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On the History of the Revolutionary Union by Steve Hamilton
First Published: Theoretical Review No. 13, November-December 1979
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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This article will trace the beginnings of the Revolutionary Union (RU), later Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), and outline the history of the RU during its first six years (until 1974) commenting along the way on elements of that history that seem relevant to the party building efforts of today's movement. Clearly the principal purpose of this article is to contribute to a more thorough understanding of the history of "left" errors in the party building movement. In my opinion, the strengths and weaknesses of this period have never been summed up in any unified and more than superficial way, even within the new "independent" trend. By and large the same conditions that facilitated the development of these errors continue to exist. Therefore, one can be almost sure that if the source and nature of these errors is not understood history will be repeated.
If the reader is even more inclined towards discouragement after reading this article, it may be timely to make this observation: it seems to be a fact of life, actually a fact of dialectics, that problems have to mount to the level of becoming qualitatively uncomfortable enough and the present solutions clearly unworkable enough that a point of crisis is reached, then we are ready to make a radical reappraisal and to change. Fortunately, our movement is at that point of crisis. It is in the nature of things that such reevaluation and openness to new directions cannot go on indefinitely. Some consensus will be reached and the movement will settle into a groove for several more years to see if those solutions work. Therefore the quality of our analysis now and the viability of our solutions are likely to be of decisive importance to the communist movement in this country for many years to come. So, with that awesome responsibility, let's examine the past.
PRE-HISTORY – MOOD OF THE TIME
For the roots of the RU we must go back to the mainly student and ex-student based radical movement of the late 1960s. The movement of this time underwent a change in about 1967, a turn toward a more revolutionary orientation.
In the earlier years of the student movement, say 1964 to 1967, there had been a sort of toleration of communism by most movement participants but anarchism and utopianism more correctly described the dominant ideology. There existed underlying illusions about the viability of non-revolutionary alternatives but the intense activism and hostility against the system of the Vietnam War period allowed little room to put forward perspectives based on reformism and compromise. Tactically, the dominant tendency before 1967 had been conservative and nonviolent. The Communist Party and Socialist Workers Party (SWP) didn't challenge but encouraged this conservatism both tactically and politically. Progressive Labor Party, however, won respect from some elements for its bold defense of anti-imperialist and communist politics and its militant, at times adventurist, approach to tactics.
In 1967 as I indicated the tide seemed to turn as people realized that the Vietnamese were actually winning the war. Also, the war had gone on long enough that the lessons were sinking in, anti-war activists became anti-imperialists, anti-imperialists (influenced by the Vietnamese and other national liberation struggles, and by the Cultural Revolution that had started in China) became communists.
In the Black and other national minority movements identification with the pro-socialist third world movements was particularly strong.
A consciously pro-socialist leadership developed in the Black movement – particularly from the Black Panther Party, SNCC, Detroit League – that gained a sizeable base and influence in the Black community. The militant tone set by these movements had a strong influence also at that time on the increasingly politicized student movement.
SDS – NATIONAL FORUM FOR REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES
As the student movement turned towards a revolutionary perspective, Students for a Democratic Society became the national expression of that developing perspective and at once the forum for contending political tendencies. The major division between 1967 and 1969 was between PLP and its supporters (making up perhaps half the national organization) and the remaining elements that increasingly came to define their politics in opposition to PLP.
Let me digress a bit on PLP because this is also an important element of the development of RU. Considering that PLP has long since degenerated into an irrelevant sect, it may be hard for the reader to realize the significant role that PLP played during this period. PLP had been the almost uncontested organization of the pro-China anti-revisionist Left. It had made enough adventurist and left sectarian mistakes that many who generally sympathized with its politics had kept their distance organizationally. It was the one well organized cadre group operating nationally within the growing revolutionary student movement with a fairly clear political perspective and thus won many followers to what seemed to be its more avowedly Marxist perspective. (SWP also had quite a following but this was among a somewhat separate group of those who stayed within the framework of mass anti-war politics.) No small number of the independent communists of this period had been in or around PLP at one time or another. (I was a PL organizer on the Berkeley campus in 1965 to 1966).
In the period of 1967 to 1968 PL took a turn sharply to the left on two key questions: they began attacking the Vietnamese for accepting Soviet aid putting forward this position in such a forceful and sectarian way as to undercut the anti-war work of the period. They also took a position generally that "all nationalism was reactionary" which set them in opposition effectively to all national liberation struggles. This purist ultra-left attitude carried over to their relationship with the Black and other minority movements in the U.S. and particularly in respect to the Black Panther Party who were coming under intense attack from the government during this period.
The anti-PL forces were understandably aghast and galvanized into an anti-PL coalition that was both anti-revisionist and anti-ultra-left. (Keep reading, plenty more parallels to come.) The unity of this new "genuine Marxist-Leninist trend" consisted chiefly of the following: 1) strong support to the national liberation movements internationally and to the Black and other national minority movements within the U.S. as contrasted to PL's Trotskyite like ultra-leftism on these questions and 2) a commitment to expand beyond the student movement to build a revolutionary movement based on the working class, at least among "working class youth."
Immediately two trends developed, called "Weatherman" and "Revolutionary Youth Movement 2" (named after respective position papers) which differed on the weight they accorded to these two points and in their interpretation of these points.
The Weatherman people emphasized support for the more intensely revolutionary struggles of the period, those referred to in Point 1, gave lip service to the working class orientation (except in hoping that working class youth and minorities and the semi-lumpen elements of the working class might get turned on to their politics) and tended increasingly towards an anarchist "politics of heroic example" adventurist trend.
The RYM 2 people were those who tended towards a more traditionally Marxist perspective and who were more serious about this "base in the working class" issue. The upshot of these disagreements was that SDS disintegrated as these two tendencies became antagonistic so soon after the break with PLP (1969). I'll have more to say on the left adventurist tendency when we encounter the same issues in RU a bit later (end of 1970) but for now let's examine the origins of the pro-working class orientation in more detail because this perspective was to have a decisive impact on the anti-revisionist movement in the next period (we're really still today addressing the same issues). It was particularly at the heart of the early RU's outlook and I believe it is fair to say that it was the precursor of the present "fusion" strategy.
BUILD A BASE IN THE WORKING CLASS
There had been some SDS-related community organizing " projects maintained intermittently for several years. The best known were probably the Newark, New Jersey project and the "Join" project in Chicago. These projects held a certain amount of fascination for leftists because they challenged the dominant attitude that the working class was hopelessly unorganizeable. Sometimes the success of such projects was more movement hype than reality but they showed some promise. The Marxist-oriented groups had always given some lip service to the importance of the working class and PL had in recent years gone into high gear attempting to orient the entire student movement toward the working class in a way that, under the circumstances, was bound to have both an economist and sectarian effect (economist because more significant political issues of the time were subordinated to supporting campus maintenance workers, etc, and sectarian because students were encouraged to believe that their own struggles were unimportant). Nevertheless PL's pro-working class rhetoric probably served to raise the issue of the working class in such a way that other forces could also no longer ignore it.
The prospect of finding some way to reach out to the working class also struck a cord in the activists of the time in terms of their sense of frustration at the limited parameters and therefore limited effectiveness of the movement they had been building. The existing mass movements had a fairly extensive base among students but the support for these issues off the campuses was almost negligible. Some Black and other minority activists had begun work in minority communities around anti-racist issues and in some cases seemed to have established an impressive base of support. White as well as minority working class men were being drafted to fight in Vietnam and as a result there was broader anti-war and anti-draft sentiment. The taunting red-baiting that had greeted anti-war activities in working class communities a few years before had given way to at least passive sympathy. (Perhaps passive in part because the style and form of student-based activities was so foreign to current working class experience.)
There was then both a sense of urgency that the perimeters of the movement's base had to be extended, somehow, to working class people and a great deal of optimism that it could be done. After all, the student-based movement had grown in 3-4 years from scattered handfuls of radicals to a mass phenomenon that had affected, to some extent, the entire youth of the country.
Some activists projected and began working on anti-draft centers in working class communities and others argued that the approach should be more multi-faceted and deal primarily with more immediate community or workplace issues. Projects of both sorts were attempted and the success of course depended greatly on the style, contacts and experience of the local work. The anti-draft projects probably as a rule remained more isolated and short-lived but some did attract a base of interest and support in working class youth. The multi-faceted projects provided the basis for several ongoing local collectives of communists that were important building blocks for the party building efforts of 1968 and 1969 that spawned RU as well as the October League, Communist League, and several other groups. In order to get a sense of the political flavor of the time let's look briefly at one example of this work, that which I was involved with in Richmond, California, and out of which the RU to a large extent developed.
"SERVE THE PEOPLE" – RICHMOND, 1968
Bob Avakian (now RCP Chairman), one other person and myself moved to Richmond at the end of 1967. (Richmond is an industrial concentration in the Bay Area close to Berkeley.) We had little strategy other than the sort of generalized commitment and optimism in regard to "integrating with the working class" that I've described. Various strategies were tried at one time or another. Initially we focused a great deal on building social ties in the community. We began to try to infuse the young workers we got to know with enthusiasm for the projects undertaken by the Black Panther Party and for the style of somewhat adventurist rhetoric common in the movement at that time. We worked with a local section of the Peace and Freedom Party around issues such as community control of police and for a militant perspective within an anti-poverty agency.
I wrote an article in the December 1968 issue of the Movement newspaper that publicized our efforts and approach (later reprinted in Red Papers 1) and because of the interest we aroused in the movement (so scarce were such efforts at the time) and because the RU had formed during this period (1968), the number of communists in Richmond grew into a considerably large collective. Some of us became more involved in strike support work and began to try to do base building work in plants. Generally the workers we met and the ties established in plants came to be considered a more steady and reliable base of support, involving deeper ties to other sections of the community, than the less rooted, often unemployed younger workers among whom we had initially concentrated. The work with the younger people continued for a time however in a group called "Young Partisans" that also combined contacts from the local community college. The cadre more geared to workplace organizing formed a mass organization called "Richmond Workers Committee" which included contacts from workplaces and workers we met during strikes.
The Richmond Workers Committee's highest achievement was its involvement in the Standard Oil Strike of spring 1969. During that strike an alliance for mutual support was established between the Richmond oil workers and the students at San Francisco State who were striking for an open admissions policy for third world students. Many Berkeley and S.F. State students joined the oil workers picket lines and the oil workers actually on occasion sent delegations to join the S.F. State picket lines. This was perhaps the most successful "worker-student" alliance to come out of the movement in that period. The Richmond Workers Committee people played a key role in bringing this alliance into fruition because of their own involvement with the strike.
Earlier I had referred to the two developing tendencies within the Marxist-Leninist movement of that period, the adventurist trend and the "integrate with the working class" trend. During this period, however, there were many, including the early RU people, who to a certain extent contained both tendencies rolled into one, (which was probably why the split between these tendencies came later in the RU.) In Richmond, the "Young Partisans" became the vehicle for our more adventurist approach geared more toward youth (the title of the group's newspaper was "Today's Pig is Tomorrow's Bacon", this you won't get in official RU histories) and the Workers' Committee, while making adventurist mistakes at times, probably veered more towards economism in the very different task it set for itself. It should be realized that this was a period generally when practice was not very much influenced by clearly developed theoretical perspectives, which was painfully obvious in the trial and error nature of the work. Yet in all honesty, I like this period better than some later periods because there was enthusiasm for what could be accomplished on a mass level and a sense that once a correct approach, tested in practice, could be developed toward these tasks a mainstay would exist for the unfolding of a correct overall orientation. There was also great modesty and flexibility in these early efforts that seemed to evaporate later, for reasons we'll get to shortly.
FORMATION OF RU
Several months after the Richmond group began working together we began discussions around the feasibility of calling for a new Marxist-Leninist organization. (Processes are often not as formal as they sound, actually the idea arose amidst the grandiosity created by a few too many beers one evening.) After some initial investigation of national contacts we decided that there was no political readiness for such a move on a national level. It seemed that most people we had contact with nationally had little sense of the requirements of working class organizing. Those who had experience in community organizing on the other hand tended to be the most pragmatist and did not see their work as directly relating to the broader political needs of the movement at that time. (Pragmatism in these pragmatist days meant virtually disregarding ideology altogether in favor of a kind of populism with a Marxist tinge.)
We believed it was possible to combine the best aspects of both of these perspectives, i.e., working class base and orientation with a recognition of the importance of the broader anti-imperialist issues that the student movement continued to raise and of the need for political unity and coordination between these areas of work. We decided that such a perspective would have to be initially developed on a local level in order to argue convincingly and concretely that a combination of these commitments was possible. (The development of a slightly more consolidated Marxist-Leninist trend nationally in opposition to PL that I described earlier materialized about a year later, in 1969.) RU contributed politically to that development because it was able to put forward its more thought-out perspective as a local organization.
The initial perspective toward party building was to 1) build a local organization, 2) popularize the work and perspective of the local organization nationally, 3) encourage the formation of like-minded "collectives" elsewhere, 4) then encourage efforts toward national coordination.
Bob Avakian wrote a political perspective that was circulated among local contacts and provided the basis for initial discussions. The paper drew heavily on the language of Lin Piao's "countryside surrounding the cities" imagery popular with Maoists at the time, i.e., that national liberation struggles would weaken imperialism so that its internal contradictions would become more severe and clearly apparent. Avakian argued that within the U.S. the Black and other minority struggles were particularly key and these struggles, in alliance with the most oppressed and generally the more youthful sections of the white working class, would provide another "countryside" that would expose further the contradictions of capitalism to the point that the better paid sections of the working class and middle class elements would also "abandon" their support for the system.
Needless to say, this perspective reflected many of the romantic adventurist assumptions of that period. Although it was only the more ostensibly adventurist trend that split from the RU a couple of years later that would hazard a guess that revolution was only five or ten years away, it's fair to say that the dominant assumption of the period was that we were moving into some sort of "pre-revolutionary period." The initial document was received well because it embodied some of the incorrect prejudices of the time as well as for the correct and timely advance that it represented.
The earliest organizational meetings brought together the Richmond group, the "Red Guards" group from the Stanford campus led by Bruce Franklin, independent communists including some who were CP and PLP veterans and contacts from the left of the Peace and Freedom Party. Only the Richmond and Palo Alto groups had a previous history of functioning as collectives. Both groups were products of the revolutionary turn of the student movement, both had a history of working closely with the Black Panther Party.
Beyond that the Richmond group had already played a role in the trend toward working class concentrations. The Stanford group had a history of some of the most successful student work in the area, work that had been characterized by a bold, militant style and openly revolutionary orientation. They also had contacts at other college and high school campuses in the peninsula area that came with them into the RU. Local organizations were formed in San Francisco and the East Bay that were an amalgam of the elements mentioned.
The RU had its first split when some of the East Bay people, ex-student movement intellectuals, detected a tendency almost immediately to accept wholesale the "tradition" that they labeled "Stalinism". This trend was opposed and labeled rightist and these people left the RU. In the intervening years I've also come to be generally critical of much of this "tradition" and aware of the strength of the tendency toward dogmatism. At the time I was one of the people who labeled this stance "rightist". I think basic communist principles were also called into question, although if the RU leaders had the flexibility from the beginning to deal with this sort of criticism the subsequent history might have been quite different. But such has not been the tendency of our movement.
In preparation of this article I had written a section on RU organization but I want to intentionally be sparing and general in description of internal organization for the reason that RCP might with justification resent violations of their security. Organizational history is not too exciting anyway; every organization learns to coordinate its organizational affairs in somewhat different ways and in organization perhaps even more than politics there has been too much modeling after already ineffective "traditions." I do want to comment later on the abuse of democratic centralism. Suffice it to say for now that a leading committee was established to coordinate and lead what remained a bay area organization from early 1968 until 1970 when collectives from other parts of the country began to affiliate in the Northwest, but, because there was no national structure as yet, decision making centered in the bay area.
The leading committee commissioned work to begin on a basic statement of principles and an orientation to communist history and current trends that was later titled "Against the Brainwash." These documents served to establish us within the Lenin-Stalin-Mao tradition and included the usual defense of Stalin both non-committal in actual content but conveying surety in its tone. The statement put out what was probably the best critique of PL's politics to that time from a Marxist standpoint and this critique among other elements in the statement served to establish RU as a leading force in the then unfolding struggle against PL among anti-revisionists. Curiously, the document also attempted to maintain unity among the anti-PL forces by stressing the positive contributions of both the Weatherman and RYM 2 factions although RU generally was placed within the RYM 2 orbit.
Especially considering the subsequent history of RU/RCP, one is struck by the modest and non-sectarian quality of these early statements. Partly this was in response to the arrogance and rigidity of PL, partly it was a result of some intelligent calculation that we were a part of a growing but unconsolidated and fragile trend nationally that needed some sense of common unity if it were to win the battle with PL and survive a resolution of its own internal contradictions.
Also, there was genuine modesty. We did believe that much broader efforts than our own would be needed to reestablish a Marxist-Leninist party. We were impressed with the immensity and complexity of our task and really believed that we had few of the answers. We often look despairingly at the past, but frankly I would be impressed if I could see within our movement today either the genuine modesty or, failing that, the shrewdness to know when to unite and not to split that characterized this period of the RU. The publication of these documents in Red Papers 1 in the spring of 1969, one year after RU's formation, established it as a leading force within the newly emerging national Marxist-Leninist movement.
The publication of these documents in Red Papers 1 in the Spring of '69, one year after RU's formation, established RU as a leading force within the newly emerging national trend and RU's call for local ML organizations spurred the development of other independent collectives, especially in the latter part of 1969 as SDS disintegrated. Ironically, SDS leader Mike Klonsky followed our lead and started a collective in Los Angeles which emerged as the October League. (The Communist League, later Communist Labor Party, had started about the same time as the RU in L.A. when another group of our friends from national SDS teamed up with some veteran CP old-timers already loosely associated in L.A. and led by Nelson Peery. Initial contacts between RU and CL were cordial. I was the RU observer at the founding conference of CL and Klonsky was the OL observer.)
Throughout '69, RU primarily put its energy into giving some form and perspective to the amateurish and politically inconsistent mass work that RU cadre were attempting in workplaces and communities. (RU was also influential enough by this point that it began trying to rebuild SDS in the Bay Area but it was a little late. It did maintain an influence in the non-PL student formations, in the area, however, including the Radical Student Union in Berkeley.) In the workplace and community work there was a growing realization that we were carrying much ultra-left "baggage" inherited from the student movement. There was general agreement that this was the principal problem in our work but a very uneven understanding of how to go about making the transformation and probably a reluctance to criticize anything that seemed to work.
For example, some of the Richmond comrades were exhibiting some of the most outlandish ultra-leftism in their plant work, wearing Mao badges, quoting from the Red Book, but were bold enough to carry it off and gain quite a base of support at the same time for their confrontations with the union leadership and plant management. Once the Union leadership and plant management teamed up to keep them out of the plant until they took off their Mao badges and most of the plant workers supported them in pushing their way in. What do you say?
What you say is that their work is still ultra-leftist, a fundamentally wrong approach to tactics, but boldness in presenting the political truth can still have a positive impact, even with a wrong approach. This lesson was not lost on some of the RU leaders who one-sidedly made use of some such experiences to justify a drift toward volunteerism that re-emerged in a later period.
Theoretically, the RU produced Red Papers (RP) 2 and 3 during this period, 1969. RP2 was an attempt to develop the concept of "United Front Against Imperialism" which formulated a general approach toward reform work and toward the integration of tasks confronting various "spearheads" of struggle: defense of living standards, Black and other minority liberation struggles, women's struggle, anti-imperialist issues and "defense of democratic rights" or anti-fascism. The central core of the United Front was considered the unity of the workers movement and the Black and other minority movements. The RU was inclined still in this period to underscoring the importance of each of these quite different areas of work, an approach that it was to later abandon in its drift toward a more consolidated version of ultra-leftism beginning in 1972.
RP3 was not a very good attempt to recognize the importance of, and have an effect on, the growing women's movement. It defined women's issues in an overly economist manner, careful to diplomatically downplay the "consciousness raising" which was the initial dynamic of a deeply felt rebellion against the many and varied forms of women's oppression.
The RU's touchiness on this issue is interesting. It foreshadowed the sort of "left economism" that did later become a key aspect of RU's impatience with all but pure "class" issues. It is ironic what communists sometimes do with the notion of "class" issues. As important as the struggle is to build a base among workers, it is purely "class" issues that (as Lenin pointed out) can remain at the most isolated, politically insignificant level while some issues that have a political or cultural impact on all classes provide the best opportunities to expose the capitalist mentality and logic of the capitalist system precisely because any significant amelioration of these contradictions is more impossible than it is to raise the workers'standard of living somewhat.
Yet it is more possible for the ultra-left mentality to fantasize about some level of workers' organization leading straight to revolution than it is for ultra-leftists to comprehend how to effectively relate to powerful but obviously limited (from a class standpoint) reform issues.
I also find it interesting now that I have become involved in mental health work that the Left in general does not feel comfortable addressing "psychological" oppression, except in the most simplistic, ineffective manner; in fact, not addressing it. It seems to me to represent an extension into politics of the typically male attitude that feelings and internal effects of outward circumstances are somehow not as real as the things one is expected to do outside, such as maintaining a job, building a house, etc. The effect is that women continue to carry the emotional burden of family and relationships and the particular experience and skills of women are invalidated as necessary but of second-rate importance. I suspect that men pay just as high a price for maintaining this sort of dichotomy in terms of superficiality of relationships and self-understanding but objectively this unwillingness to consider "internal oppression" is sexist and has not only characterized the RU's thinking but continues to permeate the Left. My bias is that such thinking also contributes indirectly to the tendency towards simplistic, rigid abstractness that we will sum up in the RU's later development and characterize as "left subjectivity" or "left idealism."
Before we move on, let me also touch on a related and even more controversial subject, the attitude toward homosexuality. There are many gays who have heard of the RU and for one thing only – the fact that it has been a vocal, avowedly anti-homosexual organization. Unfortunately, this attitude is not unique to the RU/RCP. Anti-homosexuality has long been the dominant attitude on this question within the communist movement. (Although this was not always the case, prior to World War II, communist parties often maintained ties with both the strong women's and gay rights movements in Europe.)
The anti-homosexual bias on the part of some RU leaders was bolstered up by this general anti-homosexual tradition in the communist movement so that there was little challenge within the ranks to the dominant anti-gay attitude. Later, and not coincidentally as the organization pushed ahead more arrogantly in a left-sectarian direction after 1972, a weak attempt was made to develop a theoretical justification (here, ironically, they had to resort to a little out-dated Freudianism) and an anti-gay policy within a year or two. (To understand ultra-leftism one has to understand the essential conservatism within the communist movement when confronted with unfamiliar issues.)
Why was the homophobia so strong within the RU, and most of the rest of the Left for that matter? To adequately answer that would be interesting and I think productive, but would take us outside the scope of this article. Here are a couple of reasons that occur to me. One reason is that communists are always having to defend unpopular, un-American notions such as anti-racism and communism. It is nice to be like any other worker on something. By and large that is more possible on cultural issues in general and on something like that that, after all, has not much to do directly with workers vs. boss oppression. (Left economism, again). Also, I think it has to do with why anyone is homophobic, i.e., 1) fear of loss of sex role definition (as communists we want people to be tough, be fighters, so RU particularly tended toward glorifying the "macho" image for men); 2) puritanical reaction to sexual openness, greater flexibility in sexual expression that is suggested by homosexuality. (Communists have to demand self-sacrifice, some subordination of personal fulfillment to political tasks, and if they resent doing it they may be particularly bothered by the "hedonism" they perceive in the people around them.) I am well aware that many would consider such explanations somehow "non-political," which is why an issue of this importance never is addressed in any depth. Back to RU history.
FIRST MAJOR SPLIT – MOVING BEYOND LEFT ADVENTURISM
By early 1970, there occurred an increasing polarization between the more clearly adventurist perspective represented by the Franklins and others in the RU leadership, and the more "economist" perspective (as characterized by the opposition) of Avakian, myself, and the majority of leadership. The issues crystallized when the former group submitted a position paper on armed struggle that described a scenario of "urban guerrilla warfare" or a protracted "armed propaganda" struggle and the clandestine formation of a "people's army." Avakian countered in a paper that argued that such a perspective is impossible in an advanced capitalist country, that there must be a long period of essentially peaceful political struggle culminating in a rather sudden mass insurrection when a significant mass base exists that is supportive of revolution. (The principal documents in this struggle were reprinted in Red Papers 4.)
The adventurist line, which was possibly the dominant tendency in this period nationally, was an inconsistent hodge-podge of Marxism and anarchism. It could be better understood as a mood, a mood of petty bourgeois impatience and romanticism that found its expression ideologically in a tendency to grossly exaggerate the readiness of objective conditions for revolution and consequently a tendency to project a totally unrealistic form and level of political struggle.
Absurd as this position may sound, it was not easy at the time to counter because the alternative view had to be posed in explaining why more slow patient struggle was necessary and at a much less "revolutionary" level, which did not sound very exciting by comparison. The reason for this can be found in the lack of understanding of Marxist theory, and the class background and limited (limited to outside the working class, largely) political experience of those who were impressed by this sort of ultra-leftism.
I think the important point is that the subsequent history of ultra-leftism in our movement, while taking more subtle forms, does spring essentially from the same petty bourgeois impulse (given poorly understood theory and limited experience) of impatience and a desire for and tendency to be impressed with quick and overly simplified solutions. Such solutions come about, of course, in the realm of ideas, not much connected to the realm of actual experience which might make some elements (workers, for example) suspect of such solutions, but not radicalized intellectuals who can get quite carried away in the realm of ideas. A kind of subjectivity is the result that often leads to a partial or complete inability to recognize and respond appropriately to the real requirements of building a political movement.
POLITICAL DEGENERATION OF THE BLACK PANTHERS – ANOTHER ADVENTURIST INFLUENCE
Not only had the left adventurist tendency struck root among the ex-students of the sixties but there was a strong pull toward adventurism within the Black movement as well. Despite much broader roots among the Black masses than white communists had among any working class constituency, the revolutionary wing of the Black movement had come under intense repression from the state and had allowed itself to be edged into an increasingly adventurist stance. The reason for this also had to do with the class outlook of its leadership, many of whom were intellectuals who relied largely on a semi-lumpen base of support who tend to be as individualistic and adventurist as the radicalized students.
The politics of the Black Panthers had always contained an unsteady blend of Marxism, anarchism and Utopian idealism. Under Eldridge Cleaver's leadership in 1970, the Panthers developed an openly anti-working class and anarchist perspective that culminated in a sort of revolutionary nihilism (Cleaver's "revolutionary suicide").
This development on the part of the Panthers prompted a response from RU who had until that time been strongly supportive of the Panthers and kept quiet about criticisms. The RU had avoided recruiting Black members but instead encouraged them to join the Panthers. The majority of the RU leadership was now convinced that this policy should not be continued, that it was extremely irresponsible to encourage anyone to join the Panthers under conditions that then existed. I wrote up an internal paper outlining the criticism of the Panthers and calling for the RU to become a "multinational" organization.
This development added fuel to the flames of the already growing cleavage between the RU's two factions. Criticism of a major Third World communist group was unthinkable to the Franklin faction.
The RU found it necessary to nearly abandon all other work and concentrate for a period of several months on this internal struggle. The Franklin group left toward the end of 1970, taking about a third of the Bay Area organization with them and contacts in the Northwest and some other areas. The hard-fought internal struggle served a purpose, however, in that the remaining RU cadre were much more consolidated around the majority position and learned a great deal politically from the struggle.
The Franklin group probably typified more than the majority of the sentiments that were dominant in the broader movement. In order to win this struggle, it became clear to the majority that there would have to be a crash course in Marxism-Leninism on certain key questions.
This took the form of lengthy position papers (Avakian was in his element) and endless organized internal debates. I remember angering members of the opposition faction by, in response to the weariness of such debates, quoting the words of an old fundamentalist hymn to the effect that "What more can be said, than to you has been said?"
The cadre and leadership did come out of this struggle with more of an appreciation that there are many basic questions that would be resolved incorrectly if only approached on the basis of our own experience and in ignorance of the lessons of communist history over many years and in varied situations. Specifically, this applied to the question of what elements in society – the working class, the lumpen, students – must be relied on ultimately as the most revolutionary force, a question that was at the heart of the differences.
Also, as a result of this struggle, the membership gained more of an appreciation for the basic principles of democratic centralism. As often happens, the minority became increasingly willing to disregard the established procedures and directives of the majority in leadership for carrying out the debate. The Franklin group tended to make a principle of flouting discipline when there were important issues at stake, and this prompted a reaction from the remaining membership to generally tighten up discipline, leave leadership with more responsibility to decide when to report disagreements to the membership when not to, to define the parameters and the form for carrying out struggles.
In retrospect, I think a great mistake was made at this point in fostering in the RU some of the long-standing practices of the communist movement in regard to constricting the rights of membership and minority elements within leadership. This involved the decision that the membership did not have a right to be informed of differences within leadership beyond what the majority leadership wanted to pass on, that minority elements did not have the right to explain and argue for their position outside of the highest leadership body that they were on, that leadership could restrict debate (to ensure orderliness, "security") by, for example, not allowing members to discuss criticisms of leadership outside of their own collectives.
Ironically, I was the one who wrote up these guidelines (Report on Democratic Centralism in Red Papers 4), but I now think they provided the structural groundwork in the RU for the development of the "bureaucratic centralism" that has generally come under criticism now among Marxists-Leninists. Unfortunately, I think the awareness of these problems is very uneven within the Independent Trend and I suspect there will be tendencies to re-establish the old rules lock, stock and barrel if these questions are not critically examined. The reason that these practices tend to continue is that they have their value to leadership, the value of protecting leadership from the annoyance of dissent.
Overall, I think the outcome of this struggle left the RU with more of a conscious strategy of basing itself on the working class, more understanding of the need for patient, protracted involvement in reform issues (at least among workers in trade unions), more aware of the great extent to which we had come out of a movement that was pervaded by ultra-left attitudes, more aware of the need for theoretical clarity. The leadership gained more admiration from the membership (having led the way through this struggle in which members were often confused and lost their bearings) and so much so that I would say that after that time there was far more of a problem of membership relying uncritically on leadership than of the opposite problem of ultra-democracy.
The RU then began to focus its attention on carrying out this more consolidated perspective in its mass level work, in workplaces and trade unions in particular. A trade union commission was established to develop a more consistent approach to T.U. work. A study was made of past efforts at organizing the unemployed (this was during the 1970-1971 recession) and the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committees were launched in the Bay Area. All cadre were (for a while) required to be in a study group. The RU organized the first of its yearly May Day Rallies for May Day 1971 that reflected the newly consolidated enthusiasm for "building a real workers' movement" under communist leadership.
The RU intervened in various strike struggles of the period including playing a key role in organizing support rallies for striking longshoremen in San Francisco with whom the RU had fairly good contacts. The RU tended more toward errors of economism and rightism during this period of nearly unbridled enthusiasm for winning a sphere of influence within the workers' movement. The RU was certainly attacked by other organizations during this period with charges of "economism." In my opinion, such charges need to be taken with a grain of salt considering the mood of the time which was toward more obvious forms of infantile leftism. Despite some economist mistakes, I think this period (1971-72) was the healthiest of RU's development.
During this period, the RU formulated as its central task the "building of the United, consciousness, and organization of the working class and the leading role of the working class within the United Front." This formulation of a central task has been attacked as rightist by virtually everyone – the ultra-leftists and those within the Independent Right. (Rightist because party building was not posed as the central task.)
I do not agree with the criticism. I think such a formulation was a clear-cut, non-rhetorical admission of the importance during this period of gaining a communist influence by way of addressing the very pressing task of rebuilding a practically non-existent "workers' movement" (for example, through the influence of left-led caucuses in trade unions, community coalitions), i.e., fusion, and that saw the development of such a perspective for communist work as a precondition for party building rather than as "party building" itself.
The RU attitude toward party building was, although this was not explicitly stated, that the development of a correct approach to building mass struggle was at the heart of the political line that would be needed for a party. If other forces did not correctly approach such work then that was the problem to be addressed before we would even begin to talk about building a party which presumably would be formed on the basis of a line on such key questions.
Thus, in my opinion, the RU approach (at least implicitly) during this period had the advantage that it underscored the importance of "fusion" and saw the application to this task as key to the accomplishment of other tasks, including the task of struggling with other communists for unity on political line that would provide the basis for party building. One element of this analysis (that still today divides the "fusion" and "rectification" forces) was that given the makeup and background of our movement, one cannot expect a correct political line (that has any concrete substance to it) on such issues as how to build a revolutionary movement in the working class to develop apart from some experience and concentration in carrying out these tasks.
Let me say one thing further on "party building." When we look at a group such as the RU, even during this period, we should avoid mystifying what "party building" actually meant. The RU already functioned effectively as a party. It had or was developing a line on the most basic questions. It had become a national organization (a process that I will describe shortly) that operated on the basis of democratic centralism. The only real significance of "party building" would have been its willingness to carry out struggle with other forces toward a more unified movement-wide organization. To have achieved such broader unity would have provided the only significance to changing its name to a "Party." Later when the RU did become a "Party" what it signified by this move was that it then saw itself as the only legitimate Marxist-Leninist organization, but for all practical purposes it had functioned as a "party" for several years.
The RU developed its position on the Black Liberation struggle during this period and the position was published as Red Papers 5 in early 1972. The position maintained that while there was justification in continuing to call the Black struggle a national struggle, the Black Belt Nation theory (as formulated in the 1928 and 1930 Comintern Resolutions) no longer was valid because Blacks were now scattered throughout the United States and most Blacks were now workers, integrated within the working class at large, rather than involved in a separate, share-cropping economy in the South. The RU put forward the concept of a "Nation of a New Type" who had still the right to choose for self-determination but who were much more an integral and leading element within the overall class struggle than ever before. At this point, the RU still maintained that the Black struggle was also an important revolutionary struggle in its own right.
While some might observe that the idea of a "dispersed Nation" is somewhat of a contradiction in terms, nevertheless I think this position was an advancement over the general tendency in the anti-revisionist movement to reaffirm the antiquated Comintern position. It was not until later in our story that the RU began to downplay the significance of the Black struggle and therefore I do not think that tendency was inevitably connected with the development of this theoretical position. Of course, the discarding of the Separate Nation theory made it possible to downplay the Black struggle but I prefer to think that this was an example of how one-sidedly and rigidly some communists respond to reality, rather than as an example that it would have been better if our theory had never confronted reality at all.
NATIONAL CONSOLIDATION
The RU had gradually expanded into a national organization as numerous local collectives joined the RU in the period of 1970 to 1972. Initially, the RU was unprepared to provide national leadership, especially until after the split with the Franklins was consolidated in early 1971. The RU had initially imagined that local groups would develop, carry on relations with RU and at some point move toward a national party. Most of the local groups were in actuality not able to develop an independent perspective and tended to either gravitate toward some other major perspective such as Weatherman or towards RU. Some, like OL, did develop independently but maintained a critical stance toward the RU and there was mutual suspicion and a sense that their politics were quite different (whether they were really that much different or not).
Until 1971 these other RU areas served as appendages to the Bay Area organization politically. In '71, a national center or headquarters was established in Chicago. I think this move tended to isolate further the top leadership from their roots (so to speak) and consequently made it easier to develop perspectives in disregard of a summation of practice. (Although it gradually lost any real significance, "summation of practice" had always been talked about as central to correct development of political line. It was only later, after the flowering of the dogmatist trend in the mid-'70's, that this good old Maoist term fell into virtual disuse by some communists.)
"RIGHTISM" BECOMES THE MAIN DANGER – DOWNHILL SLIDE BEGINS
The national steering committee produced a report in the latter part of 1972 that heralded a change in mood in the RU leadership and began to move the organization in a sharply different direction. The paper argued that rightism, not ultra-leftism, had become the main danger and it also projected the development of independent workers' organizations as the strategy for trade union work.
On the question of rightism, the paper pointed to examples of amateurishness in mass work, to the failure of some cadre to support the RU's political campaigns and to the fact that some cadre entertained thoughts of giving critical support to McGovern who ran as an anti-war candidate in 1972.
There had clearly been examples of lack of political boldness and tendencies to economism in individual mass work. Much of this kind of amateurishness merely reflects inexperience and is probably preferable to the contrived rather intrusive kind of bravado which increasingly after this period became the RU's trademark. The tasks the RU had set for itself also necessarily occasioned a certain amount of economism. Rather than beginning to recognize this danger and better equipping the cadre to avoid making economist mistakes, there was a general sense of panic and a complete reversal of the analysis that saw ultra-leftism as a pervasive danger given the conditions of the movement's development. I would maintain that the change in emphasis was not occasioned at all by any real increase in rightist thinking in the RU but by a change in perspective on the part of the leadership of the tasks facing the organization.
The first example of this new perspective was the emphasis on building intermediate workers' organizations. Left-initiated workers' organizations can be a useful form for carrying on work on a higher political level around issues that are connected to the issues addressed within the unions, workplaces and broad community organizations.
It is vitally important, however, that work on this level not be seen as a substitute for struggling for influence within the more mass level organizations. It is far more comfortable and obviously easier for communists to do their own thing within their own front organizations. To gauge how to struggle correctly within mass organizations is a difficult task and, in my opinion, the surest test of the political maturity and flexibility needed to transform revolutionary politics from mere phrases into reality.
The fact that city-wide organizations, which by definition could not be the forum for work within particular unions, could be projected as a "strategy" for trade union work indicated that, indeed, an essentially "dual unionist" mentality was taking root, a more subtle form of ultra-leftism than the adventurism of earlier days but actually very similar to that described by Lenin in "Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder."
Why this sudden change? The RU had been concentrating in workers'struggles at this point for several years and had little to show for its work in terms of recruitment or of any lasting impact within workplaces or trade unions. I think a kind of impatience or what might even be called disillusionment arose among some of the RU leaders but was masked in terms of "moving out of the mire of economism." There must be, they reasoned, a faster, less circuitous path to revolution.
There was an added factor now that contributed powerfully to this tendency toward impatience. The RU was at the height of its influence within the communist movement, the largest ML organization. Some rapid successes were necessary within its mass work if it was to begin to meaningfully, claim the mantle of "vanguard of the working class."
CONSOLIDATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL SECTARIANISM
The RU had never made a priority of working with other movement forces. Previously, this had been justified by pointing to the more outright petty bourgeois leftism of many of these forces and suggesting that it was impossible to integrate with the workers and at the same time work in tandem with these forces. I think there had been some validity to this argument but it served as justification for a great deal of organizational arrogance. And being immersed among the workers, one does not have to listen to such criticism that one gets from other leftists. This attitude reinforced an imperviousness to dialogue and criticism within the Left. As the RU's politics moved further to the Left, the face of its politics toward other Left groups appeared increasingly sectarian and in turn it had far more criticism to protect itself from.
The justification now for the RU maintaining its isolation had to be different. The RU was now saying that rightism was the main problem. OL had at this point abandoned some of its initial ultra-left criticisms of the RU. OL cadre in private were even known to admit that the RU had been more correct on certain issues. In fact, OL adopted some RU lines wholesale that they had previously criticized, e.g., the United Front Against Imperialism. It is true I believe that the OL veered slightly further to the right during this period (1972-74) than the RU ever had.
The RU looked for and exaggerated some OL mistakes to begin laying the groundwork for the charge that the OL and its ally during that period, the Guardian, were full-fledged "Browderites." As the RU increasingly took left-sectarian positions on key questions and the OL in that period took slightly more realistic positions, new evidence was continually compiled regarding OL's Browderism while at once justifying RU's ultra-left stance.
During this period, the RU tended increasingly toward one-sided, simplistic analysis of various political and social issues, especially in regard to the issues of special oppression and democratic rights. It denounced the Equal Rights Amendment as merely a ruling class trick to mislead the working class into worthless reformist channels. It vehemently denounced OL for supporting the ERA and also for involving itself in the Conference of Labor Union Women as if there was some long-established communist principle of not participating in such reformist-led coalitions. (In which case, how would we justify at all participation in trade unions? Ultra-Leftists are often not much for consistency.)
In the Bay Area, the RU declined to participate (the incidents I am describing all occurred during 1973) in the United Labor Action Coalition, a temporary alignment of active union people initiated by S.F.T.'s more progressive union bureaucrats, even after being encouraged by some of the forces within the coalition to participate, on the grounds that since we could not significantly influence it or control it would only be building the role of union bureaucrats.
The last example, of participation in ULAC, is a good illustrative example both because it did offer complexity (it is hard to play an effective Left role in a reformist-led coalition) and because the RU's response was clearly wrong and clearly an ultra-left reaction. It ignores the seemingly obvious fact that the people themselves will be attracted to reformist philosophies and follow the established reformist leadership to a certain extent. No matter how loudly we yell, we will not change that fact and only if we are in these movements and supporting their progressive content will we be in a position to effectively criticize the negative aspects of reformist leadership and facilitate people learning politically from these experiences.
While this logic might appear hard to escape, the ultra-leftists will always find plenty of reasons why in any particular case either participation will involve some unpardonable compromise of principle (OL later came up with a great one when they decided it was always wrong to work with revisionists), as if politics were bound by moral absolutes, or more commonly they avoid the issue by suggesting it is a little revisionist to see "this kind of work" (electoral work, trade union work, mass coalitions in the women's movement or Black movement) as important. What is "important" by contrast is, they think, some left-led activity where we continue to essentially talk to ourselves.
Of course, not everything the RU did during this period was totally negative. During 1973, they built nation-wide support for the Farah strikers that far surpassed the support organized by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. They built committees against Nixon's Wage Freeze that, at least in the Bay Area, had some success in injecting this very timely political issue into strikes and other struggles. They put a great deal of energy into their purpose by putting tons of leaflets into the hands of unemployed workers but were abysmally ineffective in organizing workers or becoming a mass organization.
The RU had also by this time established numerous "worker" newspapers around the country that were not formally published by the RU and intended to function as the forum for a slightly broader than RU, left-oriented "workers'movement" that never materialized. In place of reflecting the liveliness of mass involvement or having any real mass appeal, they reflected only sterile, even more oversimplified versions of RU politics.
SPLIT WITH BWC AND PRRWO
Toward the end of 1973, a new crisis erupted. The Black Workers Congress and the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization had been meeting for some time with the RU leadership in a Liaison Committee and how this alliance erupted in mutual recriminations.
These other two organizations had sensed a tendency within RU leadership to downplay the special significance of Black and other minority struggles and struggle had gone on for some time around these questions. Now the RU had decided the time was ripe to form its party (CL had already announced its intention to form a party and they suspected OL might soon) and had apparently begun putting pressure on these groups to merge into their projected party. When BWC and PRRWO refused, given their hesitation on how the RU was coming to view minority struggles, RU responded with charges of bourgeois nationalism and "Bundism" (meaning to make a principle of separate national organizations).
It did become clear in the course of these debates that RU was changing its approach to Black and other minority struggles. We began to picture the recognition of these struggles as broad cross-class struggles in their own right, as inherently a tendency to veer off the straight proletarian path into bourgeois reformism. From this time on, RU cadre became so afraid of catering to bourgeois nationalism that they began to invariably argue against separate minority caucuses in their workplaces, unions, etc. The RU leadership decided that bourgeois nationalism was a bigger problem than white chauvinism within the communist movement. It seemed, of course, that the most clear-cut example of bourgeois nationalism would be to refuse to join the RU.
Whether the RU's organizational conflicts around its party building plans prompted the changed political emphasis on the Black and other minority questions, or the political changes (related to an overall tendency to downplay the significance of reform issues) prompted the organizational conflicts, was never very clear and is not really important. Two negative tendencies that had been increasingly consolidating within the RU leadership were apparent – incredible arrogance and willingness to ride roughshod over other forces and a one-sided simplistic disregard for the complexity and significance of an issue such as Black Liberation.
The RU got the opportunity very soon to show what its line meant in practice. Indeed, the RU's response to the Boston Busing Crisis in 1974 provided a pitiful illustration of the absurd and downright reactionary lengths to which an idealist distortion of reality can be carried by a communist group. The RU was not about to fall for the ruling class's scheme to divide white and Black workers. Working class unity was the issue, according to RU, and the Black people's struggle for equal rights was by comparison apparently an irrelevant issue.
I left the RU, however, before witnessing this debacle. There were a number of people within the RU, at least a fair number in the Bay Area, who refused to go along with the RU's line on the Black question during its split with BWC and PRRWO. Some of these people had been critical of some aspects of RU's rigidness and sectarianism before this time but most of these people were shocked by this particular development and their sense of loyalty to what they considered as the revolutionary significance of the Black Liberation struggle overrode their sense of loyalty to the RU.
I had been critical of the direction RU had been taking since the time of the national steering committee report in 1972. At that time I had written a paper, being fully confident that the leadership would appreciate my suggestions and see the error of their ways but such was not the case. I had initially taken a leave of absence from leadership but after writing a critical position paper the leadership decided, to my amazement, that our differences were too great for me to be in leadership. I had not considered leaving, however, until the split developed around the Black Liberation issue. I also considered this issue too serious to stay in and in any way defend the RU's position.
I saw this issue as but the most serious manifestation yet of a developing left sectarian trend. Most of those who left, as well as most of those in the communist movement, saw the issue more in terms of "rightism." (OL intermittently called these errors both left and right, seemingly not wanting to be pinned down to any one analysis. It was not until the development of the Independent Trend a couple of years later that there was any significant section of the movement that began to correctly put these mistakes into perspective.)
Most of those who left RU at this time, together with BWC and PRRWO, fell prey to a kind of dogmatism in some ways more primitive than the RU's ultra-leftism. First they were convinced by those, including CL, who argued that RU had gotten itself in such a mess on the Black question because it had departed from tradition and broken with the Black Belt South theory. There was a tendency to think that those who had all along criticized RU on other issues as well, such as party building, for not being dogmatist enough must have been correct.
For the next year or so, many of these people, particularly those under BWC's leadership, began to ponder the scriptures, looking for the "key" to party building, as the Black Belt theory had been the "key" to the Black Liberation issue. It seems that for those trained in ultra-leftism, leftism has a tendency to beget leftism.
Led as this trend was by some Third World organizations, a quite substantial dogmatist tendency was established in the period of 1974-76. MLOC, Revolutionary Wing, Workers Congress and other groups grew out of this period. In my opinion, the reconsolidated dogmatism of this period, in the confusion after RU's initial isolation, had a significant regressive effect on most of the anti-revisionist movement and the "back to the classics" fundamentalism of that period still has its effects on our movement, even somewhat within the Independent Trend.
For the remainder of RU's history, I am not the one to tell the story. The reader is probably aware of some of the highlights. In 1975, the "Party" was formed. Toward the end of 1977, RCP broke with China and consequently lost half of its organization as the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters split off on this issue. Those who left were critical of an even more pronounced ultra-left drift by this time, but, unfortunately, they saw RCP's quite justified break with China in the same light. Now, in 1979, RCP seems to have regressed to a kind of left adventurism that is reminiscent of the Weatherman days, also reminiscent of the later years of PL as well when it found itself an isolated sect and a kind of "go for broke" mentality set in.
The Revolutionary Union was very much a product of its times, a forum mainly for those who had come to revolutionary politics in the 1960's to give play to their enthusiasm for revolution and to put their notion of how to build a revolutionary movement into practice. Of course, they did not start entirely from scratch. They had read, like all of us, "What Is To Be Done" and even "Left-Wing Communism" and had at least a superficial understanding of the major themes that had been stressed in communist history. They had some negative models, including the revisionism and economism of the CPUSA and the extreme left sectarianism of the Trotskyite groups, and particularly of PL's brand of ultra-leftism. As time was to tell, however, they did not significantly understand these mistakes, especially the ultra-left ones, to avoid repeating them in different forms under different circumstances.
For the most part, RU leaders were young, of petty bourgeois class origins, had little political experience and particularly little political experience within the working class. This is not to fault them. Let's face it, given the relative dormancy of the working class during the last period, if it were not for the "idealism" of the radicalized intelligentsia there would be no "new" communist movement.
Sometimes their instincts were "right on." Revolutionary developments were such on a world scale that you might say the builders of the new movement almost instinctively rejected the political backwardness of the CP's approach. They had also learned enough from the revolutionary struggles worldwide and had enough experience themselves in anti-imperialist struggle to reject the form of PL's ultra-leftism that clearly sabotaged support for national liberation struggles. (Although many of them were later taken in by China's form of ultra-leftism which served the same purpose.)
There were some, including the early RU leaders, who got close enough to the working class to dispel the myth that the working class had no significant grievances with the system. They were able to understand, at least superficially, that it was on this potential that a revolutionary movement had to be based, not on the readiness of an isolated few to take up arms against the system.
After this point, however, the questions of how to build a revolutionary movement among the working class got tougher and the solutions they came up with (given their class orientation and background, limited theoretical training, limited experience) became more inadequate.
One can argue that if they had been better Marxists, had a better understanding of how to apply Marxism in a lively way things would have been different. That is quite true, but of course they thought they understood Marxism. In my opinion, the real problem is how an abstract understanding of Marxism gets translated into real programs and perspectives. Here it is important to recognize, if only to guard against it ourselves, how pervasive has been the tendency to understand Marxism in a certain way, a way that replicates the world view and subjective tendencies of the radicalized intelligentsia.
Characteristics of this world view include the following: impatience, the desire for quick or at least uncomplicated solutions, a bias toward relying on intellectual schemes no matter how much such thinking is apparently contradicted by reality or the results of practice, a subsequent kind of subjectivity that enables one to recognize only selected aspects of reality. Some common mistakes in method that flow from these ideological biases include an inability to approach problems in a dialectical manner, a persistent tendency to rely on abstract principles (often understood incorrectly in the first place because of the ideological bias) and to oversimplify the requirements of intervening in any given social situation, to generally not see the necessity of struggle moving from lower to higher levels and of the necessity of enabling people to learn political lessons from their own experience.
All of these tendencies are characteristic of the idealism of the petty bourgeois. We should not be discouraged that these tendencies appear, we are merely paying the price for our heritage, so to speak. These factors were always present in the RU, and every other of the anti-revisionist organizations; it is just that when up against the task of moving a mountain (the working class into political struggle) these tendencies became manifest and of more decisive consequence.
Did this subjective idealism have to take a Left form? Under the circumstances, I believe it did. We are describing essentially a left impulse, i.e., "let's get on with it, we want to make revolution, we must overcome (read overlook) all obstacles."
Now a young CP member may be criticized for making some of the same mistakes, but the young CP member is part of an ideological tendency that will either dampen his left impulses, or he will leave. There is no, question that ideology, while arising itself out of class experience, in turn shapes and influences our perceptions.
The only developed aspect of our ideology has been anti-revisionism, other than the basic principles of communism, and there has been no significant counterbalance to such infantile communism. Essentially the reason why I support the "fusion" perspective is that the only significant counter to making these kinds of mistakes that I have ever seen is a serious and deep awareness of the requirements of revolutionary work that arises out of practice.
I have written about my experience in the RU but really this is a history of our movement –its strengths and weaknesses. If both its strengths and, particularly right now, its failures can be understood, our movement will move ahead with more understanding and perspective without, once again, having to start from scratch.
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text:
Outline: Part 2
Issue 208, Spring 2014
These days, he said, I live very simply. In the mornings, at sunrise, I drive to a place I know twenty minutes outside of Athens and I swim all the way across the bay and all the way back again. In the evenings I sit on my balcony and I write. He closed his eyes briefly and smiled. I asked him what it was he was writing, and his smile widened. He said, I am writing about my childhood. I was so happy as a child, he continued, and I realized a little while ago that there was nothing I wanted so much as to recall it piece by piece, with every possible detail. The world that happiness existed in has completely disappeared, not just from my own life but from Greece as a whole, for whether it knows it or not Greece is a country that is on its knees and dying a slow and agonizing death. In my own case, I sometimes wonder whether it was the very happiness of my childhood that has meant I have had to be taught how to suffer. I seem to have been exceptionally slow to understand where pain comes from, and how it comes. It has taken me a long time to learn to avoid it. I read in the newspaper the other day, he said, about a boy with a curious mental disorder which compels him to seek physical risk and there- fore injury wherever possible. This boy is forever putting his hand in the fire, and throwing himself off walls, and climbing trees in order to fall out of them; he has broken nearly every bone in his body and of course is covered in cuts and bruises, and the newspaper asked his poor parents for their comment on the situation. The problem is, they said, he has no fear. But it seems to me that exactly the reverse is true: he has too much fear, so much that he is driven to enact the thing of which he is afraid, lest it should happen of its own accord. I think that if I had known, as a child, what was possible in terms of pain, I might have had much the same response. You might remember in the Odyssey, he said, the character of Elpenor, Odysseus's crewmate who falls off the roof of Circe's house because he is so happy he forgets he has to use a ladder to come down. Odysseus encounters him in Hades later on, and he asks him why on earth he died in such a foolish manner. Paniotis smiled. I always found that a charming detail, he said.
Illustration by Samantha Hahn.
More from Issue 208, Spring 2014
The Window Lion
Luke Mogelson
To the Lake
Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets
The Art of Nonfiction No. 7
The Art of Screenwriting No. 4
The Sad Thing
The Ritz Brothers on Moonlight Bay
Psychic Bitters
Nick Laird
Dorothea Lasky
Dawn Song
The Orange Flower
Carol Muske-Dukes
Geoffrey G. O'Brien
For a Those Still About To
After England
Frederick Seidel
Autum Leaves
Winter Day, Birdsong
Fugitive Photographs
Gemma Sieff
A Visit with Evan Connell

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
UK's EU problem becomes more pressing
Sorcerer's apprentice
1 March 2013 By Pierre Briançon
It has taken just a short week to expose British Prime Minister David Cameron's stated European policy as lacking in both strategy and tactics.
The government's defeat on the bonus cap the European Union has decided to force on bankers has shown how isolated London has become in the bloc's decision-making process. The defeat of Cameron's ruling Conservatives in a by-election, when they were pushed into third place by the anti-European UK Independence Party, has shown how divided the political right remains on Europe. And Herman Van Rompuy has thrown cold water on British hopes that the EU's treaties could be renegotiated. It's not the priority, the European Council president said, appearing to point to the door in noting that "there is an exit clause" if the UK considers its relationship with the EU unsatisfactory.
Britain finds itself without allies in Europe, and must now clearly explain what it feels is unbearable about the current situation, and why it can justify the radical option of an exit. Cameron's plan had been to enter into renegotiation talks, and then submit the results to a referendum in 2017 – if, that is, the Conservatives are still in power. But if the treaties aren't renegotiated, what will his position be? The only choice that would be left to voters is one of a brutal in-or-out of the EU. And in that case, what would Cameron advocate? Continued membership that would make him lose face? Or would he shoulder the responsibility of the consequences of a radical exit?
The Eastleigh by-election results will be scrutinised in European capitals for possible clues as to what Cameron could do next. His rather half-hearted anti-European statements haven't helped him contain UKIP. So will he change course or up the rhetoric? In the latter case, events could accelerate, leaving the prime minister in a situation he may not like but can't avoid – leading to an earlier than anticipated "brexit". If, on the other hand, Cameron opts for a less strident stance, he will be in the position of a leader trying to explain to his people why they are wrong – and why he himself has been so careless.
The UK Independence Party received almost 28 percent of the vote in an election in Eastleigh, England on Feb. 28, pushing the ruling Conservative party into third place and paving way for the victory of the candidate of the Liberal Democrat party.
A senior Conservative figure, David Davis, said before the vote that "a crisis" would ensue if the Conservatives were beaten into third place.
European Council president Herman Van Rompuy said in a speech in London on Feb. 28 that "changing the EU treaties" was "not a priority", and that the UK would find it hard to convince its partners. "How do you convince a room full of people, when you keep your hand on the door handle?" he said.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron delivers his keynote speech on the final day of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, last October. (REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett)
Reuters: UK PM's party humbled in vote as anti-EU party surges
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On 29 October 2020, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica, took part in the meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in a video format, at which the OECD member countries discussed their national measures to overcome the crisis and the role of international cooperation for a strong, resilient, green and inclusive economic recovery.
Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica underlined that a top priority for Latvia at this point in time is human health and addressing the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic. At the same time, the crisis is an opportunity to speed up and ensure green and digital transition of our economies. The advantages of digital technologies have already proved themselves during the pandemic.
"Strong multilateralism is crucial when we face global challenges," the Parliamentary Secretary noted. Latvia appreciates the OECD's analysis and evidence-based recommendations in almost any social and economic policy. This has helped Latvia improve its policies in the areas such as education, environment and digital transformation, which in turn will make us better prepared to grasp and take up opportunities available in the new economies, she added.
In conclusion, Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica underlined that the pandemic has added urgency to our efforts against disinformation and misinformation. Coordinated and fact-based communication should be part of the global policy response to COVID-19.
At the meeting, the OECD member countries, after a break of three years, adopted a joint Ministerial Council Statement, which reflects the main lines of action to ensure an inclusive and sustainable recovery after the COVID-19. The member countries agreed to use the opportunities offered by digitalisation and ensure a green, inclusive economic growth based on international cooperation.
On 28–29 October 2020, the Ministerial Council of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) held a meeting with the main topic, "The Path to Recovery: Strong, Resilient, Green and Inclusive". The Meeting brought together representatives from 50 countries and a number of international organisations.
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This article originally appeared in the Progress Edition of the Garden City Telegram. Click on this link to access the article on the Telegram's website.
Special Note: Central Care Cancer Center is a partner with St. Catherine Hospital and Centura Health in providing oncology services at Heartland Cancer Center, in Garden City.
For Marcie Harris Charles, 60, and her daughter, Megan Charles Kramer, 37, receiving treatment for their very different breast cancers so close to home has made a huge impact on their families, as well as themselves.
Charles, who lives in Dodge City, and Kramer, who hails from Cimarron, began the breast cancer battles in 2010, when Kramer was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) — a rare and difficult breast cancer to treat due to its sheer aggressive nature to spread throughout the body. It occurs when the cancer cells block lymph vessels in the skin of the breast, making it appear bruised and swollen because of the reddish purple color.
At Kramer's checkup in March 2012, Dr. James Moffitt, her family practice physician in Dodge City, noticed a lump on her neck. After the usual battery of tests showed new cancer growth, Kramer prepared to go back to Wichita for further testing. But her oncologist there had retired, so the decision was made to go to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where she began a three-year-long trial that would take her well into 2015.
On Christmas Eve 2016, Kramer came home from Phoenix. By now, cancer had spread to her brain.
In January 2017, after consults and more tests, Charles and Kramer sat down with family friend Heather Wright-Renick, BSN, RN, CN-BN, who is a certified nurse navigator and director of The Breast Center at St. Catherine Hospital in Garden City and who also lives in Cimarron. In her usual candor, Wright-Renick, herself a breast cancer survivor, asked when they were going to stop traveling and receive treatment at St. Catherine's Heartland Cancer Center.
While the cancer center first opened in 1997, expansion in 2016 greatly enhanced the cancer treatment services the center was able to provide for the region.
According to St. Catherine's website, the center features diagnostic PET Scan services, a dual energy linear accelerator and a treatment planning system utilizing the latest technology to aid in defining treatment areas while avoiding harm to at-risk organs. With the expansion, Heartland was able to acquire a Linear Accelerator, or TrueBeam, which can image tumors with high precision and deliver high energy treatment in a way that minimizes the amount of radiation delivered to healthy tissue.
In addition, Heartland offers the latest in chemotherapy and radiation therapy to improve tumor control, reduce side effects due to better organ visualization, and enhance treatment techniques for optimal outcomes. St. Catherine also has partnered with the Midwest Cancer Alliance through the University of Kansas to increase access to the latest cancer treatments through a variety of clinical trials.
After providing care and support for her daughter's ongoing treatment and her family since 2010, Charles found herself being suddenly moved from caregiver to patient. On August 30, 2017, she found herself at the end of her every four months breast follow-up appointment with a diagnosis of invasive ductile carcinoma.
Toumeh is both Charles' and Kramer's oncologist.
Before coming to Heartland, Charles' primary care physician in Dodge City ordered a diagnostic mammogram, skipping the usual screening mammogram. That was followed by two ultrasounds, two additional breast sonograms, bloodwork, X-rays and much lab work.
But according to Charles, Heartland compared to other cancer centers she and her daughter have gone to, and she says Heartland always puts the patient and their family first. It has helped ease the burden of her caregiver husband Marc, who is chauffeur, chef and comforter for both his wife and daughter. She explained that in their situation, with both mother and daughter as patients, both immediate and extended family members stepped up, including Kramer's husband, Cory (who was also holding down a full-time job) and his parents, Jim and Jean Kramer, also of Cimarron, who made sure their daughter-in-law got to appointments and that the grandkids stayed connected.


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Ирина Николаевна Прокопенко (род. 8 сентября 1926, Спас-Клепики Рязанской области) — русско-украинская детская писательница, прозаик.

Биография
1946 — окончила Московскую Высшую школу полярных работников. Работала на полярной станции (Чукотка). Учительствовала в Днепропетровске. Работала на телевидении в редакции детских передач, была директором писательского клуба. На протяжении 26 лет руководила секцией детской литературы при Днепропетровской областной писательской организации.

Библиография
Автор книг для детей «Хто разбудив ліс», «Що шепотіли берізки», «Сонце, сонечко та соняшник», «Фарби старого художника», «Як Василько поразумнішав», «Точка на карте», «Пригоди на землі та під водою», «Як жолудь дубом став», «Трактористки», «Длинная песня полозьев», «Лигушонок Леша», «Їжачок-простачок», «Конвалія», «Колискова для Лилика».

Автор книги прозы «Исповедь», Днепропетровск, изд. «Січ», 2003, ISBN 966-511-224-4.

Награждена Почётным знаком Министра культуры и искусства Украины «За достижения в развитии культуры и искусств» (2003). Лауреат литературной премии имени Валериана Пидмогильного (2004).

И. Н. Прокопенко — жена украинского поэта Гаврилы Никифоровича Прокопенко (1922—2005), известного, главным образом, переводом на украинский язык стихов Дмитрия Кедрина. После его смерти продолжала переписку с дочерью Кедрина С. Д. Кедриной. Является составителем книги «Украинскому Кедрину — быть (избранная переписка / 1977—2005 гг.)», Днепропетровск, изд. «Січ», 2006, ISBN 966-511-495-6

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Home Perspectives Shariah in Lawless Somalia
Shariah in Lawless Somalia
Abukar Arman
Nowhere in the world is Shariah more contested ( yet seldom debated) than in war-weary Somalia where each of the entities competing for power claims to have embraced it while condemning its detractor, or rather, its enemy, as a dangerous imposter.
All the colorful politics motivating each contender aside, the most pressing question begging an answer is: Can lawless Somalia be governed by Shariah?
Short answer: It depends!
If by Shariah we mean the Talibanesque, self-righteous, and unjust brand currently being practiced by the Somali Neo-Islamists known as al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, the answer is: No.
As these two groups have been asserting their authority through violence-driven territorial expansion, they have been rapidly loosing the public confidence necessary for them to sustain any gains. Horrific accounts attesting to their ignorance and to the cruelty of their method have been stirring panic and cultivating hate. Stories such as the two Neo-Islamist assassins who followed their victim-to-be into a mosque and prayed alongside him only to shoot him in the head after he stepped outside the mosque raise serious questions regarding these groups' understanding of Islam and Shariah.
Theirs is an obtuse, if not dysfunctional, interpretation of Shariah. They are oblivious to the education-based societal transformation that the classic Shariah seeks to achieve. To them, Shariah is a purposeless, uncompassionate, punishment-driven set of laws that are arbitrarily implemented without consideration of time, circumstances or objectives.
Therefore, it is a matter of time before the masses would conquer their collective fear and revolt against this accountable to no one, selectively oppressive, and entirely alien brand of Shariah.
If, however, by Shariah we mean the classic concept of Islamic governance adapted to address contemporary political, social, economic, and spiritual challenges in a just way, the answer is: Yes.
As a country whose national institutions have been utterly destroyed and almost all threads that once wove its society together have been unraveled, Islam is the only thread that remains intact. Therefore, adopting Shariah as a set of rules, regulations, and values to govern Somalia is not only feasible but perhaps the only sensible means to resuscitate that dying state.
Granted, the name "Shariah" connotes a politically radioactive concept in the West and that there are those who believe that Shariah and governance are mutually exclusive; however, that is hardly a fair estimation of this profoundly misconstrued system. [One might gain a broader perspective of this concept by reading Noah Feldman of Harvard's article "Why Shariah?" published by N.Y. Times March 16, 2008]
The Somali people are desperate for a government and indeed a system of governance (any for that matter) that they can invest their trust in; a system that protects them against injustices and guards their God-given right to life, to own property, to enjoy basic freedoms and to exercise their freewill.
Therefore, President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and his government would have to identify the most crucial needs of the people.
Granted, in a number of his speeches while visiting the Somali Diaspora in the United States , he highlighted security, humanitarian needs, and capacity building as being his top priorities. While no one would dispute the importance of these three, some question 'why is peace and reconciliation not part of the top three priorities?' They argue that there should be an ongoing process that resists any temptation to give up prematurely.
That being said, the model of Shariah that is likely to succeed is the one that genuinely addresses the following categories of needs:
First: Preserving the sanctity of life and the provision of a secure environment in which the average Somali could reach his/her optimum potential. Within this, protecting the lives of civilians and addressing the humanitarian crisis reign high.
Second: Instituting a peace and reconciliation policy that would keep the door open and the peace process in motion.
Third: Protecting individual properties against any abuses including nationalization, and state properties by establishing a transparent system of accountability.
Fourth: Instituting policies that guarantee equality before the law and protect the rights of women and minorities.
Fifth: Protecting individuals from power abuse and preserving individual's honor by protecting him or her against false accusations, imprisonment, slander, and character assassination.
Sixth: Protecting freedom of assembly, conscience, and thought.
Seventh: Promoting education and protecting the God-given right of the individual citizen to question and scrutinize their leaders by protecting their right to elect their representatives.
Eighth: Enacting policies promoting ethical and moral conduct that, among other things, criminalize favoritism and other corruptions such as bribery and nepotism.
Ninth: Paving the way for the development of independent institutions that, on one hand, ensure a system of checks and balances, and on the other, enhance the overall function of the government
Tenth: Instituting policies that protect the sovereignty of the nation and promote neighborly coexistence with neighboring states and with the rest of the international community.
President Ahmed must succeed in persuading people to accept the legitimacy of his government and to trust the individuals appointed to exercise that authority. And, in order to achieve that, those entrusted to lead must resort to taking tangible actions that would restore law and order and improve the lives of people. They must do away with the clan-based quota system that by and large appoints incompetent demagogues who neither serve the nation nor the clans in whose name they were appointed. More importantly, they must streamline all the militias led by shrouded warlords who are now considered government allies into a disciplined army that is accountable.
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Abukar Arman is a free-lance writer and he contributed this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).
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The England winger has taken a shot at Cristiano Ronaldo's midriff-baring goal celebration on social media, after two late strikes from the English side cancelled out Ronaldo's stunning opener in Turin on Wednesday evening.
It was a goal of such quality that perhaps it deserved to decide any match but despite Ronaldo's 65th minute volley, his new side came undone by his old one with two goals in the last five minutes securing Manchester United's most famous Champions League away win of the post-Ferguson era.
Juan Mata's late equalizer and a disastrous own-goal from Leonardo Bonucci secured three points for Jose Mourinho's side and, despite having the last laugh on the pitch, United Jesse Lingard couldn't resist poking fun at Ronaldo on Instagram.
The post has gained more than 500,000 'likes' in the hours since it was posted. David de Gea, Lingard's teammate at Old Trafford, was one of those to respond.
Ronaldo has showcased his physique in goal celebrations in the past, though on this occasion he raised the lower half of his jersey instead of removing it entirely, presumably to avoid receiving a yellow card for the celebration.
Despite Ronaldo's wonderstrike, the Portuguese was in solemn mood after the final whistle.
"I was happy for the goal but I am a little bit disappointed," Ronaldo told Viasport. "We should've won the game easily. Three, four goals. And Manchester didn't do much, in my opinion.