First Published: Young Spartacus, #72, April 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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For a group more used to “polemicizing” against their political opponents with tire irons, black jacks and h;ad pipes, Bob Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) has done a surprising thing: they’ve managed to produce a hilarious parody of The Call, newspaper of their arch-rival Michael Klonsky’s Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) [CPML].
The fake “Special Washington’s Birthday Issue,” published by the “Communist Party (Menshevik-Liberal),” features a front-page article by one “Michael Klownsky.” There’s a picture caption story entitled “Another Example of Appeasement” castigating the “ultra-liberal” Chicago Sun Times for printing a photo of a polar bear peacefully floating on its back (thus painting the Russians as “friendly” and “harmless”). There’s a letter from “Capitaine Jacque Mercenaire” who thanks the Call for teaching him that he’s not fighting with the French Foreign Legion in Zaire only for money but as “part of the international united front against Soviet hegemonism.” Ads for “China Gold,” paper cuts of Uncle Sam (“formerly available only on Taiwan province”) and subscriptions (“Enclosed is $3. Please don’t send me the Call for six months”) are scattered throughout. What makes the parody so effective is that great gobs of the material have simply been lifted from the pages of Peking Review and the CPML’s own Call (such as the letter which expresses worry that the health of the Chinese will suffer due to the trade deal with Coca Cola!). Give them enough rope... .
The CPML has certainly not been amused by Avakian & Co.’s sense of humor (however infantile some of it may be). At Kent State, for example, CPML supporters have expressed a deep-seated fear that readers of the RCP’s parody won’t realize that they are looking at a fake! The “Klownskyites” seem to have all the confidence of a lamb being led to the slaughter. CPMLers are even muttering about lawsuits to ensure that innocent readers don’t mistake the “CPML-Joint Chiefs of Staff Communique” for the real line of Klonsky’s Peking-Loyal toadies. (Perhaps they are also worried that Klonsky and Chairman Hua might actually be mistaken for “cloned chimpanzees” as a caption on page four has it!)
Of course the RCP’s assault on CPML’s bloc with the U.S. imperialists in the interests of Chinese foreign policy rings exceedingly hollow: Maoists who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Not too long ago Avakian & Co. were just as slavish as the Klonskyites in supporting Mao’s campaign of reconciliation with U.S. imperialism-from the welcoming of Nixon to Peking at the, height of the 1972 bombing of Hanoi to justifying China’s support to the 1975 South African/CIA invasion of Angola. With their worldview shattered by the purge of their heroes (the “gang of four”) the RCP has been wandering around in the political wilderness with no place to go but nuts. They spend their days getting their heads beaten in by the cops while they call upon all and sundry ’to “storm the heavens and make revolution.” Being the American imitators of the defunct Red Guards is not a very rewarding pastime.
So, if we see an issue of the RCP’s “theoretical” magazine, Revolution, and find inside letters from Louise Day Hicks (ROARing her thanks for the RCP’s support to the “People Must Unite to Smash Busing” rallies in Boston), a Washington, D.C. Kuomintang supporter (solidarizing with the “Embassy Five” and their January attack on the Chinese liaison office) and Ayatollah Khomeini (praising the RCP’s r:ighteous stand on women, morality and the family); we’d have to look awfully close to determine whether Klonsky was returning the favor or whether it was the real McCoy.