Talk:Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

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This article was nominated for deletion on 27 September 2017. The result of the discussion was keep.

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The last sentence sounds kind of terse: "The document also puts forward Bob Avakian as a great leader." Also the article seems to focus on some perceived negative aspects of the RCP's work and ideology, such as the only part of the new programme of the party that was mentioned being the change of line on homosexuality. The article also does not mention at all the party's newspaper except for a link; I think it should be mentioned at least in a paragraph because it is one of the main parts of the party that's known to people. Also the work that the party does in the projects should be mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.142.32.68 (talk) 19:32, 26 March 2005 (UTC) [reply]

Hey, I was thinking that this article needs to be expanded to further detail The RCPUSA's political ideology. This should be fairly simple to create and cite due to the large amount of online documents published by the party. Personally I believe the section should be arranged something like this:

• Ideology
  • Marxism-Leninism
  • Maoism
  • Feminism and Womens Rights
  • LGBT Rights
  • Civil Rights
  • Labor activism

S1d6arrett23 (talk) 02:15, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The RCP's political ideology is one of its more distinguishing characteristics and what it sees as most fundamental is communism as a continuously developing science. At this point the party says it has ideologically progressed beyond Marxism Leninism Maoism and (as of the 2010s) into ‘the new synthesis of communism' developed by its chairman Bob Avakian, as concentrated in the document "The New Synthesis of Communism: fundamental orientation, method and approach, and core elements—an outline."^[1]

Other important references for RCP political ideology include: the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America^[2] (draft proposal for the new society after a revolution), ‘Why We Need An Actual Revolution and How We Can Really Make Revolution’^[3] (2018 film), “How We Can Win”^[4] (the strategy pamphlet for revolution), the "5 Stops”: the crimes of the system,^[5] the guide to the official website,^[6], and "a declaration for women’s liberation and the emancipation of all humanity" (which it sees as different from feminism and proceeding from human liberation),^[7] to name just a few.

Previously, in the 1990s and 2000s, the RCP identified its political ideology as Marxism Leninism Maoism.^[8] I agree with the motion to create an ‘ideology’ section in the article (into which the LGBT section should be absorbed) but strongly advise to draw from primary documents by the party so as not to publicly misrepresent its politics.

RojoGlobal (talk) 21:43, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The edits I made to the third paragraph of this article on the RCP on 7/26/22 corrected the decidedly biased nature of the previous edit. The previous article was biased on its face. WP:POV is a cornerstone of Wikipedia. To state my reasons for the edit again:

I Removed from the previous edit loaded words such as “cult of personality” and wording that implies that readily disprovable accusations are true simply because some people have made them and others have repeated them. In the previous edit the mere citing that the RCP denies such charges does not balance out this skewed framework. My edit retains the accurate point that there is controversy about the RCP and Bob Avakian and also retains the previously existing references. I added a few references for balance.

There is nothing in this edit that goes to agreement or disagreement with the RCP--just an accurate and fair appraisal of the controversy about it as per WP:NPOV. EyesWhyde (talk) 20:27, 27 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are misunderstanding POV/NPOV. Extensive sourcing is provided for this statement. The existing sources already supported these statements, but since it has been contested I made it clearer by adding quotes in this diff. NPOV is: "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." These are a large number of reliable sources stating these facts.

These statements have been part of this article for years: 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. As such, this version should be considered the previous status quo.

Seloloving, you reverted the return to the status quo with the edit summary "Please provide a source". I think the existing sources are sufficient. Is this not so? Etriusus you reverted without an edit summary. Is there something I am missing here? Freelance-frank (talk) 02:11, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I only came across the page as it was a pending edit. On a cursory search of the article, it seemed at first that the body does not mention anything about a cult, and hence my revert asking for a source. Clearly, I neglected to check the existing sources, or realize that it was removed prior to the pending edit. My apologies for that. I would perhaps suggest adding this information to the 'Political ideology' section below, but otherwise, I have no position on this content dispute. Seloloving (talk) 02:22, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and good point. That matter is not covered in the body, and lead should reflect coverage through the article. Probably lead should be revised in general. Freelance-frank (talk) 02:28, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Freelance-frank:, is this the dif you're referring to? That was a revert I did with WP:Twinkle when going through the Pending Changes log, and I left a notice on the IP's talk page. Ideally, bringing in terms such as 'cult' should likely be discussed in the talk page first. Likewise, User:Seloloving raises a good point that there should be more consistency between the lead and body. Why I reverted was because the sourcing was a tad bit shaky in my opinion. Huffpost was the best source there and even then, a 2020 RfC ruled that Huffpost articles prior to 2012 tend to not be as reliable (here's a nifty guide). Other citations such as www.marxists.org, MIC, indypendent, and Harper's magazine are not well known and its difficult to rule on their reliability.

Ultimately, I really don't have much of a horse in this race either way, so I'm fine with whatever consensus is reached here. Ideally, a more rock-solid source should be used if the 'cult of personality' bit it going to be added. I sometimes forget to put edit summaries on Twinkle reverts, so my bad if there was any confusion. Etriusus (Talk) 05:17, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Harpers most certainly is well known and reliable – the others: not so much. Many problematic sources were previously tagged as such but got rv'd by possible COI contributors. Also: "cult" labels are fine if properly attributed, and presented as opinion, not as matters-of-fact. -- dsprc ^[talk] 10:27, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Great, and thanks for the reply. There is more discussion of this matter in RS, so I can elaborate on these statements that were present in the article for the last few years at least, attribute them more explicitly, and clean out the chaff. Freelance-frank (talk) 12:21, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Added some relevant material, with more to come. One possible issue is handling "cult" vs. "cult of personality". Some RS only use one or the other, some use both, and some use both but draw a usually-implicit distinction. Freelance-frank (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]