Can We Have A Maoist Party Now?

Let's paint the west red!

Here lately I've felt very pessimistic about the left here in the US and so of course I started to wonder why I am having these feelings.


It didn't take me long to realize that it is because I don't have a party or group where I can participate/express myself with like minded revolutionaries to attempt to destroy US imperialism/capitalism.


I have attempted to look into multiple different parties and groups/ORGS etc. But nothing here in the states really comes close to the political line I believe in to take us through to socialism in the US. Simply we do not have a real Maoist party in the US, we have MTWist (they are actually Lin Piaoist), Kasama (sort of) and the RCP-USA which is not a real Maoist party as much as an Avakianist party.  


I recently was sent this link to a blog set up by fellow maoist but when I asked how I could help I got no response. Granted I am not going to join just because they call themselves Maoist but  I would love to see what they have to offer. Their documents seem to imply that they are ready to start the party building process.


I will pursue contacting them further. They posted an e-mail ncpocweblog@hotmail.com under their contact information if any Maoist in the states wish to contact the group.


I am getting off topic though. The fact of the matter is that all the Maoist living in the US need to come together under one banner. Rather you are a anti-revisionist, 100 flower, cultural revolutionary type of Maoist or any other kind of Maoist we should be uniting together into one party to struggle for socialism.


All the other socialist parties have shown themselves incapable of leading the masses in any meaningful way. Sure some groups are good at organizing peaceful protest where the same people come, yell, then go home with an undeserved sense of accomplishment. Some are good at labor organizing, some are good at organizing students, but in reality no party is capable of leading the toiling masses towards socialism.


We Maoist need an outlet for our ideas in a organization where we can practice free and open criticism/self-criticism in a comradly manor.


To put it plainly we need a unified Maoist party. made up of all the Maoist banners!
We need for revolutionaries to put aside petty individual "rivalries" with each other so we can do what we should be doing and that is fighting for socialism/communism.


I for one hope we can get our shit together soon so we can start to organize the fight for socialism. Only a true Maoist party based on the mass line, revolutionary democracy and based in the proletarian masses can lead to a socialist revolution. We will never achieve any progress on that front if we rely on petty bourgeois ideologist parties made up of academia elites. We need a real proletarian party made up of proletarians fighting for the only system capable of meeting every ones needs; socialism.  

Revolutionary Work, Revolutionary Parenting.

   I have been absent of posting for a few months for basic proletarian reasons. I have had to focus on feeding my family and keeping my lights on, so unfortunately I have had little to no time to post on the blog or even think about things to write.

   My political work has suffered because of this but I think I have also made some head way on a form of political organizing which I have come to refer to as 'revolutionizing everyday ideas.' Which is simple and effective. I work in an office where we take care of a lot of poor and oppressed peoples. In my position in said office I am in contact with everyone who comes into the office. I also ride the bus to and from work about an hour each way so I have much contact with everyday common people (which is refreshing as opposed to hanging around activist and especially occupy people's.)

   The place I work allows me to interject political ideas and anti-government propaganda to a listener who is being oppressed and exploited and "working to stay poor" after working here for quite a while now I must say that the hardworking poor class has probably the most revolutionary potential in this nation as opposed to the middle class which is most often referred to as the working class. I have had many many political discussions at work and out right about socialism with all but a few exceptions, positive results.

   I have found that surprisingly taxes is a very good talking point when discussing socialism. The people seem to mostly agree that our tax levels (or even higher) would be livable if the state was providing any kind of service for those taxes collected. Yes we have "medicaid" but take it from a medical professional that this "service" is useless and other government run healthcare (Harmony) is just as awful as the medicaid and medicare. Ive seen medicaid (and harmony) deny essential medications for diabetics, people with high cholesterol etc.

   It has been easy to take the anger of these people that are being shit on by the government programs that they have paid into their whole life and turn that anger on the two ruling parties.



   The other thing I have been doing is raising my son. He is about to be three and trying to teach a three year old how to pee in the toilet and be polite and respectful to others is a full time job on top of my full time job. He is very polite and nice for a three year old and he is very humble for what he receives and is also very good at sharing.

   I don't bring this up because readers have emailed me asking about my childs progress as a person. I bring this up because to what extent should communist parents push politics on their children? In some cases children will rebel against anything that their parents try to push on them and rightly so. It seems oppressive when as a kid your parents are trying to force you into one political or religious position or another.

   So how do we try to educate our children with out turning them off of socialism? Well what I intend to do is to try and create an atmosphere where greater control by the masses is encouraged. By this I mean that all who live in the house will have responsibilities and will also have a say in the economy of the household as well as the day to day running's of said household.

   Most people think that giving a child a democratic voice at a young age as far as financially is a bad idea, but his mother and I can block any crazy proposals he has like spending the electric bill on candy or something. I think giving him a say on household economic issues will give him a sense of how important both mass democracy and economic socialism both are. You see; as his main trade will most likely be dish washing or lawn mowing in his younger years he will still have an equal say no matter how much or how little he contributes rather it be in labor or monetarily. This will show him (without verbal badgering our annoyingly lecturing) the natural benefits of mass democracy and socialism.

Banning The Communist Party in the Czech Republic.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (the CP in the Czech Republic) is facing the possibility of being outlawed in the Czech Republic.


"The Czech Communists adore the violent communism based on Marx and Lenin," said the leader of the proposal to outlaw the CP. Some supporters of the ban claim that the CP is a threat to democracy in the Czech Republic(1). They go out of their way to ignore the fact the the CP participates in elections and even hold offices with representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, Senate, European Parliament, Regional councils and local councils (2).


Not to mention the slogan of the supporters seem to be "Preserve democracy by stifling it!" It is no doubt a reaction to the fact that the CP has experienced some growth in support recently as the support for the government has fell, due to scandals and proposed cuts to social programs.


The supporters of the ban seem to not be so anti-communist/socialist as much as they are afraid of Marxist Leninist. In the article cited above it mentions how most are just upset that the party has not accepted reformism as it's guiding light like most other Europeans communist parties did after the collapse of the USSR.


There is not a lot that can be done by the international communist movement to stop this move to ban the CP in the Czech Republic (though the right-wing seems un-likely to succeed in banning the CP). All we can do is to lend a voice to the communist party in that nation. Help raise awareness to their situation, and speak in favor of them and attack the government on a political propaganda level. This attempt to ban revolutionary communist thought in the Czech Republic could lead to their party and ideas gaining popularity.


The Communist Party in the Czech Republic are self defined Marxist Leninist and are also strong anti-imperialist(3)(4) that deserve nothing but full support from the communist community. Support the CPBM's right to exist!


Written by: Dustin Slagle







(1) JANICEK, KAREL. Czechs consider banning communist party. Yahoo. AP. July/29/2011. Web. July/29/2011

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Bohemia_and_Moravia

(3) Charfo, assan. Crimes of Imperialism. kscm.cz. 9/11/2008. Web. July/29/2011. http://www.kscm.cz/political-opinions/39984

(4) Joint Statement (on Libya). Kscm.cz. 4/18/2011. Web. July/29/2011. http://www.kscm.cz/international/55289

The Friendship Theory.

More often than not people in the communist movement tend to be over bearing and just plain condescending, then if someone disagrees with our ideas most people result to yelling and name calling. But is this proper use of the mass line? No it isn't.


Part of the mass line and just being a Maoist in general is that we are suppose to be correct, calm, explanatory and civil and advocate for socialism and communism while doing it.


But this post isn't about the mass line, I want this post to be about how we can take our ideas and theory's to the masses without people just looking at you like a crazy psycho commie. Now I have had great success using this method in progressive circles and even liberal circles (lets face it, here in the states we will have to convert some liberals to our side to build any kind of base. It is convincing them that liberalism is bad is the hard part.)


One thing Ive noticed about parties is that they tend to stay to their own and only do things they set up or go to events where they can push their propaganda. I want to see us building organic relationships on the ground. That is how I took the branch I was chairman of from one member to one of the larger branches (outside of the huge cities like LA NYC CHI ETC) and passed up branches that were around for years longer than us. People in my area not only know my name and affiliation but know, like and respect me because the people know me as one of them and not someone who tells others what to think.


It is important to establish organic relationships on the ground. A big problem most parties have is that they show up to an event or protest and they run around and try to sell their papers and then they leave. Or else they only stay to themselves and run their own events and try to push their propaganda and constantly claim they are the vanguard ETC. Some might stand around after an event and argue or yell at people trying to tell the people what they should believe. But this is the most incorrect way of building a party or more importantly, raising socialist consciousness.


It is important that you have your ideas and theories fully developed before you take them to the masses and try to apply them. But without these organic friendships in your community you will be taking your ideas to a blank audience and you will have to start from scratch. However, with the friendships already in place, when you take your ideas to the masses you will already have a base to take them to. And since these people see you as a friend and organizer they will be more open to hearing and maybe taking on some of your theories and ideas. IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THAT NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE ALL THE SAME IDEAS OF HOW THINGS ARE AND HOW THEY WORK AS YOU DO. You have to be willing to actually listen to other peoples thoughts and not insult them, but slowly and in normal language explain what you believe and why you believe it.


People treat you differently when they know you personally then from when you are some random person yelling at them about how wrong their ideas are. As a matter of fact it will make them shut you off completely and you will achieve nothing and you are wasting your time.


But what should we do when some one refuses to change their minds and just remains non-communist? We should not change our tactic. Continue to discuss (not debate or argue or yell) politics and calmly explain your positions. If we can not convert someone to believe in socialism/communism then we can at least have that person hold us in a respective light. Some one who doesn't agree with us but does respect us is better than someone who hates us.


People will see right through you if you are not genuine in your friendships. You must NOT create these relationships out of opportunism. Have fun with it and enjoy yourself while you make friends and build up consciousness towards socialism.

The Socialist Parties: A Collective Problem

It is no secret that all the socialist parties seems to share one common trait; bureaucracy. As a person who has been a active socialist for some 6 years plus now, and has many friends in the communist movement. One story seems constant to me, the story of un-democratic bureaucracy ruling over the party. Or to put it plainly bureaucratic-centralism. To someone who may not know what this means, it means that instead of the majority choosing how things are run there are a few (leaders) members who make all or most of the decisions and the majority is expected to parrot (follow) the decision. If the bureaucracy has reached a high level than any criticism of the leaders decisions are usually treated as treason or you are simply purged from the party.


Democratic centralism is suppose to be where the majority chose what to do in a certain situation or the majority decide what stance the party will take on certain issues. And the people in the minority are expected to follow and defend the choice. A common slogan is "freedom of discussion, unity of action."

But why and where does this problem come from? I will attempt to answer these questions in this entry. Some people simply write it off as Stalinism, but this not only lacks in-depth analysis but also blindly ignores dialect materialism. The fact is that most all revolutionary (and non-revolutionary)socialist parties suffer from this to one degree or another.


Why did this problem develop?: This is no easy answer. Since democratic centralism started a long time ago it is hard to pin point exactly when it went wrong. So I will go with something that should be fairly obvious. Even Trotskyist use the democratic centralism model in most of their parties but when a party or country degenerates to bureaucratic centralism the trots call that party/country Stalinist. Of course a Trotskyist is never going to pass up a chance to jab at Stalin but in reality it was Lenin's model of democratic centralism that is/was incorrect. This writer personally believes if Lenin was alive today he would say the same thing. One thing communist seem to ignore is that we should always be advancing and moving forward. Of course it was not Lenin's fault it turned into a bureaucracy as I believe he would have called for a different approach if he would have seen what democratic centralism was to become.


In reality democratic centralism naturally leads to bureaucracy. When a party starts there are usually a few members who are more dedicated than others or do more work than other members. This rightfully earns this said person a certain amount of respect among the founding members and new members. So they are elected to a seat of power. The problem is that as time goes on the people who started the group want to make sure things are run the way they want and that they stay in charge. So what ends up happening is that the original members end up with multiple seats or too much power. New members of a party may take years to realize the level of bureaucracy in their party, especially if the party lets its new members vote on the small things giving the member a false sense of inner democracy.

Some parties claim they use democratic centralism yet they just tell their members the party believes this about China or that about China (just an example) and expects the new members to parrot these stances even though the party never held a vote on the issues. Usually a parties "Central Committee" decides on the parties stances on issues, but why does a small group think they should decide what is the best stance for a party? Well since these people are nominated by other party members some people parrot that this is real democracy, but is it? No, this is another fault of democratic centralism today. A small number of older members just ends up running the party and making all the major choices.


The biggest problem that develops after this stage is when a member offers a criticism of the parties theoretical line or stances on a certain issue, they are usually treated as a traitor or are accused of not following democratic centralism. What happens next is that when the party should take his/her criticism seriously and figure out the best way forward theoretically, instead the criticizer is kicked out of the party.

Parties that claim to use dialect materialism should always be open to changing a position on an issue or international situation. If a party/org kicks one of their members out of for criticizing the theoretical line then that party does not follow dialect materialism and should not claim so. A party can expect its members to defend the parties choices but if the party does not include all or most party members in the decision making process then it is not following true democratic centralism. My point being that it is hard to up hold democratic centralism in the first place.

I'm not the kind of person to just write a criticism without offering some kind of alternative or a way to fix the said problem.

So how do we fix this bureaucracy with in democratic centralism? Well dogmatism in a communist might say we need to reform it. But the fact of the matter is we may need to do away with democratic centralism all together. Ive had many discussions with people about democratic centralism and no one has shown me a way to reform democratic centralism that would eliminate the bureaucratic element.

Since it does not seem possible to reform democratic centralism we must resort back to our revolutionary roots and find something new. This brings to mind something that has been tried before but was dismantled by the right wing of the CPC. Communal democracy and a communal run planned economy.

I do not personally believe that there has ever been a better example of true democracy in either a country or a party that represented the masses to the fullest. Plus we know from experiences that democratic centralism run on a national scale quickly turns sour and eventually ends up oppressing people who speak outside of what the party says it is okay to speak out against. Communal socialism would be better because how is some one in LA or DC or NYC suppose to know what we need in Mississippi or Illinois or Colorado etc? Only the people from those areas know exactly what they are producing and what they need. Each area would be more personally in charge of themselves and thus wouldn't feel the constant oppression of the centralized state.

Obviously this writer knows he doesn't have all the answers but I am sick of seeing hundreds of intelligent individuals walking around parroting what their leaders, elders and party tell them to. It is time for the communist to start using dialect materialism correctly again, it is time for a revolution!

Written by: Dustin Slagle

(I plan to expand on this)

Scare tactics

Nazi's Are Not Socialist

First lets start with the biggest myth associated with socialism. The biggest scare tactic is associating the German Nazi party with communism or socialism. Firstly in socialism all the people equally benefit from working as a whole. Instead of producing goods for profit the goods are created for the society use as a whole. Workers rights are put before that of the rich and ruling classes. Socialism attempts to destroy the ruling class and replace capitalism with a workers democracy.

National Socialism is only socialism for the national majority or in the Nazi's case, socialism only for white non-jewish Germans. But they benefited from the oppression and exploitation of the minorities. As anyone who cares to read up on history, the communist and social democrats were the first people thrown into the death camps or were just taken out into the country side and shot. The National Socialist party was actually more accurately described a fascist party. Fascism has been described by many people as corporatist jingoism (extreme and aggressive patriotism/right-wing-racist nationalism).

In Nazi Germany the unions were destroyed and profit for the ruling class and their factory owning friends was the number one priority. The only reason some Jewish men/woman lived through the Holocaust is they were a source of free labor.

All socialist/communist parties are staunchly anti-fascist and in most cases join forces with anarchist all the way to liberals to combat fascism. The two ideologies could not be more different.

Wrongful Name Association

One of the next biggest scare tactics against socialist is name association. As a socialist Ive been called many things in my life. It never fails for people to drop one name to trying when trying to discredit socialism; Stalin. I have personally been called a Stalinist so many times I have lost count.

Let me start by saying this; the word Stalinism has no base. Mao, Marx and Lenin, all of these people contributed something to the ideology of their respective forms of communism. For example Mao created "people protracted war" (and many other ideas) and there for Maoism is distinct from other forms of specific socialism. Stalin (unlike Mao/Lenin/Marx) contributed no advancement of socialist ideology. Thus the word Stalinist/Stalinism is just a scare tactic used to scare people away from socialism and has no base or meaning what so ever.

Communism is "Un-democratic"

First lets explain that un-like the popular opinion in the US, there is more than one form of "democracy". The US uses bourgeois democracy, meaning that the candidate with the highest funding mostly wins the election. In the US "democracy", party candidates are nominated by the parties after paying a sum of money, then voters get to pick from them in the primaries.

In socialism countries run on democratic centralism people are nominated by other people at the local level. Then after this they will run in a popular vote at the local/state or national elections depending on what they are nominated for. This is commonly called a workers democracy. In democratic centralism everyone votes as individuals but acts as one. This also keeps the citizens of said country involved in their government but this system also has problems but I will touch on that in a later post. The idea that communism is un-democratic is a truthful as saying Iraq still has WMD.

Socialism is an idea of peace, love for your brothers and sisters, community, equal rights, anti-oppression, anti-imperialism, and is all about giving the power to the majority, power to the people!

By: Dusty Slagle