I rarely get shocked or surprised. But it happened. I was listening to talk radio by the Minnesota Atheists, which usually has some good stuff. In this episode, their guest was Sunsara Taylor, a communist who’s been doing the media rounds promoting “Away With All Gods!”, Bob Avakian’s vision of atheism as being crucial for social liberation.
A lot of what she said seemed dubious. But this particular answer to a question absolutely floored me. I had my mouth hanging open — and it was so egregious I just had to transcribe it word for word for posterity. I won’t even bother commenting (her answer doesn’t warrant a refutation). Still, it’s a very revealing answer. Sunsara kept repeating that being an atheist doesn’t automatically stop you from committing fallacies in other areas of life (when referring to non-communists). How true that is.
We do have a question from Mike: “Sunsara, despite its call for atheism, the history of communism as practiced relies on authoritarian elevation of its leaders to a god-like status. We saw this in the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s as Mao became the all-knowing leader. In trying to achieve the New Soviet Man, the Russians used religious symbology to push for republics and collectives to sacrifice for the people. Hasn’t communism substituted one ideology for another?”
Sunsara: “Ok well Mike, I appreciate the question. I think there’s a lot of different parts of history there to unravel, but I would say that communism in its foundation. It is a[n] ideology, but I think that the way people understand ideology is flat — everybody has an ideology and just because somebody has an ideology does not mean it’s unbeholden to fact or reality; or it’s religious. And communism actually is opposed to religion starts from a study of the actual world, the actually existing world. How it could — why it is the way it is and how it could be changed in the real world. And then, there’s a fight for people to understand that and act on that consciously. And, just as in any field of endeavour, especially something that’s new and going against the current, and going against entrenched interests, discoveries and breakthroughs tend to be concentrated in the hands of a minority at first; and then there’s a fight to popularise them. And sometimes they’re concentrated in an individual who makes a breakthrough.
“Marx did this when he discovered — you know — when he first brought forward his theories. And that was a revolution in human thought. Similarly Mao made certain advances and breakthroughs in communist theory and in communist leadership. And one of the things that happened is that there was a fight for the understanding he brought forth to be popularised,. And that understanding in opposition to understandings that were trying to develop China at that time more along capitalist lines because it would be more efficient, or — and actually, that’s what we see in China today is capitalist development and the horrendous — you know — emiseration of the sweatshop of the world. And so, there is a kind of diction involved in communist revolution, where individual leaders who bring forward new ideas do have disproportionate influence. But the contradiction is not: should you have leaders or no leaders, but what’s the nature of that leadership. And is it one that actually enables the masses of people who are being led to increasingly understand themselves. And not just the truths but why they’re true and how to think critically and how to be scientific, and to break down that division between leadership and led. And I think this is something that — you know has — is a historic contradiction, and is one that will be with us.
“But this is something that Bob Avakian, including in his book, has paid a lot of attention to. Including: this is something Mao began to understand but Avakian has taken further. That you can’t legislate when you’re running a new society, you can’t legislate worldview, you cannot dictate to people what they will or will not believe. You actually have to foster debate and ferment in society and try to win people over to your understanding of how the world works. And based on: does it correspond to reality or not? And I think that as long as we’re for quite some time, as long as we’re living in [a] class society, and the transition to get beyond it, there are going to be individuals who come forward and play a disproportionate influence — and –and for good. But the question is how do you actually have the dynamic with it? Division is being broken down and I think, just to wrap this up, is that today people are being led every day by bourgeois representatives, by somebody like Barack Obama, who has everybody — you know — he’s waging murderous wars but everybody thinks in his heart he doesn’t really mean it. He’s — ‘he’s saying let the torturers go, let’s not prosecute them’ and everybody’s going ‘but he’s different!’. No he’s not actually that different.
“But people are being led every day by one person or another, by one outlook or another and I think this is one of the myths, is that communists don’t construct the need for leadership. We’re recognising that unless people are led, they will be enslaved by both the thinking and the workings of this system, that that thinking reflects and reinforces. And so — there’s more to be said but that’s how I’d go at that.”
8 comments ↓
wow, reading that is like reading a transcript of a Sarah Palin speech. It just does my head in so much I can’t understand a thing.
i think i understood it and i wish i didn’t!
I don’t think its at all like a Sarah Palin speech, Sunsara didn’t use “Folks” or “You Betcha” a single time, lol!
But the question is much more what is the content of what Sunsara is arguing for, and is what she’s saying actually true? Does it correspond to what humanity needs in order to get ourselves out of this mess that the planet is in right now? Do we need religion to smooth over the horrors that most of us face every day? Or is the reason for these horrors capitalism, and can human beings play a role in getting past class divisions?
Do we need communist leadership, or the leadership of the figureheads that this society puts forward? (And by communist leadership, I mean leadership that looks at the reality of the world in as scientific a way as possible, and is leading the charge to push forward the goals of the revolution and the ultimate goal of communism, in order for human kind to live in a way vastly different than what we have now. Right now, we have a dictatorship of a wealthy class at that have a whole network of exploitation and human suffering that that they enforce with the military and the police. If you don’t believe me on this look up Freedom Zones like they had at the Democratic National Convention, or the murder of Oscar Grant on YouTube.)
And Michael, why do you wish you didn’t understand? Because you’d have to look at the reality of the way the world is, or renounce ‘god’? Or some other reason? I think its a very good thing that people are reading this and gaining an understanding of what the Revolutionary Communist Party’s saying on leadership–and that it isn’t important because they say that it is, its important because of what’s happening in the world right now. If you’re opposed to the war on Iraq and Afghanistan, or globalization, if you’re opposed to Christian fundamentalism, or the oppression of women, or of black people, or Native Americans, or Latinos, you should be introduced to Sunsara Taylor, to Larry Everest, to Raymond Lotta, to Li Onesto, to Ardea Skybreak, to others who write articles for Revolution newspaper. And you should most definitely be introduced to Bob Avakian and to Revolution newspaper. And they’re calling on people to offer up what they think, not just follow them blindly in some religious sense. Marx, Lenin, Mao, they matter mainly because of the content of their leadership. Their revolutionary theory and their leadership had a major impact on the forces that shaped the history of humanity, and in a mainly positive way. (Contrary to the ‘common sense’ that dominates peoples’ thinking today, that communism is a horror…)
I’m happy to see this part of the interview posted, I enjoyed it, and feel disappointed that I missed hearing the interview!!! I definitely gained more of an understanding of leadership/led. Thanks for this!!!
~AStrong
AStrong — on the Sarah Palin bit, I think Carolyn found the response hard to understand because transcriptions of any live conversations are very messy compared to a pre-written response.
On what I said, I think you’re missing the point. Have a look at the actual question the viewer asked and see whether the answer (or your repetition of Sunsara’s talking points) actually addresses it. The reason I wish I didn’t understand is that I would prefer to remain ignorant of such Orwellian question-dodging. Incidentally, do you count Stalin amongst the other 3 in terms of leadership?
I shake my head. How can anyone think that Mao was a good leader? How can anyone not think that democracy is the only way to go? Only people who havn’t lived under a rigid dictatorship have the luxury of romanticising such things. Why don’t you just join an s and m club and get it out of your system. I’m sure you can pay someone to dress up as Mao for you.
Isn’t question dodging the fundamental foundation of all political systems?
Alan: dodging is common but it’s rarely this egregious — in terms of ideas of brainwashing being answered by truisms stated by Mao.
Halinka: To be fair I don’t think she is saying in her response that Mao was a great leader (although she’s from a Maoist group) — she just quotes statements by him which are obviously true (eg. that everyone has an ideology) apparently to dodge the actual question. Also if the 2 candidates up for election are almost identical (as often happens) then a democracy is also a dictatorship. But yes, by praising Mao her privilege of not growing up in Mao’s China is showing.
I assume you took your Mao dressup club from the classics? http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=4557969&page=1
As an aside, the headline on the propaganda poster I used at the top of the post says “Beijing has one golden sun”. For Mao’s head is so shiny…
Leave a Comment