels and Mikhail Bakunin taught by the German idealist philosopher Schelling in 1841) made war throughout his all to brief, eccentric life on the state Lutheranism of Denmark, informed as it was by Hegel’s thought and a kind of false certitude that the “truths” of Christianity had been verified by philosophy. He hated the smug self-assurance of people who did not have the capacity to DOUBT, to realize that the claims of Christianity are not logically verifiable but that what seems wise to men is foolishness to God and vice versa (1 Corinthian 1:25), and that to be a Christian is to make a “leap of faith.” His minority position was (as I see it) “Damn it, things are not that clear! And when we pretend that they’re clear, and that we’ve no need for faith because science has confirmed religion, that we don’t need to experience the existential ‘fear and trembling’ involved with religious doubt, then our thinking isn’t honest or valid but an escape.”
In the entry in his Diary that you quote, he was referring to minority views within Christianity. But the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse thought that “Kierkegaard’s work is the last great attempt to restore religion as the ultimate organon for liberating humanity from the destructive impact of an oppressive social order.”
Kierkegaard was all about merciless criticism of existing conditions, based upon his own version of Christianity, and a sense of “truth” based on faith. I don’t agree with his worldview in general (although I loved his writing when I engaged it years ago). But I do think truth is in favor of the oppressed, in the sense that (as Lenin put it) “The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true,” and that only by pursuing the truth in our work will we be able to make advances. Just my two cents.
bezdomni said
” I’m just trying to understand if Kasama comrades thinks the truth is in favor of the oppressed.”
Truth favors those who embrace it.
andrewraygorman said
A correspondence network should be set up to help provide wide coverage of issues on Kasama. I am willing to be one for the North Carolina area.
andrewraygorman said
There is a growing number of socialist bloggers. Though some of us post are rather infrequently, it would be great if there was a site that served as a hub for finding and bringing these individuals views together. Perhaps Kasama will become such a site, which would help with developing a revolutionary dialogue.
akismet-b04d074b69acfd4ea041462211c4fad7 said
I can’t wait!
Bill Fargo said
Redbean91: if you’re interested in a critical examination of the historical development of the communist movement with concentration on the question of state power, I recommend The State and Counter-Revolution by Tom Clark of the now defunct Communist Worker’s Group (ML). This work can be found on the Marxist Internet Archive. Here’s the url to the published material from the CWG: http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1a/index.htm#cwg. One does have to approach this work with an open mind and willingness to think critically, however.
Bill Fargo
redbean91 said
Thanks for the link, I will read it soon. Furthermore, I’m very excited for Kasama 2. I’m even in the process of writing an essay on the Chinese Revolution and hope to finish it soon for eventual publication on Kasama 2 if at all possible.
Natalio Pérez said
I’m going to make sure that everyone gets a K Social account!!!
land said
Thanks Natalio.,
Looking forward to it.
thegodlessutopian said
I agree with what andrewraygorman said in reference to bringing together the growing number of socialist bloggers. I have my own theories to offer from a Queer perspective and I am sure others have their own theories which are sure to assist the process of regrouping and re-conceiving. Hopefully the new site lives up to everyone’s collective expectations. I will be looking forward to the launch (hopefully it hasn’t been delayed).
eric ribellarsi said
For those wondering, it should launch in about 2-3 hours. :)
thegodlessutopian said
Ah, wonderful to hear!!! I will stay up and look at the launch than.I was starting to think it was delayed.
eric ribellarsi said
Ok, site is now launched! If you’re seeing this, clear your cache. It may take several hours for your ISP to update with the address to the new site.
Adrienne said
Would like to reconnect, but the “Open threads” are old, and the “social network” on the new site appears to be filled with spam and crap… Where are the discussions?! I haven’t been here in a while and was hoping to reconnect, but it seems to be a closed site now… Bummer. Nepal just suffered a serious crisis and I wanted to share thoughts on that. :(