[Marxism] A Maoist critique of Bob Avakian

[Kasama Turner]

In the discussion of my recent critique of Avakian.... There was a very tangential 
question about MIM's use of an old 1970s cartoon of Avakian "pulling the icepick out 
of trotsky's head."

Ethan Young gave some of the details in his recent post here. i.e. that this was part of a series of drawings done by a cartoonist who belonged 
to the faction that left the RCP -- over Avakian's claim that capitalism was being 
restored in China.

So far so good, and I am curious if anyone will now argue that capitalism was
in fact being restored... right?

However, ethan then ends with a short remark: "There was no deeper insult in 
the RCP than to be called a Trot."

Interestingly enough, this is not true.

First: there is a third international tradition of talking about trotskyists as
if they are demons and police agents. However in the history of the Maoist movement 
in the U.S. that view (like so much borrowed from the OLD CPUSA) was concentrated
in the forces like the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, and the October League,
who lifted their politics and aspirations from (what they considered) the "good
days" of the old CPUSA. They were, in many ways, a continuation of the CP in politics
and ideology -- but along a road that was more critical of the Soviet Union, and with 
and organizational break.

It is revealing that the RWH (at that point) even repeats the CP's impression 
that Trotsky was killed with an "ice pick" not an alpine pick ax. It was part of their
conscious approach of "the facts don't fucking matter" in regard to Trotsky,
Trotskyism or any opposition to their views. It is a mindless and cynical legacy 
that we should (obviously)never endorse or repeat.

As for the RCP, I can honestly say that in 35 years around that party, I have never 
heard anyone accused of trotskyism, and can barely remember trotskyism being mentioned.
Literally. Now, I imagine that is not universally true -- but it IS true enough to be
a capsule of the RCP's overall approach.

I think we could sum that up this way: Those close to the CPUSA considered Trotskyism
heresy. Those in the RCP considered trotskyism irrelevant.

Past of this is the depth of break with the Third International -- with some forces 
hoisting the "five heads" (i.e. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao), and others (including
specifically the RCP very pointedly only hoisting "three heads" (i.e. Marx, Lenin, Mao).

The break with Stalin has been far deeper in the RCP -- including a break with the politics 
United Front against Fascism, the support for popular front governments, the upholding
of nationalism in imperialist countries, the argument that classes had been eliminated and socialism
fully consolidated in the Soviet Union by the thirties, or that socialism had been fully consolidated 
under STalin. These theories were explicitly criticized by Avakian, who called them, "rightist
errors of a fundamental kind," (which is strong wording in the RCP's framework).

One of my arguments, in the polemic I just finished, is that the RCP opened the door
to a fresh and scientific summation of the USSR, but has not yet taken up that task
correctly.

Here is what we wrote in our "9 Letters to Our Comrades":

"Everyone knows that understanding capitalist restoration in the Soviet
Union is important. But how can a movement claim to have a real
analysis of those events without working up a credible materialist
history of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s? How is it
possible to assess the Stalin years (with all their complexity, heroism
and horror) without having any real analysis of the struggles of the
1930s, including the events called “the purges” 
in the late thirties? And how can a party claim to “Set the Record
Straight” if it makes no effort to learn from the new scholarship and
argumentation based on the mountains of information contained
in the now-opened Soviet archives? How can we more deeply sum up either
the revolution or the counter-revolution in China without a credible
materialist history of major events like the Great Leap Forward or the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution?"

In a footnote to that paragraph, I write:

"The purges refers to events of the late thirties: the trials of
previous party leaders, the imprisonment and execution of large parts
of the Red Army officer corps, and the mass arrests and convulsions of
the Yezhovshchina. The RCP explores the Soviet  experience in a number 
of places including Mao’s  Immortal Contributions, Conquer the World, 
and in a pocket summation called  “The Question of Stalin and ‘Stalinism’” (Revolution,
Fall 1990, p. 13-17). One neglected work was “Advancing the World
Revolutionary Movement: Questions of Strategic Orientation,” that
raised important questions about previous approaches toward building an
“international united front” against a single “main enemy.” However, what 
stands out in these discussions of the Soviet experience itself is that 
schematic evaluations of Stalin’s methods and
ideology often remain separated from an in-depth analysis of the actual
events and trends within the Soviet society itself.. There is a
methodological focus on a textual reading (and critique) of writings by
Stalin and others. There is much less focus on a dialectical
materialist uncovering of how this society developed and changed
(including those dynamics which are obscured, not revealed, by official
texts and contemporary summations). For example, there is a repeated
discussion of Stalin’s tendency to mix up different types of
contradictions in the use of methods of repression and dictatorship,
but little actual analysis of how those social contradictions erupted,
what actually happened in the late 30s and what impact it actually had
on society and the socialist revolution. As a result, quite a bit of
inherited “political truth” remains unchallenged and quite a few of the
more difficult historical questions are functionally avoided. It is, in
short, still far from “going for the truth rather than hiding things.”
This is a call for deepening the Maoist analysis of the restoration of 
capitalism in the Soviet Union, including through on going research into
the new evidence emerging in Russia, and also by looking far more deeply
and concretely into the history of that first socialist revolution.

As for the question of Trotskyism: our analysis is certainly not trotskyist, 
in anyway. But (again in contrast to Ethan's remark) i have never viewed
trotskyism as a "demon within." And in the "9 Letters" we even reference
some research done by Tony Cliff on early Bolshevik history -- a mention, though
not as an endorsement of his well-known and particular analysis of the post 1924 events.

Yours in the great adventure of human liberation

Mike Ely
kasamasite at yahoo.com
mikeely.wordpress.com




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