In my first post about my upcoming book, The Communist Necessity, I mentioned that there would be an Ottawa book launch coinciding with the Peoples Social Forum. The details of the launch are now available and, if anyone is in Ottawa for the weekend of the PSF, you can either visit the publisher's table (Kersplebedeb, shared with PM Press), where you can buy a copy of my book along with many other great books, or attend the book launch on August 23rd, 5:30 pm at the Avant Garde. I will be speaking at the launch––hopefully there will be a good discussion of the book's subject matter––and socializing after the talk/discussion, surrounded by Soviet kitsch. (Question: is it ironic that a literally communist event is being held at a pub that has adopted communist symbology as ironic, or is there such a thing as counter-irony?)
I'm looking forward to the launch since I would like to finally like to hold a dead-tree copy of something I've written. Hope anyone passing through Ottawa on the 23rd will be able to make it out, buy a book, share a pint.
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| Click on the image and zoom in so you can read the flattering blurb Robert Biel, author of The Entropy of Capitalism and Eurocentrism in the Communist Movement, wrote for the back of the book. |
I'm looking forward to the launch since I would like to finally like to hold a dead-tree copy of something I've written. Hope anyone passing through Ottawa on the 23rd will be able to make it out, buy a book, share a pint.
I hope your book clarifies and makes explicit the difference between Mao Zedong thought and Maoism.
ReplyDeleteSorry, it's not really about that. That is, it is not concerned with explaining the theoretical trajectory of MLM––which is another concern of mine––but is more of a critique of movementism and all of the recent reclamations of "communism". As such it is more of an invitation to think the possibility of revolutionary communism (which is implicitly Maoist due to my theoretical commitments), and a new return to this way of organizing and theorizing, than an excavation of the meaning of Maoist theory.
DeleteAs mentioned at various points on this blog, along with some other projects I am working on a much larger and more involved manuscript (the first draft is finished but I have to clean it up and deal with a lot of its blind spots and structural difficulties) that is an examination of the meaning of MLM which *does* chart the difference between MLM and MLMZT. At the moment, not including the appendix (which will be a slightly revised version of the Maoism or Trotskyism pamphlet), it is just over 300 pages in standard manuscript format. Hopefully *The Communist Necessity* will be successful enough that either Kersplebedeb or another publisher will allow this more academic and rigorous manuscript to see the light of day.
So apologies that *The Communist Necessity* does not address this question; that was not really its point, though the distance between MZT and MLM does indeed manifest, though mainly implicitly, particularly in the small section in which I discuss the anti-revisionist NCM of yesteryear.
So, do you tackle Bob Avakian's New Synthesis?
DeleteI'm going to assume this isn't a trolling comment and an honest question. (I've had a bunch of Avakian spam where either there have been [bad] attempts to parody Avakianite thinking, or attempts to compare me with Avakian for some bizarre reason––I'm not a chairperson of any party but a blogger and activism––but probably mainly due to the fact that I dislike the RCP-USA's post-maoism and am not the biggest fan of its earlier MZT style maoism.)
DeleteSo the answer to your question, if you read the above response, would be no. There is no reason to talk about the new synthesis since: a) it has nothing really to do with the subject matter; b) it is a completely inconsequential theory, at best just a banal repetition of what most communists realized a few years ago and at worst post-maoist garbage; and c) others have already tackled the so-called "new synthesis" and pretty said all that there needs to be said.
So, aren't you the chairman of RCP Canada?
DeleteMany people seem to think that you are, which is why I supposed they might compare you to Avakian.
Argument from the authority of the many… I don't know of this *many* you speak of and I've never heard anyone imagine that I was the chairperson of the PCR-RCP Canada which, by the way, has no association with the RCP-USA aside from a pretty common communist party name that has been used before and after the RCP-USA by parties and groups worldwide.
DeleteStill going to assume this very strange post isn't trolling… I am not the "chairman" of the PCR-RCP and, the "many" people who read my blog would know that I'm not because the organization and its theoretical work existed prior to me. I'm a member of a PCR-RCP affiliated mass organization in Toronto and am a supporter of the party, which is a far cry from being party leadership let alone the "chairman" which is not, at least as far as I know, even a position in the organization. I have yet to encounter an article from the past or present that is stamped with the PCR-RCP name that makes reference to chairperson, nor have I written any of these documents since they existed years before I became interested in this organization.
Damn, wish I was still in Ontario so I could attend. It would be cool to actually meet you in person and the book sounds like an intriguing expansion of ideas you've discussed in your blog posts. Definitely planning to buy a copy online from Kersplebedeb as soon as I get through the half dozen books I picked up on my last trip out east.
ReplyDeleteYes too bad. I like meeting long-time commenters/debaters in person––it makes later interactions seem less alienated.
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