Red iconoclasm

"The Communist" is the magazine of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), a revolutionary Communist party based in the United States. The PLP (sometimes called PL) had thousands of members during the late 1960's, and almost captured the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the largest left-wing organization in the US at the time. They have also been involved in countless of militant and sometimes violent actions, including the famous attack on sociobiologist E.O. Wilson at the AAAS convention in 1978, carried out by PLP's front group InCAR. Today, the PLP is very small, although they still stage May Day marches, sell their biweekly paper "Challenge", and even claim to be an international organization.

Although some of PL's targets definitely had it coming (Arthur Jensen and ROAR comes to mind), I can't say I like this organization very much. Still, I found "The Communist" fascinating, in a disturbing kind of way.

The PLP's version of Communism, which is freely based on Maoism, is very consistent and extreme. The party rejects multiculturalism, feminism and Black nationalism. They believe that "socialism" (the really existing socialism in the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba etc) is a form of capitalism. Therefore, full communism must be introduced immediately, or almost immediately, after the revolution. The PLP actually wants to abolish classes, money and production for profit more or less instantly. The goal is a new man who is an integrated part of the larger collective. The Chinese people's communes and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution are seen as mighty and positive examples. In another issue of their magazine, the PLP expresses admiration for the Inca Empire and its communistic peasant communes.

The most important article in this particular issue is titled "Can Communists Use the Enemy's Culture?" The PLP explicitly rejects Lenin's position, which stated that Communists should use and build upon old "bourgeois" and even "feudal" culture, rather than attempting to create a brand new "proletarian" culture from scratch. Unless I'm mistaken, Lenin penned these lines as he was putting an end to the Proletkult movement. By contrast, PLP rejects all, or almost all, "bourgeois" and "feudal" culture. Religion, of course, should be smashed. The PL gleefully reports various anti-religious depredations of the Communist movement historically. But "smashing religion" is "not enough", we are told.

The novel is "bourgeois", not simply due to its contents, but even as a literary form. To democratize access to "bourgeois" culture is pointless. The Bolsheviks are criticized for translating Shakespeare and Moliere into countless of Soviet languages and setting up their plays in remote Asian republics. But what is the alternative to haute bourgeois culture? Well, those who think it's modern music are in for a cold shower. The PL attacks hip hop in a puritanical manner which sounds almost conservative: "The basic monotonous rap rhythm (boom-boom, boo-boo-boo-boom) stimulates and mesmerizes the audience into a crude dehumanized sexual trance". The vaguely progressive singer Paul Simon is no good either, and even anti-racist songs with a Communist subtext are attacked: "The point is not to sing about racism, but to smash it".

It's not clear what on earth the PL wants to have instead, but it seems as if the answer is: nothing. Instead, they extol the virtues of Communist journalism, the speeches of La Passionaria, anti-Nazi satirical comics, etc. In other words, "proletarian culture" is simply Communist propaganda. The only writer that finds mercy with the PL is Bertolt Brecht. And yes, they like the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. However, they are actually more extreme than Jiang Qing!

I believe we may have found the ultimate red iconoclasts