>...http://2changetheworld.info - Discuss revolutionary strategy and the RCP's Draft Programme <URL: http://2changetheworld.info/disc/index.php?bn=changetheworld_unitedfront > <URL:http://2changetheworld.info/disc/view.php?site=changetheworld&bn=changetheworld_unitedfront&key=1032460601&first=1034446873&last=1024438517
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Mythology of the White-Led Vanguard @ Anarchist People of Color Website: The Revolution Will Not Be Mayonized... knowledge. Mythologyof the White-Led"Vanguard": A Critical Look at the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. by Greg Jackson. FIRST, A BRIEF HISTORY. ... <URL: http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/knowledge/articles/ideas/jackson.html >
Subject: My 2 cents on old lies Posted by: naxalite on 2002-19-09 11:36 I hope to be relatively brief, mainly because I don't want to waste our discussion or bandwidth on this. The charges raised by Greg Jackson in " Mythology of the White-Led Vanguard" (MWLV) are literally "old news" -- both because they deal with twenty and thirty-year-old events, and also because have been refuted many times. Basic Thesis 1 MWLV makes a basic charge: "these fools and con artists [meaning the RCP, you get the tone!] are disruptive to any real campaign designed to help people… they are incapable today of organizing anything on their own of substance due to a distinct lack of social skills and a deep down dislike and distrust of poor people of all colors; which is self-evident to anyone who has spent any time around them." All I can say is that every word here is ridiculous. The history of the RCP (which I won't even pretend to sum up) is a rich, exciting, impressive history of organizing the peole for struggle and revolution. This is a party based on huge and lofty conficence in the "poor people of all colors" . This is a group that is seriousabout radical change -- with a plan and a leadership focused on making real change in the world. And THAT is what is "self-evident to anyone who has spent any time around them." Basic Thesis 2 MWLV's main thesis comes out when it tries to distort the experience of the 1980s antiwar organization No Business As Usual. This was a effective innovative radical youth movement of resistance during the Reagan years of Cold War. Everything in the MWLV summation of NBAU is upside down. And lots of it is simply made up. (MWLV simply INVENTS a supposed split in the RCP: "Within the RCP there existed two warring groups: the pro-NBAU side… and the anti-NBAU people...") MWLV tries to invent persecution of anti-authoritiarian forces in NBAU -- when this was, in fact, a rich experience of unity and common action. But, if you read it closely, the line of MWLV's attack is revealingly rightist: the RCP is accused pubishing an article on armed revolution and of recruiting people who want to become communists. Hmmmmm. Where is the crime here? And then the fundamental thesis of MWLV comes out: "Ultimately, the fundamental point of conflict between the two groups [[I.e. anti- authoritarian forces and maoists]] is one that has haunted humanity since time began." To the author of MWLV the differences between communists and other forces are "fundamental" -- in fact reach back into the beginning of time (!!) Unity
(according to MWLV) is impossible and undesirable. Division and conflict is inevitable and desirable. In fact, the history of this RCP (and of the larger struggle) shows exactly the opposite: that it is possible to do revolutionary work and also have principled unity to build resistance. It is possible to have both unity and struggle -- to form coalitions even while important debates also need to take place over overall goals and "road." Distortion: On Militancy MWLV, after a discussion of the Weatherman faction in the SDS leadership writes: "Bob Avakian, then chairman of the Revolutionary Union, argued that the actions of SDS’s central leadership were “adventuristic” and “suicidal”… It’s interesting that almost 20 years later, the very street fighting they called the Weathermen “adventurist” for, is now advocated by current RCP members." This is exactly wrong factually. Within SDS (in1969) Avakian argued against a split with Weatherman (for all their mistakes). And (need we say?) Avakian never denounced street-fighting. In fact, Avakian's stand brought RU forces into conflict with Michael Klonsky (future leader of the October League) who was the one making rightist and social-pacifist attacks on weatherman. In other words, the arguments MWLV attributes to Avakian are actually the position he opposed in the debates within the Revolutionary Youth Movement 2 debates in SDS. What
Avakian opposed as "revolutionary adventurism" were proposals (made after the breakup of SDS, within many groups including the Panthers and the RU itself) to move the movement onto a war footing with the system: i.e. to engage in campaigns of military actions under conditions when a war could not be won. Avakian rejected this, and the correctness of his approach was shown by the quick isolation and irrelevancy of the Venceremos organization and the "Weather Underground." The RU never opposed street militancy (in fighting the war in Vietnam and in the urban rebellions, in later movements including the struggles over globalization) -- anyone who knows anythingabout the RU (and the later RCP) is that their position on that has been consistent. Distortion: On Organizing the Working Class MWLV writes that: "Avakian and the RU maintained that only the industrial workers could be the basis of revolutionary struggle... the RCP of today now claims that the backbone of a revolutionary struggle in the US will be those “with nothing to lose but their chains”; meaning not only poor people of color, but also whites of any class background... [After 1974] The newly formed Revolutionary Communist party, USA had claimed in their literature that by this time they had made significant gains in support from unionized industrial labor, yet in reality what occurred was that former student members of the RU had gotten jobs at factories… " Half truths pieced together to make lies. The RU (and Avakian) argued that it would greatly strengthen and radicalize the social movements of the 60s (the antiwar and Black liberation and women's liberation movements) if the multinational proletariat developed a powerful role, with its own voice, in its own historic interests. To go from resistance to real possibility of revolution, they argued for spreading radicalism from campuses into working class communities, and from the powerful storm centers of the Black ghettoes into other sections of the working class. And they went to work doing just that! This was a correct and revolutionary thing to do. And (without repeating the RCP's own detailed summations of these years) the experience was rich --
both in the struggles the Revolutionary Communists led among the workers of this period, in the process of forging a real party with deep roots and in the lessons they learned from this. Through experience and internal line struggle, the RCP summed up the importance of going "lower and deeper" in the working class, and being rooted in those sections of the working class that truly "have nothing to do but their chains." It is hard to imagine learning this, deeply, without a process of actual experience. Deepening its understanding of the class structure and class struggle in the U.S. -- through both practice and internal debate -- is part of the maturation of a real revolutionary party. Let me just ask a basic question: Isn't it an important and positive thing for revolutionaries to seek to win over white working people to opposing racism and the system itself? Isn't it a good thing, for the liberation of African American people and people all over the world, if revolutionary forces seriously do revolutionary work among all the nationalities of the working class in the U.S.? Distortion: The Bogus Charge of "White Led" MWLV argues that multinational organizations are "white" organizations. Much has been said here in 2changetheworld about this issue -- about Bundism and Identity Politics. There has long been a view, among radical nationalists in the U.S. that each nationality should have its own party, and that a loose coalition of such parties can lead social change. Maoists have argued that this is not practical or necessary -- in a multinational country, with a multinational proletariat, and need for a single revolutionary process, it is important to develop a single revolutoinary party to represent the communist approach and programme. That debate will goes on. However, that debate is very different from MWLV's divisive method -- which is just dismmissive namecalling. When the RCP, a multinational revolutonary communist party, is called a "white" or a "white-led" organization -- I can only ask, "and what are the Black members and leaders of the RCP? Bystanders?! And what about Asian and Latino members and leaders? Etc. The twenty-year-old article "Second Harvest" is brought up. I won't waste time on this except to point out three simple facts: 1) The RCP published its own detailed criticism of this article shortly after "Second Harvest" appeared -- twenty years ago! Read their criticism of this article. 2) The RCP has a long and firm history of supporting the national liberation struggles of Native American people -- going back decades, and including standing with the Mohawk uprising in Quebec and important strugles in many other areas. 3) In addition, the RCP has elaborated its view on the liberation of Native American peoples in its new Draft Programmeand that speaks for itself. Distortion: Rumor and Unverified "Incidents" There are a bunch of "incident" stories in MWLV -- which as others have pointed out -- are sketchy on many levels... unverifiable or distorted (probably both). Let me just touch on one important one: the MWLV dises the prominent role the RCP played in some important struggles in New York's Lower East Side -- for the demands of homeless people and in defense of the radical community that was under assault there. The RCP supporters were involved in taking over a building as a base area of the struggle, and in the militant defense of Tomkin Square Park. Typically, MWLV paints everything the RCP did as sisnister, ignores the real unity that developed in this struggle and in the streets -- and also MWLV (typically) doesn't even address some of the important line issues that arose within that movement. Among these issues: the RCP argued that the struggle should target the "main enemy" (i.e. the capitalist interests running New York and the society) and should seek to connect up with homeless struggles throughout the city. Meanwhile, some (hardly all) anarchist forces wanted to make the middle class forces being moved into the Lower East Side into the main target of the struggle. (You could call this the "die yuppie scum" controversy -- with the RCP opposing that approach of pointing the spearhead of struggle at the middle forces.) I'm not gonna waste time on shameful charges: In one paragraph, MWLV writes "Some activists have claimed that RCP members are police provocateurs…." Later it suggests comparing the writings of Bob Avakian to Hitler(!!). This method speaks for itself. An Anti-Communist Attack on Radical Coalitions MWLV writes: "During the War in the Persian Gulf, the RCP’s front organization Stop the US War Machine Action Network was expelled from coalition after coalition all across the country for repeated attempts at imposing the party’s ideological line and slogans."This is, typically, not true. Different coalitions formed in different cities around different lines. There were different lines between the different coalitions, and some lively necessary debate over approach. One important controversy was over firmly opposing the war -- with some coalitions supporting the Democratic Party-line of endorsing military embargo, and also with some forces falling into a trap of claiming to "support the troops" when the fighing broke out. MWLV denies these issues of line, protrays important debates as empty power struggles -- while in fact, the point of this account is to promotedivisiveness. On a larger point of line:The use of the words "front organization"throughout MWLV needs to be called out. This term is a hallmark of anticommunism -- used by the rightwing over decades (starting in the 1920s). The red-baiting of calling something "a communist front organization" is used for isolating revolutionaries and creating division within progressive movements. It is literally the language of McCarthyism, and assumes the false and paranoid logic of McCarthyism. That anticommunist "logic" is: If communists are involved in a coalition etc. the group as a whole is accused of being "their front" -- i.e. Any organization or coalition that includes communists is a "communist front organization." The proof that something is a "front organization" is simply contamination -- that open communists are involved, or that communists help found it, or that communists help lead it, or that communist newspapers report favorably on it etc. If something is labelled a "front organization" it is a charge that this can't be a real democratic organization with a decision-making process and life of its own. Any non-communists are baited as "commie dupes" simply for participating in such "front organization" -- the assumption is that they can't be influencing the coalition, they can't be sincerely fighting for a just cause. And the real-world basis of unity of the coalition is said to be just a cover for the "hidden agenda" of the communists. Virtually every major progressive movement in U.S. history has been accused of being a "front organization" for communists -- the National Lawyers Guild, the antiwar movement in Vietnam, the civil rights movement in the 60s, the trade union movement in the thirties -- and more recently coalitions and organizations involving supporters of the RCP. This whole thing of redbating various organizations -- who does THAT serve? The MWLV ends with the following words: "I could very easily go on and on, but I think its best to stop here and let the reader decide if what i say is true." This is exactly how I feel about the lies in MWLV. And I will just repeat those words: "I could very easily go on and on, but I think its best to stop here and let the reader decide if what i say is true."