This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
From owner-marxism Sun Sep 10 21:38:53 1995

Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 17:38:53 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement
Subject: Unproductive labor: imperialist countries

Greetings from the Maoist Internationalist Movement.

We agree that there is a place for academic dispute of Marxism. We are happy to join this group.

What we would like to raise is the academic lag in handling the changing conditions of the working class in the imperialist countries this century.

Specifically, working for the COMINTERN, R. Palme Dutt looked at the 1930 U.S. Census and saw 40 percent industrial, transport and mining workers. He also saw a substantial portion of farmers, though it was obviously in decline.

By 1980 as J. Sakai has pointed out in the widely disrespected underground literature, what Dutt would have seen in the Census was 13% industrial, mining and transport workers. Meanwhile the non-productive portion of that (industry, mining and transport) increased to one third, and tripled in so doing.

Of course, there is little of the farming sector left. Hence, there is no stretch of the imagination that can show a majority of productive workers within the borders of the United States.

Some at Monthly Review have noticed this and simply changed the definition of productive labor to include more white collar work. We at MIM stuck with the more classic definitions and point to the pudding. The parasitic working classes of the imperialist countries show no tendencies to socialism and in fact organize themselves against immigrants and workers abroad. Meanwhile, communist parties take up the demands of a class allied with imperialism and end up throwing themselves on the rocks, dissolving and vacillating terribly like the classes they represent.
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From owner-marxism Sun Sep 10 23:58:56 1995

Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 19:58:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Jaszewski
Subject: Re: Shining Path and Ridgway
On Sun, 10 Sep 1995, Maoist Internationalist Movement wrote:

> How could the Peruvian Communist Party become > such a threat to the state, if it did not have > support from the people, support that more than > makes up for their lack of rich high-tech backers like > U.S. imperialism?

I don't think too many people here believe EVERYTHING they hear or read about the Senderistas, but it's a FACT that they HAVE terrorized people and killed other, competing leftists -- people just like us here.

No one's absolving the Peruvian military or that stooge Fujimori of THEIR crimes...

Senderistas have come to Canada looking for support for their cause, but most people on the Left -- including other latin american groups -- tend to give them a wide berth, and they do come across as strident and dogmatic...

They have a VERY bad reputation.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-= ++++++++++++++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++++++++++ +++++++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig +++++ ++++ more info: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Those who would give up essential Liberty, Benjamin Franklin to purchase a little temporary Safety, Pennsylvania Assembly deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Nov. 11, 1755 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Jim Jaszewski http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ab975/Profile.html -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-= --- from list marxism@lists.village.virginia.edu ---

From owner-marxism Sun Sep 10 21:52:57 1995

Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 17:52:57 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement Subject: Shining Path and Ridgway

We have heard this story that the communists round up villagers by force and that is the only way they ever gain any support. We have heard this applied to entire countries such as China, where the revolutionaries supposedly did this all the way to state power.

While such a strategy might work in a perfectly empty vacuum, the state in each case has always started with more weapons, more people and vastly superior technology. How is it possible to defeat superior enemy forces without support from the people? How could the Vietnamese have held out if they hadn't had incredible support from the people against U.S. imperialism?

How could the Peruvian Communist Party become such a threat to the state, if it did not have support from the people, support that more than makes up for their lack of rich high-tech backers like U.S. imperialism?

Maoist Internationalist Movement
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From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 17:14:52 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:14:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Maoist Internationalist Movement Subject: Re: Maoism and the people

On Sun, 10 Sep 1995 glevy@acnet.pratt.edu wrote: > Jim Jaszewski wrote: > > > I'd sure like to know what was so `communist' about Pol Pot. > > > > I'm sure we all remember who helped the MOST to keep them in power > > (and how many MORE died as a result of it) -- Uncle Sam... > > Did the US help the most to keep Pol Pot in power? I'm not so sure about > that. The Khymer Rouge received, especially in the early period, large > amounts of material assistance, including military aid, from China.
MIM replies: What you are talking about is aid from state capitalist China. We too mourned the loss of laboring class life during the Vietnam-China war.

> Furthermore, the Khymer Rouge owed a large amount of its ideological > inspiration to Maoism. Of course, one could argue that Maoists under > Pol Pot distorted Mao's position (during the Cultural Revolution) regarding > the advantages of re-educating those citizens infected by bourgeois > culture and pro-imperialist thinking. For background on this topic, I > recommend viewing "The Killing Fields." >

MIM replies:

Hollywood is not a very good way to settle detailed questions. However, if you want to blame us for "inspiring" killing fields, we will agree to that as long as you credit us for "inspiring" all the anti-colonial struggles that came after Mao led China to "stand up." We would do this to encourage people to look at the objective implications of a struggle.

Mao died in 1976. His supporters and the leaders of the Cultural Revolution were overthrown in a coup that same year. Pol Pot then explicitly denounced the Cultural Revolution as "counterrevolutionary."

Instead of Hollywood, the New Republic or CIA covering its tracks, we recommend that people read what the protagonists actually said and also keep the chronology in mind.

We had nothing against Khmer Rouge's knocking out the U.S. puppet regime in 1975. If other "Marxists" had done it, we would have something to talk about. However, as usual, it was the revolutionaries in the legacy of Stalin and Mao who did the fighting. Soon after, Pol Pot changed his line on the Cultural Revolution and gained support from the number 2 target of the Cultural Revolution who came back to power in China--Deng Xiaoping. As it stands, the historical amnesia on these questions leads to a whitewash of the U.S. imperialist war on the peoples of Indochina.

mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement (how 'bout Pat as my name)

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From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 00:08:04 1995 From: "John R. Ernst" Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 20:08:04 -0400 Subject: MIM I'm not sure this list is ready for the level of dialog that the those from the Maoist Internationalist Movement seek. Perhaps, indeed, there is a lag in consciousness. -- John R. Ernst