#RevCom

[connorthemaoist]

kites-journal.org | 1 April 2024

After consulting a tarot card reader while on a sojourn to his old stomping grounds in the Bay Area, California for insight into the possible political scenarios that could manifest in the US in November 2024, Bob Avakian has set to work on a new book to be published in the run-up to the upcoming presidential election. Democracy: We Can’t Do Better Than That promises to rationalize why preventing Trump from taking office must be the strategic priority of communists in the US, even as under the Biden administration life has arguably gotten worse for the masses of people in the US, the CDC started inventing total nonsense in relation to COVID-19 (such as the five-day rule), and the US funded and supported a genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But more than just explaining the RevCom’s current strategy of imagining a revolutionary crisis occurring around the 2024 elections and hinging all their political work around that prediction, Democracy: We Can’t Do Better Than That will justify Avakian’s reversal of correct verdicts on the history of the international communist movement. Chapter 2 of the book will rehabilitate the Comintern’s united front against fascism of the late 1930s, arguing that the defense of bourgeois-democracy against fascism supersedes the need for proletarian revolution. Chapter 3 will refashion some of Earl Browder’s ideas for the 21st century and explain the spiral-like development of Avakian’s “new communism” as a re-synthesis of the old communism of the late-1930s CP (but without the mass following) that Avakian previously insisted must be discarded. Chapter 4 will explain why proposed policies in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America that Avakian authored sound more like bourgeois-democratic parliamentary procedures than the practices of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in socialist China. In the conclusion of Democracy: We Can’t Do Better Than That, Avakian will rationalize how tailing the liberal petty-bourgeoisie and flattening all political work into the fight against Trumpian fascism can serve revolutionary objectives.

Followers of Avakian had mixed reactions to the announcement of his forthcoming book. Some were glad that he was actually sitting down to write a book instead of just doing another lengthy talk that is subsequently transcribed and published. Others wondered if they could stomach the possibility that, after decades of dedicating their lives to revolution, Avakian might once again tell them to vote for Biden in order to stop Trumpian fascism. Most, however, were unfortunately too brain dead after years of doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result each time to think critically or question a capitulationist political line. A standout among Avakian’s followers was Andy Zee, who was ecstatic about the upcoming release of Avakian’s Democracy: We Can’t Do Better Than That. On the Revolution Nothing Less YouTube show, Zee explained that “I’ve gotten pretty good over the last couple decades at being a sycophant, arguing for whatever Avakian’s latest ideas are even if it meant a 180-degree flip from what I was saying a week ago. That is, after all, why I was made the host of this show.”

[strannik-fev]

Amber Alert: Russia is Kidnapping Ukrainian Children rally - 02.04.2023 by Strannik45 Via Flickr: More photos here 

The rally was organized by Chicago's Ukrainian community to bring attention to the issue that earned Russian President Vladimir Putin an arrest warrant - what Russia has been doing in Ukrainian kids in the occupied territories. 

As with many things happening in the Ukrainian War, there are several things going on. First, Russian forces have been taking kids that were orphaned (or whose next of kin couldn't be found right away, or whose next of kin aren't in the occupied territories) and sending them to Russia to be adopted. And, if there is any question about the ultimate goal of this, Russian government recently gave grants to "help children embrace to their new homeland." 

There is also the part where several kids in occupied areas (mostly Kherson Oblast) who were taken to summer camps in Russia, and when the territories were liberated, Russians weren't exactly willing to give those kids back. And families have no way of getting in touch with them. And if that sounds like a nightmare - congratulations, you have a conscience. 

 The rally was scheduled to kick off at the Old Water Tower, then proceed down Michigan Avenue toward Millennium Park, culminating at the Cloud Gate/the Bean. Now, what I don't think the organizers realized was that the Revolutionary Communist Party was going to have a rally at the northwest corner of the Millennium Park, also at 2:00 PM. It was on my radar, but I wasn't sure, given the timing, if the twain shall meet. 

 Well, RevComm noticed them as they were arriving, and decided to preach their mission of how everyone should stop the "US/NATO Proxy War." I'm not entirely sure if they got to other parts of their spiel, like that Maidan protests were a NATO scheme, that NATO expansion provoked Putin and, oh, that Russia hasn't been Communist since 1950s and that Stalin was a communist "who made a lot of mistakes." But, suffice to say, the Ukrainians were not amused. Chants of "Commies Go Home" got thrown around. 

Still, given the vast disparity in numbers, the communists did ultimately leave, and the rally was finished as planned.

[whoa-its-dani]

PSA - Don’t Give Money to “Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights”, it’s a cult.

Don’t give money to “Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights”.

It’s a front run by a cult group called “RevCom”. RevCom / The RevComs is an anti-trans, anti-sex work, racist, MLM / pyramid scheme cult run by a creepy dude called Bob Avakian.

Here’s part of a statement by NYC for Abortion Rights discussing it: [x]

We, a coalition of grassroots pro-abortion organizers, publicly denounce RiseUp for Abortion Rights.

Our movement needs to be strong and united. Most repro groups have turned their backs on RiseUp privately since their inception. It is vital for all repro groups to now unite in discrediting RiseUp publicly.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of our concerns about RiseUp, and why we strongly urge pro-abortion activists to join us in rejecting its leadership and demanding the group step back from pro-abortion spaces:

RiseUp is a cult and pyramid scheme.

RiseUp is an offshoot of the RevCom (Revolutionary Communist Party) group. Over the past few decades, RevCom has emerged as a personality cult revolving around its white male leader Bob Avakian. While RevCom fervently denies accusations of it being a cult, RevCom’s own website claims the only effective way to achieve social change is to follow Avakian’s leadership and teachings. Similar to its parent group RevCom, RiseUp’s only goal appears to be gaining more followers in order to raise more and more money. Both essentially function as pyramid schemes that prey on social movements.

RiseUp diverts money from social and racial justice movements.

RevCom and its fronts — RiseUp and Refuse Fascism — are notorious for raising tens of thousands of dollars and using those funds to pay RevCom leadership, and to purchase marketing materials (to raise even more money). Refuse Fascism exploits civil unrest to recruit followers (as it did during the 2014 and 2020 uprisings), and RiseUp is now repeating the same scheme. The RiseUp website, for instance, features urgent prompts to donate with no information about where this money goes. What we do know is that this money never goes to abortion funds (which they argue are not a strategy to defend abortion access), providers, practical support groups, or anyone actually working to increase abortion access.

RiseUp stigmatizes abortion and perpetuates harmful myths.

RiseUp is currently focused on its ‘Save Roe’ campaign, which involves the wearing of white pants painted with fake blood, die-ins, and coat-hanger imagery. These theatrical tactics further the extremely harmful idea that abortion is a violent procedure and safe self-managed abortion is not possible. In fact, RiseUp has not once raised awareness about medication abortion as a post-Roe tool, and its only aim is “saving Roe”, despite this never having been enough historically.

RiseUp perpetuates anti-Blackness and does not center intersectionality.

RiseUp’s leader, Sunsara Taylor, has been a controversial figure in pro-abortion spaces. She and her followers are known for swooping into town and leeching off of existing BIPOC-led grassroots efforts across the country. Additionally, RiseUp frequently likens abortion bans to “female enslavement,” which is profoundly disrespectful to Black, Indigenous, and POC comrades.

RiseUp has a homophobic past, and remains transphobic.

RiseUp leadership frequently others trans and non-binary folks and excludes them from its speeches, writing, and conversations. In responding to feedback in Instagram comments, RiseUp admitted they focused on “women and girls” and referred to trans and non-binary folks getting abortions as “others” (we have screenshots).

RevCom also has a homophobic past. Up until 2002, the group’s official position was that homosexuality contributed to women’s oppression, amongst other nonsense. While RevCom and its fronts have since begun to include platitudes for the rights of LGBTQ+ peoples, they have yet to apologize for this past or issue a statement or position in defense LGBTQ+ rights.

RiseUp continues to intentionally exclude sex workers.

Sunsara Taylor, the brain behind RiseUp’s grift, is explicitly against sex work and the porn industry (see her prior activism with Stop Patriarchy). Sunsara Taylor’s stance is harmful to the fight for abortion, which we believe must be intersectional.

More sources are included in the full statement.

This has been your PSA. I’d appreciate if you could spread this around.

[connoratwood8]

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Revolutionary Worker #195 — Vol. 4, #43, March 4, 1983

“Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mightly Force for Revolution!”

[cryobombz]

Bam Bam Bam

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Saw someone singing the praises of the “BITE model” of cultiness, which consists of four broad categories of criteria where the more a group meets them the more cult they are

The “behavioural” list is maybe the best illustration of how it’s seemingly impossible to formulate any principled criteria for cultiness that do not rule in living in any society whatsoever. Aside from the “7-9hrs of sleep” one and the morally loaded to the point of uninformative one about financial exploitation each of these if taken literally would apply to absolutely any living situation other than total seclusion in perfect naturally endowed material luxury. “Oh but that is being deliberately perverse, obviously I mean only yk the fucked up kinds of these things” ah I see, and ofc this will be very helpful to cult members since it is so clear to them already what the fucked up kinds of “modifying behaviour with reward and punishment” are (which is basically “is this a cult (derogatory)?”-complete on its own)

Witnessing harmful groups that could reasonably be described as cults only makes me angrier at this stuff. The pseudo-objectivity that is clearly just masking barely restrained vibes-based intuition one inch below the surface. Surely you can do better at denouncing these manifest social toxins than laundering your inarticulate prejudices in bureacratic listicle-ism?

[feral-catgirl]

part of the reason american labor sucks so much is that most people are incapable of identifying and separating the revolutionary proletariat from the labor aristocracy.

this failure of analysis and investigation results in both the economism of the DSA and various ML orgs failing to actually lead workers and instill communist politics among them (bc they default to platforming yellow union leadership instead of acting as a political vanguard) on one hand, and the patent stupidity of third worldists abdicating the responsibility of trying to organize towards revolution in the imperial core at all (because they believe it impossible on the grounds that there is no revolutionary proletariat) on the other.

its patently obvious in the way people will take statements from union leadership as indicative of the voices and desires of the rank and file, whether its professing support for contracts that actually fuck over huge swathes of workers (as with the recent teamsters contract throwing part timers under the bus) or condemning reactionary positions as indicative of the positions if the rank and file (ie. people criticizing SEIU/workers united for both-sidesing palestinian resistance and israeli genocide but ignoring that statements from rank and file and small locals are overwhelmingly supportive of palestine).

it is fully impossible to build red unions and properly organize people towards a politically motivated general strike without acknowledging and understanding the composition of the unions and the contradictions between racist, anticommunist, antiworker union bureaucrats and the overwhelmingly dispossessed and disaffected rank and file workers who in many places are independently seeking out communist political education themselves that any large org fancying itself a “vanguard” would be providing already were they not incompetent and ineffectual.

[dayandnightz]

May Day 2023..

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

people afraid of radical politics love to denounce organizations to the left of them as cults or whatever to nullify any criticism of their own politics. i don’t affiliate myself with revcom or psl or whoever and i’m sure they have issues but when i see tumblr liberals who hate leftists saying fuck aoc because she talked to some people on her instagram and random ass local organizations denouncing a more radical abortion org for petty bullshit that is immediately fishy lol. sorry

[anarchotahdigism]

In terms of groups blocking weapons do you think Palestine Action and Stop Weapons MN are good to give to and support

Honestly, I do not know. I know the former has been involved in some actions but nothing specific and I definitely know nothing immediately about the latter For me, I look for the following: Is everyone masked? Are they keeping out/away press and counter protestors? Do they have arrest plans in place? Do they practice dearrest? Who else organizes with them? Do they protect participants' identities? A lot of people doing direct action have been independent groups of people who may know each other from work, school, worship, or any other communal social spaces & they decide to take action. I'm always wary of any nonprofits involved (which Palestine Action is) and especially if they organize with dangerous groups like PSL or RevCom. There are many ways to shut down war factories and they don't all require large groups of people doing blockades and many of them can be done in small groups or alone. None of them require a 503c. Personally, I will always recommend first and foremost giving to mutual aid groups active in your areas of concern-- they are directly supporting the most marginalized people, which can often include protesters. A lot of mutual aid groups supported the 2020-21 protests and remained active for years & have been providing aid to protests supporting Palestine this past year.

[cock-holliday]

I’m fairly against “Left Unity” as a concept. The conversations overlap very heavily with discussions of infighting. I *do* have comrades of various affiliations that I am not a part of. I *can* work with people whose ideologies I’m not very compatible with. Hell, part of being an anarchist is taking issue with the ideologies of other anarchists. Working together short term on common goals with likeminded enough people is crucial, but the framing of “Left Unity” is so flawed.

There is a pervasive idea that if you have a similar want you should “put aside your differences” and just like your favorite movie, the enemy of my enemy is my bestie and we work together and defeat evil. This simplistic idea allowed Boog Boys to be considered comrades. Allows cults to take center stage in organizing spaces. Allows people to protect abusers. And folks who take issues with aligning with fash, protecting abusers, taking things in dangerous directions are cop jacketed. Oh, you are being divisive? Clearly you are an op.

There is wholeheartedly fighting over hypothetical post-revolution societies that have no bearing on the now, but to a point, what groups want for the future DOES impact now. No, I don’t want to work with groups of communists who want to “purge” anarchists, because they dox people when they get annoyed over petty shit. No, I don’t want to work with groups who will eagerly throw the most disenfranchised among us under the bus to secure crumbs from the establishment. No, I don’t want to work with groups who want to work with the cops. No, I don’t want to work with groups who are comfortable working with fash because ‘we can sort it out later.’

I want the abolition of the state. So I can work on short term goals with people who want to reform the state, but eventually, (and not too far into the future) it becomes a problem. Of course people who are anti-hierarchy will take issue with people who want to organize as a power-grab. Of course people who want to reimagine the police will be looked at with suspicion by those seeking abolition.

So much that is labeled “infighting” is fundamental differences that will get people killed. Some red fash set up a table at an anarchist bookfair and someone flipped over their table. Their response? Call the cops. At a protest someone chopped up some bricks on the sidewalk to throw at cops and liberals in the crowd performed a citizens arrest and dragged him to the cop line to turn him in. Someone who got sexually harassed by a ‘leader’ in organizing spaces spoke out about it, so the leader told people she was a cop, and at a protest where shit went south, everyone boxed her out and tried to isolate her, putting her in danger. Boogs invited into organizing spaces have helped to dox leftists. Authcoms jerking off to the Russian invasion have tried to sell out folks in organizing spaces. RevCom is a literal cult. PSL protects abusers and smears people who come forward. Black Hammer is wildly and violently antisemitic.

Differences in fundamental values and risks to safety that people prioritize is not petty infighting or childish divisiveness. It’s not as simple as “we hate the cops so anyone who hates the cops is my friend”, it’s not as simple as “I want systemic change so anyone who wants systemic change we can set aside our differences”. If the “differences” includes setting aside your core tenets of your beliefs that is not unity, that is not an alliance.

I do not ally with people who want to sell out the “undesirables” among us. I do not ally with people who will put people at risk the moment they are challenged. I do not ally with people who want to be the oppressor instead of the oppressed.

I have comrades of so many backgrounds and with so many different ideologies and so many different goals, but we have similar core values. The idea that the left is aligned by similar values is a dangerous blanket assumption.

Fuck “left unity”, more small collectives working together towards liberation.

[normal-horoscopes]

What do you think of revcoms?

This blog is about esoterica and the occult.

[connoratwood8]

Everyone who can’t stand this world, the way it is, needs to be challenged to be part of the revolution that is the way out of this madness. And people need to know there is an actual strategy for making this revolution, based on the key points of the “foundation” and “roadmap” for this revolution in the work by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian: “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating.”

[cryobombz]

Bam Bam Bam

[loving-n0t-heyting]

creepy thing the bob avakian personality cult (his words) did at the sf rally today and apparently routinely does:

bring a megaphone

start leading some fairly standard pro-palestine chants ("free free! free palestine!")

segue into some superficially broad tent but actually group-specific catchphrases ("how do we get out of this mess? revolution nothing less!")

devolve into spewing cult propaganda

there are plenty of orgs present at any given broad coalition event that any even minimally opinionated given participant will disagree with pretty strenuously, but there is a difference between the psl having bad politics on china and revcom being an ultra-insular quasi-messianic sect, and the former does not do the same level of manipulating ppl into unwittingly vocally supporting them

[feral-catgirl]

talking about others adhering to "tried-and-failed tactics" while being a maoist is certainly an interesting choice lmao

(ask is in reference to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/feral-catgirl/726521729866924032/i-complain-about-the-behavior-and-beliefs-of-other )

tbqh i dont think anyone willing to argue on this site has actually done enough study on maoism to try to tell me what the “tried-and-failed” tactics of maoism are, whereas the “Bolshevik-style” of aboveground legal organizing until insurrection has been the project of like 6 different major and currently existing orgs in the usa who have failed to so much as engage in effective antiimperialist struggle or keep their ranks clear of abusers, much less create anything close to a revolution. applied outside the usa, the same is largely true when it comes to recent and growing revolutionary movements, with india as good example of direct contrast between the efficacy of self-described “marxist” organizing vs the maoist struggle in the country.