MIM Notes 194 September 15, 1999 MIM sends its proletarian greetings to the 3rd Congress of the RCYL(b) of August 1999 The RCYL(b) is making very important contributions to the struggle against revisionism. The proletariat everywhere hopes the RCYL(b) can rekindle the revolutionary spirit as in the days of Lenin and Stalin. History has now made it undeniable that a bourgeoisie can and does arise within the upper ranks of the Communist Party. It is the bourgeoisie in the party that restored capitalism in China, Albania and the Soviet Union. Imperialist invasion to install imperialist lackeys in power was not required. As communist leaders in struggle, only Mao and the "Gang of Four" correctly reflected the truth that there is a bourgeoisie in the party -- whether the communists like it or not at this time in history. The followers of Hoxha said that there was no bourgeoisie in the party and that a bourgeoisie should not be tolerated in the party the way Mao supposedly did. Yet, Albania also had an outright restoration of free-market capitalism, and it was by Hoxha's handpicked successors. Hence, we must conclude that the access to the means of production by the party creates this situation, regardless of the intentions of individual leaders. We can look away in denial or accept the truth of the material circumstances and start the appropriate struggle like the RCYL(b) does. Likewise, we communists in the United $tates do not live in despair and denial. We too have very difficult tasks to get our movement back on track. We must face bitter truths about how we achieved such a low ebb of communist activity -- the sooner, the better. In the United $tates, we have many Trotskyists and crypto- Trotskyists, a reflection of the long state of imperialist decadence and bourgeois democracy in power here. Some Trotskyists continue to recite their lines on the 1920s and occasionally the 1930s to condemn "Stalinism." They know nothing of the Third World and have made no historical contributions to successful revolution there. Not even in de-colonization did the Trotskyists play any part. These people are oppressor nation nationalists of a new sort and never demonstrated the broad-mindedness and thoroughness needed by real communists. A large portion of Amerikan Trotskyists have gone to the ex-Soviet Union to spread their moronic propaganda. We know the vast majority of the people there continue to rebuff them for reasons that the most indoctrinated Trotskyists have never studied. Likewise, the crypto-Trotskyists surrender Stalin and Mao, if not in name, then by adopting Trotskyist theses. Most notable is how the crypto-Trotskyists denigrate the national question, uphold the oppressor nation workers as the most advanced in the world and call for international command centers to be strengthened, the same way Trotskyists formed the 4th International and criticized Stalin for not giving the Third International a sufficient role. Amerikan Trotskyists alone have a dozen efforts to create Amerikan-centered command centers for a Trotskyist International. The conditions in every country must be concretely analyzed. That is how Mao was able to bring victory in China, not by memorizing a briefcase of Trotskyist literature on Germany, the United $tates etc. Let the Trotskyists bring a briefcase of literature on super- profits, the national question and the Third World and we will have something to struggle over. History long ago proved that revolution is not centered in Europe. Today the class and national questions intersect in how super- profits are extracted. The U.$. imperialists lend military and intelligence aid to various fascist and other military regimes throughout the Third World. Through the use of force, they have succeeded in making the average wage 50 cents an hour in the Third World. Thus, a Third World worker is lucky to earn $1000 a year while others starve in unemployment. Currently, the median annual income in the United $tates is $37,000. Yet, the Trotskyists and crypto-Trotskyists support the union struggles of the "advanced" oppressor nation workers. They are the vanguard of the oppressor nation worker movement for more super-profits. When asked how it could be this decadent living standard arises in the imperialist countries, the Trotskyists and crypto-Trotskyists say that oppressor nation workers are superior or they sidestep the question entirely. Yet we scientists of the labor theory of value can see very clearly it is not possible for living standards to be so high in the imperialist countries without super-profits. While oppressor nation children go to college, Mexican workers farm their food; Korean workers make their clothes and Azanian workers mine the gold in their graduation rings. We call on the ex-Soviet peoples to reject the phony friendship the Trotskyists offer. The U.$. and European workers are not "the most advanced." They are less advanced by far than peasants, because the oppressor nation workers are now a petty-bourgeoisie stuffed full with super-profits. Comrades, the oppressor nation people will never understand their own backwardness if the most class conscious elements do not reject Trotskyism and crypto-Trotskyism. The workers of the oppressor nations do not back Trotskyism except in its most chauvinist aspects. In fact, most Western imperialist oppressor nation people when asked will admit that they are bought-off relative to the Third World proletariat. The Leninist thesis on the labor aristocracy makes sense to the people, because it corresponds to reality. Trotskyism and crypto-Trotskyism have led no revolutions this century beyond an assist in the Russian Revolution, because Trotskyism and crypto-Trotskyism do not correspond to reality. We state that the comrades of the Western imperialist countries can be judged first of all by their adherence to the principle of a dictatorship of the proletariat. Secondly, they can be judged by the task they see for that dictatorship of the proletariat. There will be those who speak for a dictatorship of the proletariat in name while working for continued imperialist parasitism in practice. While we must find some points of unity with people of all classes and make the maximum use of such unity, only communists seeking a stage of dictatorship cleansing the Western imperialist oppressor nation peoples of parasitism deserve the confidence of the international proletariat and other oppressed peoples. We extend our greetings to comrade Torbasow for spreading Maoist ideas in ex-Soviet lands. It is a most difficult task to re-orient a communist movement when it has wandered far into the swamp. The further off-track, the greater the role of leadership has to be in the communist movement. In the Western imperialist countries, we do not get back on track by representing the demands of the petty-bourgeois majority by calling it "proletarian." We would never get back on track if we catered to the imperialist country majority as proletarians. Phony communists representing the labor aristocracy seek to install imperialism in new guises or restore imperialism after it has received harsh blows from the oppressed and exploited. We would only confuse ourselves and commit treachery to the international proletariat if we sought to call the majority in the Western imperialist countries proletarian. There is a very thorough job that must be done to change the material conditions of whole nations of parasites in the United $tates, England, France, Italy etc. With the putrifying corpse of Soviet revisionism still in your midst, the RCYL(b) also has a most difficult job that it must see through to the end. We wish you success.