MIM Notes #226    January 15, 2001

Solidarity messages from signatories of the "Call ... Regarding 
the Birthday of W.E.B. Du Bois"

Ghetto Liberation Political Party signs Du Bois statement

Dear Comrades,

The Ghetto Liberation Political Party (GLPP )will sign the 
declaration ["A Call to the International Communist Movement 
Regarding the Birthday of W.E.B. Du Bois"], as it represents a 
positive development against revisionism and the intercommunal 
oppressor nation left's opportunism and political parasitism. The 
GLPP, has, since its constitution, fought hard and successfully 
against the petit-bourgeois distortion of proletarian science, 
particularly the white nationalist politics of the imperialist 
nations, which passes its self off as "Revolutionary Marxism", 
"MLM" and even "Maoism." The GLPP also applauds the consistent 
stance of MIM comrades in struggling for correct understanding of 
the economic role of super-profits and its effects upon the class 
structure of imperialism.

--Ghetto Liberation Political Party

December 12, 2000

Studies for the Liberation of Aztlán and Latin America signs Du 
Bois statement

Dear MIM:

Du Bois is a highly recognized spokesperson for the Black Nation 
and was a perceptive critic of the society around him. He put 
economic analysis in the first position and did not begin with 
'race'. He discovered that socialism for the white man at the time 
did not include socialism for Black people and he did not hesitate 
to point this out. Du Bois understood that the class forces in the 
settler nation tend to compromise rather than revolutionary 
antagonism.

The consciousness Aztlán can benefit greatly from the critical 
materialist example of analysis displayed in Du Bois.  That Du 
Bois has been recognized internationally by those in the camp of 
the proletariat and our own commitment to forming revolutionary 
alliances and not betraying the oppressed with reactionary 
alliances is reason to associate SLALA with the legacy of Du Bois 
and the correct line of the Maoist Internationalist Movement.

-- Studies for the Liberation of Aztlán and Latin America

December 12, 2000.

Communist anarchist from Houston signs Du Bois statement

Dear MIM:

With very deep reservations I am willing to be a signatory to your 
declaration.  I understand that your understanding of the world is 
reasonably accurate if somewhat obsolete.  For now, I am not 
certain that I can do any better than you despite my advanced 
knowledge and perception, which, of course, is certain to have 
defects that future thinkers will discover and correct just as I 
have discovered (not necessarily without guidance from others) 
some of the defects of Marxism.

My reservations are due to (i) your persistence in imagining that 
Marxism is scientific, despite the absence of the all-important 
fallibilist principles without which no science is valid (I am 
willing to discuss this question with anyone who is interested), 
(ii) the simple fact that you yourselves belong to an 
organization, which guarantees the perpetuation of tyranny 
especially if you are successful (see comment after (i)), (iii) 
your failure to embrace more accurate economic models than those 
which you allude to and which are virtually obsolete. 

--Thomas Wayburn, Ph.D.

December, 2000

mim3@mim.org replies: We just posted a message on this on our web 
page FAQ a day before we received this message about "fallibilist 
principles." We certainly believe that the science produced by the 
Marxist method is fallibilist or falsifiable. If facts do not 
accord with our theories, we try to replace our theoretical theses 
with better ones. However, we must also be frank and point out 
that Marx, Lenin and Mao taught more people science than the 
entire bourgeoisie. There are many aspects of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism which are a matter of learning the scientific method itself 
as apart from religion or idealism and these parts of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism deserve exaltation.

We are fully admitting "(ii)," because a society without tyranny 
is not on the horizon in the next generation. A substantial part 
of the world including an active bourgeoisie believes it has the 
"right" to deprive others of food, shelter, clothing, medicine and 
the best environment humynly possible. These sick people have to 
be repressed by force for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, we 
believe like Marx did, that the U.$. Civil War was a great class 
struggle that drove history forward, closer to the day that people 
are raised without hankering for slaves or wage-slaves.

We would like to encourage more communist anarchists to sign the 
Du Bois declaration. We need to stand and be counted as a large 
portion of the world re-evaluates the history of the USSR and 
China.

RAIL-France signs Du Bois statement

Dear MIM:

Imperialist internal contradiction has created a constitutional 
crisis in Amerika. This crisis happily is occurring simultaneously 
with the beginning of an economic recession. Consequently the 
imperialist Amerikan leadership, despite its internal divisions, 
will in all likelihood wage yet another imperialist war to drive 
the price of oil down, distract settlers, and justify amerikan 
tyranny with bloodshed sometime during the next year.

MIM's materialist analysis and answer of this question, that the 
white nation(s) generally, and the labor aristocracy in 
particular, have been bribed and bought off is correct.

Du Bois's summary of neocolonial exploitation appears 
scientifically valid. Maoist comrades, whether in self imposed 
exile, internal colonies, the amerikan gulag slave plantations, or 
passing as bourgeois should take time to remember the importance 
of unity-- the key to our ability to turn the coming 
interimperialist and inter-elite crisis against the parasitical 
imperialists and their comprador suckups.

Critical consideration of DuBois comments here can inspire self 
criticism. Racial hatred is universal, but white settlers are the 
only group which has systematically profited from racial division. 
This explains while love of one's race is always good, white 
persyns must struggle to accept other races. Loving one's own race 
is not equivalent to hating other races.

White nationalist leaders must recognize this truth before any 
real work can be done transforming white radicalism into 
revolutionary rather than reaction.

--RAIL France December, 2000 

Supporter of Lenin's "labor aristocracy thesis" signs Du Bois 
statement

Dear MIM:

I would be most interested to affix my signature regarding him 
[W.E.B. Du Bois] and MIM's adoption of his cause.

I would characterize myself as a Marxist - Leninist. My connection 
to Du Bois is his steadfast confirmation, and expansion, of the 
labor aristocracy thesis. Marx was clear that the circulation 
sphere, while necessary for realizing the completion of the 
circuit of capital, produced no values itself---thus existing 
parasitically off of values created in the production sphere 
(Capital volume two, International 1967, p. 149). This lays a 
scientific basis for Lenin's arguments laid out in Imperialism, 
the highest stage of capitalism. As I understand the situation, 
the increased expansion of the circulation sphere (located 
primarily in the First World), due to modern technology and the 
corresponding ascension of capital's global reach, increases 
capital's need to extract more and more surplus from the 
production sphere (increasingly located in the increasingly 
industrialized Third World), thus acerbating the First World's 
relative and absolute exploitation of the Third World.

--Barry Stoller

December 26, 2000