Revolution #225, February 27, 2010
PART 1: REVOLUTION AND THE STATE
Editors' Note: The following is an excerpt from a recent talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA; this is one of a number of excerpts from that talk that are being published in Revolution. The first seven excerpts appeared in Revolution #218–#224. The entire Part I of the talk is available at revcom.us. This has been edited, and footnotes have been added, for publication.
Incorporating Aspects of Utopianism—On a Materialist Foundation
Now, having hammered quite a bit here at utopianism, I want to say a word on the other side of the contradiction. The most fundamental thing that needs to be done is to make the leap and rupture beyond utopianism (and other unscientific viewpoints and approaches) to scientific communism, and then to continue going forward, on that basis. That's the most essential thing in terms of actually being able to change the world and lead others to consciously change the world. But with that first leap having been taken and firmly consolidated, and going forward on that basis and no other, on that foundation and in that framework there is a further leap that can and should be made: to incorporate what can be incorporated from the utopian into the dialectical materialist framework. This is, once again, an expression of the difference between the new synthesis and other notions of what communism is, and even some past theory and practice. There was some of what I am talking about here in Mao, but this is precisely a further synthesis.
This has to do with the contradiction that was posed, and with the writings that were done around the contradiction, that the world cannot remain fundamentally unchanged, but on the other hand we don't want a society and world in which the "lights are turned out"—that this must not be what characterizes the communist revolution, and that people have, not without any justification, viewed it that way in the past. We need another, a further radical rupture beyond that.1
In terms of this principle of making the leap and rupture beyond utopianism to scientific communism and then, on that basis, incorporating from the utopian what can be incorporated—and, in some ways, transformed—into a dialectical materialist framework, we can think back 40 years ago to Woodstock. That was definitely a utopian phenomenon. It is significant that in the movie Taking Woodstock, which came out not long ago, you'll see some of this brought to life fairly well, with what we can recognize as weaknesses in the original Woodstock, but also some very definite positive things, including the fact that there were 400,000 to 500,000 people together there, the equivalent of a mid-size city in the U.S., for four days of horrible physical conditions—the rain and mud, not enough bathrooms, inconveniences of all kinds—and yet overwhelmingly people were striving for an ethos in which they were cooperating with each other, even though this was "rarified" and ultimately utopian. The crime statistics there are striking—in terms of what there was not—there were a few crimes, including a few violent crimes, such as rape, but remarkably very little. If you were to take those four days and compare it to four days of "normal life" in any mid-size American city, you would see the profound and striking difference. And it wasn't just outward manifestations—it was a whole ethos.
Of course, it couldn't last, and that utopianism couldn't lead to a new society. But is there anything to learn from that? Is there anything which, on a materialist foundation, can and should be incorporated from that, or from more recent phenomena, for example, like the Burning Man experience every year, where people go out into the desert and, for a few days, shed their "normal" ways of doing things and relating to other people? That, too, definitely has its limitations. These phenomena are acutely contradictory, but are there things that on a materialist foundation can and should be learned from and incorporated? Yes. And we should have a positive orientation toward that—on a materialist foundation and not by adopting a utopian outlook.
This has to do with the "many different channels" point:2 the understanding that change does not come only directly through the political arena, or only as an extension of the work of the vanguard, but through many different channels. Sometimes this does involve directly political or sharply social contradictions, although this may be in ways which seem unexpected. Think, for example, of the recent scandal that erupted in regard to Shirley Sherrod, a Black woman whose father had been murdered years ago by white racists in the South and who was fired from her post in the Department of Agriculture after some right-wing bloggers and commentators on Fox News, grossly distorting some comments she made in a speech, launched a whole crusade against her for allegedly "racist" remarks about white people. This created real controversy and uproar and, in this case, when their totally dishonest methods were exposed, the right-wingers attacking her had to back off, and the Obama Administration—which had jumped immediately to fire her, rather than investigating the situation and defending her from these scurrilous attacks—was forced to apologize to her. Things like that, under certain conditions, could lead to a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling class. That's not where we're at with things right now, but this is one illustration of "many different channels." And so are some of these other phenomena that I've been talking about, which are not so directly political, like Woodstock decades ago or Burning Man—or other things we could think of in the cultural arena, even things which on the one hand focus on personal experiences and feelings but which take on a larger social meaning.
The point is to have a sensibility and an orientation—and a science, in a living sense—that embodies the right understanding and approach to the significance, or possible significance, of things like this. Clearly this has to do with the phenomenon that, as Lenin put it, communism springs from every pore of society. It has to do with the application of "solid core, with a lot of elasticity."3 Precisely on the basis of and through applying that, there can and should be an openness to, and a searching out of, things that can contribute to bringing a new world into being, even while, in and of themselves, they could never lead to that new world. That is another contradiction we have to be able to deal with in a living way, if we're ever going to get where we need to go—and we have to get where we need to go.
1. Early in 2010, Bob Avakian called attention to this contradiction—fundamentally changing the world without "turning out the lights"—and invited some people associated with or with responsibility in regard to the Party to respond with their thinking on this contradiction. Nineteen letters written in response were published online, together with an Introduction, in February 2010. This publication (with the title "An Historic Contradiction: Fundamentally Changing the World Without 'Turning Out the Lights'") is available online at revcom.us, in text and PDF formats. [back]
2. In "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity," Part 1, in the section "Freedom...and Necessity," the following is emphasized: "But, fundamentally (and, so to speak, underneath all this) freedom does lie in the recognition and transformation of necessity. The point is that this recognition and the ability to carry out that transformation goes through a lot of different 'channels,' and is not tied in a positivist or reductionist or linear way to however the main social contradictions are posing themselves at a given time. If that were the case—or if we approached it that way—we would liquidate the role of art and much of the superstructure in general. Why do we battle in the realm of morals? It is because there is relative initiative and autonomy in the superstructure. And the more correctly that's given expression, the better it will be, in terms of the kind of society we have at a given time and in terms of our ability to recognize necessity and carry out the struggle to transform necessity." [back]
3. "Solid core, with a lot of elasticity" is one of the key principles embodied in the new synthesis brought forward by Bob Avakian. As explained in the Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA ("Appendix, Communism as a Science"):
"In short, in this new synthesis as developed by Bob Avakian there must be a solid core, with a lot of elasticity. This is, first of all, a method and approach that applies in a very broad way. It is based on the scientific understanding that reality is, indeed, real—and it consists of particular forms of matter in motion, each with a specific identity—but at the same time every particular thing is moving, changing, interacting with other things at different levels. A clear grasp of both aspects of this, and their interrelation, is necessary in understanding and transforming reality, in all its spheres, and is crucial to making revolutionary transformations in human society....
"It is necessary to both work to expand a leading core (which itself is continually going through changes) and necessary to encourage elasticity to the greatest degree possible at any given time—while keeping a clear 'eye on the prize' of revolution and communism through all this.
"Applied to socialist society, this approach of solid core with a lot of elasticity includes the need for a leading, and expanding, core that is clear on the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the aim of continuing socialist revolution as part of the world struggle for communism, and is determined to continue carrying forward this struggle, through all the twists and turns. At the same time, there will necessarily be many different people and trends in socialist society pulling in many different directions—and all of this can ultimately contribute to the process of getting at the truth and getting to communism. This will be intense at times, and the difficulty of embracing all this—while still leading the whole process broadly in the direction of communism—will be something like going, as Avakian has put it, to the brink of being drawn and quartered—and repeatedly. All this is difficult, but necessary and a process to welcome. It's the only way to get there, the only way to get to communism." (emphasis in original)
As also pointed out earlier in this talk, the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal) is a living application of this new synthesis—including, as an important aspect of this, the principle of "solid core, with a lot of elasticity." [back]