To Be A Communist
I write this in dedication to all the young comrades and revolutionaries out there who are still confused about the question of essentially what does it mean to be a Communist? What can you call a Communist and what are its objectives, and of course, what is its history. In the grand sectarian turf warfares on the street by all sorts of little cults and sects who call themselves “Vanguards” this can be indeed quite confusing for someone who wants to learn Communism. Two things occur, a Young Communist because of this environment never gets the proper chance to develop his critical thought and ideology, he is either wrapped around simple phrases of a sect and praises them without critical thought. Other Comrades become frustrated with the Party routine in America, and become insular. They become naïve and stick to simplistic almost Webster dictionary definitions of Communism. They become Utopians. These are the real dangers for young Communists, they may drift into cult thinking and sectarianism or become Utopian socialists.
Other revolutionaries, who are young, frustrated by the “Leninist” political scene turn toward other revolutionary activity. Anarchism, cultural nationalism, identity politics, and so on. These groupings give them simple understanding of the complexity in the class struggle or other relations of oppressive nature. It also gives them a community from which they can be secure in their confusion as well. We have seem this time and time again, young comrades slip away because of their frustration to understand ideology and to really engage in struggle, to really have genuine practice. Selling news papers for ISO, RCP, PSL, etc. takes its toll and they give up.
Because of these problems, we face difficulty in getting our movement to grow substantially amongst youth. And because of this confusion it is our job to give particular ideological material for them to grasp, and not hackneyed dogma. No here is where it is complicated, because of the nature of sectarianism in the US, dogma is what fills the “Vanguards” paper, there is no serious material analysis that doesn't stick to party line. The US revolutionary parties fail to give serious material for us to read. So we are failing our duties to be Materialists, and we fail to have a dialog. It is only in the blogosphere it seems where such honest communication is taking place.
I would like to begin offering some thoughts on what it means to be a Communist in the future, what is Communism. These questions are never discussed in proper manner without confusion for our young comrades...even workers. It will be so for a long time as well, as long as opportunists and cultists dominate the class struggle in the US.
And of course I am ironically speaking about fighting dogma and this sectarianism; however on my part I fully understand myself as a partisan in this fight. The contradictions of being a Maoist. We can only understand the world through ideology, through dogma....with the “science” of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In this sense, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism might be a misnomer as a term itself since it is actually really understanding social development and historical development in a dialectical, but primarily a materialist understanding. I say primarily materialist, because sometimes we get lost in merely trying to be “dialectical” but ignoring gross objective facts sometimes. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in this sense is not just the collected works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao...but a scientific understanding in how to develop a revolution and a revolutionary people. If a work of Lenin contradicts what we know in practice, we can only build upon what is true and not what is dogma. In this sense, we are Maoists 2nd and Scientists and Observers 1st . A dogmatist rather inverts this.
We can see this happening in other sciences as well, Physics or Mathematics for example. To be a Pythagorean in Mathematics was at once acceptable, but when critical observations about certain of Pythagoras' concepts revealed them to be wrong, to be a 100% observing Pythagorean would be absurd. However still people look to Pythagoras for some knowledge of the world; however with a critical knowledge that he is not a 100% correct. In all fields of science and philosophy, this is true. Our knowledge of the world deepens, and we come to know the world better. Only the religious minded stay with Dogma...whether they worship God or Histomat (The rigid Marxist, Stalinist, and Trotskyite [Instrumentalist] conception of History).
Young Comrades...I hope this helps to better explain simple point of what we, those pests who are critical communists, mean when we call MLM a science. I want to open the floor up to you in order so we can clarify concepts and struggle together.
Long Live Revolution!
Other revolutionaries, who are young, frustrated by the “Leninist” political scene turn toward other revolutionary activity. Anarchism, cultural nationalism, identity politics, and so on. These groupings give them simple understanding of the complexity in the class struggle or other relations of oppressive nature. It also gives them a community from which they can be secure in their confusion as well. We have seem this time and time again, young comrades slip away because of their frustration to understand ideology and to really engage in struggle, to really have genuine practice. Selling news papers for ISO, RCP, PSL, etc. takes its toll and they give up.
Because of these problems, we face difficulty in getting our movement to grow substantially amongst youth. And because of this confusion it is our job to give particular ideological material for them to grasp, and not hackneyed dogma. No here is where it is complicated, because of the nature of sectarianism in the US, dogma is what fills the “Vanguards” paper, there is no serious material analysis that doesn't stick to party line. The US revolutionary parties fail to give serious material for us to read. So we are failing our duties to be Materialists, and we fail to have a dialog. It is only in the blogosphere it seems where such honest communication is taking place.
I would like to begin offering some thoughts on what it means to be a Communist in the future, what is Communism. These questions are never discussed in proper manner without confusion for our young comrades...even workers. It will be so for a long time as well, as long as opportunists and cultists dominate the class struggle in the US.
And of course I am ironically speaking about fighting dogma and this sectarianism; however on my part I fully understand myself as a partisan in this fight. The contradictions of being a Maoist. We can only understand the world through ideology, through dogma....with the “science” of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In this sense, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism might be a misnomer as a term itself since it is actually really understanding social development and historical development in a dialectical, but primarily a materialist understanding. I say primarily materialist, because sometimes we get lost in merely trying to be “dialectical” but ignoring gross objective facts sometimes. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in this sense is not just the collected works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao...but a scientific understanding in how to develop a revolution and a revolutionary people. If a work of Lenin contradicts what we know in practice, we can only build upon what is true and not what is dogma. In this sense, we are Maoists 2nd and Scientists and Observers 1st . A dogmatist rather inverts this.
We can see this happening in other sciences as well, Physics or Mathematics for example. To be a Pythagorean in Mathematics was at once acceptable, but when critical observations about certain of Pythagoras' concepts revealed them to be wrong, to be a 100% observing Pythagorean would be absurd. However still people look to Pythagoras for some knowledge of the world; however with a critical knowledge that he is not a 100% correct. In all fields of science and philosophy, this is true. Our knowledge of the world deepens, and we come to know the world better. Only the religious minded stay with Dogma...whether they worship God or Histomat (The rigid Marxist, Stalinist, and Trotskyite [Instrumentalist] conception of History).
Young Comrades...I hope this helps to better explain simple point of what we, those pests who are critical communists, mean when we call MLM a science. I want to open the floor up to you in order so we can clarify concepts and struggle together.
Long Live Revolution!
Labels: Maoism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, MLM, Revolution, Youth
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Posted by
Anonymous |
6:41 AM
Long live critical communism !
Posted by
haisanlu |
2:44 AM
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