Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Founded 1975
Headquarters Chicago, Illinois
Ideology Communism
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism
New synthesis of communism[1]
Political position Far-left
International affiliation None (formerly the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement)
Website
www.revcom.us

The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (or the RCP) is a communist party in the United States founded in 1975 and led by its chairman Bob Avakian. Coming out of the New Left, the party organizes for a revolution in the United States and internationally.

Bob Avakian's new synthesis of communism[2] is the RCP's ideological framework, which it considers a scientific advancement of Marxism–Leninism–Maoism.

The RCP is notable for its various coalition groups, such as the World Can't Wait, Stop Patriarchy, October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Stop Mass Incarceration Network, and Refuse Fascism.[3][4][5]

The RCP organizes supporters into what it calls Revolution Clubs,[6] (formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade) with chapters in Berkeley, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.

History

In early 1968, H. Bruce Franklin and Stephen Charles Hamilton[7] formed the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU) after a split in the Maoist Progressive Labor Party stemming from disagreements over the path of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and incipient rapproachment with the west. Bob Avakian led a small group from a split of another Maoist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) spinoff into BARU soon after its formation. In 1971, Franklin led a more militant faction of BARU out the organization to join Venceremos, leaving Avakian in a leading position within BARU. Avakian played a key role in uniting several similar local collectives,[8] with the long-term goal of forming a new Communist Party. The new nationwide structure induced BARU to change its name to simply the Revolutionary Union (RU). Avakian was elected to the central committee of the RU shortly thereafter. The RCP claims that of the various groups coming out of SDS, it was the first to seriously attempt to develop itself at the theoretical level, with the publication of Red Papers 1.[9]

In 1974 RU started publication of their newspaper Revolution (renamed Revolutionary Worker in 1979) and in 1975 RU reconstituted itself as the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). After the death of Mao in 1976, the RCP lost about 40% of its membership in a 1978 split over alignment with the new Chinese leadership. Avakian led the faction that rejected what they considered a counterrevolutionary coup against Mao's allies, and the split left him as undisputed leader of the remainder of the RCP.

In January 1979 Avakian and 78 other Party members and supporters were arrested and charged with various crimes in connection to a militant protest against Deng Xiaoping's visit to the White House. 17 demonstrators, including Avakian, were charged with multiple felonies which would carry a combined sentence of up to 241 years.[10] After the RCP and its supporters waged a mass campaign for political, legal, and other support for the defendants, the charges were dropped in 1982, by which time Party leadership had decided to go into exile, with Avakian applying for political asylum in France, where he remained for many years.

The RCP organized May Day 1980 rallies in 16 cities across the U.S., including in Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Seattle, and Washington D.C.[11] Weeks before the May Day demonstrations, RCP member Damian Garcia and two others climbed the Alamo, tearing down the American flag from its pole, and raising the Red Flag in its place before being arrested. Shortly thereafter, on April 22, 1980, Garcia was stabbed to death[12] while organizing in a Los Angeles housing project. At the time, police said that Garcia's murderer was gang-affiliated, while RCP insisted that he had been assassinated by the state in retaliation for his action at the Alamo. Avakian remarked in his memoir that Garcia's murder was "very clearly tied in with police agents...it was an attack on our Party..."[13]

In 1983 Avakian was one of the founders of the now-defunct Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), an international grouping of Maoist parties. The RIM published A World to Win news service from 1981 to 2006, but since its dissolution the publication is now updated on the official website. In 2017, A World to Win was restructured to "a more thorough-going tool for revolution based on Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism".[14]

RCP branches opened Revolution Books stores in major US cities and became a presence in protest movements. Flag-burning by RCP members led to the Texas v. Johnson case. RCP regarded the 1992 Rodney King riots as legitimate political rebellion and advocated for the defendants in the Reginald Denny beating case.[15] RCP advocated for international Maoist movements such as the Shining Path guerrilla movement in Peru.[16]

Bob Avakian's leadership

After major splits in the party, some ex-members and other groups have alleged that the RCP has a cult of personality around Bob Avakian.[17] Mic has called it "a communist doomsday cult that is obsessed with Avakian".[18] Alternately, San Francisco Chronicle has written of Avakian as "the marathon man of the international anti-imperialist struggle".[19]

The party has responded to these allegations, calling them "lies and slander" and "complete and utter nonsense," saying "Bob Avakian and the RCP are the exact opposite of a cult."[20]

The party today

The RCP releases daily updates online and a periodic print edition of its weekly newspaper, Revolution (formerly called Revolutionary Worker, 1979–2005) which is published in English and Spanish and has been published continuously since 1979.

In December 2016, party members and others co-initiated Refuse Fascism, a coalition group opposed to the presidency of Donald Trump.[21] The statement was used by InfoWars and other far-right conspiracy theory websites to claim that RCP and Refuse Fascism were organizing a military overthrow of the government on November 4, 2017.[22] Several anti-Trump protest marches were organized for that day, which passed without incident.[23][18]

References

  1. ↑ "The New Synthesis Of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method And Approach And Core Elements—An Outline". Retrieved September 26, 2017.
  2. ↑ "The New Synthesis Of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method And Approach, And Core Elements". revcom.us. Retrieved September 26, 2017.
  3. ↑ "End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women". Revcom.us. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Stop Mass Incarceration!". Revcom.us. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
  5. ↑ "The World Can't Wait! Stop the crimes of your government". WorldCantWait.net. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
  6. ↑ revcom.us http://revcom.us/movement-for-revolution/revolution-clubs. Retrieved June 24, 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. ↑ Hamilton, Steve. "On the History of the Revolutionary Union". Theoretical Review No. 13, November–December 1979.
  8. ↑ "Bob Avakian (BA)—Official Biography—Part 1: FORMATIVE EXPERIENCES, CRITICAL JUNCTURES, DECISIVE LEADERSHIP". revcom.us. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  9. ↑ "Red Papers 1". Originally published by the Bay Area Revolutionary Union, now available online thanks to Marxists.org's Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line project. Spring 1969.
  10. ↑ Avakian, Bob (1981). Bob Avakian Speaks on the Mao Tsetung Defendants Railroad and the Historic Battles Ahead. Chicago, IL 6065: RCP Publications. p. 1. ISBN 0-89851-047-3.
  11. ↑ "MAY 1st 1980: REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS STORM HISTORY's STAGE" (PDF). Revolutionary Worker. May 5, 1980.
  12. ↑ ""Los Angeles detective briefs reporters on Damian Garcia homicide"". UCLA Film and Television Archive.
  13. ↑ Avakian, Bob (2005). From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist. Insight Press. p. 408. ISBN 978-0976023623.
  14. ↑ "Editorial Introducing a transformed AWTWNS". A World to Win News Service.
  15. ↑ "20th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Rebellion - It's Right to Rebel Against Injustice!". revcom.us. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
  16. ↑ "RW Online: Support the People's War in Peru!". revcom.us. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
  17. ↑ Weir (2007). "Maoism". In Weir, Robert. Class in America: H-P. Greenwood. p. 492. ISBN 978-0313337192. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  18. 1 2 Smith, Jack IV (November 2, 2017). "The far-right thinks a violent antifa overthrow is coming Nov. 4, but the truth is far stranger". Mic.com. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  19. ↑ https://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-Memoir-follows-author-s-road-to-2676772.php
  20. ↑ http://www.revcom.us/a/357/stop-the-lies-and-slanders-bob-avakian-and-the-rcp-are-the-exact-opposite-of-a-cult-en.html
  21. ↑ "In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America". Revcom.us. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
  22. ↑ Hayden, Michael Edison (11 October 2017). "'Antifa' waging civil war on November 4, according to right wing conspiracy". Newsweek. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  23. ↑ Strickland, Patrick (4 November 2017). "Far-right conspiracies fizzle amid anti-Trump rallies". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 13 February 2018.

Further reading

  • Smith, Jack IV (November 2, 2017). "The far-right thinks a violent antifa overthrow is coming Nov. 4, but the truth is far stranger". Mic.com. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  • RCP, Black activists feud on Twitter as Janelle Monae performs in Atlanta". Atlanta Progressive. September 1, 2005.

Critical opinions

  • Ely, Mike. "9 Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian's New Synthesis". December 2007.
  • Wright, Liam. "On the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA: Criticizing a Residue of the Past". November 2010.
  • H., Scott. "The RCP and the Mass Line". Massline.info.
  • Gordon, Eric (September 2005). "The Maoist cultism of the RCP is anti-Marxist". Communist Voice Organization.
  • Seattle, Ben (January 2005). "Hysteria about "fascism" serves to hide the essential role of the Democratic Party in the political and economic system of imperialism".
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