SF Chron Goes Maoist!

Completely by accident, I caught a really bizarre San Francisco Chronicle book review Sunday night of the new memoir just written by none other than Chairman Bob Avakian, leader of the glorious Revolutionary Communist Party (which last time anybody checked had at least 4 or 5 dozen members nationwide).

Now, Chairman Bob, 62 years old – and who has lived a great chunk of his life in “exile” in France -- has the perfect right to scratch out a book and the Chron has the same right to review it.

That, in turn, gives me the right to say: what a spectacularly stupid and fawning review for someone who is little more than the self-appointed Dear Leader of a claque of Stalin-worshipping cranks.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that Chron staff writer and reviewer Rick DelVecchio is some sort of commie dupe. Make that just a plain dope. His yawning ignorance of the subject about which he so blithely writes is border-line delusional.(It is true that writing for a SF paper makes this whole enterprise a bit easier I suppose).

I think the bigger lesson here is just how wrong the MSM can get any story if it sets its mind to it.  Iraqi WMD's, or American-Armenian head cases.

Down to the facts.

Avakian is, in reality, little more than a cult-leader for a tiny sect of Marxist-Leninists who worship both Mao and Stalin. He had no more reason to flee to French exile 25 years ago than you did to take up residence on Mars – though it all gives Old Bob some manufactured mystique.

His RCP is an extremely dogmatic little outfit that when not apologizing for Stalin’s and Mao’s crimes is talking down to the “impoverished masses” in street language. The real specialty of the RCP, however, is to send two or three of its knuckleheads into genuine grass roots student movements and try to hijack them. Then there’s the fishwrap newspaper is puts out – The Revolutionary Worker—which can be seen littering the ground after any major peace demo. Now with a new name, just plain old “Revolution” it brims with ideological doggerel.

In short, not a single left-of-center person with an IQ above 68 takes these whackjobs seriously.

Nope. That’s the job of the San Francisco Chronicle! Try to contain your laughter as you peruse these excerpts from DelVechhio’s review of Chairman Bob’s just-published  “From Ike to Mao and Beyond:”

Berkeley-bred Avakian's new memoir, "From Ike to Mao and Beyond," leaves a breathtaking impression…It's as if democratic capitalism's triumph in the 20th century was history's biggest mistake, a tragic wrong turn from the revolutionary road marked out by Lenin in the Russia of 1917 after the writings of Marx and by Mao in the China of the 1950s and 60s. Unswervingly, Avakian holds that road and is esteemed by fellow revolutionaries as the marathon man of the international anti-imperialist struggle…

…although Avakian is a devotee of Marx and Lenin, he's also respected in revolutionary circles for his ground-breaking criticism of communist methods. More evolutionary than revolutionary, his non dogmatic communism tolerates contradiction, welcomes dissent and demands the participation of artists and intellectuals in creating a classless society…

 

..Avakian's representatives said the author is eager to have his views more widely discussed but wants to stay out of sight because he fears government harassment. He fled America in 1981 amid what he describes in the book as a suffocating climate of intolerance.

 

Today, Avakian remains party chairman and is perhaps best known as a prolific, uncompromising contributor to The Revolutionary Worker newspaper. In one his latest articles, he says the polarized conditions in America today are similar to those in the 1840s and 1850s, and he predicts a new civil war.

…disgusted with sectarianism and dogmatism in the ranks, Avakian pushed his fellow radicals to stop fighting each other, think big and stay the revolutionary course.

He went to China in 1971 and was awed by Mao's Cultural Revolution. "We saw truly wondrous things," he writes. He came home convinced that revolutionary change could take place in American society as a scientific process..

In the book, Avakian is at his most provocative when he assesses Stalin and Mao. He applauds Stalin for leading the first historical experience in building socialism, the Soviet Union, under difficult circumstances. Although he refers to Stalin's mistakes, he makes no mention of the millions who died under the Soviet dictatorship and insists upon a balanced view.

"If the bourgeoisie and its political representatives can uphold people like Madison and Jefferson," he writes, "then the proletariat and its vanguard forces can and should uphold Stalin, in an overall sense and with historical perspective."

 

Is this fabulous stuff, or what? Y'need a mop to wipe up the slobber from that prolonged wet kiss, comrade. What’s in the water anyway up there at the Chronicle? All these hosannas for someone who commands a microscopic, totally anti-democratic sect immersed in the most mind-numbingly primitive of Stalinist dogmas. How does something like this make it past all those layers of professional MSM editors?

Compare the MSM crud above with an “amateur” review of the same book on Amazon.com by one Michael Gebert who gets right to the point:

It is sad to look at the pictures of Bob Avakian as an average 50s kid and read about his childhood and then find what he has become now-- a paranoid leader of a tiny Marxist cult, hiding away in Europe in terror from a US government that probably couldn't care less about him, and irrelevant, because of his adoration of a discredited pseudoscientific murder ideology, to the political history of his times. The baby boomers, much mocked though they are, changed the society they lived in in enormous and often positive ways. For a few, however, the liberation of women, the fight against racism, the slow and gradual work of making the world a little better within democratic means were simply not grand enough stages for the outsized parts they wanted to play; and so Avakian styled himself a revolutionary, at once removing himself from any meaningful participation in his times so that he could be a "useful idiot" for the cause that left victims of war, famine, and above all "great leader" megalomania throughout the 20th century. (Of course, it is Mao, the least effective and most deadly of all them all, for whom Avakian reserves the greatest admiration.) Reading Avakian proclaim the "scientific basis" of Marxism he sounds no wiser than the devotee of any other cult leader-- Hubbard, Jim Jones, take your pick. I suggest this book be viewed as a psychological case study rather than a contribution to the political literature of its time.

A nifty, intelligent review in one compact graph by someone who can actually write and think all at the same time.. Fire the guy at the Chronicle and hire this civilian!

Comments

[Brian Siano]

Actually, I kinda miss the Maoists. Lemme explain why.

A few weeks ago, on a friend's blog, this right-wing asswipe came in and started accusing her of the usual intolerance and bigotry-- she had a problem with the new Pope, and of course, this meant that she was evil and intolerant and a bigot and a fascist and... well, you get the idea.

So, while everyone else was doing parodies of right-winger-speak, I posted the following:

"Spoken like a true fellow-traveller and Fifth-Estate columnist.

But, as Mao teaches us, nostalgia is just a revanchist tendency of the bourgeous classes, a luxury in which the lackeys of the United States and their running dogs shall drown! The paper tiger of imperialism cannot withstand the forthright application of the Seven Correct Principles! For only through the steadfast and strenuous efforts of the People, as articulated in the thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, shall the Imperialists be revealed as the paper tigers they are! Long live the Revolution! Long like Chairman Mao Tse-Tung!"

Not one frickin' reply. I hate it when that happens: makes me wonder if the Mao parody was _so damn good it shut down the discussion_, or it just _went past everyone because they didn't get the gag_.

So I miss the Maoists. They're morons, but they were funnier than Scientologists.

[Mark A. York]

I don't know, isn't this just a "local activist in exile" sort of piece without regard for his skewed views? I don't think it's an endorsment of the beliefs per se is it?

[reg]

Marc...just for the record. The Chron publishes a bunch of different regional sections that appear on Friday only. That piece didn't appear as part of the Chron per se, and certainly not under the auspices of David Kipen, the quite good book reviewer and Chron book review editor. If you look at the bottom of the article, it's clear that it was - in the form of a book review - a puff piece announcing a local event for the Berkeley local pages - Avakian grew up in Berkeley, graduated from Berkeley High and UC and his dad was a prominent East Bay judge, Spurgeon Avakian. While it was a pretty indefensible and stupid take on Avakian, most Chronicle readers didn't see it because it wasn't in most of their papers. Mostly I want to defend Chron book guy, David Kipen from being held responsible for this low level of crap, because it wasn't on his radar screen...nor on the recieving end of most Chron readers.

That said, Bob Avakian is one of the most ridiculous figures in the history of the American ultra-left who deserves his considerable obscurity, even among his Berkeley homies. And Rick DelVecchio is a generally mediocre reporter who should be restricted to covering PTA meetings.

[reg]

Oh...one more thing. Your jibe about the RCP only having 4 or 5 members is wishful thinking. They're not large, but C. Clark Kissinger - their smartest and most successful organizer - is the guy behind "Resist" and much of the Mumia bidness... He's managed to glom on to and harness the poorly informed good intentions of quite a few prominent cultural lefties. Don't underestimate the ability of a handful of cranks to create a visible presence that more than a few folks who should know better take seriously as "progressive activism". Disgusting, appalling...but true.

[reg]

I hate to linger on this, but if you really want to retch, click on the little icon of Bobby's book cover and you can read this blurb: "His powerful story of commitment is timely." Cornel West

I really hope that they plucked that clip from a comment by West that went something like this. "His powerful story of a misspent life chasing ideological ghosts in an ultraleft wasteland suggests that serious consideration of Mr. Avakian's commitment to a mental hospital is timely."

But I'm afraid that's not what happened.

[reg]

Oh god. I started reading the whole review. It's actually very funny. Very, very funny. My favorite line on the ideological journey of a very young Bob: "Sticking with Eisenhower even though his parents went over to Adlai Stevenson, he was absorbed in TV coverage of the 1952 Republican presidential convention."

[reg]

In the interest of brutal honesty I have to add the following quotes that I found by googling the "book launch" event in Berkeley.

What people are saying about From Ike to Mao and Beyond:

"Bob Avakian is a long distance runner in the freedom struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalism. His voice and witness are indispensable in our efforts to enhance the wretched of the earth. And his powerful story of commitment is timely."

– Cornel West

"A truly interesting account of Bob Avakian’s life, a humanizing portrait of someone who is often seen only as a hard-line revolutionary. I can understand why Bob Avakian has drawn so many ardent supporters. He speaks to people’s alienation from a warlike and capitalist society, and holds out the possibility for radical change."

– Howard Zinn

Putrid, stultifying stupidity from guys who should know better. Are these clowns on David Horowitz' payroll, because he couldn't have asked for more useful idiocy from two lefty academic "names".

[Parke]

Ah, come on. Many an amusing hour was spent following the antics of Bob Avakian back in the 70s. I had a late night TV viewing party to watch Avakian interviewed by Tom Snyder at 1 in the morning. The little bullets dangling on a chain around his neck kept clanging into the microphone. And Bob, realizing that this may be his only opportunity ever to speak on national TV, would launch an unending harangue with every question. And in the Gang of Four days when Mao was on the outs and all Bob had left was the Albania franchise? Now that was great stuff. The rally with Albania's UN ambassador. Wonderful memories.

Vanguard, vanguard, who's got the vanguard.

[reg]

"The rally with Albania's UN ambassador. Wonderful memories."

Yeah, it must be strange to be part of a grand international movement that looks back on a rally featuring the Albanian UN ambassador as "the good old days", what with a Peruvian terrorist group, maoist guerrilas in Nepal and a newspaper headquartered at a PO Box pretty much all that's left to drag humanity inevitably into the glorious scientific future.

[richard]

I have to second Reg's comment. I've seen a lot of RCP propaganda distributed in Arkansas. The local indymedia, actually run by a friend of mine, has posts from RCP loonies all the time. I am growing more and more disgusted with the indymedia phenomenon in this regard. Has Marc written any searing analysis on their, er, stupidity?

[Jim Rockford]

When in China I had the privilege of meeting with numerous intellectuals, who had been severely harmed by the Cultural Revolution. Basically, anyone with any education was sent out to boonies in a Pol Pot-lite attempt by Mao to destroy his political rivals. Much of China's current problems can be traced to the destruction of intellectual life in all aspects during that period.

People's lives were ruined, and the ruin came down to the next generations as well. A lot of the huge sense of anger in China resolves around that time, which isn't allowed full expression, hence the sublimation into other, approved areas.

I too saw the article, I think the LAT re-ran it. Sigh. Along with several fawning coverage of a documentary "celebrating" the life of ordinary people in North Korea (thinking it's great that State Run Radio is piped into everyone's home with no off switch) or how wonderful Communist Vietnam is .. the LAT has some serious credibility problems.

[richard lo cicero]

Once again we waste time discussing and trashing a oor guy with a few followers who HAS NEVER and WILL NEVER influence any public debate. Meanwhile thr "Reverend" James Dobson calls for the Stalinist elimination of judges! And real people IN POWER are lending their prestiege to this nonsense. So if someone in Berkeley writes a piece that I found neutral, and not fawning, on Avakian, so what? They are not writing laws! An aside: Marc, I know know the RCP now have a slot in your old 4:00 time at KPFK. I'm sorry you lost since we need an intelligent left alternative radio station but you fought the good fight and lost. Move on!

[richard lo cicero]

One more thing. Yesterday Pat Robertson on THIS WEEK TOLD George Stephanolis that the judiciary caused more grief than the Nazis or the American Civil War! What are the odds that he will be invited back on? On MEET THE PRESS? And when was the last time Bob Avakian was on these shows?

[reg]

I know...Avakian is a nobody...and Pat Robertson, with his press appearances, Cable channel, hundreds of thousands if not millions of supplicants, is easily as crazy but also exists as a tangible danger in the real world. But I've never known anybody who spends their days watching Pat Robertson and I had to put up with a cluster of Avakianites in my union thirty years ago. So I find those assholes more personally annoying, if not objectively dangerous. (Also knew and worked with Clark Kissinger - again, many decades ago - before he went off the deep end. So the creepiness of it all really annoys me.)

[Marc Cooper]

A few comments: Parke.. thank YOU so much for that wonderful rememberance of Chairman Bob ROFL!

Reg: I know all about Not in Our Name and the way a WHOLE LOT of dumbass liberals let themslves be manipulated by Comrade Clarke Kissinger. Ive written about that-- but no one wants to hear it.

Richard: I understand ur reaction but u really dont know me very well.. This is pure amusement for me... remember that a balanced diet requires more than broccoli. Dumping on the RCP and Avakian is like falling into a tub of french vanilla ice cream for me! Smacking around Pat Robertson? That's not even remotely entertaining.

[rosedog]

Forget the dopey and outre ideology.... the prose alone is hilarious:

".... holds the promise of massively releasing human freedom and dignity...."

(Uh…."massively releasing..."?????)

“…almost as if he were the trumpet of Lenin himself….”

“Although he refers to Stalin's mistakes, he makes no mention of the millions who died under the Soviet dictatorship and insists upon a balanced view…”

Now that last, ladies and gentlemen, is one truly awe-inspiring somersault of logic.

PS: I join Reg in assuring all concerned that main Chron book review critic David Kipen couldn't possibly have had anything to do with this swill.

PPS: Yeah, Richard lc, the likes of Pat Robertson and James Dobson are a hell of a lot worse….and a whole lot scarier. This is bitching as sport. (Hey, everybody’s gotta relax sometime.)

[Marc Cooper]

p.s. let me join into the rejoinder from reg/rosedog... Yes I know David Kipen and he is indeed way better than this. Reg, thanks for pointing out the regional nature of this piece and reassuring me that this was not in the broader (and still overall mediocre Chron!).

I suppose this was appropriate enuf for the Berkeley edition. Berkeley is no doubt one of the international strong-hold bastions of the RCP! I know they have a bookstore right there on Telegraph Ave.

Long live the Berkeley Police Department!

[reg]

"Long live the Berkeley Police Department!"

But Death To The Goddam Fascist Berkeley "Meter Maids"...

Jeeezus, I hate parking over in that burg. For all of their liberalish blathering they have the most ruthlessly efficient, mercilessly vigilant squad of meter Nazis on the planet.

[rosedog]

Santa Monica's are worse. They're able hear the little click of the meter expiring from at least 1000 paces---maybe 5000 for the really good ones. (This is not merely my opinion, it’s been clinically proven.)

[reg]

Funny that two of the most progressive-to-the-point-of-cliche burgs on the planet have conspired to put as much effort into the development of their Peoples' Parking Police as the Germans did into their Panzer Divisions...

[rosedog]

There's an LA-based satirical website---a local Onion-like thing called the LaLa Times---that once did a funny piece on the SM metermaids a couple of years ago. I looked and found the thing was still archived online. Here's the link.

http://www.lalatimes.com/Issue2/meter_md.html

[richard lo cicero]

OK Marc, you win. My guilty pleasure is the E-CHANNEL "recreation" of the Michael Jackson trial with actors reading the trial transcripts and commentary from COURT TV types. So i won't begrudge you your "dessert." But do remember to bash the Dobsons, DeLays, and Robertsons.

[W. James Au]

Did I just read right? Cornel West, one of academe's top stars, not only praised an avowed supporter of Mao and Stalin, and an active apologist for their atrocities, but allowed his blurb to go on the cover of the guy's book? That's about as bad as what Chomsky did with that Faurisson/Holocaust denial book, I'd think.

[reg]

The thing that most pisses me off about the Chronicle is that when they were bought by/merged with the Examiner they had the talent and resources to put out a good newspaper in the Bay Area for a change if they'd taken the best of both and seized the moment for a bit of creativity. But they stripped down both staffs, did nothing new or innovative and the paper's no better than either of its predecessors. Compared to what actually exists out there as the typical daily, the Chron is decent. But compared to serious papers, bad as most of THEM are, it's a piece of crap. They also do the good liberal thing of publishing lots of conservative op-ed pieces in the interest of balance. I think they actually publish more op-ed stuff that's right-wing or center-right than overtly liberal. That would be fine if they were consistently intelligent pieces, but they're not. And the only op-ed columnist who actually originates at the paper is a not-crazy-but-mediocre conservative. I haven't figured that one out. I doubt that there's any conservative paper in the country that only has a liberal columnist on their op-ed staff and publishes at least as many liberal columns as conservative. If most of them did I wouldn't complain about the Chron's silly "numerical objectivity"...but they don't so I do.

[Marc Cooper]

W. James Au: The blurbs by Cornel West and Howard Zinn are upsetting to me. Well, not really upsetting as I fully expect to see such foolishness. They are an endorsement not of Chairman Bob nor of Stalin... but rather of the wooly-headed notion of "no enemies on the left." It is of course an absurd position for a sane leftist to maintain-- as "no enemies on the right" would be idiotic for a conservative to endorse. People are strange. And disappointing.