First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: The Legacy of the Revolutionary Communist Party’s Revisionism in the US “Maoist” Movement Today - 1 - for debate

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"They will no doubt build a ‘bridge,’ but one that no one would want to cross"

This document is written from the perspective of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. For an explanation of what this is, please see Marxism Leninism Maoism Study Notes. For understanding the philosophical basis of Avakianism -Bob Avakian’s “New Synthesis”- please see Against Avakianism

One Divides Into Two: Maoism and Avakianism

The purpose of this article is to expose the particular character of revisionism in the US. Much of what passes for “Maoism” in the US is inspired by Bob Avakian’s revisionism — combining ideas from Trotsky and Althusserⁱ.This is a direct criticism of the whole US “Maoist” movement, an attempt at a break with the revisionism disguised as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that uses concepts like intermediate organization or pre-party formation in their attempts to organize the masses for revolution. Some use group, organization, or collective to describe their “two combines into one” revisionism.

Three Major Struggles on China’s Philosophical Front (1949-64) is helpful for understanding the difference between one divides into two and two combines into one:

“Lenin pointed out: “The splitting in two of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts...is the essence...of dialectics” (“On the Question of Dialectics”).” In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This grasps the kernel of dialectics, but it requires explanations and development” (“Conspectus of Hegel’s Book The Science of Logic”). Chairman Mao developed this great idea of Lenin’s further in his “On Contradiction,” “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” and other important philosophical works. Chairman Mao says: “The law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law of the universe. This law operates universally, whether in the natural world, in human society, or in man’s thinking.

Between the opposites in a contradiction there is at once unity and struggle, and it is this that impels things to move and change” (“On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”). The concept one divides into two that Chairman Mao put forward profoundly and concisely summarizes the law of the unity of opposites and grasps the heart of materialist dialectics.

According to the concept one divides into two, there are contradictions in everything. The two aspects of a contradiction depend on and struggle with each other, and this determines the life of all things. The natural world, society and man’s thinking, far from “combining two into one,” are full of contradictions and struggles. Without contradiction, there would not be the natural world, society, and man’s thinking; nothing would exist. Contradictions are present in all processes of things and permeate all processes from beginning to end, and it is this that promotes the development of things. The constant emerging and resolving of contradictions – this is the universal law of the development of things.

Applying the concept one divides into two in examining socialist society, we have to recognize that throughout the entire historical period of socialism there are classes, class contradictions and class struggle, there is the struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism, there is the danger of capitalist restoration, and there is the threat of subversion and aggression by imperialism and social-imperialism. To resolve these contradictions, we must strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat and steadfastly continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Even in a communist society, there will be contradictions and struggles between the new and the old, the advanced and the backward, and right and wrong. Just as Chairman Mao has pointed out, “Wherever there are groups of people – that is, everywhere apart from uninhabited deserts – they are invariably divided into left, center and right. Ten thousand years from now this will still be so.”

Only by adhering to this concept and applying it to guide revolutionary practice can we be thorough-going dialectical materialists. To deny the concept one divides into two means to deny the universality of contradiction and to betray materialist dialectics and, politically, this inevitably leads to betrayal of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The core of the theory “combine two into one” lies in merging contradictions, liquidating struggle, opposing revolution, “combining” the proletariat with the bourgeoisie, “combining” Marxism with revisionism, “combining” socialism with imperialism and social-imperialism. This out-and-out reactionary bourgeois idealist and metaphysical world outlook is diametrically opposed to the world outlook of one divides into two.”

The strategy of party building the current US “Maoist” movement has inherited from the Revolutionary Union is two combines into one — fusing a revolutionary organization with a mass organization and applying commandism to shortcut the process of building a Communist party. Every “Maoist” organization in the US (even “post-Maoist” ones like Organization of Communist Revolutionaries) is putting into practice Avakian’s revisionism — and no one knows where any of the concepts they use come from. This is raising the red flag to oppose the red flag for Communists in the US today. The above is my theoretical and political assessment of the US “Maoist“ movement. Throughout I will mention bad practices engaged in by the US “Maoist” movement, but it is my assertion that these bad practices are a result of bad theory. Thus, criticism of bad practice is secondary to my argument and I will mostly focus on the theoretical and political criticism of US “Maoists” — which is not to minimize the severity of their bad practices.

We Must Make a Clean Break With the US “Maoist” Movement

All present “Maoist” organizations in the US have inherited the Revolutionary Communist Party’s mistakes — consciously or not using Trotsky and Althusser to distort how a Communist party is historically constituted. Many of the organizations remaining in the US are home to ex-Revolutionary Communist Party cadre or people who were brought up by ex-Revolutionary Communist Party cadre. The deviations these groups propagate in the US come straight from the Revolutionary Communist Party. Some ex-Revolutionary Communist Party cadre in the US are still forming small sects, like Mike Ely, Scott Hamilton, and Stephanie McMillan. Concepts such as “pre-party formation,” “intermediate level,” “spiral/conjuncture,” “problematique,” “social formation,” “combative,” “autonomous,” “determination,” and more can be traced to the Revolutionary Communist Party’s revisionist distortion of Marxism.

Mike Ely’s writings post-RCP are helpful here, but limited. In The RCP’s Debt to Louis Althusser: Why it Matters, Ely says:

“the revolutionary philosopher Louis Althusser’s early body of work had an impact on my generation of Maoists in the U.S. and Europe — at least among the more theoretically inclined. Many of Althusser’s concepts (like overdetermination of contradiction, conjuncture, social formation, epistemological break, problematic) found their way into our thoughts and work over the decades that followed.

However, it was considered inappropriate in my organization, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to acknowledge any debt to Althusser as a theoretician.

This comes out sharply in regard to the book American In Decline: An Analysis of the Developments Toward War and Revolution, in the U.S. and Worldwide, in the 1980s (AID, published 1984).

AID was the RCP’s flagship attempt at a world theory and a political economy — and in creating its structure and conception, the authors (or at least Raymond Lotta, if not Frank Shannon) borrowed heavily and consciously from Althusser’s Reading Capital. Althusser’s penetrating “read” of Marx’s method appears in the way AID goes from abstract to concrete — and it is there in key terminology of AID, including the use of “conjuncture” and “social formation” which were so closely associated with Althusser’s project. These concepts had worked their way deep into many communist discussions of the 70s and 80s.

Other theorists were influential in AID as well — certainly Lenin, and Mao, but also the world system theorists, like Immanuel Wallerstein.

Althusser appeared in other contexts too: When the RCP wrote polemical works opposing humanist Marxism, our arguments were simply lifted whole cloth from Althusser’s analysis of Marx’s “epistemological break.” And then, more recently, the RCP lifted Althusser’s famous term “epistemological break” again — this time to bestow it as an olive wreath on Avakian’s new synthesis.”

Ely is correct to point out the intellectual debt Avakian and Revolutionary Communist Party owe to Althusser, but he is incorrect in calling Althusser a “revolutionary philosopher.” What Ely fails to mention about Althusser’s “epistemological break” idea is that it is used by many to reject the Marxist concept of a Communist party, and in particular used by Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party to revise the process of party-building. What is put into practice instead is a fusion of Trotsky and Althusser’s garbage ideas. Tailing spontaneity and projects crumbling apart until the next batch of young recruits discovers their bad ideas is the result. An endless cycle of kicking the can down a burning American suburban cul-de-sac while a charismatic leader laughs to the bank.

But how does this manifest today? Present US “Maoist” groups combine two into one (a revolutionary organization and mass organization) with the idea of an “intermediate organization” or “pre-party formation.” These groups emerge haphazardly with no real structure, program, general line, democratic centralism, or clarity on the lessons of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism — a complete revision of how Communist parties are historically built. The history of the Russian Iskra organization is helpful here. To quote The Movement for the Party by Organization of Communist Workers (Marxist-Leninist) — a Canadian party active in the 1970s polemicizing against a Revolutionary Union-inspired “pre-party formation” that sprung up in Canada:

“The Russian Iskra organization...united Iskra supporters operating inside Russia. In the early period of its existence (February 1900-January 1902) the Russian Iskra organization had not yet taken shape as an organized entity. The groups of Iskra supporters and ’agents’...were not at first united by any kind of centre operating in Russia, and maintained direct relations with the Iskra Editorial Board. But as Iskra’s influence increased, its Russian organization more and more became the hub of the Russian Social-Democratic movement; there was a considerable increase in the volume of practical work carried out by the Iskraists... All this required the formation of an ail-Russian centre of the Iskra supporters activity, and the formation of a Russian Iskra organization.

V.I. Lenin gives the date of the founding of the Russian Iskra organization as January 1902, when a congress of Iskra supporters working in Russia was held in Samara…

The Russian Iskra organization played a prominent role in restoring actual unity in the RSDLP. With its members most active participation, an Organizing Committee was formed in November 1902 to prepare and convene the Second Congress... The Russian Iskra organization handed over its contacts and Iskra literature to the Organizing Committee; it also placed at the Committee’s disposal Iskra supporters sent to work in Russia. At the same time, the Russian Iskra organization was not merged in the Organizing Committee, but was preserved until the Second Congress...chiefly for the purpose of influencing the Organizing Committee, which included unstable and opportunist elements... Footnote #70 V.I. Lenin CW Vol.6 p.547-48.

It should be clear from this that Lenin did not, contrary to our ‘Bolshevik Tendency’s’ rendition, ’respond’ to the failure of the First Congress to establish ongoing Party organization and work by forming a ’pre-party’ organization around the newspaper and then proceed to use it as a means for developing correct strategy, and so on. If fact, the Iskra organization proceeded from the exact opposite direction. The newspaper was established first, around well developed Marxist-Leninist views on the principal contradiction, strategy and tactics of the Russian revolution, Party-building, tasks before the movement, status of other political parties and so on. The Iskra organization was not formed on the basis of good intentions, on the “desire for unity” after the fashion of our opportunist ’Bolsheviks’, but was a product of two years of winning the principled sections of the movement to a definite theoretical, political and organizational line. On the other hand, it should be equally clear that the Iskra organization was not ’given the task of building the Party’, did not assume that this task rested in its own hands alone. The purpose of the Iskra was to win the movement to consistent communist principles, to establish an ideologically united communist trend within the movement, clearly demarcated from the Economist and other opportunist trends. It did this by waging a consistent and principled battle against opportunism on the crucial questions facing the movement and by taking up the organizational tasks of the movement. But it did not declare itself the ’pre-party’, the sole basis for forming a truly communist Party. There were opportunists in the Russian movement who also did not understand these facts, and attempted to distort the actual development of the principled trend:

“Note for Comrade Martov’s benefit the term ’Iskra-ist implies the follower of a trend and not a member of a circle... There were three Iskra-ist circles (in relation to the Party) at the Congress: the Emancipation of Labour Group, the Iskpa editorial board, and the Iskra organization. Two of these three circles had the good sense to dissolve themselves; the third did not display enough Party spirit to do so, and was dissolved by the Congress. The broadest of the Iskra-ist circles, the Iskra organization (which included the editorial board and the Emancipation of Labour group), had sixteen members present at the Congress in all, of whom only eleven were entitled to vote. Iskra-ists by trend on the other hand, not by membership in any Iskra ’circle’ numbered... twenty-seven, with thirty-three votes. Hence, less than half of the Iskra-ists at the Congress belonged to the Iskra-ist circles.” V.I. Lenin One Step Forward, Two Steps Back CW Vol. 7 p.344.

Iskra was not established as a ‘pre-party’ which ‘united Marxist-Leninists’ and then declared itself the Party. The Iskra trend evolved a transitional organization which, along with the other circles and groups, dissolved itself in order to create the Party. The Iskra trend did not unite into an organization and then go about developing ‘basic ideology and strategy.’ The Iskra organization was united around basic ideology and strategy that had been formulated as a condition for its existence.

All that our ‘Bolsheviks’ have proven is that they have no intention of joining in the common effort to create a truly Marxist-Leninist Party, but instead are aiming for a ’party’ after their own mould. They have proven that in fact their conception of Marxism-Leninism is a social-democratic one (“Today the same tendency is called Marxism-Leninism”), entirely reformist, based in the petty bourgeoisie, anti-Party, and embellished with their own peculiar ’Left’ catch-phrasing. They will no doubt build a ‘bridge,’ but one that no one would want to cross.”

Canadian Marxist-Leninists in 1977 were able to grasp the lessons of party building from the Russian experience, while their American counterparts — the Revolutionary Union — took their cue from Bob Avakian’s misunderstanding of the Russian experience. The concept of “pre-party formation” is one of Bob Avakian’s inventions taken from Leon Trotsky and Louis Althusser were immediately recognized as revisionism imported from the US in the 1970s Canadian party-building movement. We need to learn from these Canadian Communists as well as others in the NCM of the US who were able to correctly assess and apply lessons from the Russian and Chinese Revolutions.  continue

On Avakianism in the US

Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party attempted to defend Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the left line in the CPC in a period of retreat and the restoration of capitalism in former socialist countries. But they misunderstood a lot of the lessons from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and deviated immensely — eventually becoming an outright revisionist cult of personality around Bob Avakian that rejects Marxism. Ex-cadre from the Revolutionary Communist Party who are training the new generation in the US still carry over the same mistakes of the Revolutionary Communist Party and Bob Avakian. The confusing and off-putting secrecy policies inherited from the Revolutionary Union serve to isolate the leadership of each present “Maoist” sect from criticism and accountability. This has led to the US “Maoist” movement’s inability to learn from attempts to constitute a Communist party in the US and to individuals mechanically applying the Revolutionary Union’s strategy for party building.

The Maoist Communist Union document Growing as a Pre-Party Organization and the Development of MCU’s Political Line calls Maoist Communist Union a “pre-party organization” in the title, but in the body of the document they say:

“On the last point, we must develop an extremely clear and concrete understanding of the popular revisionist and opportunist theories and trends so that we can critique them and win over those who otherwise might be swayed by these trends. Lenin and other early Russian Marxists waged a pitched theoretical battle against Narodnism, to win as many potential revolutionaries to Marxism as possible. To do so they developed a very sharp theoretical critique of Narodnism and its specific analysis of Russian society. This was essential to win over those who might otherwise have been convinced of the correctness of Narodnism. Therefore, we must not limit our theoretical work to critique of various negative trends—especially the most popular and influential—but also carry out extensive Marxist-Leninist-Maoist analysis of contemporary events and developments. Lenin’s Development of Capitalism in Russia is a crucial example of just how important this sort of analysis is in the growth and development of a pre-Party formation.”

Maoist Communist Union is clearly articulating an Avakianite revision of how parties are historically constituted. No Communist party has been successfully constituted with the idea of a “pre-party formation” because this idea is simply two combines into one applied to party-building. The idea of “pre-party formation” attempts to force together a revolutionary organization with a mass organization in the hopes of commanding underdeveloped cadre into the revolutionary organization. The “pre-party formation” concept explicitly demands the premature creation of a democratic centralist organization to use as a means for developing correct strategy and tactics. The hope is to lure a section of the spontaneous mass movement, “Bolshevize” them, and turn their opportunism into an organized, material force.

Every “Maoist” group in the US has articulated this “pre-party formation” line at one point or another — The Red Guards and their various splits, Maoist Communist Group and Brooklyn Revolutionary Collective, Maoist Communist Party, Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (who previously tried to build a US-Canada Communist party – two combines into one again), and now Maoist Communist Union. All are guided by ex-Revolutionary Communist Party cadre who still hold onto these ideas after leaving the Revolutionary Communist Party. What this appears to be is petit bourgeois careerism disguised as anti-revisionist politics. It is raising the red flag to oppose the red flag for the 21st Century.

Beyond Avakianism: Communist Party-Building in the US

Rather than the Avakianism that has passed for “Maoism” in the US thus far, a national network of organizations with an organ for debates around the correct Communist party-building line in the US must be formed and it must struggle to win over members to the correct MLM line on burning questions of revolutionary forces and the working class in the US. Different views of party-building must be published by the organ and struggled with so that we may unify around the correct line of party-building. We must struggle over what to do while uniting those willing and able to do it here in the US. At the same time we must recognize our international line to be important for principled struggle during the party-building process and should not be criteria for membership in the party-building network. What is principal is unity in aims and means here in the US — Communist party-building and effectiveness at correctly raising workers’ revolutionary consciousness. Our efforts must go to uniting around party-building so that we can struggle through theory and common practice for a Communist party. Two lines will struggle in party-building and it is only through the course of united, open democratic struggle can the correct line be centralized and a party be built. Unity-struggle-unity is the method for Communist party-building, not struggle-unity-struggle.

Lenin — in the context of many different circles, localism, and disunity in the working class movement of 1900 Russia — said it was premature to form the Communist party at that moment. Circles must first unite around party-building and certain important questions of Marxism in the context of Russia before a party can be formed. Only once this initial step in the unity-struggle-unity process is undertaken can we begin drawing lines of demarcation and proving them in social practice. To quote Lenin fully in Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra:

“...We Russian Social-Democrats must unite and direct all our efforts towards the formation of a strong party...What plan of activity must we adopt to revive the Party on the firmest possible basis?

The reply usually made to this question is that it is necessary to elect a new central Party body and instruct it to resume the publication of the Party organ. But in the period of confusion through which we are now passing, such a simple method is hardly expedient.

To establish and consolidate the party means to establish and consolidate unity among all Russian Social-Democrats, and, for the reasons indicated above “an ideological wavering...an infatuation with the fashionable ‘criticism of Marxism’ and with ‘Bernsteinism,’ the spread of the views of the so-called ‘economist’ trend such unity cannot be decreed, it cannot be brought about by a decision, say, of a meeting of representatives; it must be worked for. In the first place, it is necessary to work for solid ideological unity... and to this end it is, in our opinion, necessary to have an open and all-embracing discussion of the fundamental questions of principle and tactics raised by the present-day “economists,” Bernsteinians, and “critics.” Before we can unite (in a party), and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation. Otherwise, our unity will be purely fictitious, it will conceal the prevailing confusion and hinder its radical elimination.”

Practical unity around the necessity of Communist party-building and Marxism is needed before lines of demarcation can be drawn around the methods of getting to the Communist party. The purpose of demarcation is to clear up questions facing the party-building movement in order to win over forces to the correct line and overcome the incorrect line through social practice. There is no ability to demarcate without unity. Walling ourselves off in prematurely “democratic-centralist” sects acting as “the party” with no common social practice through which methods can be widely analyzed and determined correct leads to a whole host of problems including sectarianism, commandism, and degeneration (see all “pre-party formations” of the New Communist Movement in the US — most notably Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party). If we fail to learn from history, we are condemned to repeat it.

To first unite around party-building, we look to the advanced (meaning Marxist-Leninist-Maoists) and the intermediate (those who are not clear on MLM but support socialist revolution and see the need for a Communist party in the US). Both must be united and struggled with to win the intermediate over to the correct program. MLM must be constantly elaborated and introduced into the working class movement until the working class movement understands socialist revolution and Communism as the only solution to the problems facing them and the masses. The working class movement in the US since the descent of the CPUSA into Browderism has failed to rise above spontaneity and trade union consciousness. It is the Communists’ job to raise the working class movement to revolutionary consciousness and unite revolutionaries around a program for revolution in a Communist party. This will take nationally-coordinated efforts to investigate the concrete conditions of the US and analyze all classes and contradictions in society to come to an all-round understanding of the situation facing revolutionaries. Only through exposures in social practice and effective agitation and propaganda can Communists convince the proletariat and masses of the need for a Communist party.

It is helpful to revisit Lenin in Where to Begin? on how to get to a Communist party:
“With the aid of the newspaper, and through it, a permanent organisation will naturally take shape that will engage, not only in local activities, but in regular general work, and will train its members to follow political events carefully, appraise their significance and their effect on the various strata of the population, and develop effective means for the revolutionary party to influence these events. The mere technical task of regularly supplying the newspaper with copy and of promoting regular distribution will necessitate a network of local agents of the united party, who will maintain constant contact with one another, know the general state of affairs, get accustomed to performing regularly their detailed functions in the All-Russian work, and test their strength in the organisation of various revolutionary actions. This network of agents will form the skeleton of precisely the kind of organisation we need—one that is sufficiently large to embrace the whole country; sufficiently broad and many-sided to effect a strict and detailed division of labour; sufficiently well tempered to be able to conduct steadily its own work under any circumstances, at all “sudden turns”, and in face of all contingencies; sufficiently flexible to be able, on the one hand, to avoid an open battle against an overwhelming enemy, when the enemy has concentrated all his forces at one spot, and yet, on the other, to take advantage of his unwieldiness and to attack him when and where he least expects it... If we join forces to produce a common newspaper, this work will train and bring into the foreground, not only the most skillful propagandists, but the most capable organisers, the most talented political party leaders capable, at the right moment, of releasing the slogan for the decisive struggle and of taking the lead in that struggle.”

Building a party follows once local and national work in the aforementioned network around a theoretical organ creates a “skeleton” of what a Communist party should be — an organization capable of propagating the proletarian vanguard’s ideas and experience in successfully leading struggles nationwide. Only after this network and organ has created the necessary conditions for a Communist party can one be built. Once the “skeleton” has been built and its work has reached a qualitative level that it outgrows this “skeleton,” this organization must dissolve itself and constitute itself as a Communist party as was the case with Iskra and the formation of the CPSU. Bitter struggles over concrete lines will occur in the party-building process, but only in this process can a Communist party be built. When certain conditions are met, the “skeleton” created in this process must cast off its old organizational form and create a new form historically suited for waging revolution — the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (Communist) party.

The method of building this Communist party is not absorbing other groups and their leadership around a vague unity of ideas in “study groups” and isolated, substandard practice, but struggling for concrete unity in ideas and action — meaning successful application of correct ideas in social practice. This takes many forms, but must be principally concentrated on the advanced (mostly industrial proletariat, but other sections of the proletariat and masses too) and intermediate (petit bourgeoisie and other vacillating forces) while isolating the backwards (misleaders in petit bourgeois sects, bourgeois unions, and the bourgeoisie).

Contrary to the “pre-party formation” concept (or “intermediate organization”), the process of party-building is not a quantitative accumulation of forces by fusion with other groups that leads to a qualitative development into the Communist party. Instead, it is a process of unity-struggle-unity that develops qualitatively before quantitatively. A Communist party is not a party because it declares itself so or it meets a certain threshold of members — a Communist party is only a party when it has unity around aims and means, a program, democratic centralism, a constitution, and the form capable of successful local and national work. It must be able to concretely explain the exploitation of the working class, the oppression of all classes under capitalism, and the need for revolution through all-round political education that inspires action. Quantitative expansion of the Communist party is based on qualitative development. Membership in Communist parties has historically vacillated until contradictions in society sharpen class struggle to the point where more and more masses are won over to Communism. We will start small in number and at many times be small, but as we are able to successfully seize on openings to expose the contradictions of capitalism on a local and national scale and chart a path forward in the interest of proletariat, we will grow in size until we can achieve our goal of revolution.

In Lenin and Mao’s time, the party-building network’s theoretical organ was a revolutionary newspaper. Many people do not read newspapers today. Many people listen to podcasts and read blogs. A podcast/blog with contributors who have proven themselves revolutionary in theory and practice should be the goal today. The contributors engage in local work across the US and regularly summarize/analyze their efforts via this theoretical organ. The correct analysis of conditions in the United States and the correct strategy and tactics for a Communist party must be openly struggled for in the network and its organ. Podcast episodes and blog articles from this organ contribute to the formation of the “skeleton” party-building network that leads to a Communist party based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This organ and “skeleton” party-building network will eventually dissolve itself when a qualitative leap has been made that necessitates a new form of organization. In this process, the “skeleton” must be careful to avoid opportunistic fusion with groups or individuals. The “skeleton” maintains its principles and unites around aims and means and ability to successfully apply theory in social practice. Sacrifices on principles for political expediency in party-building must be avoided at all costs. There is no shortcut to building a Communist party, only protracted and arduous struggle to convince a large section of the US of Maoist aims and means in practice.

Final Thoughts

My hope is that in writing and distributing this article widely I can help scattered forces in the US party-building movement better appraise the situation in the US and avoid making the mistakes of the Revolutionary Union and Revolutionary Communist Party. The “Maoist” movement in the US today is nothing but a funhouse mirror reflection of the New Communist Movement of the late 1960s to 1980s. In the US there has been no genuine Communist party clearly and correctly articulating a line for socialist revolution since before the Communist Party USA turned to Browderism — but many groups, circles, cadre organizations, and “pre-party formations” are heavily influenced by the Revolutionary Communist Party’s revisionism. Avakian’s ideas persist in all aspects of the US “Maoist” movement because certain ex-Revolutionary Communist Party elements continue to have sway in a number of “Maoist” organizations in the US. When using concepts such as “pre-party formation,” “intermediate organization,” and “mass perspective” these organizations are articulating a sly imitation of Marxism — a “New Synthesis” of Trotsky and Althusser in place of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Simply put, it is revisionism. We in the US need to make a complete break with revisionism, but in particular Avakianism as it manifests in the “Maoist” movement today.

The revisionist philosophy of “two combines into one” has prevented forces in the US from constructing a genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party after the collapse of the Communist Party USA into revisionism and reformism with Browderism. The Revolutionary Union was not able to centralize the correct ideas from the Report to the Ninth Party Congress of the CPC in The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China and has degenerated into a revisionist cult of personality around Bob Avakian and his rejection of the science of the proletariat — Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

The US “Maoist” movement since the Revolutionary Union has failed to form a Maoist party and continuously elaborate and introduce Marxism-Leninism-Maoism into the working class movement. It is up to genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces in the US to come to terms with the fact that the “Maoist” movement here is neither “Maoist” or a movement, but a small sect of petit bourgeois academics using a revisionist distortion of Marxism from ex-Revolutionary Communist Party cadre to gain influence and promote their ideas for internet clout and donations. The effect is suppression of the correct understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the inability of forces in the US to constitute a Communist party based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Our task today is to form a nationwide Communist party-building network with an organ for continuously waging line struggle around party-building and the working class movement. Only once this network and organ develop to a level of quality can a Communist party be built. Our guide should principally be the Russian experience of the party-building, as it took place in a capitalist country and the US today is an imperialist country. The Chinese Revolution also offers many lessons, but the Chinese party was formed under semi-feudal, semi-colonial conditions much different than the US today. Either party-building experience must not be mechanically copied and pasted onto the US situation. The process of party-building requires creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our present conditions in the US. We cannot revise or shortcut our way to a Communist party.

i Althusser is an eclectic French academic who came up with his own unique brand of revisionism by “revisiting Marx” and associating himself with Maoism while preaching “social anarchism.” One of his most pernicious ideas is the “epistemological break” he claims exists between young Marx and old Marx. He says young Marx did not advocate for a party, while old Marx said we need a party. Althusser uses this to say we need to go back to ”young Marx,” revising Marx on the basis of having discovered a “new epistemological break” and inserting all kinds of idealism like “Ideological State Apparatuses,” “formations,” “conjuncture,” etc. Similarly, Avakian says he has made an “epistemological break“ from Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with his “New Communism.” Althusser (Avakian and J. Moufawad Paul too) uses the Marxist concept of “apparatus” incorrectly to say there is a plurality of “apparatuses”: a “repressive state apparatus” and many contending “ideological state apparatuses,” putting ideology on the same plane as the State when ideology is a tool used by the State — not the State itself. Althusser separates ideology from the superstructure’s relation to the economic base so that “superstructure” becomes a plurality of “autonomous apparatuses” on the same plane — completely distorting the Marxist concept of the State. This is an idealist muddle of the relation between base and superstructure. Althusser says the realm of ideology is the site of class struggle, rather than social practice — specifically in the struggle for production. This is idealism and rationalism, or divorcing theory from social practice. Furthermore, his idea of “formation” is so broad and meaningless it is used to describe everything from a locale in town or countryside to the nation and a political party (Communist or otherwise). Even more puzzling is Althusser’s claim that Communism exists in interviews, churches, and futbol games. All of Althusser’s sloppy and anti-Marxist ideas come together in what he calls a “problematique.” Maoist Communist Union does not even hide their adherence to Avakian, Lenny Wolff, and Badiou, who all uphold Althusser’s ideas.