Letters

Finnish writer addresses "Beijing Spring, 1989"

Dear MIM:

The other day, I was browsing trough your FAQ-board. I found your 
writing on Tiananmen very useful, especially this part:

"One common poster in the demonstrations said that 'Mao's son died 
in Korea.' This referred to the fact that Mao gave his son no 
particular privilege. He died fighting for the communists in North 
Korea when China aided Korea in fighting the Western imperialist 
invasion.

"Something of a Mao revival occurred with demonstrators carrying 
posters of Mao, especially outside Beijing. This is not to say 
that all the demonstrators sang the communist song 
'Internationale,' which some did."

I have long agreed that the Western version of Tiananmen was 
hypocritical and flawed, first of all since West had long backed 
Deng, secondly, since it was portrayed in the West as totally pro-
West movement, which I doubt: these claims are based on purely 
isolated facts, such as that some intellectuals carried a poster 
which said "Long Live Gorbachev!". Some single poster or mock 
Statue of Liberty is not, in my opinion, enough to back up this 
claim. Surely there were some decadent intellectuals among the 
protesters, but as you said yourself, it was mostly anti-
corruption, anti-hierarchy-movement. This is just another example 
how hypocritical and biased the Western capitalist media can be. 
To say that Tiananmen was a work of a Maoist government is just as 
correct as to say that the occupation of Czechoslovakia was a work 
of a Stalinist government (at this point, I usually ask them, if 
Stalin was in favor of these kind of policies, why didn't he ever 
occupy Yugoslavia: Tito was just as rotten as Dubjeck was. In 
fact, I have first-hand testimonials that he strictly stressed 
that it would not be correct Marxist-Leninist line of action to 
use force against the Yugoslavs). And, as you said, many of those 
who took part on Cultural Revolution, were ready for another 
campaign against government corruption.

In my opinion, Tiananmen had many common characteristics with 
Khruschev's infamous deeds after he came to power: he either 
banished all "Stalinists" or threw them to prisons, concentration 
camps and mental institutes, not to mention his and Brezhnev's 
crimes against the masses of the Soviet Union, who they treated as 
inferior beings (I've read "Restoration of Capitalism in the 
Soviet Union")...

I find that I have many things in common with MIM; allthough I 
don't share ALL your views, I had long uphold your three cardinal 
principles even before I knew about you; namely, that the Cultural 
Revolution was one of the most important advances towards 
Communism; that West has become completely bourgeoisified; and 
that USSR became state-capitalist after the death of Stalin and 
China became that after the death of Mao (allthough it is 
currently so "open" to Western markets that it is no longer even 
state-capitalist, but ordinary capitalist state). I wish you 
success in your important work.

Yours,

--Reader in Finland June, 2000

International Minister replies: No one agrees with all our views. 
I don't even agree with all our views and my own views change from 
year to year. 25 years from now, I'll be more proud of certain 
nuances to my views than others.

However, we in MIM agree not to split except over the cardinal 
questions, three of which you mentioned. The fourth is democratic 
centralism, which is majority rule on the other questions that are 
not cardinal questions. We in the party also share a scientific 
outlook.

MIM agrees with you on the three cardinals, so from our point of 
view, we should be mostly in unity. With regard to Europe, we are 
not sure we agree with your views.

The first crackdown by the Soviet Union in eastern Europe was a 
few months after Stalin died. The Soviets killed some people in 
Berlin. A mere eight years after World War II it was correct not 
to allow any recrudescence of fascism. Stalin did not put troops 
in any country that had not attacked the Soviet Union.

Occupation is an ugly reality, but Soviet occupation was far 
better than allowing the creation of a staging ground for fascism 
and other imperialist machinations. No people in Europe was 
blameless: all countries had some people sign up with Hitler. The 
Soviet Union lost 22 million dead or more to forces that had the 
connivance of much of eastern Europe. To ask the Soviet Union to 
give up that many dead and not see to its security is too much to 
ask in the name of an abstract respect for national integrity 
which was not respected by the many who signed up with Hitler to 
attack the Soviet Union.

With regard to Yugoslavia, we invite you to submit more detail. It 
is our understanding that Stalin did not stay out of Yugoslavia 
out of the principle of self-determination for nations. He stayed 
out of Yugoslavia because he made a deal with Churchill and 
Roosevelt that said Yugoslavia would be the only 50-50 country, 
half Western influence, half Soviet influence. Also, as a matter 
of fact, the Yugoslav people contributed their own partisans to 
kicking out the Nazis.

It is a good thing that Yugoslavia had that experiment, because 
intellectuals everywhere have always raised the half-way route as 
a possibility. Yugoslavia shows that vague conceptions of "worker 
control," "local control" and market socialism do not work. 
Socialism has to be implemented scientifically or not at all in 
this era of imperialism. As is clear today, market socialism did 
not root out parochialism. "Local control" only encouraged the 
subsequent flames of ethnic warfare. The people never learned the 
scientific kernel of internationalism and what it would mean in an 
economy, because Yugoslavia's leaders never forced the issue 
either in practice or in theory.