MIM Notes 166 July 15, 1998 Anti-imperialists: Join RAIL! Maoists: Join MIM! "To organize the strength of the masses is one policy. Is there a contrary policy? Yes there is. It is one that lacks the mass viewpoint, fails to rely on the masses and organize them... That is the other policy, the wrong policy." --Mao Zedong History teaches us that broad organization is necessary for an anti-imperialist and socialist revolution to be successful. The Chinese and Russian revolutions are positive examples of this truth; Paris in '68 is a negative example. The Chinese and Russian democratic and then socialist revolutions were successful because they were led by parties that had spent decades out of the limelight building solid organizations with cohesive political line. Paris '68 represented tremendous mass motion far disproportionate to the level of organization, and it was not able to succeed. MIM founded the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) in 1994 and continues to exert leadership over RAIL's work. That MIM leads RAIL (which is not a communist party and does not have a worked out "line" on all political issues) means that RAIL does work that MIM believes will contribute to the overall struggle for Maoist revolution. At the same time, people in RAIL range from anarchist to revolutionary nationalist to prisons-focused reformist to those who agree with MIM on all political matters but just don't want the discipline that goes with party membership. MIM leadership of RAIL also means that RAIL must not accept leadership from any organization that has fundamental disagreements with MIM line. In practice this means that RAIL would not co-sponsor an event with the National Women's Rights Organizing Committee (NWROC), a front group for the Revolutionary Worker's League (a Trotskyist party), for example. Similarly, if RAIL were to show a film on police brutality in Amerika together with other mass organizations, RAIL would need to be certain that a proletarian line led the event. In the first example RAIL would not co-sponsor an NWROC event no matter what the event because this would mean taking revisionist leadership over MIM leadership. In the second example RAIL would need to be certain that the event led attendees to understand that police brutality will remain a pervasive part of national oppression in Amerika until the internal Black, Latino and First Nations colonies are liberated from U.$. imperialism. Many groups claiming anti-imperialism and even socialism encourage people to "Get Organized!" -- but go on to tell people that it does not matter what group people join, as long as it is "progressive." Kwame Toure of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party, for example, called on people to join non-revolutionary groups ranging from the NAACP to the Nation of Islam.(1) Other groups say implicitly that it does not really matter what organization people join, but they do so by embracing "coalition" politics. They sign on to any event that sounds good to them, regardless of who organized it, or they plan events with a huge list of "co-sponsors," regardless of who those co-sponsors are or whether the co-sponsors do any work. MIM and RAIL both call on people to organize for the specific goal of revolution. This means that when we endorse an organization claiming revolutionary nationalism as being progressive, we are saying that it is a genuinely anti-imperialist organization not just that it refers to "oppressed nations" from time to time. This also means that we would not co-sponsor an event with a Trotskyist front group just because it claims to organize for "women's rights." For RAIL or MIM to sponsor an event claiming feminism, that event would have to be led by a proletarian feminist line. The event would have to put forward the reality that the majority of the world's wimmin face imperialism as the principal source of their oppression, and working for the so- called liberation of First World wimmin before or even at the same time as liberation of Third World wimmin is an imperialist-apologist approach. History teaches us that any organization that aspires to squelch the oppression that is capitalism in a lasting way must be led by the ideology of the international proletariat. Does this mean that all people who oppose oppression must be Maoists? No. Just as those who wish to reform the criminal injustice system may share the tactical goal of expanding prisoner educational resources with RAIL and MIM, these reformists can work on other individual campaigns that contribute to a broader revolutionary struggle. Expanding education for prisoners is what we call a revolutionary reform because it is a reform that increases the possibility of revolutionary political struggle. But if these same reformists were to spend all their time working to get egregiously abusive prison guards fired, MIM would say that these individuals and their organizations are doing nothing to advance the cause of revolution and are therefore not contributing to the struggle for a permanent end to oppression. To the short-sighted, getting rid of a single rotten cop, guard or elected official, or getting rid of 20 of them, can look like a great contribution. When a cop is murdering young Black men at will, when a guard is writing false tickets and keeping prisoners bouncing around the DOCs and not getting paroled, when an elected official is violating every law s/he is sworn to defend (and even those laws do not offer equal protection to the masses) it can seem that it is a tremendous and worthwhile effort to get these people out of their jobs. The reality is that it is a tremendous effort to make reforms of this magnitude, but unless it takes place in the context of building a lasting revolutionary organization it contributes nothing to the struggle. MIM and RAIL insist on proletarian leadership of all our public work because we insist that all our work contribute to the end of imperialism. We hold ourselves and the comrades with whom we ally ourselves to this standard because we want to do much more than get the abusive cops fired, we want to dismantle the system that trains them and pays them to brutalize the oppressed. Rightist errors Several RAIL branches have occasionally succumbed to "coalition-based" politics, breaking RAIL and MIM policy and negating in practice the principle that MIM leads RAIL. They have even gone so far as to put RAIL's name on flyers alongside revisionist-led organizations without comment or criticism. The root cause of RAIL comrades' "coalition building" errors is a lack of reliance on and trust in the masses. Mao said that if a political party has the correct line then everything will come its way -- if it does not have followers, then it can have followers, but it must first have the correct line. Similarly for RAIL, when people understand that we put out a newspaper, that we raise money continentally for MIM's Free Books for Prisoners program, and accomplish other large and important tasks, then they are drawn to our work and they look to get involved. But if RAIL leads people to believe that it is no different from any other organization, then it will not convince people to join RAIL and it will not be organizing more people into anti-imperialist work. There are several reasons for this type of mistake -- including pragmatism, a lack of revolutionary arrogance, bourgeois populism, and Liberalism -- but the root problem is a failure to rely on the masses. This may seem contradictory. After all, aren't the coalition builders able to get impressive lists of "co-sponsors" and "supporters"? But the reality is that these "co- sponsors" and "supporters" are not the masses; they are a small elite; and their "support" often only amounts to a name on a flyer. Comrades seeking to solve the problem of lack of mass involvement by running into coalitions with the local revisionists are replacing their original problem with essentially the same problem. Only worse. They equate RAIL and MIM -- proletarian organizations -- with petty- bourgeois organizations, depriving the masses of the proletarian leadership they crave and need. RAIL and the struggle against revisionism Now, many RAIL comrades are new to anti-imperialist organizing, and may not know the differences between MIM and revisionist parties like the Worker's World Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party. Things are complicated further by the fact that these and other parties often hide the fact that they lead so-called "mass organizations." These comrades may see these revisionist parties or mass organizations doing work that is similar to the work RAIL is doing, and they may suggest that RAIL work with these groups. Now should we allow these inexperienced but enthusiastic RAIL comrades to arrange a joint event with one of these revisionist-led organizations? Of course not. Is this raising the bar for RAIL membership, requiring them to essentially adopt Maoism? No, it is not. We can explain RAIL's policy of not taking leadership from revisionist organizations to the comrades, and encourage them to study the differences between MIM and the revisionists and why they are important. This is in fact one way in which working with RAIL advances comrades' ideological and political level. Some inexperienced RAIL comrades may succumb to Menshevism at that point and decide to leave RAIL. But this should not worry us too much. As the revolution develops here they will be back, or others will step forward to take their place. Why is this so? Because the differences between MIM and revisionism and opportunism are real and will have large, practical implications. The revisionists and opportunists will mislead the struggle into capitulation with the Amerikan imperialists and betrayal of revolutionary movements abroad and at home. When that happens the masses will turn to the truly revolutionary movement led by the Maoists in MIM. The only way to keep this from happening is for MIM to abdicate its leadership now, and opportunistically "unite" with the revisionists and opportunists. Take initiative and assert independence in the united front! RAIL and MIM should do work with anti-imperialism mass organizations. It is desirable and necessary that we do so. But we have to be very careful to exert our leadership and independence. This includes agreeing with our co-sponsors that we will criticize pro-imperialist and anti-proletarian lines of theirs in public if they choose to promote these positions in public. We will not sign our name to other groups' work simply because they ask us, we consistently prioritize our responsibility to build the MIM-led organizations. This includes being clear about our requirements up front (such as equal time to criticize publicly if necessary), and working with people when there is a clear benefit to RAIL and/or MIM (and not just signing on to something because we were asked). A resolution passed at the 1998 MIM Congress provides some simple guidelines on building the united front (see sidebar). To succeed in our revolutionary tasks, we must fearlessly expand our work, reach more and more masses, firmly rely on the masses to take on more tasks instead of relying on a select few, and resolutely apply MIM's guidelines in building the united front. Notes: 1. MIM Notes 100, May 1995. MIM policy on building the united front The following policy passed unanimously at MIM's 1998 Congress. MIM has had difficulties with the united front. Our work should feature the following simplified guidelines. 1. No liquidation: Maintain the possibility and capability of criticizing our allies, since we represent the proletarian pole. 2. Hard bargains: Look for what we are getting from the deal with other classes. 3. No pimping: The most backward masses should be able to see what the difference is between us and our allies, except for fraternal parties on issues that are not the third cardinal [the labor aristocracy question --ed.]. 4. No neo-colonialism: Always keep the perspective of the international proletariat and do not use the United Front as an occasion to cut "a special deal" for one oppressed nationality. 5. No Trotskyism: Uphold the national question and alliances with classes that have any interest however temporary against U.$. imperialism. 6. No tailing: Take initiative in United Front activities or don't get involved at all. See also NO PIMPING and NO LIQUIDATION. Either the proletariat leads or we stay out.