Spencer Beswick on Nostr: I just read Mike Ely's "Nine Letters to Our Comrades" (2007) critiquing Bob Avakian ...
I just read Mike Ely's "Nine Letters to Our Comrades" (2007) critiquing Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party (after decades of membership), and the cult of personality he describes around Avakian is just wild to read about.
The RCP was always very weird and bad, but the shift in the 2000s to venerating Avakian as a "unique, special and irreplaceable leader" of a "special caliber," meaning that the main duty of party members was "AP&P" ("appreciation, promotion and popularization" of Avakian and his "New Synthesis") just seems insane.
How could anyone go along with this cult of personality? Whatever their flaws, these were serious communists who had been organizing for decades, and then they turned on a dime to adoring veneration of a clear cult leader who was obviously not leading a real revolution.
I know there is historical precedent to communist cults of personality (see Stalin and Mao, naturally), but it just seems so... *not communist.* But what do I know, I'm just some silly anarchist who wants freedom and equality and autonomy, not a new "communist" hierarchy.
The RCP was always very weird and bad, but the shift in the 2000s to venerating Avakian as a "unique, special and irreplaceable leader" of a "special caliber," meaning that the main duty of party members was "AP&P" ("appreciation, promotion and popularization" of Avakian and his "New Synthesis") just seems insane.
How could anyone go along with this cult of personality? Whatever their flaws, these were serious communists who had been organizing for decades, and then they turned on a dime to adoring veneration of a clear cult leader who was obviously not leading a real revolution.
I know there is historical precedent to communist cults of personality (see Stalin and Mao, naturally), but it just seems so... *not communist.* But what do I know, I'm just some silly anarchist who wants freedom and equality and autonomy, not a new "communist" hierarchy.