The Single Spark Collective Announces Dissolution
Friends, Comrades and Fellow-Travelers:
The Single Spark Collective would like to publicly announce its dissolution. The collective was formed after a collection of revolutionary activists found common unity identifying as Maoists unsatisfied with the state of Maoism in the United States and organizations claiming to be Maoist. Officially founded May 1st 2006, the SSC sought to promote a critical, scientific examination of revolutionary history, theory and practice.
We attempted, among other things to develop an on-going investigation and discussion of the Stalin era, promote and analyze the revolutionary advances made in Southeast Asia, particularly Nepal and the Philippines. We wished also to construct unity with existing revolutionary forces in North America and to aid the development of a new revolutionary party based firmly on the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that correctly applied and understood the Mass Line.
From the beginning the Mass Line was a dividing line question for the founding members of the collective. They believed, as they do today, that the only way for a genuine revolutionary struggle to advance is with a conscious understanding and application of the Mass Line. With this basis the collective also sought to offer criticism of other organizations in the spirit of struggle, such as the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
During the period in which the collective was founded there existed a political crisis which revolutionaries were struggling to grapple with: increased state repression and a high tide of reactionary activity. The collective adhered to Mao’s statement that “when the Party’s line is correct, then everything will come its way. If it has no followers, then it can have followers; if it has no guns, then it can have guns; if it has no political power, then it can have political power.”
Among our successes, the collective developed a collection and summary of Mao’s Evaluations of Stalin which demonstrated Mao’s gradually increasing criticisms of Stalin’s leadership. At a time when materials from Nepal were somewhat difficult to find and not widely promoted in the United States, the SSC posted both Worker #10 (May 2006) and Worker #11 (July 2007), additionally several issues from the Maoist Information Bulletin and Problems & Prospects of Revolution in Nepal, a book of articles by Prachanda and other CPN(M) leaders. We also posted the entire series of films from the 8 hr long documentary by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) titled “Eight Glorious Years of the Great Nepalese People’s War.”
We hoped to promote a revolutionary internationalist perspective by being among the few in North American to consistently post materials from the Mexican revolutionary magazine El Zenzontle, the (only?) edition of Thousand Flowers Journal of the Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist (CCP-M) and the Indian newspaper People’s March, even hosting these materials when they were not available from the sources themselves, such as People’s March. Controversially we decided to post the critique “A Contribution to the Confusion” by Manuel R. Chávez López which was a polemic against Raymond Lotta and the RCP as well as materials from people’s struggles in Guatemala. The collective also posted materials from a roundtable discussion on China and the overthrow of socialism and a book regarding contemporary China, The Ides of March, by Li Jirong. We included statements from the CPI (Maoist) and their spokesperson Azad regarding the Nepalese strategy.
The collective was inspired and encouraged by the uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico. One of the last statements by the SSC was regarding the Kosovo and the Former Yugoslavia, which we believed and still do — to be a thoughtful and boldly revolutionary perspective. The collective stood with the international community in demanding the immediate release of Jose Maria Sison when reactionary forces attempted to silence him. The collective has intended, but was unable to pursue very far the issues of personality cults in the revolutionary movement, reflected in the piece by Ranganayakamma, “Personality Cult: Is it Necessary for Revolution?” We hoped (but never did) to examine the role of multiparty democracy and democratic centralism, and the scientific approach to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In September of 2007 we demonstrated our commitment to unity-struggle-unity by revising our initial ‘What We Believe’ Statement after internal discussion.
In summing-up: we are proud to have consistently promoted a revolutionary internationalist perspective and of our strong desire to investigate the questions of revolutionary struggle today. Not only did we allow open discussion but encouraged it on questions of theory and practice and this practice gained some international recognition.
We promoted an internal organizational model that was firmly democratic, an accomplishment that not all from the Maoist tendency can claim. This model not only influenced groups in the United States, but also spoke to the dissatisfaction with the existing organizations in North America generally, including Canada. The collective proudly sought to uphold the Mass Line and practice a genuine democratic centralism.
However, it should be said that we also feel that our over all goals and objectives were not met and eventually the collective became stagnant. Some individuals left after rejecting internal decisions and breaking with the internal decision making process. This was a painful loss for our collective. Internal contradictions were further developed by the lack of mass work being carried out by the collective as a whole and this resulted in many passionate discussions and struggle.
For these reasons and others the decision has been made unanimously to disband the Single Spark Collective. Some former collective members will go on to work with other revolutionary groups and mass organizations. Others have chosen to pursue independent research and activities. We agreed to remain comrades in struggle despite our dissolution. Members of the collective all remain dedicated to the development of a future Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party which struggles for the liberation of humanity from capitalism-imperialism and all forms of oppression and work to continue that struggle in the United States and internationally.
In revolutionary struggle,
The Former Members of the Single Spark Collective
October 2008
Postscript: The Single Spark website will remain online for a limited time to allow others to copy materials from this site. Please feel free to do so (in fact, we encourage it) but keep in mind links to this website will not work for long.
Single Spark Documents Page on MASSLINE.ORG
Single Spark Home Page on MASSLINE.ORG