Mount Tai Study Circle

Field Butchery: A Review of a Recent Article Published in The Partisan

Introduction

“Field Surgery: The Avakianite Organizational Line In Our Movement“, written by the ‘Center for the Study of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,’ (CSMLM) is a curious text that claims to have discovered the correction for the deviation of ‘intermediate’ organizations, which to them includes: pre-party formations, ‘advanced mass organizations’, and study circles. This cure is consistent with The Partisan’s general stance towards political work, that is, to repeat ad nauseam the need for continued practice upon which all will be well and the party can then be formed by those who have proven themselves qualified 1. In light of the increasingly sharp contradictions in America, and in particular the ideological crisis of Maoism today, such ‘corrections’ are absolutely of interest to anyone trying to develop a successful revolutionary movement. As such, we expect such bold and audacious claims to meet the mark of theoretical rigor, but it appears this text falls far short of any reasonable standard2.

Review

Right out of the gate, we find a problem with the following claim: “Much of this failure is due to the form of modern revisionism common to the US, Avakianism, which pushes to create ‘intermediate organizations’ within the mass movement”. The authors present the Revolutionary Communist Party-USA (RCP) as the only remainder of the New Communist Movement (NCM). This gives the RCP cult quite a generous amount of credit, as it has generally only declined in domestic influence since the 80s and even then they never really had any following among the working class3. Even at the RCP’s peak in the 70s, the most common form of modern revisionism remained that of the CPUSA and its various reflections in the broader left (small as it is). At present, the RCP (now following Avakian’s ‘New Synthesis’) is small in comparison to other revisionist organizations that can trace their origins to the NCM including the DSA, FRSO, and PLP, the former two being larger and carrying more influence. It doesn’t take much to learn that their influence globally is minimal following the New Synthesis and its rejection by the member parties of RIM4.

Following the authors’ uncited preamble, which we suspect was designed to exaggerate the role of Avakianism in the US, is a thesis on how much of our past problems as American communists with building organizations were rooted in the failure of the RCP and the revisionist Avakianite trend. Unfortunately, the whole premise is logically unsound; it attributes the source of the “collective” to Avakianism, even though it’s perfectly plausible for Avakianism to itself be the product of broader phenomena. In contrast to the authors’ conclusion, we find Avakianism and the trend of “intermediate” organizations reflects a more common trend in American organizing. For example, the early leadership of the Revolutionary Union (RU, the pre-party preceding the RCP) included anti-revisionists who split from the CPUSA in the early 60’s during the Great Debate. Then, as they lacked the base necessary to form a party outright (instead looking for active members out of the SDS and anti-war movement in California), it makes perfect sense why they went the route that many ‘collectives’ have gone down ever since. This is akin to the various collectives and study circles that formed during 1870s-1880s Russia among the revolutionaries that split from the Narodniks. The Chinese Communists, who were in contact with the RU in its early years, had no issues with their efforts in consolidating organizationally and theoretically around a new revolutionary party5.

The authors then pivot to lament about their experiences with ‘Maoist’ organizing, and in the process expose themselves muddling mass organizations with pre-parties (a common error, especially among the ‘Principally Maoists’, but its not a universal one). Indeed what makes pre-parties mass organizations? Is it their amateurishness or the fact that they don’t consist of proper professional revolutionaries? None of this is clarified. Further, why is it so essential for a pre-party to be ‘clandestine’? Insofar as political work of any kind is legal, it should be open to engage with as many people as possible. Insofar as that work is illegal, even if it is strongly non-political in character, like say an illegal strike, it should be clandestine. These lamentations don’t indict these pre-parties so much as the authors’ lack of understanding of what’s actually holding back the practices and summations of these amateurs. As far as we understand, this is one more example showing how important it is to study theory, and not deciding that Avakianism or some other-ism is to blame without understanding it properly6.

Going back to the authors’ thesis, we see that their whole argument rests on citing a section the RCP’s Constitution from 1976:

“These workers’ organizations are intermediate between the Party and the trade unions (and other similar mass organizations of workers). They are not a substitute for the Party or the trade unions. Building these organizations does not conflict with but contributes to building the Party, and to building the struggle of the rank and file to defeat the treachery of the top union officials. These organizations act as conveyor belts linking the Party with the class as a whole. They are one important organizational form in which communists can unite with advanced workers to build the united front against imperialism under proletarian leadership and develop into communists the advanced workers who continually come forward in struggle”.

Putting aside the fact that there’s no indication that the Avakianism we know and love today was in fact the prevailing trend at the time and that this provision is part of a Party Constitution (nothing ‘intermediate’ about that!), it’s important to understand that this clause didn’t appear out of thin air. In fact, it was adopting a Leninist method developed by the early Bolsheviks, generally known as cell-based organizing7. In the early days of the RU they called their chapters and affiliated pre-party groups ‘collectives.’ Then once the party was formed, they had chapters of the party and these chapters had cells which they called ‘collectives’; this is just transferring that language over as the organization changed. With regards to the RSDLP, they had committees of Bolshevik workers in factories which would act as intermediaries between the (illegal) union and the Party. They would be party members, but they would also work in the unions. Not knowing this fact about Bolshevik organizing is understandable for Americans who refuse to read, but treating the RCP as if they got this idea from Trotskyites is unsubstantiated and contextually irrelevant as the intermediary was an agent/component of the Party (in line with party-based cell organizing). Further, it should be obvious that in the present day the “intermediate orgs” don’t have a party to subordinate themselves to (in the way in which CSMLM tries to relate it)8.

The authors then proceed to dress up this smoking gun of an unrelated constitutional clause to be in contradiction with Mao’s Three Instruments. How one is supposed to develop these three instruments in secret in a country where there isn’t even a party is left a mystery. The writing is quite unclear, and aside from citing Mao’s instruments and Gonzalo’s claims9, it makes no substantiated point on what these instruments have to do with anything and what makes pre-parties so antithetical to them. The authors attempt to assert that Avakianism liquidates the military question of the revolution by failing to build the people’s army and instead building ‘intermediate’ organizations. They claim that these intermediate organizations mix aspects of each of the elements, yet this is not demonstrated in their own quotations from the RCP-USA nor the Communist Party of Brazil. The only way to make sense of this mess is to make some of the most brazen and dogmatic leaps of logic; they are essentially claiming that because the pre-parties (who?) aren’t organizing into an army and party right here and now, they’re Avakianite revisionists.

This then is followed by passages that are nigh incoherent, filled with stereotyped party writing and vague gestures towards revolutionary slogans. One particular treat was the introduction of the “clandestine army”, an absurd notion as armies (insofar as they’re actual armies and not kids playing dress up), are not a secret to anyone. Revolutionary armies undergoing People’s War, where they do exist, do so in base areas which act as the army’s rear, where it operates in the open. The “legal” and “illegal” dialectic that Lenin elaborates on in “What Is To Be Done?” is irrelevant in base areas, as they’re islands of proletarian power with their own law10. Another gem was the rhetorical expression of pre-parties being a “simple solution to a complex problem”; it appears that the authors don’t realize that they themselves are presenting a simple solution of their own when they make no concrete analysis of concrete, American, conditions. That is, conditions that would suggest the applicability of Mao’s instruments, and Gonzalo’s interpretations of them, as opposed to, say, the Bolshevik model of cell organizing (which again is not equivalent to today’s ‘pre-parties’).

Finally, for dessert we have complete ignorance on how democratic centralism works. For starters, it doesn’t exist in mass organizations, as unions aren’t subject to party discipline. Further, democratic centralism isn’t something that exists as some metaphysical ideal for parties to adhere to, as parties that have the character of democratic centralism shift and change as the political situation demands it. For example, the Bolsheviks during the Stolypin Reaction had centralism as principle, as in, there was no democratic discussion among party members as every line of communication was through encrypted letters and in secret11. Most orders were done by decree by the higher ups, and the only way democracy did express itself was when congresses (as infrequent as they were in those years) met with delegates from the various party committees/cells12. Meanwhile, during the legal period of the February Revolution, democracy was principle (as it was in the revolutionary base areas during the Chinese Civil War, as Mao famously elaborated)13. Having the skill of Marxist analysis to discern between the circumstance in which one or another is principle is fundamental to success in political work, which is why only parties, and to some extent pre-parties, operate on that basis (as opposed to unions). Most of the real problems the authors have observed in organizing can simply be attributed to pragmatism, and their confused attempts at attributing it to Avakianism do them no favors in making the situation any less obscure (despite their assertions to the contrary). If anything, this serves to misdirect attention away from their own pragmatism, which is completely absent from their scrutiny14.

The authors’ conclusions from all of this amount to a reiteration of the economists’ thesis15. Of course, muddling party work with mass work is an error when committed by pre-parties who form mass organizations disconnected from the masses (i.e a kind of sectarianism). However, this doesn’t justify the idea that we should dismiss theory and instead entirely focus on ‘practice’ in strict mass work sectors. Even there, we have to study the theory of organizing and developing the mass movements in question (e.g. labor law for union organizing, which is in itself a theoretical endeavor). Their justification of this is also completely fallacious and unsubstantiated; for example, their appeals to the common sense of the reader do nothing to prove the “newspaper-first” method they criticize as being revisionism. Nor do they demonstrate where or how American communists in particular should subordinate our newspaper to economic struggles. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they end their mess with empty declaratives and revolutionary posturing16.

Conclusion

In short, the text diagnoses the patient with a liver disorder, because 50 years ago some guy they disagree with had a liver, and it proceeds to use a dull knife to butcher the patient. It’s full of bluster and stereotyped writing with very little substance and fails to substantiate any of the authors’ claims connecting Avakianism to intermediate organizations or the pervasiveness of the problems they describe in pre-parties, apart from references to personal experiences. In the same way, Trotskyism is gestured towards with virtually no substantiation or citation on its relation. On this, as we’ve elaborated in Part 2 of “When Americans Refuse to Read”, the errors of many intermediate orgs are the natural result of ideological eclecticism, combined with pragmatism, that many of these groups hold due to their theoretical underdevelopment. To struggle against Avakianism we must study Avakianism, properly, in its totality. We don’t misunderstand one section of the RCP Constitution and plaster that as the essence of Avakianism and further attribute to it the entire phenomena of ‘intermediate’ organizations. This is the work of conspiracy theorists, not scientists and most definitely not Marxists. If one is to pick an arrogant name like the “Center for the Study of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,” then earn it. As far as we can tell, there’s no evidence of any center, serious study, or understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In contrast, when MTSC wrote “When Americans Refuse to Read”, we didn’t just make a broad criticism of how different Maoist trends study and proclaim our perspective on how we should study. We conducted a comprehensive and well researched analysis of the history of study circles in Russia, China, and the US as well as their implications in their respective revolutionary movements. The difference in journalistic and intellectual rigor is clearly apparent. In fact, it was the historical analysis that seems to have resonated the most with our readers and made our argument for the principality of theory at this stage of organizing so compelling for them. All that to say, we need to study revisionism properly. Only once we’ve gained a sufficient grasp of the fundamentals of Marxism, can we truly and critically evaluate revisionism. Otherwise, we’ll be duped into thinking that articles of this caliber are anything more than amateur posturing.

Afterword

In this review, we include regular reference to pragmatism as what is in fact the root problem in US organizing today. While we do elaborate on this in “When Americans Refuse to Read” to some extent, we still aim to conduct a comprehensive analysis of both the philosophical trend and its expression in our political work today. Once it’s done, we hope it will complement the assertions we make here on its role in pre-parties, rather than any vague connection to Avakianism.

  1. Given The Partisan’s stance it is no surprise to us that they have chosen to publish this essay. When the authors’ refer to “practice” we believe that they mean organizing the masses into mass organizations, especially in labor struggles, and following the ‘three withs’: “live with,” “work with,” and “struggle with.” This is consistent with The Partisan’s position on these matters that can be found in their Our Principles series. Their conception of the ‘three withs’ is explained in “Integration with the Masses.” As far as we can tell, the first reference to the ‘three withs’ is by the Communist Party of Peru as noted in The Partisan article. As they themselves explain, the importance of the connection to the masses is not new, but what is somewhat new is this formulation of the ‘three withs’, and especially the dogmatic attitude toward this formula that The Partisan and the CSMLM espouse. Stalin’s point from “Foundations of Leninism” (as quoted in the article) about the connection to the masses is in relation to the party as a whole; it is not a declaration that all members must practice the eternal formula of the ‘three withs.’ Additionally, the distinction between the party and ‘revolutionaries in formation’ (really any class conscious worker in the mass movement) is lost in this dogmatic application. To further illustrate the absurdity of this dogma, take this quote from the article: “If revolutionaries are not among the masses like fish in water—are not living, working, and struggling with the class—then they lose their class character and thus their revolutionary capacity.” If one is to take this seriously then they must conclude that Marx, Engels, and Lenin were not revolutionaries for long periods of their life; they simply lost their class character and ‘revolutionary capacity.’ ↩︎
  2. Or at least to meet their own standard of taking ‘practice’ as the axis of everything. For all that was said, no reference was made to their own concrete practices. What are those “tested in years of harsh class struggle and two-line struggle” doing to build the party? All that is mentioned is practical work in the mass movement. From this we can only surmise that practical work in the mass movement inevitably leads to the formation of a party. However, there is another peculiarity about this. By making tangible practice the only metric of validity, they create a situation where one cannot criticize them. As given that these practices are clandestine, how are they to be judged or evaluated by anyone who is beyond their circle? And if those of us outside their great halls of practice raise our voices, of course, this can only be the hollow words of intellectuals who know nothing of their wonderful practice. ↩︎
  3. As described in “Heavy Radicals” by Aaron Leonard and Conor Gallagher, particularly through Chapters 8-10. ↩︎
  4. More information on this rejection by the RIM can be found in “Against Avakianism” by Ajith: https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/S09-Against-Avakianism-5th-Printing.pdf
    Speaking more broadly though nothing in this article should be misconstrued as a defense of Avakianism, we’re only clarifying that it has enough problems without us having to invent more. ↩︎
  5. Information on the early history of study circles and pre-parties (e.g the Emancipation of Labor Group and League for the Emancipation of the Working Class in St. Petersburg) is elaborated in the Russia section of Part 1 of “When Americans Refuse to Read” on our website. The direct relationship between the RCP and the CPC is difficult to pin down, but it is clarified in Chapter 5 of “Heavy Radicals”.
    https://mtai-study.com/2025/04/07/when-americans-refuse-to-read-the-task-of-study-today-part-1-history/
    https://firewords.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/heavy-radicals.pdf ↩︎
  6. On a tangential matter, all of the claims covered so far lack a single citation suggesting that everything they have said is just common knowledge (assuming they thought that far). This is highly irresponsible, as many of their claims are quite significant in developing their argument about Avakianism, its role in the US/globally, and what any of these intermediate organizations mean. This isn’t something limited to this section either; the entire text is riddled with unsubstantiated claims lacking citations, and where there are citations, they include references to texts that in fact don’t provide a basis for what they’re claiming. For the sake of brevity we’re not going to point out every single instance that this happens, but we encourage the reader to critically see for themselves just how much of the article consists of head canon (that is, fantasy). ↩︎
  7. “The conditions in which our Party is functioning are changing radically. Freedom of assembly, of association and of the press has been captured. Of course, these rights are extremely precarious, and it would be folly, if not a crime, to pin our faith to the present liberties. The decisive struggle is yet to come, and preparations for this struggle must take first place. The secret apparatus of the Party must be maintained. But at the same time it is absolutely necessary to make the widest possible use of the present relatively wider scope for our activity. In addition to the secret apparatus, it is absolutely necessary to create many new legal and semi-legal Party organisations (and organisations associated with the Party). Unless we do this, it is unthinkable that we can adapt our activity to the new conditions or cope with the new problems.” From “The Reorganization of the Party” by Lenin: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/reorg/i.htm#v10pp65-029 ↩︎
  8. “What Is To Be Done?” by Lenin elaborates on this at length, in which he describes various sorts of ‘intermediate’ organizations particular to the labor movement and the conditions in the Russian Empire. This is most clearly elaborated in Section 4.3 starting from this passage: “The workers’ organisations for the economic struggle should be trade union organisations. Every Social-Democratic worker should as far as possible assist and actively work in these organisations. But, while this is true, it is certainly not in our interest to demand that only Social-Democrats should be eligible for membership in the ”trade“ unions, since that would only narrow the scope of our influence upon the masses. Let every worker who understands the need to unite for the struggle against the employers and the government join the trade unions. The very aim of the trade unions would be impossible of achievement, if they did not unite all who have attained at least this elementary degree of understanding, if they were not very broad organisations. The broader these organisations, the broader will be our influence over them – an influence due, not only to the ”spontaneous“ development of the economic struggle, but to the direct and conscious effort of the socialist trade union members to influence their comrades. But a broad organisation cannot apply methods of strict secrecy (since this demands far greater training than is required for the economic struggle). How is the contradiction between the need for a large membership and the need for strictly secret methods to be reconciled? How are we to make the trade unions as public as possible? Generally speaking, there can be only two ways to this end: either the trade unions become legalised (in some countries this preceded the legalisation of the socialist and political unions), or the organisation is kept secret, but so ”free“ and amorphous, lose [German ”loose“ –Ed] as the Germans say, that the need for secret methods becomes almost negligible as far as the bulk of the members is concerned.”
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/download/what-itd.pdf ↩︎
  9. While we won’t engage in a full criticism of Gonzaloism here, one can be found here: https://mcuusa.wordpress.com/red-pages/issue-3/a-critical-evaluation-of-gonzaloism ↩︎
  10. There are a few texts to look at when trying to appraise the character of existence in terms of whether the “illegal” vs. “legal” dialectic applies to base areas, though Mao tends to focus on discussing the military situation first and foremost. One in which he elaborates on the base areas at length is in Chapter 5 of “Problems Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War”. It’s key here to see that within the base areas themselves, which are seen as liberated regions in the context of a broader civil war, rather than an illegal base of operations, there is no consideration of the laws of the reactionary classes. There is instead revolutionary law and revolutionary military discipline, as they were already in a stage of civil war. As we’re not in a civil war, these considerations don’t apply. That’s not to say that there can’t be any “clandestine operations” conducted by guerrilla armies or whatnot, but only that they aren’t themselves “clandestine armies”.
    https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_12.htm ↩︎
  11. “We, the representatives of revolutionary Social-Democracy, the supporters of the “Majority”, have repeatedly said that complete democratisation of the Party was impossible in conditions of secret work, and that in such conditions the “elective principle” was a mere phrase. And experience has confirmed our words. It has been repeatedly stated in print by former supporters of the Minority (see the pamphlet by “A Worker” with a preface by Axelrod, the letter signed “A Worker, One of Many”, in Iskra [3] and in the pamphlet Workers on the Party Split) that in fact it has proved impossible to employ any real democratic methods and any real elective principle. But we Bolsheviks have always recognised that in new conditions, when political liberties were acquired, it would be essential to adopt the elective principle.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/reorg/index.htm ↩︎
  12. In the 1906 “Tactical Platform for the Unity Congress of the RSDLP” we see Lenin distinguishing between the principles of democratic centralism, and the particularities of applying them in the police state of the Russian Empire. Mind you, this is also 1 year prior to the Stolypin Reaction, where police oppression was that much more severe, but here we already see provisions laid out on how to preserve the secret organizations and how that raises centralism as the principle aspect in this context (our emphasis): “Principles of Party Organization – Whereas: (1) the principle of democratic centralism in the Party is now universally recognised; (2) although made difficult, it can nevertheless be put into effect within certain limits in existing political conditions; (3) mixing the secret with the legal apparatus of the Party organisation has proved most fatal for the Party, and plays into the hands of government provocation; We are of the opinion, and propose that the Congress should agree: (1) that the elective principle in the Party organisations should be applied from top to bottom; (2) that departures from this principle, for example: two-stage elections or co-optation to elected bodies, etc., may be permitted only when police obstacles are insurmountable, and in exceptional cases especially provided for; (3) that it is imperative to preserve and strengthen the secret nucleus of the Party organisation; (4) that for public activities of all kinds (in the press, at meetings, in the unions, particularly trade unions, etc.) special departments of the Party organisations should be formed, which could not in any way jeopardise the secret nuclei; (5) that there must be one central body for the Party, i.e., the general congress of the Party must elect a single Central Committee, which shall appoint the editorial board of the Party’s Central Organ, etc.“
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/tactplat/ppo.htm ↩︎
  13. “After the February Revolution, the organizations of the Bolshevik Party, which had worked illegally under the extremely difficult conditions of tsardom, emerged from underground and began to develop political and organizational work openly. The membership of the Bolshevik organizations at that time did not exceed 40,000 or 45,000. But these were all staunch revolutionaries, steeled in the struggle. The Party Committees were reorganized on the principle of democratic centralism. All Party bodies, from top to bottom, were made elective.” https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch07.htm ↩︎
  14. We spoke about the RSG trend’s issues in “When Americans Refuse to Read” part 2 highlighting their heterogenous make-up and their following in the footsteps of the CR-CPUSA’s pragmatism. The Partisan, the former RSG’s, RSU’s, and all of the groups that comprise their movement bear the mark of this pragmatism and fight to justify it in writings such as these.
    https://mtai-study.com/2025/04/07/when-americans-refuse-to-read-the-task-of-study-today-part-2-contemporary-american-maoism/ ↩︎
  15. “Economism (in the broad sense of the word), the principal feature of which is its incomprehension, even defence, of lagging, i.e., as we have explained, the lagging of the conscious leaders behind the spontaneous awakening of the masses. The characteristic features of this trend express themselves in the following: with respect to principles, in a vulgarisation of Marxism and in helplessness in the face of modern “criticism”, that up-to-date species of opportunism; with respect to politics, in the striving to restrict political agitation and political struggle or to reduce them to petty activities, in the failure to understand that unless Social-Democrats take the leadership of the general democratic movement in their own hands, they will never be able to overthrow the autocracy; with respect to tactics, in utter instability (last spring Rabocheye Dyelo stood in amazement before the “new” question of terror, and only six months later, after considerable wavering and, as always, dragging along at the tailend of the movement, did it express itself against terror, in a very ambiguous resolution); and with respect to organisation, in the failure to understand that the mass character of the movement does not diminish, but increases, our obligation to establish a strong and centralised organisation of revolutionaries capable of leading the preparatory struggle, every unexpected outbreak, and, finally, the decisive assault.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/dec/06.htm ↩︎
  16. A note on the two-line struggle: without a firm theoretical grounding, things like two line struggle become a farce, either being limited to struggles over tactics or devolving into reciting slogans, because neither side can adequately explain their position. Also, self-reporting isn’t the only way to evaluate theory; you see it applied in analysis, assessment, and even in practical activities. ↩︎

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