"All Played Out"

Recently, Workers Dreadnought has been posting a series on Bob Avakian's so-called "new synthesis."  Although many of us in the international maoist movement, just like so many communists and leftists in general, have dismissed the "new synthesis" for being neither "new" or "synthetic", there has not been many sustained attempts at engaging all of its claims.  And though non-engagement might be a viable strategy when it comes to hair-brained attempts at new grand universalizing revolutionary theories (for it is often to pay these theories no attention and let them die as they probably will), there is some worth in engaging with the RCP-USA's "new synthesis."  Not because there is necessarily any worth in engaging with an organization that has degenerated into a religious cabal––you won't convince dogmatists that their dogma is wrong with critical thinking––but because of the damage and confusion this theoretical articulation has caused amongst the international maoist movement.  Thus, the Workers Dreadnought series is a welcome and useful engagement and has so far done a very thorough job of pointing out the limitations, the lack of depth, and the failure of Avakian's theory to be anything remarkably new or synthetic.

Generally, when we critique the RCP-USA we tend to focus on their form rather than the content of their thought.  The weakest point to attack is the cult-like manner in which they have grouped themselves around a man who was never entirely relevant to the revolutionary scene in America, though he imagined himself to be another Lenin.  This is, arguably, the most obvious way to dismiss a group that claims it is relevant; after all, it is hard to take a group of people who launch "away with all gods" campaigns seriously when they appear to worship their chairman.  A revolutionary group that resembles the Moonies seems somewhat silly (especially when they spend time and money posting their pope's head all over the place and even at Burning Man) and so it is quite easy to dismiss them through a simple rejection of the Bob Avakian cult of personality.

And yet the potential silliness of the Avakian cult, because it is their obvious weakness, is what the RCP-USA is always prepared to defend.  If you've ever spoken to a young Avakianite cadre about this problem you are probably familiar with their counter-argument: the charge of "cult of personality" is a bourgeois and reactionary charge that has always been used to dismiss communism, thus by making it you are a bourgeois and reactionary, and anyways Bob Avakian is like Lenin.  Yes, I know this is simplifying their counter-argument, but it really breaks down to this logical fallacy.  Of course, it generally doesn't work to: a) fostering cults of personality only provide bourgeois reactionaries with more anti-communist fodder; b) maybe cults of personality themselves are bourgeois and have had a negative effect on worldwide communist movements (i.e. think Hoxha, think Gonzalo); c) and the comparison between Avakian and Lenin has no historical basis.  The problem with cultists, like Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses, is that they really aren't good at listening to arguments.  Once you've deviated from the talking points they have in their how-to-argue-with-the-unconverted guidebooks (i.e. Bullets or BAsics), they get confused and start yammering on about principles and their revolution, and etcetera.

Like a fundamentalist christian group or a cult, the RCP-USA falsely believes it is being persecuted.

Thus, it is far more worthwhile to engage with the theory (or, in the case of the "new synthesis", the lack of theory) that overdetermines the form of these cabals.  Such an engagement, it must be said, will not be useful in convincing dogmatists of their erroneous thinking (fanatics are always difficult to sway) but could help in producing a critical understanding amongst the broader revolutionary left about why a group like the RCP-USA is the way it is, why it no longer can even claim to be the vanguard in the USA, and perhaps teaching us something about avoiding the theoretical pitfalls that produce these degenerating groups.

If anything, these types of critiques reveal how bankrupt these groups are when they reply and publicly prove that they are incapable of critical thinking.  Take, for example, the second Workers Dreadnought post on the "new synthesis" where the Avakianites have started to respond in the comments string.  Not one of these comments engages with the critique; instead they attack the author with dogmatic pronouncements and condemnations.  This is probably because the people issuing these comments don't really understand the "new synthesis" themselves.

The first comment argues that by attacking Bob Avakian's "new synthesis", Workers Dreadnought is helping the reactionaries.  First of all, one has to assume that Avakian represents a significant threat to the reactionaries before being able to claim that any attack on his theory helps reactionaries, and judging by the sorry state of the RCP-USA, this is doubtful––chances are, the very existence of the RCP-USA helps the reactionaries because it makes revolutionary communists look silly, it proves the bourgeois reactionary claim that communism is "the same as any other religion", and its behaviour on the international scene in the most recent years (where its chauvinism led to the collapse of the Revolutionary International Movement) has armed worldwide reaction.  Even still, is arguing against a possible revolutionary thinker helping reactionaries?  Lenin, who Avakian is supposedly the reincarnation of, didn't think so––he welcomed the critique of Luxemburg and other communists, and was always willing to exchange polemics with principled comrades, because it sharpened his theory.  Hell, Mao even said "to be attacked is a good thing."  And it is important to note that the author of Workers Dreadnought even replies to a later comment by saying "I am every other communist who argued with Lenin when he was alive, leader or rank-and-file, and whom he had to win over to his positions."  But since I think Avakian is closer to a revisionist than a revolutionary, I would say that any principled and thoughtful critique on Avakian is actually similar (though maybe history repeating as farce) to Luxemburg's attacks on Kautsky.  This type of critique actually helps revolutionaries rather than reactionaries: it is important to struggle against revisionist theory.

Then is the typical and predictable lapses into comparing Avakian with Lenin.  Yes, every ideological party formation imagines that their leader is akin to Lenin, and I suppose these leaders fantasize every night about leading revolutions, but simply believing that this is the fact does not make it so.  Furthermore, I would imagine that a comparison between Avakian and Lenin would require a knowledge of Lenin and Lenin's theoretical-practical accomplishments.  Unfortunately, I have yet to meet a contemporary RCP-USA cadre who seems to have even read Lenin (and I must point out that older members, from decades ago, are quite well-read), let alone Marx or Mao or anyone else in the realm of marxist theory except for Bob Avakian and other RCP-USA ideologues.  Simply put: you can't compare someone to a someone with whom you have no familiarity.  It would be like me saying: that guy plays his instrument like Louis Armstrong without ever having heard Armstrong play.

Besides, it is not Lenin the man who matters but leninism and this theoretical development of marxism was only proved after the fact of revolution: Avakian cannot have his Avakianism before he leads a successful revolution and, anyways, as the cliche goes "the proof is in the pudding."  What has the RCP-USA done recently, not to mention historically, that even warrants this comparison?  Nothing.  And though their answer is that "the situation today in America is harder than it was in Lenin or Mao's time" (as if running a revolution against the Tsar, or against Chinese nationalists and Japanese fascists and imperialists was less difficult), this is a dodge because it is the same argument made by dogmatic Trotskyist groups such as the Spartacists in order to deflect from the fact that they haven't done anything except try to preserve a pure theory to agitate for revolution for a very long time.

But let us look, as some of the comments on that Workers Dreadnought post will claim, at what the Avakianites use to justify their leader's comparison with Lenin and the RCP-USA's status as the American vanguard.  Here it is: Bob Avakian was right about the degeneration of the revolution in Nepal.  Leaving aside the fact that he was probably "right" for the wrong reasons (oddly similar to the critiques made by Trotskyist groups about Nepal), since when does having a good analysis about another place in the world make you the most revolutionary leader?  I'm sure Tony Cliff made some right calls here and there about imperialism and failed revolutions in other countries, but that isn't a reason to accept that the Socialist Workers Party is the vanguard.  Noam Chomsky occasionally has some very good international analysis––should we all start a party with Chomsky as the chairman?  Generally, I think that the analysis of Nepal is constantly cited because the RCP-USA has sublimated the ideology of American imperialism and chauvinism, and this probably is why they spent more time building the RIM than building a movement in their own country: just as the US capitalists imagines it has the god-given right to dominate the world, the RCP-USA imagines it has the marx-given right to dominate the worldwide revolution.

To be fair, the RCP-USA has made some important contributions to the worldwide revolutionary movement.  It was one of the first parties to grasp that China under Deng was revisionist, it was one of the first parties to theorize "maoism" as a universal development of revolutionary science––and Avakian even systematized some of the important whys of this development––and, regardless of its international chauvinism, it did spearhead the building of the RIM which played an important role.  (Of course, it is also one of the reasons why the RIM collapsed.)

But how does being right about a few areas outweigh being wrong in so many other areas?  Does the fact that the RCP-USA was right about Deng outweigh the fact that it was disgustingly wrong about queer liberation to the point of trying to reeducate queer members, using homophobic language in speeches, and never even apologizing for this position aside to claim (in the early 2000s, demonstrating how backwards they were) that it is wrong to push a heterosexist line now (implying it was somehow alright then!)?  Does the fact that the RCP-USA was right about maoism in the 1970s mean that it was right about its behaviour in the Boston bussing crisis where they tailed the reactionary white racists?  Does the fact that the RCP-USA was correct in initiating the Revolutionary International Movement mean that it was correct in maintaining a chauvinist position, aiming all their activities at the international sphere, and allowing their movement to degenerate?

Point being, just like Bob Avakian's terrible attempt to be relevant in modern spoken-word/hip-hop, the RCP-USA is "all played out" even if its members, who are being pacified by a mental diet of Avakian books and nothing else, haven't figured it out.