What’s the deal with the RCP?
I’ve been hanging out recently with a woman from the Revolutionary Communist Party, who has the endearing quality common to recent recruits to Leninist organizations – an enthusiasm born of half-digested Marxism and vaguely remembered liberal pieties. There’s a lot to like about the RCP’s theory: their recognition of the importance of Black liberation to revolutionary struggle in the US; the way they call any theoretical work “science” (presumably an indirect 5%-er influence); their emphasis on class struggle after the revolution; and Avakian writes quite well. Which makes their evident madness all the more strange, as what they do is so out of line with what they say. If they’re really interested in raising the consciousness and leadership of the masses, why are they so fixated on Chairman Bob? If they’re so interested in class struggle, why are they never involved in political confrontations?
Another weird thing about my RCP friend is that she seems totally convinced that the RCP will lead the revolution. Not in a creepy “we’re going to be in charge” sort of way, but in the disarmingly logical sense that, as there’s going to be a communist revolution, and they’re the Revolutionary Communists, so of course they’ll be the ones to lead it. I’m reminded of Marx’s comment on utopian socialists:
Although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletariat.… By degrees, they sink into the category of the reactionary [or] conservative Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous effects of their social science.
They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new Gospel.
Which is the problem. If there are no anti-beavers, it’s not my revolution (I’m inordinately pleased to see that my old blog is on the first page of results for “anti-beaver”).