Kasama Project Thread takes a serious look at applying Maoism here in the US

This is a posting from Mike Ely, on the Kasama Project’s thread section. I post a lot of articles and opinions from Maoist groups all over the world. It is obvious that conditions from one country to the next will call for different strategies and opinions on lines of struggle.  I try to get opinions form parties all over the globe, so we can see what is going on with our Maoist comrades in other countries. Some groups are well known from the larger countries such as The Communist Party of India (Maoist) or The Communist Party of the Philippines. Others are found in small countries such as The Bhutan Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist) or The Communist Party of Ecuador - Red Sun. It is not surprising that these groups have different opinions in regards to other political parties, both at home and abroad.

Some of these parties are very concerned about revisionists or left groups that will only sell them out. So these groups wage political struggle against other parties in their country.

I posted this because I think that Ely has taken a serious look at what it will take for Maoism to be more relevant in The US. He seems to want to avoid factional fights with other groups, Maoist or otherwise. I remember the Communist groups of the 1970s and early 1980s and factionalism completely destroyed any chance for a united left movement against the system.

In some countries Maoist parties call for “people’s war” but due to the high tech weapons and spying techniques, that just isn’t an option here in the US right now.

I hope that parties in other countries will realize that conditions in the US are probably quite different from their own and the changes Ely wants to make are worth a try.  The Maoist party he split off from is hopelessly locked into a fringe role in US politics. Ely and others decided new strategies and attitudes are needed to form an effective revolutionary left movement that will have any chance of success here in the US.

-សតិវ អតុ

The value and problems of Maoism;

We have been having discussions on the meaning and value of Maoism. Here are some extracts from my larger essay "9 Letters to Our Comrades" –

"There is real glory and continuing value to Maoism, as a body of thought and as a movement for liberation. As a distinct international trend, it was born during the 1960s in raging opposition to both the global rampages of the U.S. and the suffocating gray norms of the Soviet Union. Maoism proclaimed 'It is right to rebel against reactionaries,' and gave new life to the revolutionary dream. It said 'Serve the People,' and promised that no one (not even the communist vanguard) would be above the interrogations of the people. A loose global current congealed from many eclectic streams, and it included many of the world’s most serious revolutionaries. There have been important and heroic attempts at power — in Turkey, Iran, India, the Philippines, Peru, Nepal and more. There were important revolutionary movements of 1968 that included Maoists in France, Germany, Italy and more. There was real ferment around the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and then at times around the RCP in the U.S.

"But since Mao died in 1976, this Maoist movement has not been a fertile nursery of daring analyses and concepts. A mud streak has run through it.

"Even its best forces often cling to legitimizing orthodoxies, icons, and formulations. The popularization of largely-correct verdicts often replaces the high road of scientific theory — allowing Marxism itself to appear pat, simple and complete.

"Dogmatic thinking nurtures both self-delusion and triumphalism. In the name of taking established truths to the people, revolutionary communists have often cut themselves off from the new facts and creative thinking of our times.

"We need to break with that fiercely, and seek out the others who agree."

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