MIM Notes 228                   February 15, 2001

Review of the struggle to commemorate Du Bois

The following signed the statement commemorating the birthday of 
W.E.B. Du Bois on February 23rd.

Signatories list: 
* Ascending Dragon,
* Ghetto Liberation Political Party (GLPP),
* Lord Grim, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist/Latin King,
* Pacific Politics Organization,
* RAIL-Boston,
* RAIL-France, 
* RAIL-New Orleans,
* RAIL-Santa Barbara,
* Russian Maoist Party (RMP),
* Studies for the Liberation of Aztlan and Latin America (SLALA),
* Barry Stoller,
* Thomas Wayburn, Executive Director of the American Policy 
Institute, Inc.

Compared with the influence that Du Bois had, the list is very 
short. Also compared with the number of organizations calling 
themselves communist the list is very short. When it comes to 
revolution to put an end to parasitism, few will dare to go where 
the signatories tread. The reasons include fears of going against 
the imperialist country majority in favor of the international 
majority that needs its survival rights taken care of.

There may be a couple more organizations that did not sign because 
MIM did--a sectarian thing, but on the whole, we encourage readers 
to realize "what you see is what you get." If fighting parasitism 
is of key importance, then the list of organizations above is the 
starting point. We urge all who see the importance of the question 
of parasitism to "circle the wagons." We are vastly outnumbered 
even in the so-called communist movement.

In MIM's opinion, the lack of signatories is an indication of 
weakness in the anti-imperialist movement, for failing to end 
parasitism will be failing to end imperialism. It will also mean a 
failure to institute the dictatorship of the proletariat in the 
imperialist countries.

On the other hand, history shows that small minorities often 
prevail, especially in revolutionary movements. During World War 
I, it was a small minority opposing the war within the imperialist 
countries and when MIM formed in the 1980s, it was a small 
minority like MIM saying that the Soviet Union was capitalist and 
going to endure capitalist crises.

Notable non-signatories

These individuals and organizations we know well enough to know 
that we can contact them. We contacted many others, but often for 
the first time and without much guarantee of success getting 
through. The effort to obtain signatories included publicity in 
MIM Notes, the MIM web site, USENET newsgroups and individual 
letters written to individuals and organizations internationally.

* A/synechia Revolutionary Marxist Organization

* Communist Party of the Philippines

* Luis Arce Borja, El Diario International

* MLPD (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

* Pan-Africanist Congress (Azania)

* Socialist Workers Party of Mauritius

* TKP/ML (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist)

Rebolusyon on the question of imperialist country workers

In particular, the Communist Party of the Philippines just 
released its 2nd Quarter theoretical journal called Rebolusyon 
where the CPP says, "With the US at the head, the imperialists 
have drummed up the myth of 'free market' to rationalize the 
accelerating rates of exploitation of the working class in the 
imperialist countries."

While the CPP makes terrific advances, and deserves the support of 
the international proletariat, it must be said that with the above 
kind of understanding it will be impossible to put an end to 
imperialism, even with military victory over one version or 
another of it. Imperialism will be renamed but not changed by 
those who actually believe that imperialist country workers are 
increasingly exploited. Eventually all those fighting in the 
People's Wars will have to come to recognize super-profits when 
they see them in practice.

In the same section, the CPP says, "The imperialists and their 
lackeys depict the working people as parasites rather than as the 
producers of wealth. They blame the working people as the source 
of inflation and hindrance to economic growth. They press down the 
incomes of the working people to maximize profits. The bourgeois 
state casts away its social pretenses, increases the tax burden of 
the people and accelerates the delivery of public assets and funds 
to the monopoly bourgeoisie."

True working people do produce wealth, but most of the people in 
the imperialist countries are white-collar and service workers. 
They do not produce wealth and are in fact jockeying with the 
imperialists to divide up the surplus-value extracted from the 
Third World and ex-socialist countries.

Later in its magazine, the CPP states more correctly, "But insofar 
as it can still exploit the people of the world, the monopoly 
bourgeoisie can dampen the class struggle of the proletariat in 
the imperialist countries. It is in the lesser industrial 
capitalist countries, including the much-weakened imperialist 
power Russia, that the class struggle of the proletariat against 
the bourgeoisie is relatively more vigorous."

The most correct statement on the global situation that the CPP 
makes is: "The overwhelming majority of the people of the world 
are in the semicolonial and semifeudal countries of Asia, Africa 
and Latin America and the retrogressive countries where 
revisionist regimes had betrayed socialism and restored capitalism 
for decades. They suffer the main brunt of the global crisis of 
overproduction. Their countries are the main arena of violent 
conflicts among the imperialists and reactionaries as well as 
those between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary forces." MIM 
has no disagreement with that.