Over on Mike Ely’s blog, a tizzy is being thrown over RCP’s “non response.”
But really, Mike Ely and Co. got a response- just not the one they wanted.
Instead of some sort of air time in the form of a name-drop or a response to the whatever points Nine Letters purportedly contains, the RCP published a wordy “Fuck You” anonymously directed to Mike and the rest of the rightist splitters.
But why should Mike and the rest of the disaffected RCPers expect anything more? Afterall, MIM has been pointing out flaws and revisionist thinking within the RCP for decades. The RCP nor Mike Ely have ever attempted to respond to these criticisms or any others coming from a similar direction. Fuck, I published a direct criticism a few months ago and there hasn’t been a single response, not even vague indirect ones.
So I have to ask, why in the world does Mike Ely think his trite little “critique” deserves some sort of special attention?
Showing posts with label ex-RCP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ex-RCP. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Nine Letters “Critique” of RCP Drops, No Big Deal.
Around the First World pseudo-maoist pseudo-scene, a small fervor is building around a document entitled Nine Letters to Our Comrades. The document, billed as a “maoist” critique of the RCP, was collectively written and attributed to Mike Ely, a former high-level stage-manager inside the party.
To their credit, Mike Ely and Co. have taken “maoist” creative writing to a new level. Flowery language does well to cover-up for lack of substance. But substance isn’t what Mike Ely is about; hyperbole and idealism is. No doubt, this document is somewhat of a rallying cry for many disaffected pseudo-maoist.
Per usual, Red Guard Camp isn’t impressed. In the cliché “maoist” fashion, Nine Letters runs roughshod over material class analysis, instead preferring abstract conjectures. The actual critique of the RCP is that “real mass-line” has taken a backseat to the Avakian personality-cult.
Red Guard Camp understands this for what it is: another link in the chain of endless platitudes and polemics about “mass-line,” the usual idealist and subjective class “analysis,” and another twist and one more split in the New “Communist” Movement.
All and all this document doesn’t matter. Just like every other splitter document in the sordid history of the NCM, it has little weight and will result in absolutely nothing of significance. There is about an ice cubes chance in hell that any sort of functioning political entity will congeal around this document. Rather, Mike Ely looks to be another Ben Seattle, doomed to spend the rest of his active life handing down lofty pronouncements to a handful of delusional and often times transient adherents.
Perhaps the best utility in Nine Letters is that it may fatally wreck the RCP. This would most definitely be a good thing since RCP has spent the last decade wrecking Maoism internationally. Personally though, I ambivalent about whether another organization springs forth or if the RCP chugs on mostly unscathed. Between a third FRSO or a new-age cult pyramid scheme that claims “Maoism,” neither one is much better than the other.
Good riddance to the whole lot,
Red Guard Camper
P.S. Someone should forward Nine Letters to Scott Harrison. I’m sure this is just the type of thing he’s looking for.
To their credit, Mike Ely and Co. have taken “maoist” creative writing to a new level. Flowery language does well to cover-up for lack of substance. But substance isn’t what Mike Ely is about; hyperbole and idealism is. No doubt, this document is somewhat of a rallying cry for many disaffected pseudo-maoist.
Per usual, Red Guard Camp isn’t impressed. In the cliché “maoist” fashion, Nine Letters runs roughshod over material class analysis, instead preferring abstract conjectures. The actual critique of the RCP is that “real mass-line” has taken a backseat to the Avakian personality-cult.
Red Guard Camp understands this for what it is: another link in the chain of endless platitudes and polemics about “mass-line,” the usual idealist and subjective class “analysis,” and another twist and one more split in the New “Communist” Movement.
All and all this document doesn’t matter. Just like every other splitter document in the sordid history of the NCM, it has little weight and will result in absolutely nothing of significance. There is about an ice cubes chance in hell that any sort of functioning political entity will congeal around this document. Rather, Mike Ely looks to be another Ben Seattle, doomed to spend the rest of his active life handing down lofty pronouncements to a handful of delusional and often times transient adherents.
Perhaps the best utility in Nine Letters is that it may fatally wreck the RCP. This would most definitely be a good thing since RCP has spent the last decade wrecking Maoism internationally. Personally though, I ambivalent about whether another organization springs forth or if the RCP chugs on mostly unscathed. Between a third FRSO or a new-age cult pyramid scheme that claims “Maoism,” neither one is much better than the other.
Good riddance to the whole lot,
Red Guard Camper
P.S. Someone should forward Nine Letters to Scott Harrison. I’m sure this is just the type of thing he’s looking for.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
A History of “Mass Line” Failings, The New Communist Movement Then And Now, pt 3 of 4
The concrete history of the failings of mass-line idealism is deeply intertwined with the history of the New Communist Movement [sic]. Part 2.9 of this series dealt with the who’s who of the New Communist Movement. This article will elucidate the political context of the New Communist Movement and relate it to the dismal record of the “mass-line.”
-----------------------
The New Communist Movement was conceived in the turbulent 1960’s. The years preceding the induction of the NCM was marked by mass radicalization [including very healthy national liberation trends] within amerika and a global upswing in worldwide revolutionary movements led by the example Maoism. Unfortunately, even before NCM fully came into being, this trend began to reverse: a visible decline in U.S radicalism had begun and the Cultural Revolution had already been dealt a number of serious blows. Understanding this context is key to understanding the NCM and much of its errors.
While the New Communist Movement never had a unified political line, there is a specific set of political characteristics were widely descriptive of it. First, the NCM was deeply influenced, at least in form, by Maoism. Second, the NCM ran slipshodly over class analysis and held that amerika was majority exploited. Third, they declared that a “genuine” vanguard party was needed to organize the “masses” and lead them towards revolution. Lastly, they often held that the way to do this was through “mass-line.”
On a personal level, Red Guard Camp sympathizes with the early NCM. A period of astounding revolutionary energy followed by an immediate and irreversible die-off in radicalism must have thrown many genuine comrades through quite a loop. From this perspective it is easy to understand how and why such conclusions were reached. Additionally, not all of these erroneous ideas can be solely attributed to the RYM and early NCM. During this same period, the supposed vanguard of revolutionary thought and practice- The Chinese Communist Party- upheld an incorrect line regarding the extend of parasitism and the labor aristocracy. In this regard, uncritically following the lead of the CCP and so-called “Marxist” conventional wisdom helped push the NCM into wrong positions.
On the other hand, understanding the conditions which lead to specific errors is not the same as excusing these errors or those who commit them. Indeed, it is not like the NCM couldn’t have made a scientific class analysis itself. There were a few comrades of the period who were raising serious questions about the role of parasitism and the labor aristocracy. Likewise, there were historical references to the labor aristocracy by Engles, Lenin, the Communist International and indirectly Lin Piao. But all and all revolutionary science was vastly overshadowed by the “sounds good, feels good” politics of the day.
But the point here is not to further beat down the NCM. There isn’t really much use in that since there isn’t a “NCM” to correct. Maoists must critically assess the errors of the NCM so that we can push revolutionary science further. We must understand the NCM’s errors but also their root causes so that we ourselves do not perpetuate them.
Nearly four decades has passed since the NCM came into to being and something like twenty years since it was reduced to a degenerated mess. This hindsight has turned out to be quite valuable as it has given us not only four decades to further study to extent of imperialist parasitism but also two to objectively study to the NCM itself. People who are unable to render both of these things, a critical reassessment of imperialism and an objective critique of the NCM, into a synthesized conclusion cannot be called scientific Maoists.
But alas, that is exactly what we have today: people calling themselves “Maoists” who are blindly committing the exact same mistakes.. But before we go any further, lets take a look at the historic failings of the NCM’s mass-line idealism.
The NCM’s erroneous “mass-line” fixation is perhaps nowhere better documented than massline.info. This website is [I assume] ran by one Scott Harrison. At the top of the main page, the first paragraph explains that the website is “devoted to mass-line” [bold in original]. This is no mischaracterization. The website worships the “mass-line” with an air of religiosity.
According to Scott H., he was expelled from the RCP in 1977 for having an interpretation of the “mass-line” that was, in his own words, “that of Mao Zedong’s.” Besides maintaining massline.info, Scott H. has also spent the several years working on a still uncompleted book about the “mass-line.”
The website itself contains documents stretching all the way back to 1976. Most of them are of various NCM groups going back and forth on how to correctly apply the “mass-line.” Interestingly, in the entire website there is not one mention of global class analysis and no serious mentions of the labor aristocracy. Humorous, in a page about his failed attempts to create a “New Revolutionary Organization Which Actually Uses the Mass Line!” and in a section reserves for links of “Ongoing Current Efforts to Create New Revolutionary Communist Organizations,” Scott H. writes, “If anyone is part of, or knows about, other current efforts along similar lines, please let us know!”
So after 40 years of endless polemics and platitudes about “mass-line,” have we ever seen its successful implementation in the First World? No, not one single example. All we have is pathetic Scott. H. fanatically clinging to his bankrupt ideals of a “genuine mass-line.” One would think Maoists today would have learned a great deal by the NCM’s grave errors. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Today we have phoney-Maoists committing the exact same mistakes in the exact same fashion. Rather than undertaking a scientific investigation of global class structure, today’s maoist-wannabes are still running around idealistically promulgating erroneous ideas about the mass-line. For these fakers, its almost as if the NCM and their failings never existed. It’s even getting to the point where they are splitting and reforming over “mass-line.” It’s sick and overall damaging to Maoism and world revolution generally.
The idealistic errors of the Revolutionary Youth Movement turned into a deviation for the early New Communist Movement. This in turn became a full blown new First World revisionist movement when the NCM finally got some air [some air] under its wings. Now this “mass-line” revisionism is replicating itself with people like Leftspot and blogging collectives like Good Morning, Revolution.
Any new efforts towards a “genuine revolutionary practice of mass-line” and a corresponding "genuine revolutionary party" will fall hard fast. The objective history of the “mass-line” proves this. But like everything else, pseudo-maoists prefer idealism, subjectivism and ahistorical tripe over materialism.
Underpinning Leftspot’s idealist approach to history is an outright metaphysical approach to who the “masses” are. The pseudo-maoist problem with mass-line is at its heart an incorrect assessment of imperialism and extent of parasitism. Until so-called “Maoists“ can correctly answer, “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?,” no matter what they pronounce almost anything they try to do in a “revolutionary” manner will end in great disappointment. Thus has been the history of the New Communist Movement and pseudo-maoism generally.
Next Part: Mass-Line, Applications for the First World?
-----------------------
The New Communist Movement was conceived in the turbulent 1960’s. The years preceding the induction of the NCM was marked by mass radicalization [including very healthy national liberation trends] within amerika and a global upswing in worldwide revolutionary movements led by the example Maoism. Unfortunately, even before NCM fully came into being, this trend began to reverse: a visible decline in U.S radicalism had begun and the Cultural Revolution had already been dealt a number of serious blows. Understanding this context is key to understanding the NCM and much of its errors.
While the New Communist Movement never had a unified political line, there is a specific set of political characteristics were widely descriptive of it. First, the NCM was deeply influenced, at least in form, by Maoism. Second, the NCM ran slipshodly over class analysis and held that amerika was majority exploited. Third, they declared that a “genuine” vanguard party was needed to organize the “masses” and lead them towards revolution. Lastly, they often held that the way to do this was through “mass-line.”
On a personal level, Red Guard Camp sympathizes with the early NCM. A period of astounding revolutionary energy followed by an immediate and irreversible die-off in radicalism must have thrown many genuine comrades through quite a loop. From this perspective it is easy to understand how and why such conclusions were reached. Additionally, not all of these erroneous ideas can be solely attributed to the RYM and early NCM. During this same period, the supposed vanguard of revolutionary thought and practice- The Chinese Communist Party- upheld an incorrect line regarding the extend of parasitism and the labor aristocracy. In this regard, uncritically following the lead of the CCP and so-called “Marxist” conventional wisdom helped push the NCM into wrong positions.
On the other hand, understanding the conditions which lead to specific errors is not the same as excusing these errors or those who commit them. Indeed, it is not like the NCM couldn’t have made a scientific class analysis itself. There were a few comrades of the period who were raising serious questions about the role of parasitism and the labor aristocracy. Likewise, there were historical references to the labor aristocracy by Engles, Lenin, the Communist International and indirectly Lin Piao. But all and all revolutionary science was vastly overshadowed by the “sounds good, feels good” politics of the day.
But the point here is not to further beat down the NCM. There isn’t really much use in that since there isn’t a “NCM” to correct. Maoists must critically assess the errors of the NCM so that we can push revolutionary science further. We must understand the NCM’s errors but also their root causes so that we ourselves do not perpetuate them.
Nearly four decades has passed since the NCM came into to being and something like twenty years since it was reduced to a degenerated mess. This hindsight has turned out to be quite valuable as it has given us not only four decades to further study to extent of imperialist parasitism but also two to objectively study to the NCM itself. People who are unable to render both of these things, a critical reassessment of imperialism and an objective critique of the NCM, into a synthesized conclusion cannot be called scientific Maoists.
But alas, that is exactly what we have today: people calling themselves “Maoists” who are blindly committing the exact same mistakes.. But before we go any further, lets take a look at the historic failings of the NCM’s mass-line idealism.
The NCM’s erroneous “mass-line” fixation is perhaps nowhere better documented than massline.info. This website is [I assume] ran by one Scott Harrison. At the top of the main page, the first paragraph explains that the website is “devoted to mass-line” [bold in original]. This is no mischaracterization. The website worships the “mass-line” with an air of religiosity.
According to Scott H., he was expelled from the RCP in 1977 for having an interpretation of the “mass-line” that was, in his own words, “that of Mao Zedong’s.” Besides maintaining massline.info, Scott H. has also spent the several years working on a still uncompleted book about the “mass-line.”
The website itself contains documents stretching all the way back to 1976. Most of them are of various NCM groups going back and forth on how to correctly apply the “mass-line.” Interestingly, in the entire website there is not one mention of global class analysis and no serious mentions of the labor aristocracy. Humorous, in a page about his failed attempts to create a “New Revolutionary Organization Which Actually Uses the Mass Line!” and in a section reserves for links of “Ongoing Current Efforts to Create New Revolutionary Communist Organizations,” Scott H. writes, “If anyone is part of, or knows about, other current efforts along similar lines, please let us know!”
So after 40 years of endless polemics and platitudes about “mass-line,” have we ever seen its successful implementation in the First World? No, not one single example. All we have is pathetic Scott. H. fanatically clinging to his bankrupt ideals of a “genuine mass-line.” One would think Maoists today would have learned a great deal by the NCM’s grave errors. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Today we have phoney-Maoists committing the exact same mistakes in the exact same fashion. Rather than undertaking a scientific investigation of global class structure, today’s maoist-wannabes are still running around idealistically promulgating erroneous ideas about the mass-line. For these fakers, its almost as if the NCM and their failings never existed. It’s even getting to the point where they are splitting and reforming over “mass-line.” It’s sick and overall damaging to Maoism and world revolution generally.
The idealistic errors of the Revolutionary Youth Movement turned into a deviation for the early New Communist Movement. This in turn became a full blown new First World revisionist movement when the NCM finally got some air [some air] under its wings. Now this “mass-line” revisionism is replicating itself with people like Leftspot and blogging collectives like Good Morning, Revolution.
Any new efforts towards a “genuine revolutionary practice of mass-line” and a corresponding "genuine revolutionary party" will fall hard fast. The objective history of the “mass-line” proves this. But like everything else, pseudo-maoists prefer idealism, subjectivism and ahistorical tripe over materialism.
Underpinning Leftspot’s idealist approach to history is an outright metaphysical approach to who the “masses” are. The pseudo-maoist problem with mass-line is at its heart an incorrect assessment of imperialism and extent of parasitism. Until so-called “Maoists“ can correctly answer, “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?,” no matter what they pronounce almost anything they try to do in a “revolutionary” manner will end in great disappointment. Thus has been the history of the New Communist Movement and pseudo-maoism generally.
Next Part: Mass-Line, Applications for the First World?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
A Brief 'Biography' of the New Communist Movement. Part 2.9 of 4
In the next installment of this series on the "mass-line," Red Guard Camp will be discussing the New Communist Movement [sic]. As a lead up to this, RGC is here posting a brief 'biographical' history of the NCM.
To be clear: the following is not a Maoist analysis. The purpose of this post is to make Part 3 more accessible and better understandable to the majority of possible readers.
------------------------
Students for a Democratic Society was a student coalition of liberals and radicals that rose to prominence throughout the United Snakes during the mid-late 1960’s. As the war against the people of Vietnam raged and the worldwide revolutionary movement was in ebb, the character of SDS began to grow more radical. Along with this tendency in towards heightened militancy and radicalism, two specific trends began to emerge: one, led by the Progressive Labor Party, which put into prominence the role of the U.S. "working" class; and another, inspired by Third World national liberation struggles and Maoism, which emphasized the anti-imperialist struggles of oppressed nations. SDS soon split along these lines with the latter group taking the name Revolutionary Youth Movement.
But it wasn’t long before RYM split also. The first part of RYM, RYM1, advocated immediate armed struggle against the imperialist system. This group soon turned their advocacy into action and became the Weather Underground Organization. The second group, RYM2, argued that the conditions for armed struggle were premature. Hence, they called for the building of Marxist-Leninist vanguard parties as a prelude to this eventual revolution. This second group is what became known as the New Communist Movement [sic].
After the NCM agreed that the path to revolution was through vanguard proletarian parties, they split on how to build such parties. That is an understatement. They split, split and then reformed- and then split again- over how to do this.
A good linear example of this is the Revolutionary Worker’s Headquarters. RWH, which was a splitter from the Revolutionary Communist Part (previously Bay Area Revolutionary Union, an original member of RYM2), joined with Proletarian Unity League (another RYM2 descendant) and the Organization for Revolutionary Unity (which was created through the merger of two RYM2 groups) to form Freedom Road Socialist Organization. FRSO consequently split into two organizations which both retain the same name.
So where is the “New Communist Movement” today? There are a few groups today, such as RCP and FRSO, which have linear continuity with the NCM. But on a much more important level the NCM is nowhere and everywhere. They are nowhere is the sense that almost no one still claims to be part of the NCM: the term itself has largely been swept into the dustbin of “leftist” history. At the same time the NCM is everywhere in the sense that, even after it nominally died, the characteristic errors that led to its overall degeneration are being committed today by those that call themselves Maoists [see “Fake-Maoist Links” for a few examples].
And while the physical continuity, the who’s who, of the NCM is complex, it is not important. What is important is politics: the political context, political errors and political lessons that should have been learned. It is from this vantage point that we will pick up our discussion of the NCM and more broadly the historic failings on the part of mass-line idealism.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Roots of "Mass-Line" Idealism, pt 2 of 4
Last time I ragged pretty hard on Leftspot[sic] for his misapplication of the mass-line. Today I’m going to elaborate a bit more on this issue.
The root problem is basic. At the heart of Leftspot’s mass-line problem is a class-analysis problem. To be precise, a problem of an idealist and subjective class analysis instead of a materialist one. To be fair, this problem is not one that is exclusive to Leftspot and his ilk. In reality, the problem of a haphazard appreciation for scientific class analysis is one that spans across the vast majority of First World “Maoist” entities.
Mao took class analysis seriously. So much so that the first eight words of his Selected Works are “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” For the revolution in China to succeed, communists had to have a basic grasp of not only class relations in China, but also how those classes related to outside forces. A scientific approach to these questions was at the forefront of Mao’s mind long before he started thinking about how to apply the mass-line.
For fake maoists today, the situation is reversed. “Mass-line” takes precedence while scientific class analysis takes a back seat. Leftspot and those like him simply do not take global class structure seriously. It is from this perspective that I say those like Leftspot are not practitioners of Maoism.
To what degree fakes are willing to tackle this fundamental issue, it is from a position of idealism and subjectivism, not one of materialism. What they end up with is an analysis that sounds nice; not one that is correct. Their class analysis is what they want to believe- not one that in its totality corresponds to reality.
Leftspot thinks that amerika is majority exploited. He holds this view despite all evidence suggesting otherwise. Leftspot is simply living in fantasy, not the real world.
But this series is not about global class structure or the pseudo-maoist pseudo-analysis of it: it’s about “mass-line.” And all you have to remember is that according to maoist fakes like Leftspot, mass-line is widely applicable inside amerika.
Next Part: The continuous failings of "mass-line" idealism.
See you next week,
Red Guard Camper
Update 12-13-07: Just so that everyone is aware, Leftspot's policy on this has been to thus far ignore it. He has gone so far as to delete a simple comment on his blog that said "Response to 'Fred Hampton Day' " and directed people to the first post in this series. Apparently Leftspot finds himself unable to defend his views. We'll see if he comes around by the end. I'll keep everyone updated.
Update #2: In case people are wondering, Part 3 is titled "A History of 'Mass-Line' Failings, The New Communist Movement Then And Now." But first I have to drop Part 2.9, "A Brief 'Biography' of the New Communist Movement." Those of you in the so-called "Maoist" blogosphere should really follow up on this stuff.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Response to "Fred Hampton Day"
Around the pseudo-maoist blogsphere, Leftspot[sic] put out a call for a day of blogging dedicated to Fred Hampton, the Chicago Black Panther who was murdered by the pigs on December 4th, 1969. The response to this call was pretty dismal and as always thoroughly unimpressive.
All and all, the “Fred Hampton Day” posts were really lame. Very few focused in the least bit on his line. Most were biographies with little value. These blogs would have been better off to just post a link to wikipedia.
Leftspot’s post was by far the best. This is due to the fact that it wasn’t a biography and it did focus on Hampton’s politics. However, this blog was unable to make any critical assessment of these politics almost 40 years after the fact. Likewise, instead of relating Hampton’s politics to current situations, Leftspot just dogmatically applies Hampton’s praxis regarding internally oppressed nationalities (specifically the Black nation) during the 60’s to amerika as a whole today. This particular type of unscientific reasoning is the result of an idealist, not materialist, view of global class structures and history.
Leftspot’s post focuses a lot on “mass-line.” For those that are unaware, mass-line is a Maoist method of organizing and mobilizing the masses. In mass-line, the revolutionary organization takes the needs, desires, ideas from the masses and returns it to them synthesized with revolutionary politics. From here, the masses and the cadres can engage in these ideas, plans, campaigns etc together and thereby solidify their ties. The Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program is an example of mass-line.
Leftspot, in his general noncomprehension of global class structures, slavishly applies “mass-line” to the First World where there is no mass base for revolution. In this respect, Leftspot differs from Bob Avakian and the RCP which has all but given up on mass-line, declaring it to be reformist in nature and “workerist” (whatever the fuck that means). Although a mere intuitive assessment of the futility of applying mass-line in the context of the First World, Bob Avakian and the RCP are nonetheless more correct than LeftSpot.
Leftspot, in his idiotic redundancy, states that people learn from observation and participation. He says that revolutionaries need to learn the same way: by getting out there and by, in a “revolutionary” way, working around the issues felt by the “masses”. Red Guard Camp sincerely hopes that Leftspot follows his own advise. Only by getting out there and working with no success will people like him be able to intuitively understand that there is no revolutionary potential amongst the First World “masses.”
Of course, there is an easier way to figure this out. That is by global class analysis: studying who’s living off whom. It’s not hard. Unfortunately people like Leftspot and the whole pseudo-marxist bunch have proven time and time again that they simply do not care about facts, numbers or statistics.
Oh well Leftspot, I guess you’ll find out the hard way.
Later,
Red Guard Camper
Update: RGC has decided to make this a four (maybe five) part series on "Mass-Line".
--------------------------------------------
As a comparison to LeftSpot’s platitudes, RGC invites everyone to view a recent post by Monkey Smashes Heaven. In this post, MSH celebrates the 100th birthday of Lin Piao by offering a current assessment of his line. Through viewing both of these posts (LeftSpot's and MSH’s), one can see for themselves and better understand the difference between a Maoist and a non-maoist analysis.
All and all, the “Fred Hampton Day” posts were really lame. Very few focused in the least bit on his line. Most were biographies with little value. These blogs would have been better off to just post a link to wikipedia.
Leftspot’s post was by far the best. This is due to the fact that it wasn’t a biography and it did focus on Hampton’s politics. However, this blog was unable to make any critical assessment of these politics almost 40 years after the fact. Likewise, instead of relating Hampton’s politics to current situations, Leftspot just dogmatically applies Hampton’s praxis regarding internally oppressed nationalities (specifically the Black nation) during the 60’s to amerika as a whole today. This particular type of unscientific reasoning is the result of an idealist, not materialist, view of global class structures and history.
Leftspot’s post focuses a lot on “mass-line.” For those that are unaware, mass-line is a Maoist method of organizing and mobilizing the masses. In mass-line, the revolutionary organization takes the needs, desires, ideas from the masses and returns it to them synthesized with revolutionary politics. From here, the masses and the cadres can engage in these ideas, plans, campaigns etc together and thereby solidify their ties. The Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program is an example of mass-line.
Leftspot, in his general noncomprehension of global class structures, slavishly applies “mass-line” to the First World where there is no mass base for revolution. In this respect, Leftspot differs from Bob Avakian and the RCP which has all but given up on mass-line, declaring it to be reformist in nature and “workerist” (whatever the fuck that means). Although a mere intuitive assessment of the futility of applying mass-line in the context of the First World, Bob Avakian and the RCP are nonetheless more correct than LeftSpot.
Leftspot, in his idiotic redundancy, states that people learn from observation and participation. He says that revolutionaries need to learn the same way: by getting out there and by, in a “revolutionary” way, working around the issues felt by the “masses”. Red Guard Camp sincerely hopes that Leftspot follows his own advise. Only by getting out there and working with no success will people like him be able to intuitively understand that there is no revolutionary potential amongst the First World “masses.”
Of course, there is an easier way to figure this out. That is by global class analysis: studying who’s living off whom. It’s not hard. Unfortunately people like Leftspot and the whole pseudo-marxist bunch have proven time and time again that they simply do not care about facts, numbers or statistics.
Oh well Leftspot, I guess you’ll find out the hard way.
Later,
Red Guard Camper
Update: RGC has decided to make this a four (maybe five) part series on "Mass-Line".
--------------------------------------------
As a comparison to LeftSpot’s platitudes, RGC invites everyone to view a recent post by Monkey Smashes Heaven. In this post, MSH celebrates the 100th birthday of Lin Piao by offering a current assessment of his line. Through viewing both of these posts (LeftSpot's and MSH’s), one can see for themselves and better understand the difference between a Maoist and a non-maoist analysis.
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