[Marxism] Re: Marxism Digest, Vol 7, Issue 80

[Juan Fajardo <fajardos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

marxism-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Message: 8
> Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 17:06:13 -0400
> From: "Mark Lause"
> Subject: !RE: [Marxism] Re: Traveling with Chairman Avakian
> To: "'Pieinsky'" <xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "'Activists and scholars in
>         Marxist tradition'"        <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <000401c43ac0$750d3c30$78991a41@yourkf1y8xksrv>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> Jay,
>
> I don't doubt that you're right--it certainly sounds plausible.
> However, if that's the case, it indicates a depressing superficiality in
> the RU.
>
> Come to think of it, though, does anyone on this list know what Bob
> Avakian ever DID to put himself in the leadership of that organization?
> In the early 1970s, you couldn't walk into a radical meeting of any sort
> and fling a rock without hitting some loud-mouthed white guy.  Why Bob
> Avakian?
>
> Solidarity!
> Mark L.



I don't he actually DID anything, in the sense of rising to the top of
an already extabt organization.

From what I gather, he was one of the founders of the Bay Area Radical
Union while a student.   BARU made a name for itself by intervening in a
number of local struggles in the Bay Area, and, most importantly, by
intervening to block the Progressive Labor Party's growing influence in
SDS.  It was the struggle within SDS that catapulted Avakian from one of
the leaders of a regional grouplet to national prominence in US Maoist
firmament and gained BARU members outside the Bay Area.  From then on,
it was a matter of Avakian simply keeping himself on top as the BARU
became RU, RU joined in ill-fated and short-term unions with other
groups, and then became the RCP, USA.

The oddest thing is how he has continued to head the party though
physically separated from it for twenty-odd years.

- Juan F.



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