Osama Bin Laden or his followers are not just scaring the wits out of the bourgeoisified people of the imperialist countries. He and his followers are also winning the praise of Third World peoples. At this particular point in history, it is a given that the imperialists are going to demonize someone in the Mideast. We have to ask ourselves why it is that an Arab, African or Iranian Maoist leader did not obtain this honor now given to Osama Bin Laden.
A bourgeois research organization found that the peoples of Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority regard Osama Bin Laden as one of three leaders they most trust to "do the right thing."(1)
The people of Jordan (71%) and Indonesia (66%) also view Osama Bin Laden as more peaceful than the united $tates.(2) It goes to show that attacks on U.$. interests will be supported by the Third World masses and even the foreign policy bourgeoisie of u.$. imperialism knows it. It's an important lesson to take a materialist approach to the masses and ask them who they trust more, their Maoist leaders or the u.$. imperialists.
A motley crew of counterrevolutionaries, labor bureaucrats and centrists calling themselves "Marxist-Leninist" are responsible for Islamic militants' outflanking the communists in the minds of the exploited of many Third World countries. We have two choices in this matter: 1) we can believe the Islamic scriptural hocus-pocus and that it is somehow God's will. 2) we can realize that communists in many Middle East and Third World countries surrendered nationalist credentials in the Third World the way a Mao or even a Ho Chi Minh never allowed. The Islamic movement is becoming the preferred expression of the struggle against imperialist super-exploitation in many countries while the "Marxist-Leninists" and "Maoists" lose the battle to represent the super-exploited, by their failure to concretely expose super-exploitation and target the super-exploiting enemies.
Obvious sell-outs
The bourgeois press made it no secret that after September 11 2001, the CIA landed in Afghanistan with paper bags full of money to buy off political leaders.(3) This sort of thing has gone on throughout the Mideast and even many of the most stupid and reactionary pseudo-Marxists ranging from Trotskyists to neo-Hoxhaites have figured out that much along with the fact that NGOs (non- governmental organizations) are playing a similar role throughout the Third World.
Along these lines the Iraqi "Communist Party" volunteered to serve in George Bush's occupation regime in Iraq. It's important to understand that this goes against not just "MIM Thought," but also the universal teachings of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. This is so obvious that it is almost not worth mentioning.
Clandestine sell-outs
In addition to the obvious, in-daylight sellouts in the Middle East, there are also clandestine sell-outs. Like the Liberals in the Iraqi CP and the CP=U$A that supports it, there are many in the Middle East and other places who have decided that attacking "theocratic fascism" takes higher priority than attacking u.$. imperialist interests.
No doubt Russia and China have their cynical geo-political interests involved in enticing u.$. imperialism into becoming the world's two-fisted liberal against Islam. Those thrilled with this idea should see their new allies. One is Christopher Hitchens(4) denouncing "theocratic fascism." The other is the practically John Birch society rag "Front Page Magazine"(4) which has called for a Congressional investigation of MIM. Hitchens is hawking his credentials as a journalist in favor of a war crimes trial for Henry Kissinger et. al. regarding Vietnam while simultaneously talking up G.W. Bush. Even worse, J. Sakai is calling September 11 2001 the work of "Pan-islamic fascism pressing home their war."(5) Since none of these Liberals ever claimed to buy into Lenin's theory of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism dominated by finance capital, we cannot say we are surprised. They are all entitled to define fascism in whatever useless way that they want.
The real problem comes when a similar approach comes out of many "communists" with an half-assed reading of Dimitrov and Stalin, because Stalin targeted the fascist imperialists "first" during World War II. Many Third World wannabe compradors with a Liberal streak adopt Marxist-Leninist or even Maoist camouflage while claiming to target "theocratic fascism" "first." What they did not read in the definition of fascism used by Dimitrov and Stalin is that fascism is a strategy of "finance-capital." In other words, fascism stems from imperialism, not some local tradition of Islam or the like, which is really just obtaining its strength from taking up the nationalism of the oppressed nations. There are no imperialist countries in the Middle East except for I$rael. None have reached the stage of having the banking organization that coordinates global business, so fascists in the Middle East are only there as puppets of u.$. imperialism.
The pseudo-anti-fascist struggle by Third World Liberals is clandestine in two aspects. First, Liberals are hiding in many parts of the world inside communist parties, because full-blown consistent Western Liberalism has no chance, no electoral popularity in many Third World, Middle East and ex-Soviet bloc localities. It's the opposite in the majority-exploiter countries where liberalism is mainstream, so that the accusation usually runs the other way around--that communists might be adopting liberal camouflage in the majority-exploiter countries.
Secondly, the Third World Liberals are clandestine in hiding their line of attacking local reactionaries through alliance with the government agencies of imperialism. What these Liberals masquerading as communists have done is hijack the proletarian banner for a bourgeois-democratic pipedream. They have no idea why even for as large a country as China, Mao said, socialism is the "only way out." The clandestine Liberals hope no one notices that they are working with George W. Bush's state apparatus.
Between the open sell-outs like the Iraqi "CP" and the clandestine sell-outs who are really just two- fisted Liberals seeking like-minded support in the united $tates, "Marxism-Leninism" and even Mao's image have been dimmed.
Confusion-spreading sell-outs
Another road to selling the struggle short and making Osama Bin Laden look like a giant is the "tail wags the dog thesis" that I$rael calls the shots in Russia and the united $tates-- e.g. the line of the Syrian "Communist Party." In reality, this line reflects the political flabbiness of the Middle Eastern bourgeoisie. Rather than admit that the united $tates is the root of national oppression in the Middle East, the bourgeoisie attempts to pin everything on I$rael with its handful of millions of exploiters instead of the united $tates with its over 200 million exploiters. The absolutely shameful thing is that this goes on among those calling themselves "Marxist-Leninist" even as U.$. troops stand in Iraq.
Connected to this approach of downsizing the enemy to be more manageable is the line that "we are a small country. We cannot take on u.$. imperialism. I$rael is about all we can handle!" The truth is this shows a lack of global perspective, something even the bourgeois internationalists such as Clinton and Bush Sr. have more of than most of the Arab bourgeoisie. Even nutcase Donald Rumsfeld knows that he's stretched thin globally so he has ordered a third of the troops out of Korea. For that matter, even Osama Bin Laden thinks more globally than some of our spineless "communists" and comprador bourgeoisie. Osama Bin Laden organized in several Arab and non-Arab countries. So it is not true that a small country ever has to worry about taking on all of u.$. imperialism for starters. Iraq is showing how to take on the bulk of the u.$. armed forces as we speak.
Politically subtle sell-outs
Should the oppressed of the Middle East decide to bolt from all the sorry excuses regarding an oppressive reality, there is one last hurdle before getting on the road to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist liberation. The centrists stand at the door.
Although there is a MIM saying that the imperialist countries owe huge reparations and have populations of hundreds of millions of exploiters, the centrists say there are 10% or 50 or 60 million enemies in the imperialist countries. They echo the CP=U$A on the class structure almost precisely. The centrists assuage the flabby Arab bourgeoisie by telling them tall tales about Amerikan workers about to flip over to the Arab side any day, thereby justifying the Arab bourgeoisie's focus on the Jews.
The centrists are also there dampening the struggle for reparations, again counseling that Arabs not offend Amerikan workers too much. When it comes to Western exploiters operating in their countries, the centrists are there with a bleeding heart for Amerikans they call "exploited," in the oil, food transport and military contractor businesses.
The centrists of the imperialist countries combine with Third World leaders to present a social-imperialist future, one complete with aspiring social-imperialist leaders and aspiring social- imperialist compradors. Together they are arranging a new neo-colonialist deal for the future, because it is always easier to re-engineer a deal for division of surplus-value than to take down imperialism and all its attendant exploitation.
All of this must be combated without subtlety. 1) Westerners in the Middle East are exploiters. MIM calls on them to read the writing on the wall and leave. 2) A demand for reparations must go forward to bring out the global proletariat to target the real source of its problems. 3) The comrades in the West must do whatever else they can to make sure that the comrades in the Middle East do not find themselves outflanked in representing the super-exploited masses of the plundered countries.
Islam vs. Maoism
In reality, Islam has no record of success relative to Maoism. That's both in terms of kicking out oppressors and speed of social progress. If we purge the rot from our Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement and adhere to its universal principles we will get back on course and earn the proper enmity of the imperialists.
The Iranian theocrats denounce "Great Satan," the united $tates all the time, but these leaders were not able to stop the Iran-Iraq war that bled oppressed and exploited people for the benefit of u.$. imperialism. Of course, Saddam Hussein deserves much of the blame for that war serving U.$. imperialism. On the other hand, the only principle that can unite the Arab and Iranian people against u.$. imperialism is a secular one, and the Iranian side is more to blame in that question. The religious sects unable to build an alliance against u.$. imperialism because of their supposed religious divisions (but in reality their subordinated class positions) only prove that they are in league with "Great Satan."
MIM is clear that fascism is the dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital. Finance capital is a crucial part of this definition; this means that it is impossible to have fascism without imperialism. The imperialists export fascism to many Third World countries via puppet governments. And imperialist countries can turn to fascism themselves. But it is important to note that there is no third choice for independent fascism in the world: they are either imperialist or imperialist-puppets. Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan had all reached the banking stage of capitalism and had a real basis for thinking they could take over colonies from the British and French.
The vast majority of the world's fascist-ruled countries have been U.$. puppets. None would survive without u.$. backing--whether El Salvador or apartheid South Africa. Today possible exceptions would be Russia and China. They could go fascist and claim to have reached the finance-capital stage of capitalism; although in China we would probably see some debate the point by saying that China is too dependent on the united $tates to be counted as independently social-fascist. Even white-ruled South Africa was a candidate for fascism but fell out.
The notion that Iraq or Osama Bin Laden could go fascist misses that they were both u.$. puppets. Saddam Hussein proved to have no independent imperialist basis. As far as we know about Osama Bin Laden, he also cannot operate banks globally in the manner of imperialist finance-capital. Today Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are both independent. They may have aspired to fascism, but they are in fact not fascists, because they are neither imperialists nor their stooges. Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are simply unscientific competitors on our turf.
Khruschev/Gorbachev appeal to the West
The battle against fascism globally has two scientific components: 1) for the leaders; 2) for the masses.
The communist scientific leaders must know the root causes of economic development, as specifically stemming from the labor theory of value. Labor occurs along with poverty thanks to exploitation. The same can be said of entire countries. There is no positive record of independent fascist economic development.
The uninformed intellectuals of the Soviet bloc in the 1980s reacted badly against social-fascist Brezhnevism and actually believed Gorbachev Liberalism was going to bring economic progress. The root error was a misunderstanding of the political economy of economic development. In the ex-Soviet bloc, China and the whole developing world, we must win the battle for the intellectuals on questions of economic development. They must understand that there is no tool better than Marxism for understanding economic development. Key to that Marxist understanding is labor appropriation and its connection to the distribution of wealth in the world. Genocide and slavery started it and super-profits sustain the great Amerikan economic miracle. It is not the case that "free markets" and "democracy" bring prosperity. It is now 2004, 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the notion that the ex-Soviet people were going to leap into Bloomingdale's by taking up free-market capitalism is achieving the same skeptical embrace that intellectuals gave Brezhnevism.
Among the masses, we must be even more concrete than in the questions of surplus-value, labor appropriation and uneven economic development. Among the masses of the ex-Soviet bloc, China and the whole developing world, we must unleash their enthusiasm for proletarian internationalism by giving detailed demands for reparations their due. This must be done before revolution in order to unleash the full revolutionary potential of the exploited masses who will otherwise fall for Amerikan consumer propaganda.
The fascists excel often by copying Leninism and adding nationalism. There is no reason to let Marxism-Leninism-Maoism take a backseat to fascism or Islamic nationalism or any mystical competitor in the oppressed nations or ex-Soviet bloc. Many of these competitors will crowd into our turf of standing up for the oppressed nations, but none will have Marx's insight into economic injustice. No matter what "spiritual" tradition they are from, they won't be able to recognize economic injustice when they see it--not compared with Marxism.
What is more--no imperialist country fascist is going to back the demand for reparations--and this will give the international communist movement a leg up over fascism. So we MIM communists say it again: we don't want to hear about any Third World comrades letting fascists or Islamic nationalists get the upper hand in nationalist credentials! Our Third World comrades can point to us. The fascist comrades in imperialist countries will make it evident what self-defeating projects Hitler-type fascism and Limonov-style national bolshevism are. They have no real prospects of cooperation.
In this battle for the hearts of the exploited and oppressed, we must not repeat errors that communists have already made. Lenin broke with all the parasitic European social-democracy when he formed the Third International.
When Khruschev came to power, the socialist bloc had unprecedented power. It had only to stay united on the road of Lenin and Stalin to keep moving forward. Yet at that very moment of communism's greatest political power, Khruschev chose to orient himself toward the Western labor aristocracies by abandoning the Third World armed struggles. Information about this continues to seep out into the public. Khruschev's splittest activities very much pleased much of the Liberal rot accumulating in Western "communist" parties. According to Gromyko--no blazing Stalin supporter himself--Khruschev gave birth to "Eurocommunism"--the watered down "communism" which a good chunk of the labor aristocracy adhered to in Western Europe.(6)
From Khruschev to Gorbachev and the very end of the Soviet Union, each step rightward came with the justification by the Soviet Politburo that it would make the European "communist" parties more popular. Indeed, Gorbachev openly courted U.$. public opinion so successfully that 74% of the U.S. public gave him the highest possible rating during the coup(7) that marked the turning point ending Gorbachev's rule in 1991. (When Reagan retired his approval rating was said to be 68%. It hit a high point of 73% after an assassination attempt and during the latter stages of his senility. (7)) The truth is that abandoning Stalin and socialism was in fact popular with the Western "communist" parties and u.$. public opinion.
It's important not to repeat Khruschev's history. Had Khruschev written off the entire Western "working" class, the worst that could have happened is that the West would have threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear annihilation--and had more backing from the Western "workers" than usual. Yet, the Soviet Union could have handed back an amazing punishment as well, a punishment that even our labor aristocracy would understand. Instead of catering to Yugoslavia and Western European public opinion, Khruschev should have taken advantage of his military position to neutralize those while turning up the heat by staying on Stalin's road for the Third World. Chasing after Western labor aristocracy popularity, Khruschev broke with Mao, perhaps the single greatest crime against the international communist movement from within.
Khruschev became known for his speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The speech attacked Stalin and consolidated Mao's proletarian internationalist duty to break away from the Soviet Union. Today, Gorbachev and Yeltsin are called "children of the 20th Congress;"(8) though there continue to be those calling themselves "communist" too dense, pig-headed or accustomed to bribery to admit it or understand its implications.
When Gorbachev made his final moves to destroy the Soviet Union, he had the assistance of a right-hand man accused of Trotskyism during the Stalin era--Yegor Ligachev.(9) Only after it was too late did Ligachev admit he was wrong in supporting Gorbachev. Trotsky, Khruschev and Gorbachev are connected together in history for their condemnation of Stalin and contributions to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
It is only fitting that Ligachev was there for the demise, because it was grandpa of labor aristocracy-based revisionism Trotsky who had excoriated Stalin for not making the Soviet Union more appealing to the Western workers. From the days of Trotsky's delaying negotiations with Germany on peace in World War I (despite Lenin's insistence contrary) till his death, Trotsky always had an unrealistic sense of how much Western European workers could help the Soviet Revolution. Here is what he said about the treaty with the Germans: "It was necessary to give the European workers time to absorb properly the very fact of the Soviet revolution, including its policy of peace."(10) That's his explanation for why he delayed making peace with the Germans despite orders from Lenin. Trotsky wanted to wait for the Western workers as usual. That's exactly the same substance of what Khruschev and Gorbachev were to say later.
The CIA itself has noted that in the end the Soviet leaders did manage to move public opinion in the West: "Polls in Europe showed that Gorbachev's popularity exceeded that of any Western leader of the 20th century. Time chose him Man of the Decade, and he received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1990--a token of the West's gratitude for his helping to end the Cold War. Critical assessments in the media and the scholarly journals were rare."(11) Bush Sr. had to answer the following question: "Q. Mr. President, despite your recent success at the NATO summit, Mr. Gorbachev seems to enjoy far greater popularity in Western Europe than you do. Why do you think that is, and what can you do about it?"
Bush answered, "You know something? I don't really care about that. I'm not interested in that. I am delighted that he enjoys popularity in Europe."(12) Hence, it cannot be questioned that the USSR had effective tactics to change Western public opinion, but their tactics added up to a strategy of alliance with the labor aristocracy of the imperialist countries, so the entire goal of the struggle was lost. It's a case where political line should have said that the strategy is wrong and therefore the tactics effective but still not desirable for the international proletariat. The tactics worked; the strategy was left somewhat shrouded to those of cloudy politics, but the line was impermissible. That is evident to anyone who had hoped the Soviet Union would go down the socialist road. Khruschev and Gorbachev did succeed in producing a big change in Western exploiter opinion and the result was state-capitalism followed by open free market capitalism.
Now what we have is this: Gorbachev won higher approval ratings from the Amerikan public than Reagan did and Osama Bin Laden has higher ratings in the Third World than any Soviet leader including Khruschev and after. What good did that do? This whole result proves that socialism does not win with pragmatism. It's a profound lesson, that yes, tactically it is possible to maneuver a formerly socialist state into popularity with the Western labor aristocracy; however, the game is not worth the candle.
Notes:
1. http://www.iht.com/articles/98482.html
"GROMYKO: Basically thanks to him the so-called 'Eurocommunism' was born."
7. http://www.worldandischool.com/public/1991/november/school-resource19556.asp ;
Gorbachev's approval ratings were higher than Reagan's and Bush's, even moreso then than
in retrospect.
8. http://www.time.com/time/special/moy/1987.html ;
9. Yegor Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin: The Memoirs of Yegor
Ligachev (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), p. 10.
10. Trotsky, My Life
11. CIA, 1999, http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/19335/art-1.html
12. Bush presidential library, http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1989/89070601.html
2. http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030618-060033-9862r
3.
4. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2870
Hitchens is all over the Internet with the phrase "theocratic fascism," e.g., http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020415&s=hitchens
5. http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/fascism/shock.html
6.
"USTINOV: It's not a secret that the westerners never loved us. But Khrushchev gave them such arguments, such material, that we have been discredited for many years.
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=616
A discussion of Reagan's ratings and how they became dramatically better with the labor aristocracy by bombing
Libya is here: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll_reagan010806.html
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_14/b3827024_mz005.htm ;
There are 26 Google entries mentioning Gorbachev and his like
as "children of the 20th Congress" in which Khruschev denounced Stalin.