THIRD DRAFT CRITICISM OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST 
PARTY, USA (RCP, USA)
   
   (MIM)'s formation represents a challenge to the RCP USA. 
MIM is setting out to build a vanguard party based on Mao 
Zedong Thought. Eventually, everyone who supports the RCP 
will come into contact with MIM.
   In the past, the RCP, the Black Panthers, the Progressive 
Labor Party and other groupings have served the role of the 
most advanced party in the US at one time or another. It is 
disappointing to see the RCP tend to follow other groupings 
in dropping the banners of the Gang of Four, Mao and Stalin.
   Problems in the RCP go beyond the ebb in the International 
Communist Movement (ICM). The RCP has adopted some incorrect 
tendencies in its view of party-building. Pictures of Bob 
Avakian, the chairman, are plastered all over much in the way 
Mao's profile was deified by Lin Biao. The entire political 
content of such posters, which may have as little as the 
slogan "Revolution in the 80s, Go For It!" on them, is that 
heroes are THE ANSWER, especially for the vacillating petty-
bourgeoisie which finds itself in need of an anchor. For 
Marx's and Mao's criticism of personality cults, see MIM's 
flier "On Personality Cults."
   Of course, the RCP doggedly defends its pretty photographs 
with the line that the RCP is merely recognizing the role of 
leadership, the conscious element and the vanguard party. In 
reality this amounts to Liu Shaoqi's formalistic line that 
anyone who attacked him or his allies was "anti-party." The 
photograph game is a mockery of Mao's line on personality 
cults and his view of political line as opposed to party 
organization for its own sake as decisive. The reduction of 
politics to mass adulation for a fetish is an insult to both 
politically backwards and advanced people.
   However, if the mindless cult around Avakian were the only 
problem with the RCP, then all advanced people would have to 
struggle within the RCP to erase a minor blemish on a party 
that is obviously deeply involved in making revolution. The 
real problem is that the cult is a symptom of a division of 
labor within the RCP which is ultimately rooted in a "left" 
economist line.
   The RCP does not hold state power; therefore, it is not 
generating a "new" bourgeoisie within itself. Nor does the 
personal prestige of leaders within the RCP serve as more 
than a partial basis for the problem of the RCP's line.
   Overall, it still must be stressed that the RCP is not the 
main enemy. Not even the CPUSA is the main target of 
revolution in the US. The bourgeoisie does not primarily 
reside in any party in the US except for the Democratic and 
Republican parties. Even if the RCP were dishonestly claiming 
the banner of Marx, Lenin and Mao, it would be incorrect to 
unleash our major blows against the RCP. MIM targets the US 
Government above the Ku Klux Klan and other disgusting 
organizations. The best way to knock the wind out of the 
sails of the RCP is to do just this.
   The purpose of this essay is to spell out some differences 
between the MIM and RCP line, especially for those people 
interested in Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought (MLMZT). 
There are many honest people in the RCP struggling to grasp 
MLMZT.
   
   DEFINING THE BASIC PROBLEM OF THE RCP'S LINE--
"LEFT" ECONOMISM
   Economism is an incorrect view and practice relating the 
vanguard party to the broad masses and their daily struggles. 
It is rooted in economic determinism and was especially 
strong in the Second International, which spawned today's 
reformist Socialist International and groups like the 
Democratic Socialists of America. (DSA) Basically, economists 
expect economic conditions to serve up political change on a 
silver platter.
   Rightist economists cheerlead for wage struggles as 
tantamount to revolution. Cheerleading for various struggles 
while keeping one's revolutionary opinions to oneself, saying 
what people want to hear and otherwise losing militance is 
more generally known as opportunism or tailing spontaneous 
(politically unconcious) struggles. This "right opportunism" 
is the main danger in the party-building process in the 
world.
   Although the RCP defends its line in Liu Shaoqi fashion, 
MIM is currently of the opinion that the RCP's deviation from 
communism is a "leftist" confusion of the relationship among 
the international conjuncture (and the basis of revolutionary 
opportunity), class, the base of the vanguard party and 
political line.
   Quite typically, in its very document intended to make a 
break with economism, the RCP states that "the poorer they 
are, the more people want revolution." Fine, but then the RCP 
says its "firmest base" is among people "who feel it most." 
Already this is a bourgeois liberal guilt sort of line. 
Furthermore, it is an empiricist line especially given the 
decisiveness of the superstructure at this time. (See "On the 
Crisis of Marxology and Economism.")
   The RCP does not mean to say that India and Bangladesh are 
automatically in a revolutionary situation. The RCP stands 
head and shoulders above other parties in understanding that 
at this time it is the contention between the rival 
imperialist blocs and the self-destruction which this implies 
that provides a chance at making revolution against weakened 
states.
   Still, the RCP has not made the link between the desire 
for revolution and the ability or freedom to make that 
revolution. The question is why if the poorest want 
revolution most they do not make it. Clearly the answer is 
that they do not have the opportunity or freedom to do so. 
The state is the most obvious reason why: The police, army, 
prisons, family and other repressive institutions oppress the 
poorest most of all.
   To this the RCP says that we must work "from the 
revolution back." This is a profoundly un-Marxist notion, 
exactly the same as Trotsky's idea of waiting for pure 
proletarian insurrection. The vanguard party will have to 
have support among the workers who will control the most 
strategic parts of the US. However, the way to obtain this 
support is not to tail after workers or wait for them. The 
only waiting that has to be done is for the bourgeoisie to 
get further involved in the current WWIII. As the bourgeoisie 
destroys itself, the proletariat and the vanguard party need 
only collect bids for the rope contract for the hanging.
   God, Avakian and the Moonies do not offer real world 
solutions. The revolution will be made with what's at hand, 
not a miraculous international conjuncture brought about by 
obscurantist leadership.
   "Left" economism is manifested in a constant oscillation 
between viewing the masses as asses and believing that the 
masses would step forward automatically if there were a 
heroic example. "Left" economism is different than right 
economism only in that its result is more aggressive 
organizing.
   Of course, the RCP's own "left" economist line is that the 
masses are asses. In an article in the Revolutionary Worker, 
the RCP compares the masses of the US to the inhabitants of 
one giant insane asylum because of their lack of 
understanding of the situation in Central America. It is true 
that the American public does not know what side the US is on 
in El Salvador and Nicaragua, but that is a result of the 
bourgeoisie's domination of the means of communication and 
information, not the inherent stupidity or insanity of the 
masses. Mao saw clearly that it does no good to attack the 
masses, but it does give the bourgeoisie the chance to rule 
in place of the masses.
   The masses are asses line results in commandism and 
attacks on the masses. Since according to this line there is 
an incredible gap between the politically conscious leaders 
and mere followers in the party and amongst the masses, 
leaders order their followers around to make sure the 
"correct" thing is done. What is missing is any attempt to 
mobilize the masses through Mao's mass line. Indeed, the RCP 
would do well to take a look at "On Handling Contradictions 
Among the People." To attack the masses as anti-party is to 
support a non-Marxist line.
   The spontaneous generation of revolutionaries line results 
in the push for a party of heroes to spark the masses. This 
point of view also justifies commandism within the party 
since superheroes do not want lower-ranking party members to 
mess up any chance to spark the masses. If macho, superhero 
leaders order around lower level party members in the short 
run, this is justified by imminent mass rebellion seeking 
divine leadership according to this line.
   In any case, the "left" economist line justifies the 
personality cult, a stifling division of labor, commandism 
and attacks on the massses.
   The ways economism and workerism are expressed by the RCP 
to youth are many. One is that "youth can not lead the 
revolution." This is not correct. Precisely because youth do 
not form a class but a strata, they can lead revolution. 
Contrary to some RCP circles, not all youth are "crazy" 
(ready to step forward, but in need of heroic leadership) and 
unable to make revolution in the long run. Any strata can 
lead the revolution. There are female, Black and youth 
leaders of revolution. There is no formula for saying which 
strata will contribute the most proletarian revolutionaries.
   Another ally of economism is the theory of productive 
forces--another determinist view. This is used to defend 
tailing after workers. In this view, those people that do not 
have the correct relationship to the means of production can 
not lead the revolution, since ultimately, development in the 
productive forces spurs revolution.
   In another variant of the theory of productive forces 
offered by Liu Shaoqi in this ultraleft form, the masses are 
so culturally backward, that they are in sore need of 
rectification by correct party leaders, who see to the growth 
of the productive forces themselves since the masses are so 
incompetent. Of course, this sort of elitism is not much 
different than the ideology of "leave it to the market" (ie, 
ruling class) found in the U.S.
   In contrast, MIM believes that class struggle, mainly over 
the state at this time constitutes the most important part of 
relations among people and classes in general. Furthermore, 
at this time, ideological and political line largely 
determine one's relationship to the very means of production.
   Mao said that "ideological and political line are decisive 
in everything." Experience and expertise are not the 
requisites for fighting and upholding the dictatorship of the 
proletariat; otherwise, how could anyone in the United States 
be a socialist? The empiricist explanation of youth's 
inability to lead revolution must be thoroughly exposed and 
rooted out. Line, not experience, is decisive. Also, 
empiricism must be linked to the pragmatist line of expertise 
in command or that "politics must serve economics," which is 
the line in Beijing right now.
   
   ACCELERATING ATTACKS ON MAO
   Since the RCP has a lot of trouble being the banner-holder 
for Mao in the US, it is not surprising that RCP leaders have 
taken to attacking Mao in between the lines. In a chapter 
right out of recent Chinese history, Avakian started an 
attack on Lin Biaosts in the closing pages of his Harvest of 
Dragons. Now, people who have studied recent China know that 
since 1972 the revisionists have attacked Mao and the Four by 
targetting Lin Biao alone and not as part of a general 
succession of revisionists in the Chinese CP led by Liu 
Shaoqi. Today, Deng and Co. always mention the Four and Lin 
Biao in the same breath while omitting references to Liu 
Shaoqi, who the revisionists have rehabilitated.
   Avakian appears to be attacking Lin for overestimating the 
revolutionary potential of the Third World. (Harvest of 
Dragons, 150) This is not just a typical Trotskyist refrain 
on Avakian's part. Something about Lin Biao has been worth 
singling out in Avakian's first article in Revolution and in 
his Conquer the World. In the closing pages of Harvest of 
Dragons Avakian criticizes people who are always talking 
about the "masses, the masses, the masses." (p. 147)
   Who are these mysterious people? They are none other than 
followers of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Mao himself 
often used the phrase "the masses, the masses, the masses" in 
calling for daring leadership of the masses, self-education 
and the steeling of youth in revolutionary struggles which 
necessitated contact with the masses and the carrying out of 
the mass line:
   
   The ultimate line of demarcation between the 
revolutionary intellectuals on the one hand and non-
revolutionary and counter-revolutionary intellectuals on 
the other lies in whether they are willing to, and 
actually do, become one with the masses of workers and 
peasants. (Mao in 1939 in "The Orientation of the Youth 
Movement," Peking, 1960, p. 9)
   
   Moreover,
   
   What should be taken as the criterion of judging 
whether a youth is a revolutionary? How shall we make 
him out? There is only one criterion, namely, to see 
whether he is willing to, and in practice does, unite 
and become one with the broad masses of workers and 
peasants. (Ibid., 9, 10)
   
   In the creation of his bourgeois-style political machine, 
Avakian has found it necessary to piss on Mao's profound 
contributions relating the masses to the vanguard party.
   The RCP is also no longer excited by Mao's contribution to 
the proletariat's understanding of imperialism. The RCP calls 
Raymond Lotta's book America in Decline "The First 
Significant Deepening of Lenin's Theory of Imperialism." 
(Revolution, Spring 1984, 52) Apparently the united front 
against Japanese imperialism is not applicable in the world 
as a whole. (Revolution, Spring '84, 20) The two stage 
revolution of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial country just 
seems like no fun for Avakian anymore. Indeed, it seems there 
were several anti-imperialist revolutions (unnamed of course) 
that Mao was screwing up for not coordinating in an 
International. This of course was again a result of Mao's 
national chauvinism according to the RCP. "Maoism without 
Leninism is nationalism (and also, in certain contexts, 
social-chauvinism) and bourgeois democracy." (Conquer the 
World, 38)
   Moreover, "Imagine, for example, what it would have been 
like if the revolutionary line in China had been more clearly 
and firmly an internationalist one." (Ibid., 44) In addition, 
The "Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist 
Movement" cosigned by the RCP is in general better than any 
of the RCP's literature in regard to criticizing Trotsky at 
least as much as Stalin, the role of the masses and anti-
imperialist struggle and the relationship of economism in 
both "left" and right forms to the international situation. 
However, even in this document there is an attack on the 
Chinese CP under Mao for its "exaggerated understanding of 
the negative aspects of the Comintern." What were the Chinese 
supposed to do in 1963? Ally with the Soviets? Who were the 
genuine organizational units that needed an international 
body? Why should the CPC open up parties to attacks from the 
Soviets (and US) just for the sake of visible unity? By 1972, 
the bourgeoisie had control of China's foreign policy through 
Zhou Enlai. Why should Mao push for an International led by 
Zhou and Deng? Weren't millions of copies of the works of Mao 
distributed internationally? To say that the Chinese did not 
support revolution internationally is just pure slander. The 
Chinese shed their blood in Korea and sent arms and other aid 
to the Vietnamese. These were the most significant 
revolutions to actually occur. Does the RCP want to play the 
Trotskyist game of blaming Mao/Stalin for the failure of 
world revolution?
   Most grievous of all the attacks on the most important 
aspects of Mao's Thought and all of Marxism-Leninism is the 
RCP's between the lines dismissal of the Cultural Revolution 
in China. Besides widespread ignorance of Liu Shaoqi coupled 
with Avakian's attacks on Lin Biao and disdain for Mao's 
views of the masses, the RCP downplays the most advanced and 
pathbreaking experience of the dictatorship of the 
proletariat. Avakian is fond of saying that it is easier to 
establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in the backward 
countries but that it will be easier to uphold the 
dictatorship of the proletariat in the formerly imperialist 
countries. What a massive illusion! What Eurocentrism! In 
fact it will be harder for many reasons. One is that the 
masses of the imperialist countries have long been been 
bribed with superprofits and depoliticized. Another is that 
they will not get the chance to engage in protracted 
guerrilla warfare. Insurrection will be brief and necessarily 
focussed in the army, navy and airforce. The armed forces 
will be more thoroughly hardened and professionalized than in 
any Third World country. Avakian says there will have to be a 
professional army after the revolution in the US to uphold 
the dictatorship of the proletariat. He pisses away the 
lesson learned in China--that the professionals in any part 
of the state--army, navy and airforce and bureaucracy--form a 
real material basis for the generation of a bourgeoisie in 
the party. The armed forces in the US will be a thousand 
times worse than the Red Army of the Long March as a basis 
for the generation of a new bourgeoisie in the party.
   The RCP is also soft on Chinese revisionism. There is 
rarely any concrete exposure of the Chinese "reforms" since 
Mao in the Revolutionary Worker. Nor has the RCP done any 
major in-depth or theoretical work detailing those changes. 
As of 1986, the RCP has yet to concretely show what it is 
that is concretely happening in China in our own lifetimes. 
Avakian's theoretical treatments of the coup in China are 
nothing but camouflage for his unwillingness to really expose 
Chinese state capitalism.
   The RCP's line is that China could not help becoming 
revisionist because external forces are decisive and China 
was alone with Albania against the world capitalist system. 
The RCP correctly initiated discussions within the party 
about the coup in 1976, but it never really stressed that 
China is state capitalist. Revolution and Counterrevolution 
leaves the question at the stage that China is on the 
capitalist-road and should be described as socialist in 
public practices of RCP activists. With the publication of 
The Capitalist-Roaders Are Still on the Capitalist Road in 
1977 by a non-party study group, one wonders why the supposed 
vanguard RCP took so long to come to its position in favor of 
the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four in China. Was 
there really a process that needed two or three years of 
struggle in the RCP or was the RCP leadership waiting to see 
what its competitors in the October League/CPML would do and 
who would get the China franchise.
   More recently, in America in Decline, Raymond Lotta 
downplays the significance of the coup in China. As discussed 
elsewhere, Lotta is trying to imply that World Wars alleviate 
the crisis of imperialism and restructure the world for 
another round of accumulation. This is fallacious to begin 
with, but Lotta adds that China's entrance into the Western 
bloc "has had no leavening effect on crisis," as if anything 
but the dictatorship of the proletariat could. However, even 
though war is aimed at the redivision of the world, Lotta 
does not see that the coup in China is the equivalent of a 
war fought by US imperialism for the allegiance of a large 
country with influence in many liberation struggles to boot.
   The RCP also attacks the Chinese experience with the party 
and the conscious element. Even in his defense of the Gang of 
Four, Avakian delivers pretty faint praise: "Perhaps they 
were not as good as Stalin." (RCP, Revolution and 
Counterrevolution, 22) (Of course, Mao's grade for Stalin was 
70.) And the context this comes up in is "the sphere of 
correctly distinguishing and handling contradictions between 
the enemy and the people and contradictions among the 
people." (Ibid.) Clearly Avakian is implying that the 
Cultural Revolution was characterized by attacks on the 
masses similar to Stalin's purges and that the Four are to 
blame. Mr. Avakian, who was it that developed the theory of 
continuous revolution? Who was it that saw that attacks on 
impurities among the masses were useless? Who saw that class 
struggle continued under socialism? Avakian seems to have 
done the necessary work to claim the banner of the Four, but 
little statements between the lines reveal his own analysis. 
Jiang Qing "I believe, was capable of more than a little 
subjectivism." (Ibid., 104) This of course is with no 
evidence or even an anecdote. It also plays into stereotyped 
thinking about women. Finally, Avakian gets a kick out of an 
RCP CC member's statement "well, war is approaching and we 
don't have a socialist country to defend, thank god." 
(Revolution, Spring '84, 15) With that flippant an attitude 
to the most important experience with socialism to date and 
that much disdain for the development of the conscious 
element, it is no wonder that the RCP finds itself "thanking 
god" and Avakian every day.
   Mao made it clear that the liberation of 1949 and the 
Cultural Revolution were the two most important 
accomplishments of his life. The RCP leaders seem to be 
quietly dropping the lessons of the GPCR and is relegating 
the Chinese experience with imperialism to irrelevance.
   
   ATTACKS ON STALIN, SOFT WORDS FOR TROTSKY
   As one would expect, the RCP's counterfactual and baseless 
speculations reach new heights in discussions of Stalin. 
Basically, the RCP rejects the united front. Again it is 
interesting to consider that maybe the alliances of WWII made 
by Stalin were not in the interests of the proletariat. One 
suspects that this idea of fighting on one imperialist side 
against another might be a bad thing, but once again the RCP 
proves itself master of innuendo and unproven assertions. 
   The Trotskyists and other bourgeois critics of Stalin like 
to point to the 1939 Non-Aggression Pact that Stalin made 
with Hitler. None of these critics like to point out that in 
the next few years it was Stalin's army, not the British, 
French or American army that turned the tide against Hitler 
and won the war.
   Raymond Lotta finally acknowledges this in America in 
Decline. (p. 212) Still, the RCP argues that overall the 
balance of WWII was not good for the socialist countries or 
even progressives. (Avakian, Revolution, Spring '84, 12) 
Gentlemen, we are not dogmatists, but what would you have 
done? Better yet, since you benefit from hindsight, who would 
you have supported at the time instead of Stalin?
   Off hand, Stalin is right that the bourgeois democracies 
if left to themselves do not have any overriding interest in 
preventing fascism. It is also well known that Hitler wanted 
Britain by virtue of its racial heritage to be a partner in 
imperialist plunder. Hitler also did not expect to fight the 
US for top dog status right away. He saw a role for Americans 
too. So why couldn't the bourgeoisie have divied up the world 
including the Soviet Union? Churchill is known to have 
considered it very seriously. When Britain was losing in 
1941, what was there to lose? In no case would Hitler or 
Stalin have had the illusion that they could be in harmony in 
the long run. Before Hitler sent the Jews off to 
concentration camps it is known that he had all the 
communists killed. Nor did Stalin ever have any illusions 
about the West. He did not exactly pack in his game in 
Eastern Europe or in the Cold War that ensued WWII.
   The scorecard for WWII, as it probably will be for any 
World War, was favorable for socialism. China broke through 
thanks to Japanese imperialism's battering of China and war 
with the US. Britain's international desperation made it lose 
its grip on the colonies in a way that at least allowed for 
upsurges often in the guise of fighting fascism. Albania 
broke through. It is true that communism fared poorly in 
Western Europe. The RCP has detailed this fact in the 
Communist. Still, the contention of the imperialist blocs 
could easily have become the division of the Soviet Union, 
China and the rest of the world. The RCP denies this as part 
of its elevation of interimperialist rivalry to theoretical 
heights above the other three contradictions Mao cited as 
most important in the world today.
   
   THE RCP'S REINTERPRETATION OF LENIN
   The RCP's favorite hiding place is Lenin's What Is To Be 
Done?, where Lenin discusses the necessity of having a 
vanguard party. A tired RCP refrain in defending its 
metaphysical disdain for the concrete and the particular is 
that "you must not understand the need for leadership and a 
party." This party for its own sake line reaches its highest 
heights in the defense of Avakian's photographs. Essentially, 
the RCP accepts the popular bourgeois interpretation of 
Lenin's struggle for a vanguard party as a struggle for a 
bourgeois disciplinary body to check the democratic 
tendencies of the masses.
   The RCP's "left" economist line leads it to its view of 
the party as merely a bourgeois disciplinary body. This is 
the root of commandism and their line of experts in command. 
The experts line is shown in the RCP emphasis on a division 
of labor within the party and in the deification of party 
leadership. One RCP representative has been so thoroughly 
mystified as to say that Raymond Lotta (an RCP leader) is 
just not available for forum discussions. He is just so high 
up that the masses could hardly hope to see him in the flesh. 
However, when it comes to selling Lotta's book America in 
Decline, Lotta is, as it turns out, a national lecturer.
   The RCP's one-sided emphasis on discipline in the party is 
shown in its one-sided attacks on Charles Bettelheim. In the 
Communist, the RCP attacks Bettelheim as non-Marxist based on 
all Bettelheim's works prior to his third volume of Class 
Struggles in the USSR in which Bettelheim does finally call 
the Russian Revolution a capitalist revolution.
   The recurring theme of the article is that Bettelheim is a 
bourgeois democrat who does not uphold party discipline and 
the dictatorship of the proletariat. Indeed, the RCP comes 
right out and says that oppression of sections of the masses 
is necessary to uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
(The Communist, no. 5, May 1979, 203) In contrast, Lenin 
stressed that the dictatorship of the proletariat was an 
"alliance" of the proletariat with other classes between 
itself and the bourgeoisie. It is an unequal alliance led by 
the proletariat, (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 29, p. 381) 
but no Marxist has ever called for the "dictatorship of the 
proletariat over the bourgeoisie and a section of the 
masses." Indeed, the RCP is directly contradicting one of 
Mao's five most important essays on philosophy: "Dictatorship 
does not apply within the ranks of the people. The people 
cannot exercise dictatorship over themselves, nor must one 
section of the people oppress another." (Mao, "On the Correct 
Handling of Contradictions Among the People," Selected 
Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, 436) 
   The RCP's critique of Bettelheim has other examples of in-
between-the-lines attacks on Mao. The RCP objects to this 
quote from Bettelheim. "'In brief, a ruling party can be a 
proletarian party only if it refrains from imposing orders on 
the masses and remains the instrument of their initiatives. 
This is possible only if it submits fully to criticism on the 
part of the masses, if it does not try to impose "necessary" 
tasks upon the masses, if it proceeds from what the masses 
are prepared to do toward the development of socialist 
relationships.'" (Ibid., 220) The RCP must want to impose 
socialism on what it views as the ignorant masses. RCP even 
disagrees with this almost exact paraphrase from Mao: "The 
only 'guarantee' of progress along the road to socialism is 
the real capacity of the ruling party not to become separated 
from the masses." (Ibid., 221)
   The real reason for the RCP's 63 page attack on a 
professor who does not even hold state power is that the RCP 
wants to distance itself from the Cultural Revolution's 
lessons in fighting revisionism. Bettelheim was one of the 
most important first-hand observors of the Cultural 
Revolution. In 1968 at a time when the revolutionary movement 
in the US thought of Mao as "heavy" but was too weakly 
developed to build a party Bettelheim struggled in the 
forefront of the academic community to debunk criticisms of 
the Cultural Revolution and to explain the theory of 
socialist transition. Later he described the actual 
particulars of the Cultural Revolution and Industrial 
Organization in China. This book described the masses in 
their actions to uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
At the end of the book Bettelheim wrote a postcript which 
distinguishes him as clearly as possible from bourgeois 
democrats and ultraleft/anarcho-syndicalists. It starts out 
"the Cultural Revolution did not result from "spontaneous" 
mass action inspired by the illusory views of the "ideology 
of spontaneity," but from mass action aided by the political 
guidelines of Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary line, and from the 
activities of the workers, peasants, cadres, etc., who 
adhered to this line. These guidelines and activities alone 
made it possible to concentrate the correct initiatives of 
the workers, and enabled the Chinese masses to unify their 
struggles and to define the objectives they had to attain 
before they could hope to overcome a bourgeois line and 
social relationships that obstruct China's progress along the 
road to socialism." Bettelheim wrote this before the RCP even 
existed and yet the RCP concludes that Bettelheim has not 
even provided a flashlight in the struggle to light up the 
road upholding Mao Zedong Thought. (Ibid., 234) This is just 
the RCP's way of saying that studying Bettelheim's books on 
the Cultural Revolution is a waste of time.
   Unfortunately, the "Declaration of the RIM," which the RCP 
is a party to states that "The Marxist-Leninists in the 
advanced capitalist countries face the task of continuing to 
combat the pernicious influence of revisionism and reformism 
in their ranks. The key to doing this remains the fight for 
principles developed by Lenin in the course of preparing and 
leading the October Revolution." (p. 45) This sounds good 
until one realizes that this poses Lenin against Mao in the 
fight against revisionism. However, one quickly realizes that 
Lenin never "developed" the restoration of capitalism thesis. 
How can we claim that state capitalism took root in the 
Soviet Union and China if the principles that Lenin developed 
are still the key? It took the experience of the ICM and the 
Chinese CP in particular to develop the theory of continuous 
revolution. There is no way to demarcate against Hoxhaism, 
the CPSU or the CCP without that theory. There is no way to 
demarcate on the Soviet Union and China without principles 
developed by Mao.
   Basically the RCP and its allies are saying that Mao 
Zedong Thought does not apply to advanced capitalist 
countries. Mao's advances in "On the Correct Handling of 
Contradictions among the People" and "Where Do Correct Ideas 
Come From" are again knocked down from the realm of 
philosophy or revolutionary theory to the realm of China's 
national revolution. MIM is a "Maoist" group and upholds the 
lessons of these essays of Mao's in fighting revisionism and 
recognizes the Cultural Revolution in China as containing the 
most advanced, concentrated and universal lessons in fighting 
revisionism to date. Again this is not a dogmatic defense of 
Mao. Such a defense is a contradiction in terms. This is to 
point up the differences between the MIM line and the RCP 
line. While the RCP pretends to go back to Lenin, MIM holds 
that it is impossible to uphold Lenin without upholding Mao. 
Marxism-Leninism is doomed to failure and death if it ignores 
the lessons of MZT.
   
   FORMALISM: AN EXPRESSION OF "LEFT" ECONOMISM
   Those who are active in politics will be struck by the 
RCP's formalism. The RCP literally regards its most inactive 
member as more of a threat to the bourgeoisie than the entire 
Communist Workers Party (CWP, five of whom were killed in 
Greensboro by the KKK/Nazis/US Government) and Dennis Brutus, 
who is rated as one of the top twenty opponents of apartheid 
by apartheid. MIM's experience has been that the decisive 
question for the RCP in its recruitment of new members is 
whether or not candidates consider the RCP as THE VANGUARD 
outside of any discussions of political line.
   Thus it is not surprising that the RCP has trouble 
recruiting youth, who Lenin stressed above all else in On 
Youth, are rightfully too impatient to give organizations 
steeped in formalism a second thought. The personality cult, 
the marketing hype and loftiness of the RCP cadres, and the 
endless attacks on the masses as something of a practice of 
dictatorship over people are all rooted in a "left" economist 
line and theoretical confusion.
   MIM can only hope to live up to the spirit of Lenin in his 
writings in On Youth. In spirit, he favored summary 
executions of cadres who said there were no advanced youth to 
be had in the party. He advocated that people who were too 
formalistic and purist to get involved in mass struggles, 
meet people and recruit them vigorously with or without the 
proper seasonings, experience etc. that these people be 
kicked out of the party. In these times when the forces who 
uphold Mao are having trouble keeping up with the spontaneous 
upsurges of the masses, this attitude should be applied to 
all strata and classes as part of a general organizational 
line.
   
   ON THE RCP'S STANCE ON SOCIAL BASE
   MIM does not suffer from bourgeois liberal guilt trips. 
MIM will not wait for any strata or the proletariat itself to 
mount the political stage.
   Instead of tailing after one social base or another, MIM 
starts from the international proletariat's scientific view 
of the international situation. In this time of imperialism 
and world war, the international proletariat has already 
established that it's had enough and that it will make 
revolution given the opportunity during imperialist war. If 
one disagrees with this point, it would be correct to conduct 
an investigation of the demands of the oppressed peoples now 
and in the recent past. It is not that MIM abandons the mass 
line on this point, but that MIM sees the mass line as 
already established on the basic questions of imperialism and 
war in this time period. On organizational questions and 
burning issues of the day it is still necessary to conduct 
relentless investigation and uphold the mass line.
   Of four contradictions at this time--between the 
imperialist countries and the oppressed countries, between 
blocs of imperialist countries, between the socialist 
countries and the imperialist countries, and between the 
imperialist countries and their own proletariat--MIM focusses 
only on the first two. MIM has a duty to intervene first and 
foremost in these two countradictions. There are no socialist 
countries at the moment, so the third contradiction has 
little impact on MIM line. As for the fourth contradiction, 
it is a factor, but the analysis of class struggle within the 
United States for instance does not have a principal 
influence in MIM's formulation of revolutionary strategy at 
this time. Consequently, MIM does not derive its social base 
from this fourth contradiction. Frankly, the masses of the 
United States do not dictate MIM's line. Rather, MIM's line 
on imperialism and war dictate MIM's social base. It is 
possible, however, for Maoists to disagree on this issue.
   MIM's social base is that group of people who see the 
necessity of destroying and transcending imperialism and its 
symptom of militarism. It is the analysis of the current 
situation as one of World War III and MIM's line of working 
to stop it and go beyond it that separates MIM's social base 
from the RCP's.
   In response, the RCP has said that it is mostly the petty-
bourgeoisie that it is in motion as a result of war and 
imperialism at this time. However, if "petty-bourgeois 
intellectuals" and students are receptive to MLMZT, then MIM 
will dare to recruit amongst those strata and any others 
willing to listen. MIM will boldly organize united fronts 
among everybody opposed to imperialism and militarism. The 
RCP claims that MIM is writing off the proletariat. Fine, 
Trotskyists can wait for pure proletarian insurrection. If 
Mao had not organized the masses of "petty-bourgeois" 
peasants and if Lenin had not made all the peasants "middle 
peasants" by giving in to their demand for private plots, 
neither the Chinese nor the Russian Revolution would have 
happened. Both Lenin and Mao were excellent in assessing 
principal contradictions and adjusting their expectations of 
social base accordingly.
   Concretely, the advanced today are concerned about the 
Mid-East, Central America, Southern Africa, the nuclear arms 
race and many other issues including punk rock, racism and 
sexism. Ironically, the harder the RCP tries to project what 
the proletariat will look like when the conjuncture comes, 
the farther off the road to the proletariat the RCP gets.
   
   CONCLUSION
   MIM will not share the RCP's disdain for the particular 
and concrete and hence the masses and their struggles. Nor 
will MIM join the RCP in Trotsky's netherworld of external 
causation, abstraction and deterministic fallacies.
   MIM works for revolution out of what exists at hand. If 
the people who show an interest in fighting imperialism and 
defeating the American state have many leaps to make, we can 
not wring our hands or promise revolution when the material 
conditions ripen. World War III is already here.
   It is to be stressed that there are no guarantees in the 
business of making revolution. The world may be vaporized 
despite the best efforts to end WWIII. There may even be a 
revolution that fails or goes down to defeat in the long run. 
The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the 
proletariat is not over until classless society is reached 
and even then new and comparable contradictions may arise. 
People who are looking for bourgeois discipline, comforting 
prophecies, cult leadership or a chance to administer such 
should join the RCP. People who see that there are no 
guarantees but that it is nonetheless "right to rebel" should 
struggle with or in MIM.