Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party?

Kelly Beck Discussion

I have found a large collection at the Tamiment Library on the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party. It seems to have quite a bit of information. My question is: does anyone out there know of any scholarly work that has been done on this topic? I am contemplating this as the topic for my thesis.

I'd be grateful for any input.

 

Kelly Beck

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I'm not a 60s guy or a 70s guy, so I am no doubt out of the loop on what counts as cutting edge for this period of radical historiography, but I haven't seen anything in the way of scholarly history on the RU/RCP — or the group which is somewhat more interesting to me personally, the Progressive Labor Party, from whence it sprung.

I can say with authority that Marty Goodman's ongoing digitization program doesn't touch any RU material, although there is doubtlessly Trotskyist analysis or polemic pamphlets that would deal with the subject. Drop me a line off-list if access to this material would be helpful to you — speaking of party press and internal bulletins of the Spartacist League and the Socialist Workers Party.

Marxists Internet Archive (MIA) does not seem to have much RU primary source material digitized — only a few articles from Red Flag or Revolution, etc. it would seem. There are a couple volunteers there who specialize in such fare. It would be worth your time making contact with them if you do proceed on this topic. I would consider Paul Saba the most likely volunteer there to be able to help steer you through the material. Mike Bessler also might be able to help. I don't know for sure.

I did run into a partial run of Progressive Labor, the organ of the PLP, at MIA recently. Here is the URL for the index page:

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/1960-1970/pl-71-82/

This picks up in February 1971 and I believe most of the "good stuff" in terms of your topic precede this. Nevertheless, do look for middle-1960s issues of PL as they no doubt deal with your subject.

Another good MIA link would be the homepage for "The Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism Online," which is:

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/erol.htm

This may help get you going. Good luck with it.

Tim Davenport (Corvallis, OR; ShoeHutch@gmail.com)

The FBI must hold a large file on the RU.  You should file a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI to obtain the RU file. I came across references to the RU in other FBI files and I mention the RU in my book, The Dangers of Dissent (2010) -- p. 84, 101.

Ivan Greenberg

 

Kelly -  RU came out of the left wing of SDS in the Bay Area, mostly white New Left  supporters of the Panthers who wanted to create a parallel revolutionary project. It was a Maoist revolutionary project whose least attractive feature was a revival of admiration for Stalin.  The origins are explained well in Kirkpatrick Sales's book on SDS.

Early on RU industrialized in Richmond, California, near Berkeley.  Their leader Bob Avakian wrote on this in New Left Review circa 1969.  Once the RU became the RCP in 1975, declaring itself the "vanguard," Avakian became the Chairman, as if he were an American Mao. The RCP's top-down structure and ultra-leftism have led to criticism of the group as self-parodic, arrogant, or deluded.

There is very little serious scholarly work on the organization.  Although it makes use of a lot of "proletarian" language, the industrialization strategy was dropped fairly early on.  There is a good brief treatment of RU/RCP in Max Elbaum's book Revolution in the Air (Verso).  Avakian has published a memoir called From Ike to Mao that is transcriptions of his rambling memories of dealings with the Panthers, etc. 

From a labor history viewpoint one of the more interesting reflections to come out of the group's experience is Mike Ely's free pamphlet "Ambush at Keystone".  This is well worth reading.

Christopher Phelps, University of Nottingham

 

 

 

Of course you are no doubt aware that the Revolutionary Communist Party is very much alive and breathing. I don't have a clue how they would respond to scholarly poking and probing by petty bourgeois intellectual running dogs of the capitalist oppressor, so to speak, (they've never struck me as being particularly outgoing or self-analytical), but there is at least the theoretical possibility of engaging in oral history or obtaining rare documents direct from the source.

Their website is: http://www.revcom.us/

Also, not knowing your level of familiarity with radical political parties, be aware that most left groups maintain internal bulletins in addition to their public press and pamphlets. This includes the Progressive Labor Party, which I repeat is almost certainly a useful window on the RU/RCP.

Tim Davenport (Corvallis, OR)

There is of course the Kasama Project, comprised largely of people expelled from RCP in recent years, or who quit as a result. It includes many people who were quite prominent in the organization, and who likely have documents and recollections of the early days.  An earlier split was the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, which later merged into FRSO.

The Kasama folks try to project themselves as open to reflection, many having given decades of their life to a rather unlikely proletarian leader. It seems likely to me that several might be willing to share their recollections and their materials with someone who was sympathetic to the larger objectives they were trying to pursue.

Progressive Labor (PL, PLP) was the first American Maoist group and could indeed possibly be useful as a point of contrast, but Revolutionary Union (RU) did not derive from PL. RU came out of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) part of SDS, which was directly arrayed against PL. 

RYM had two parts. RYM I was Weatherman, and we all know what happened there.  RYM II included a lot of "party building" and "pre-party formation" groups - and that is where RU was located and is what Max Elbaum writes about well. 

One particular point of opposition between RU and PL was over the Black Panthers. Another was on Vietnam. PL had started criticizing the Panthers and the NLF which hardly anyone in any part of RYM was inclined to do.  Both PL and RU were Maoist in origination, so the association is understandable, and there might well be some criticism of RU to be found in PL documents, but there is no lineage between them, instead factional opposition. 

The Elbaum and Sale books explain all this pretty well. 

Thank you for this. I was able to find a section on the Revolutionary Union on one of the links. It has some historical works as well as many primary source documents. You have been a great help

I suggest you consider the broader context of what was called the "New Communist Left". RU / RCP did not have a good reputation on the East Coast in labor organizing, among other groups that also were Marxist-Leninist. The other China-aligned organization was Communist Party (ML), where a number of trade union organizers began, later left the far left ofl the movement but continued in major roles in unions. RCP - and Avakian - were reknowned for disruptive actions and highly simplistic ideological harangues (I saw this personally in Boston in mid-1970s). A number in the CPML totally abandoned the movement - Dan Burstein (editor of The Call - the party newspaper) became a wealthy stockbroker, residence in wealthy Connecticut. Another was Sam Ho, who was on the Central Committee and managed the Asian American section - he ended up on the board of a major health care corp. that had lawsuits against it by consumers defrauded. But there were others who are still involved in local community organizing - Mike Klonsky, in Chicago - Carl Davidson, also Chicago. Both came out of SDS in the 1960s and were involved in the splits that also involved Avakian. Both Klonsky and Davidson could provide you with crucial background. Ruth Needleman (who is in Gary, Indiana) was on the CPML Central Committee, later became education director of SEIU - and before that worked in the Gary steel mills - wrote a significant book on it focused on Black workers there. You can reach both Ruth and Carl on Facebook. Bill Fletcher, Jr. (who was SEIU ed. director before Ruth) was in another group - when he worked as a welder at Quincy Fore River Shipyard - and could give you lots of information on RCP and the far broader context, particularly from an African American perspective. (I wrote about Fore River Shipyard union history: "Organizing the Shipyards: Union Strategy in Three Northeast Ports, 1933-45" (Cornell UP). RCP was never really involved in the 1970s shipyard organizing - it was mainly CPML and independent "new" communists. Same for GE Lynn and many other East Coast plants with huge numbers of employees back in that era. CPUSA also present in places like GE Lynn, and independents. This trade union organizing history - with new communist rank-and-file - has never been written. It all seems to stop with SDS, or get side-tracked with the RCP obsession.

All true, but in fact some RU founders were in PL earlier or around it. (Steve Hamilton, Bruce Franklin, and maybe Avakian himself, though I don't remember for sure about that.

Joe Berry