Chinese New Left

New Leftism in the People's Republic of China is an ideological tendency in opposition to capitalism and the and in favour of the restoration of Maoist-style socialism. The movement first gained steam during the mid-1990s. New Leftism is seen as being more appealing to students in China today than liberalism or neoliberalism — problems faced by China during its modernisation, such as inequality and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, are becoming more serious. It is also known as 'neo-leftism'.

Overview

New Leftists can usually be divided into two main groups: believers in either postmodernism or ; and those who support Chinese nationalism. The Chinese New Left's origins lie mainly in scholarly people who were heavily influenced by the idea of postmodernism in universities in the Western world before coming back to China in the mid-1990s. They tend to think that the social problems faced by China are caused by capitalist loopholes and .

The name

The name was first applied in the late 1990s. Their foremost thinker is , and he explains how they did not choose this term:

The first stirring of a more critical view of official marketization go back to 1993... But it wasn't till 1997-98 that the label New Left became widely used, to indicate positions outside the consensus. Liberals adopted the term, relying on the negative identification of the 'Left' with late Maoism, to imply that these must be a throw-back to the Cultural Revolution. Up till then, they had more frequently attacked anyone who criticised the rush to marketization as a 'conservative' - this is how Cui Zhiyuan was initially described, for example. From 1997 onwards, this altered. The standard accusatory term became 'New Left'...

Actually, people like myself have always been reluctant to accept this label, pinned on us by our adversaries. Partly this is because we have no wish to be associated with the Cultural Revolution, or for that matter with what might be called the 'Old Left' of the reform-era CCP. But it is also because the term New Left is a Western one, with a very distinct set of connotations – generational and political – in Europe and America . Our historical context is Chinese, not Western, and it is doubtful whether a category imported so explicitly from the West could be helpful in today's China. Attacking the current leadership as " ," the leaflets called on lower-level cadre to "change current and to revert to the road." The Zhengzhou incident is one of the first manifestations of public nostalgia for the Mao era to make it to the international press, although it is far from clear whether these feelings are widespread. In any case, it is an example of Marxist Chinese New Leftism in action.

Current disputes

Chinese New Leftists are often criticised by liberal intellectuals, who consider China not to be liberal ''enough'', both economically and politically. These liberals tend to think that inequality and the widening gap between rich and the poor are serious problems, but that these problems exist in every and constitute a necessary stage of development. Liberals also criticise postmodernism, which they argue is inappropriate for China because it is still not developed enough, and at the moment does not yet face some of the particular problems that have occurred in some developed countries that in turn gave rise to postmodernist thought. Democracy and personal freedoms are seen by these liberals to be important for China, although perhaps not attainable in the near future. The liberal critics and Chinese New Leftists have fiercely debated throughout the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

Current plans for a "New Socialist Countryside" could be seen as a concession to New Left ideas. It is significant that the idea of privatising the land has not so far been accepted. Currently it is used privately but cannot be sold, unlike urban property. Britain's Financial Times has been expressing concern at an apparent stagnation in China's economic reforms.

Sources

Capitalist Roader

In Maoist thought, a capitalist roader is a person or group on the political who demonstrates a marked tendency to bow to pressure from forces and subsequently attempts to pull the Revolution in a direction. If allowed to do so, these forces would eventually restore the political and economic rule of capitalism; in other words, these forces would lead a society down a "capitalist road". The term first appeared in Chinese Communist Party literature in 1965, but the idea was initially developed by Mao Zedong in 1956-1957, against what he saw as reactionary tendencies in the party.

Capitalist roaders are described as representatives of the capitalist class within the Communist Party and those who attempt to restore capitalism while pretending to uphold socialism. Mao contended that Deng Xiaoping was a capitalist roader and that the Soviet Union fell to capitalist roaders from within the Communist Party after the death of Joseph Stalin.

Bob Avakian

Bob Avakian is Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which he has led since its formation in 1975. He is a veteran of the Free Speech Movement and the Left of the 1960s and early 1970s, and was closely associated with the Black Panther Party. He has continually published writing on Marxism for 25 years.

Life

Avakian was born on March 7, 1943 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Berkeley, California. The grandchild of immigrants who settled in , California to farm, he was a player for his high school. His father was Spurgeon "Sparky" Avakian , an judge in Oakland, California, and member of the Berkeley School Board. Bob attended the , where he became involved in radical politics. He participated in the Free Speech Movement at the University of California—Berkeley that was led by Mario Savio. His political activities continued and he became spokesman for the , and an active supporter of the Black Panthers.

Bob Avakian was active in and was a leading figure in the Revolutionary Youth Movement II. In the Bay Area he worked to form the Bay Area Revolutionary Union. BARU expanded nationally by absorbing other collectives coming out of the SDS. It became the Revolutionary Union.

Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Union, along with others such as C. Clark Kissinger and Carl Dix, led the formation of the in 1975. When Deng Xiaoping went to the United States to visit Jimmy Carter, the RCP led protests at sites throughout Washington, D.C. Avakian and other participants in the march became engaged in a conflict with the police. Avakian and others arrested for the incident were charged with several counts of assault on a police officer. After a court granted Avakian and the other arrestees' request to be charged and tried together, the total punishment exposure for the seventeen defendants was over 241 years . As a result, Avakian went to France in 1981. All charges against him were dropped in 1982.

Bob Avakian's current whereabouts are kept secret. His last appearances caught on video were two speaking engagements . These were recorded for the DVD ''REVOLUTION: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About''. The recordings were the first publicly available images of Avakian since 1981.

Views

Bob Avakian is an outspoken and proclaims that humanity needs "liberation without gods". He is a proponent of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

As chairman of the RCP, and as a writer, Avakian supports the Leninist concept of the vanguard party as a necessary leading component of a revolutionary movement. The role of the vanguard party, as explained by Avakian, continues once regime change has been effected, as class struggle continues under socialism . In Maoist literature, these are widely agreed upon ideas developed from Mao's fight against the "Modern Revisionism" of the former Soviet Union, and within the Communist Party of China, as expressed in Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

He has argued against the idea that "spontaneous" rebellion will achieve political revolution without leadership bodies based on a methodology and practical unity of action. This and other positions he has held have tended toward Avakian something of a polarizing figure among activists of a more "movementist" politics.

Avakian holds that while the United States contains "oppressed nations," a disputed idea in the communist movement, that the working class's struggle is of a "multi-national proletariat" for political power, not a series of separated, concurrent "issues." He sees the main strategic orientation as uniting the fight of that multi-national proletariat with the revolutionary struggle of oppressed nationalities, African-Americans and Chicanos in particular. Avakian and the RCP oppose identity politics as an incorrect "post-modern" and anti-Marxist idea, that there are separate and discrete "truths" particular to who holds them.

Avakian argues that the Democratic Party is not the party of the people, but serves one sector of the capitalist ruling class. He believes in the necessity of a communist party to lead a total regime change based on the uprising of millions, within the United States and around the world.

Avakian holds that "there is nothing sacred" about the current national borders, particularly since they were formed by a process of conquest and dispossession. The economic and state development of different societies must entail different forms of struggle accordingly.

Works

He writes for the newspaper of his party, '''' , and has written several books including:

Books

*''Away With All Gods: Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World''
*''Marxism and the Call of the Future: Conversations on Ethics, History, and Politics'' co-authored with
*''From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist'' ISBN 0-9760236-2-8, A memoir.
*''Observations on Art and Culture, Science and Philosophy''
*''Preaching From a Pulpit of Bones: We Need Morality but not ''Traditional'' Morality''
*''Phony Communism is Dead... Long Live Real Communism!'' - A response to claims of the "Death of Communism".
*''Could We Really Win?'' - A talk about how revolution could be possible in a country like the U.S.
*''Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That?''
*''For a Harvest of Dragons: On the "Crisis of Marxism" and the Power of Marxism – Now More than Ever: An Essay Marking the 100th Anniversary of Marx's Death''
*''The Immortal Contributions of ''
*''A Horrible End, or an End to the Horror?''
*''Bullets: From the Writings Speeches and Interviews of Bob Avakian'' - A collection of quotes.

Printed Talks

*Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity, and
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*

Audio

*, includes question and answer session
* On War and Revolution, On Being a Revolutionary and Changing the World, interviewed by Carl Dix vol. 1 and 2, CD.

Video

*, Three Q Productions DVD

Critical opinions

* Ely, Mike. . December 2007.
* . . Communist Voice Organization, September 2005.
* Punkerslut.
* Oppenheimer, Mark. “”. ''The Boston Globe'', 27 January 2008.

Bill Martin (philosophy)

Bill Martin is a professor of Philosophy at DePaul University is best known for his work on Derrida, Sartre, Marxist theory, Aesthetics, and his critiques of Richard Rorty. Martin has written a few books on the subject of Prog Rock and bands like . He also considers himself a ; however rejects certain dogmatic princples of . He has certain affinity to the work of the and its chairman, Bob Avakian.

Beyond the relationship there are some major theoretical and philosophical differences as can be seen in the book co-written by both Avakian and Martin, "A Call to the Future," such as the question of the Ethical, the relation of productive forces to our contingency, and the legacy of Christianity. While Avakian takes a more stricter take on Marxism and the relationship between Morality and the economic base, Martin argues for a new re-envisioning of Ethics within Marxism.

Works

*"Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork"
*"Humanism and Its Aftermath: The Shared Fate of Deconstruction and Politics"
*"Marxism and the Call of the Future: Conversations on Ethics, History, and Politics" co-written with Bob Avakian.
*"Matrix and Line: Derrida and the Possibilities of Postmodern Social Theory"
*"Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock"
*"Politics in the Impasse: Explorations in Postsecular Social Theory"
*"The radical project: Sartrean investigations"

Not yet Published
*"Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation "

Bill Epton

William Leo Epton Jr. , more popularly known simply as Bill Epton, was a Maoist African-American communist activist. He was Vice Chairman of the until approximately 1970, and chairman of its Harlem branch until that position went null upon Epton's incarceration for incitement to violence in 1964.

Epton was "the first person convicted of criminal anarchy since the of 1919" — reportedly for a crime of three words: "Burn, baby, burn."

Origins

According to his New York Times , Epton, a Harlem native, was a firebrand even early in his youth. "Even as a high school student," the obituary reads, "he demonstrated for civil rights and helped organize unions. He was drafted into the and served in the Korean War." Later, he became an electrician, and gravitated towards the Progressive Labor Movement and its activities.

Background to the Epton court case

On July 16, 1964, NYPD officer Thomas Gilligan shot and killed a 15-year-old African-American high school student, James Powell, in cold blood. Over the next few days, the people of Harlem rose up in one of the first major Northern rebellions of the period, marking a new stage in such uprisings

Epton and his comrades plastered the streets of Harlem with a poster: ''Wanted For Murder – Gilligan the Cop''. The city administration declared a state of emergency in Harlem, prohibiting all demonstrations. While most of the reformist leaders went along with this ban, Epton and the Harlem branch of PL called for a peaceful rally on 125th Street for July 25. When Epton and the others began to march, Epton was arrested, charged with "criminal anarchy," tried, found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison.

The Epton trial was postponed to August 2, 1965. New York City Mayor Wagner, speaking to a group of students while traveling in Denmark, meanwhile said the rebellion Epton participated in was "a social revolution – a demand by a minority for equal rights" .

''We Accuse''

Epton wrote a militant speech he made to the court at his sentencing hearing. Progressive Labor Party published it as a pamphlet on February 2, 1966.

Epton breaks with PL

Epton was eventually released on bail while he appealed his conviction. Meanwhile, Progressive Labor began to change its line on the national question, the developments of which Epton apparently found politically unacceptable. They denounced all national liberation movements that did not aim directly for socialism, such as the , and also made some rather searing criticisms of the Black Panther Party .

After Epton left PL, he was involved in new attempts to unite revolutionary Marxists in the U.S. in the early 1970s. The appeal of his conviction was eventually rejected and he was forced to serve the remainder of that year in prison . However, such activity as Epton had engaged in was changed back to constitutional a mere two years after Epton's imprisonment. The New York Times obituary article says that Leon Friedman of Hofstra University School of Law noted: "They changed the rules. Had the new rule been in effect, he [Epton] probably would have won."

Epton played a founding role in the A. Philip Randolph Labor Council. He was also an information officer and printer at the New York City Board of Education after serving a year on Rikers Island. He died at a local hospital in his hometown of Harlem. He is survived by two children and three grandchildren.

Anti-Revisionism

In the movement, an anti-revisionist is one who favors the line of theory and practice associated with ----, usually stated in this way so as to show direct opposition to the --- path of Trotskyism. Anti-revisionists claim that the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership represented the last and final correct and successful practical implementation of the ideas of the ideas of , and in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . However, the anti-revisionist movement is also split with regard to the status of Mao: those that hold to Maoism basically uphold him and his ideas and policies, whereas Hoxhaist groups do not.

Anti-revisionism is seen by its followers as a healthy, solid, scientific ideological road, devoid of both the alleged and elitism of Trotskyism, and the perceived idealism of Left Communism. Nevertheless, "anti-revisionism" can also be a vague and controversial label, particularly in those cases where groups will argue over which of them is really the "true" anti-revisionist.

Anti-revisionism is based on the view that the Soviet Union successfully implemented Marxism-Leninism during approximately the first thirty years of its existence from the time of the October Revolution until the Secret Speech and peaceful coexistence of 1956. Anti-revisionists point out that Stalin's policies not only achieved impressive rates of economic growth and argue that such growth could have been sustained and a prosperous communism could have been achieved if the Soviet Union had remained on this same course ; they also typically further allege that the worldwide ideological impact and leadership of the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s world labor movement represent a superior ideological and social model of real "" that was first ruined by the Secret Speech and was later to reemerge with China's Cultural Revolution, only to be ruined again by the capture and deposition of the Gang of Four by China's "" .

According to anti-revisionists, these later attempts to 'fix' or ''revise'' the socialist system represented a shift onto the and ultimately led to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the betrayal of communist principles in all self-proclaimed communist countries. Thus, '''' is seen as the cause of the fall of the Soviet Union and the East European socialist republics.

After years of direct experience with China that led him first to write the book '''', author then experienced Chinese economic reform and, with this experience, wrote an angry anti-revisionist book entitled ''''. Both books, as well as Hinton's work generally, still tend to have much resonance among many anti-revisionists in the communist movement today.

Background

Self-proclaimed anti-revisionists firmly oppose the reforms initiated in by leaders like Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping in China. They generally refer to such reforms and states as and . They also reject Trotskyism and its "Permanent Revolution" as hypocritical by arguing that Trotsky himself had at one time thought it acceptable that socialism could work in a single country as long as that country was industrialized, but that Trotsky had considered Russia too backward to achieve such industrialization what it later in fact did achieve, mostly through his archenemy Stalin's s. In their own right, anti-revisionists also acknowledge that the Soviet Union contained a "new class" or "'red' bourgeoisie," but they generally place the blame for the formation of that class on Nikita Khruschev and his successors. Therefore, in anti-revisionist circles, there is very little talk of class conflict in the Soviet Union before 1956, except when talking about specific contexts such as the Russian Civil War and World War II .

During the Sino-Soviet split, the governments of the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong and Albania under proclaimed themselves to be taking an anti-revisionist line and denounced Khrushchev's policies in the Soviet Union. In the United States, those who supported China or Albania at the time were expelled from the United States Communist Party under orders from Moscow, and in 1961 they formed the Progressive Labor Movement. Anti-revisionist groups were further divided by the Sino-Albanian split, with those following Albania being loosely described as Hoxhaist.

Several in the United States still see themselves as explicitly anti-revisionist. Not every contemporary communist party around the world adhering to elements of anti-revisionism necessarily adopts the label "anti-revisionist"; many such organizations may call themselves Maoist, Marxist-Leninist or even just simply "revolutionary communist". The Workers Party of Korea still claims an anti-revisionist political line; however, this may not be an accurate label either in self-description or description by others, because of the official 'supersedence' of Marxist-Leninist thought in North Korea by the ideology of Juche.

Anti-Revisionist leaders

Those at a level claiming an anti-revisionist orientation actually vary widely in their ideological perspectives from within communism. An amalgamated list of the more famous self-proclaimed anti-revisionist leaders:

*Stalin
*Kim Il-Sung
*Kim Jong-il
*Enver Hoxha
*Mao Zedong
*Ho Chi Minh
*Che Guevara
*Hardial Bains
*Bill Bland
*William Z. Foster
*Harry Haywood
*Nelson Peery
*Bob Avakian
*?brahim Kaypakkaya
*Prachanda
*Hua Guofeng
*Gang of Four
*Ludo Martens
*Tron ?grim
*Harpal Brar
*Jose Maria Sison

Anti-revisionist groups

*
*Workers Party of Korea
*Communist Party of Great Britain
*Communist Party of Nepal
*Communist Party of the Philippines
*Freedom Road Socialist Organization
*Maoist Internationalist Movement
*Communist Party of India
*Ray O. Light Group
*Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
*Parti marxiste-léniniste du Québec
*Progressive Labor Party

Former anti-revisionist groups

*Party of Labour of Albania

Antagonistic contradiction

Antagonistic contradiction is the impossibility of compromise between different . The term is most often applied in Maoist theory, which holds that differences between the two primary classes, the working class/proletariat and the bourgeoisie are so great that there is no way to bring about a reconciliation of their views. Because the groups involved have diametrically opposed concerns, their objectives are so dissimilar and contradictory that no mutually acceptable resolution can be found. Nonantagonistic contradictions may be resolved through mere debate, but antagonistic contradictions can only be resolved through struggle.

The term is usually attributed to Vladimir Lenin, although he may never have actually used the term in any of his written works.

In Maoism, the antagonistic contradiction was usually that between the and the . Mao Zedong expressed his views on the policy in his famous February 1957 speech "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People."