William Wallace Society enters into affiliation discussions by International Minister This August, the William Wallace Society of Scottish nationalist supporters in the United States has entered into discussions with MIM to affiliate with MIM. The society wrote to say, "We are receiving your newsletters regularly and we admit that we have been pleased with the content and opinions offered there-in. We are wondering how to become affiliated with MIM, as a group and as individuals. We agree with your three principles and we operate according to the principle of democratic centralism and majority rule. We, of course, allow greater importance for the national liberation struggles among the captive peoples of Europe and, in particular, the struggle in Alba (Scotland) for national self-determination and socialism, than is evidenced in MIM Notes. We, naturally, do not consider this a stumbling block. We have begun a serious study of Maoist thought, that is, as much of it as is available in our local libraries. Please let us know your thoughts on the above." MIM welcomes moves toward higher unity with the William Wallace Society. We take this opportunity to explain to our readers what we believe a principled unity entails. Of course, MIM has only recently begun writing more and more about Europe because of the lack of a genuine Maoist organization for the imperialist countries there. We have generally accepted in principle the burden of agitating for a genuine Maoist presence in Europe; although MIM originated in North Amerika. The comrade is quite right that we have not developed a detailed line on these questions raised by the William Wallace Society except in the most cardinal sense. MIM is currently working out relations with a former leader of the Almighty Latin Kings & Queens, a newly formed Russian Maoist internationalist party the Russian Maoist Party (RMP) and various individuals who should also be leading fraternal Maoist parties. One organization that needs to step forward for more unity is based in Pennsylvania. Not surprisingly given history and the experience of the Russian people, the Russian comrades have the best idea how to go ahead with setting up a Maoist fraternal organization. They have proceeded to do it and contribute mightily to the struggle to re- establish the communist movement in the imperialist countries. In the United $tates, we have Black, Latino and now Scottish ethnicity comrades we are attempting to unite. It is a project fraught with difficulty as the history of our communist movement especially since the 1960s indicates. At the same time, MIM is not of the opinion that the vanguard party should be multi-racial. The Black Panthers demonstrated that comrades could work together across race while retaining organizational identities most readily recognized by the masses rightly distrustful of unity amongst oppressor nation and oppressed nation comrades. No nationality ever begrudges its leaders for rubbing shoulders with leaders from other nationalities and making arrangements with them, but at this time the imperialist country semi-colony masses wish to contribute to local and national organizations that they are comfortable with. Another one of the difficulties facing the communist movement is taking a principled stand on nationalism that is progressive and nationalism that is reactionary. MIM has developed a line at length on the centrality of the question of super-profits to the contemporary national question. In discussion with the William Wallace Society, it would be ignoring our cardinal principles not to point out how it is important to understand the corrupting role that super-profits play in the Black, First Nation, Latino, Puerto Rican, Irish and Scottish struggles. In all of these cases, quasi- acceptance into empire has resulted in a flow of super- profits into the oppressed nation which makes that oppressed nation bourgeoisified. MIM is not in favor of turning the screws on the Third World to increase Black, Latino, Asian-descended, First Nation, Puerto Rican, Irish or Scottish wages within imperialist country borders. These nations already benefit from the swag of imperialism, even if not always to the same extent as oppressor nations. After the empire has received blows from successful Maoist People's Wars in the Third World, the empire may cut some of the swag to the Puerto Ricans, Blacks and other internal oppressed nations that the imperialists consider to be within their boundaries. Then we can expect a portion of these internal semi- colonies to push in a fascist or neo-colonial way for a return to favored status while another portion falls decidedly into the proletarian camp. Also thanks to historical memories in particular, the oppressed internal semi-colonies already form a favorable basis for struggle relatively speaking within the empire. The Black Panthers proved it was possible to win a plurality of the Black people. The litmus test of internationalism in the imperialist countries and their internal semi-colonies concerns super-profits. MIM does not tail after Black, Puerto Rican, First Nation, Latino, Asian- descended, Irish or Scottish nationalists who believe that their people are on the whole exploited. To do so would be to sell out the oppressed nation proletariat that averages 50 cents an hour. The only exception regarding internal semi-colonies is that portion of people who are undocumented workers and truly exploited. Legal workers amongst these internal semi-colonies are not exploited and already have a considerable stake in assimilating into the empire. Failure to recognize this will cause revolutionary energy to ooze away or be misdirected. The economic content of progressive nationalism is the fight against semi-feudalism and super-profits. Lenin, Stalin and Mao already wrote extensively on the role of national liberation struggle in attacking imperialism and semi-feudalism. Today, of special concern in the imperialist countries is super-profits. Super-profits are most often attained by imperialists in connection to national oppression and so-called extra-economic coercion (death squads, military dictatorship). Super-profits are what make it possible for one nation to benefit from the exploitation of another nation as a whole. Some would say nationalism has no role to play in a socialist stage of revolution. This may not be entirely correct. We cannot repeat the old saying that nationalism is bourgeois in the end. Today it has become crystal clear that socialism can be built in individual countries. Socialism can be built and imperialism can still exist. However, we do not believe it is possible to say nationalism has no role to play while there is still imperialism, so we also cannot say there is no role for nationalism to play while socialist revolutions break out in the Third World. MIM would say that imperialism can only be brought down by the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations as the method with the precise eradication of super- profits as a first- stage goal. Until that joint dictatorship exists and has eliminated super-profits, there will be a progressive basis for nationalism of the super-exploited nations. Comrades who fail to target the precise eradication of super-profits from economic life are failing to overthrow imperialism. Hence, one line of demarcation for the internal semi-colony comrades is to cast off nationalism in the sense of the neo- colonial path. The goal is not to deny that internal semi-colonies benefit from imperialism. Otherwise, these comrades will be in effect pushing to turn the screws harder on the Third World while they work out a special deal with the imperialists. Once imperialist oppressor nation and semi-colony comrades admit the role of super-profits and give up agitating for more super- profits for their nations, the next step is to understand what is progressive and what is not. Because of political and militarist violence by the oppressor nation and debts owed to the oppressed internal semi-colonies, and because the integrationist strategy means open acceptance of the swag of empire, revolutionary nationalism still exists and has progressive potential in the internal semi- colonies. This has more to do with the situation of the people of the world and history than with the specific economic conditions of the internal semi-colonies. The internal semi-colonies are not super-exploited with the exception of undocumented sections and First Nations enclosed in an imperialist economy that truly manage to cut themselves off from the imperialist economy; indeed, internal semi-colonies are not exploited at all on the whole. To rally progressive or revolutionary nationalist expressions we can work against political and imperialist militarist violence. Hence, while the Irish Catholics in the occupied Six Counties have not been exploited in an absolute sense (only relatively deprived compared with Protestants) and while they have benefited heavily from super-profits originating in Africa, Asia and Latin America, these same Irish Catholics have suffered a militarist occupation and civil war that has proletarianized the people to some extent. Likewise, in the prisons, the internal semi-colonies continue to feel the effect of Uncle Sam's strategy for the world as a whole. Racism and imperialism do not manage to stop at an internal semi- colony's borders just because it is no longer exploited. Though not exploited, the internal semi-colony is still composed of second class citizens mindful of the international situation. That is the basic economic situation. We look forward to hearing more about successful conditions of armed struggle if they actually exist in Europe and how to take advantage of historical and cultural conditions to divide the imperialist country peoples and stop the assimilation of new ones. Certainly any attack on imperialism is the action of a friend. We work toward the efficient success of such attacks. One question we would like to direct toward the Scottish nationalists. As superprofits flow into Scotland and as the bulk of Irish and Scottish people have had a chance to migrate and assimilate into an imperialist oppressor nation (with their being more Irish-Amerikans than Irish for example), we wonder if MIM's cardinal principles may be too short for you. We in MIM pledge not to divide over questions that are not cardinal. A cardinal question is a question that the party requires unanimous agreement on. The converse of that means we are saying that it is worth splitting the party over such a question. It becomes very important to know what is a cardinal question and what is not. Accepting MIM's cardinal questions pledges a comrade to struggle on behalf of the cardinal questions that exist and not to split over the questions that are not cardinal questions. Hence, if one year the party Congress decided that Scottish nationalism was being too much used to deny the existence of super-profits flowing into Scotland and to renegotiate some deal with the imperialists, would you split from the organization if the MIM opposed Scottish nationalist struggle? The question of the form of Scottish struggle--given our cardinal principles as they exist--is not a cardinal question. The economic content of Scottish nationalism is not super-exploitation or semi-feudalism-- at least not for the past few generations. Hence, for MIM Scottish nationalism is not a cardinal question. So what would you say about principles in an organization that you need to divide over? We would divide if someone tried to say Amerikan white workers were exploited, but not if someone opposed a Scottish national struggle.