MIM policy on RCP=U$A and its drones on the Internet by Web Minister May 13, 2004 The RCP=U$A drones are running a website for discussion called "Another World Is Possible," (AWIP) set up directly to counter MIM criticisms. I want to make clear our policy: 1) MIM rebuts all RCP=u$a criticisms here on this web page. That is part of using our independent institutions and central task. 2) We are urging all supporters to back out of AWIP in the next 48 hours and not to use any ad hominem attacks in the last 48 hours. (We are happy to print some ad hominem contempt for RCP=U$A and the exploiters' line generally on this page instead.) The RCP=U$A deserves all contempt, but we just want to be distinguished from them for 48 hours. 3) In 48 hours we want to be able to say that no MIM supporters or RAILers are in any RCP fan forum and will not be until RCPers make extensive self- criticism on homophobia, super-exploitation and Marx's labor theory of value. The door is open to send your articles to mim3@mim.org to post here, but do not claim to be a MIM supporter if you are in those forums with the RCP=u$a. Of course we do not expect cooperation from people who do not appreciate MIM discipline--Sakaists, people just interested in the line. RCP=U$A tactics Part of this is understanding RCP=U$A tactics. For decades, RCP=U$A has assigned comrades to say things to draw attention to itself, even if it means taking up the Reagan line. In the "Monkey, the Grape and the Cucumber," Kasama says MIM thinks it's a legend in its own mind--but this is coming from someone supporting a party that made a movie about itself to give you an idea how far they would go with this. An example--one RCPer says Reaganite things but launches the attack at the RCP=U$A to draw attention. That's the tactic. MIM wants to be able to say it is NOT involved when RCPers start attacks on themselves to draw attention. We can't do that if our supporters do not know how we look at this. In the future, the RCPers will no doubt repost and quote from MIM's web page to start debate in their own circles. This document is to make clear that it is the RCP=U$A doing that to itself from now on. MIM is NOT interested in starting little tit- for-tats with them when they obviously have such large ideological issues to prioritize. RCP=U$A lies The people in or supporting the RCP=U$A are hopeless given that they've had the choices of MIM or Sakai style anarchism for 20 years now. Debating with them only encourages the few honest philistines among them to think racism, homophobia and lies about Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao are OK. 1. They've lied about their RU history bashing gays. Flyby said, "there were no leaflets against gays handed out by the Revolutionary Union either." http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=politix&num=1083350424&action=display&start=0 2. They've lied about Marx's position on unproductive labor even after being shown Marx quotes directly calling it parasitic. They did not retract. See "eat the world" at: "The fact that a waitress doesn't "create surplus value" in the most narrow scientific sense, hardly makes her a parasite." http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=theory&num=1073960945&action=display&start=15 Unfortunately for RCP=U$A liars, Marx said if they don't produce surplus-value, they are parasites. See the Marx quote at the end here. 3. They lied that Marx and Lenin were not interested in calculating surplus-value. Holy Cow! Did they crack open Das Kapital? They must be in a rush in that "War on Terror" cranking out unpolished police academy graduates saying bullshit like that. Here is liar Kasama again: "As for the discussion of quantified calculations of surplus value: Let me just point out, that no marxist theoretician of the imperialist era has done this (not Lenin, not Mao, not Avakian etc.) for the simple reason that the issue does not reside in the quantitative evaluation of surplus value." Source: http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=events&num=1084148908&action=display&start=15 This same liar claims to have read MIM work where we quoted Lenin on calculating the imperialist surplus-value question! 4. They've said they do not care about discrimination profits or calculations of surplus- value extracted from the Third World. Moderator Andrei_X: "In watching this discussion, I haven't found evidence of exactly how RedStar2000 is a racist." http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=politix&num=1080284384&start=30 That's right after moderator Redstar2000 said the existence of discrimination profits/captive nation profits: "is very questionable in my view." http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=politix&num=1080284384&action=display&start=15 Redstar2000 went on to say he does not care to calculate any surplus-value transfers from the Third World--thereby blowing off the issue at a scientific level in the service of a labor aristocracy ideological agenda. 5. They've even lied about their own program. "MIM has suggested (in many places) that the RCP says that 'white collar' employees in corporations are 'proletarians' -- this is, of course, typically untrue." http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=theory&num=1083261663&start=0 6. Now they are openly rewriting things that MIM supporters said in their forum, especially the headlines. In the process they even introduce incorrect spellings to make MIM supporters look dumb: "I have rewritten the titles of threads that violated the basic approach of this site: civil debate over cardinal questons (sic.) of line," said Kasama. I left the threads themselves in place," said Kasama in the middle of the board's theory section. http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=theory &action=display&num=1084388151 The People's Wars We urge all parties conducting People's Wars to expel the RCP=U$A tourists from their sight. The senior comrade who interviewed comrade Gonzalo in Peru for an official PCP book says the RCP=U$A is a cop circle--Luis Arce Borja. There are far too many people in RCP=U$A circles who do not know the RCP=U$A's own history for that not to be true. We are used to lies about Marx, Lenin and Mao from revisionists, but getting caught in lies about RCP=U$A history is the mark of a recently trained police academy graduate. The fact that supporters there run on and on inaccurately on the above subjects without correction by their own party shows that the RCP=U$A is a nearly dead party anyway with no real influence beyond their philistine and cop supporters. Such a decaying and Liberal atmosphere is perfect for cops to move in and pretend to be anything. We should try to make it harder for them. The very best interpretation possible of the RCP=U$A line is what its own supporters said on their own website, which is that they aim to use the People's Wars to sell them out for double-digit raises just like the French in 1968. The French in 1968 went so far as to carry pictures of Mao, Ho and the Black Panthers only to take a double-digit raise and bag politics in a matter of weeks. The RCP=u$a does not even stir up that much enthusiasm for the People's Wars, but the line of selling them out for some pieces of silver is the same and proudly proclaimed: "Didn't May 1968 erupt like a thunder clap in France, and echo the revolutions of the third world (and the Cultural Revolution in China)?" (Repzent, June 6 2002) Let's be clear that Repzent is right. May 1968 did "echo" the revolutions of the Third World--to use them, just the way "RCP"=U$A does in 2004. While it was OK to believe in such a mistake in 1968 when the results were as yet unclear, anyone holding up Paris in 1968 as an example in 2004 against MIM is proclaiming openly an intention to betray the People's Wars. And this is to talk about the best element of RCP=U$A circles, its merely philistine sectors, the ones who brought us gay-bashing, busing-bashing, Native- bashing and proclamations about how Amerika is better than MIM says. They are social-patriots. It is true that MIM has some obligation to youth to steer them away from such philistinism and this makes our task of steering away from cop circles more complicated. The worse sectors of the RCP circles are cops and conscious liars. They are using the upsurge of youth interested in Stalin and Mao to refurbish their tactics for undermining the proletarian movement. They know their police academy training was not enough and now they use YOU to sharpen their skills. They are practicing on you before shipping off to Peru, Nepal, Turkey, the Philippines etc. That's why we stress that there is no point in debating people who do not share the goals of communists. It's much better to debate ordinary people than people consciously trying to destroy Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. They are only figuring out how to camouflage themselves better. Why help them when all their garbage has been blown out of the water on the MIM web page already? Some youth not hardened by long struggles will have a hard time believing this. But ask yourselves if you have studied the nature of self- criticism as explained by Mao. Did he not say that we must make self-criticism and back down from enemy positions before moving on? Did he not say that we must also acknowledge the sources of correct thought and admit who corrected us? Do RCP=U$A supporters even know what that is about? Not a chance. Ask yourself if you think Marx, Lenin or Mao would have wanted to be associated with people who obviously don't give a sh*t about their work? Who openly decry statistics and calculations? Who can't read simple Marx quotes and take back their falsehoods about Marx? Doesn't that sound like some unmotivated police academy graduates who don't like some parts of their job ? YOUTH! If you like Avakian's line and you think MIM is too hard on Amerikkka etc and you don't care about the works of Marx, Lenin and Mao, then become Avakianists, but do not claim to be Marxist-Leninist-Maoist! M-L-M was not meant to be a populist grab-bag. It is not easy: it's a challenge as big as overthrowing imperialism. If you don't see it that way, just don't call yourself a supporter of M-L-M: you only make it easier for the cops. If there are going to be cops infiltrating, we must make it harder not easier, and that means that youth must realize that it should be DIFFICULT to pretend to be a supporter of M-L-M. Think about it and contribute to the struggle by opting out of rhetoric about M-L-M if you cannot recognize what's going on in M-L-M works yet or don't intend to. ****************************************************** Addendum on the No-debate-RCP=U$A-on-Internet-or- the-streets-policy by Web Minister, posted May 18, 2004 after technical difficulties On the slight chance that even one of our supporters with a sardonic sense of humor might have missed it: I repeat that it is our policy to avoid debating RCP=U$A on the Internet but to leave it open to anyone to send a message to mim3@mim.org for placement on the MIM web page in the crypto-Trotskyist section when it comes to issues concerning RCP=U$A. As of today, we consider that anyone still debating RCP=U$A on Internet to be NOT in our circles. After my last announcement that we at MIM and anyone considered in discipline in our circles are done debating the RCP=U$A on the Internet anywhere, I received a letter from someone claiming to be from RCP=U$A circles who says s/he leans more to our cardinal principles than theirs. The comrade had apparently been distressed and also inspired by some struggles surrounding our controversies with the RCP=u$A. Something I said in our reply is that there is too much difference between MIM's line and RCP=U$A's line to call it a "two-line struggle," this controversy. Two-line struggles are of life and death importance, because they involve establishing the fastest road out of exploitation and oppression, but for MIM, this conflict with the RCP=U$A is more and less than a two-line struggle. It is less than a two-line struggle, because we cannot fundamentally be going through a process of unity-struggle-unity with an organization that sees 200+ million exploited people within U.$. borders instead of 200+ million exploiters. That has to be dealt with by a "break" and not unity-struggle-unity. The conflict between Mao and Wang Ming or among the Indian Maoists or between the protracted People's War outlook and the ultra-left/urban insurrections deviation in the Philippines are fortunately, much lesser conflicts, though they may at times involve more urgent tasks for the People's Wars. We could add the conflict within Maoism about the urban-rural split in Latin America as not really approaching this question in a qualitative sense. The bottom line is that all of those conflicts really were or are potential two-line struggles, because they were about how best to move forward with the exploited and oppressed. They are arguments within the camp of the exploited and oppressed. Two-line struggles in MIM's view of parties out of state power revolve around strategy questions based in the oppressed and exploited. RCP=U$A is basing itself in an enemy class we Maoists call the imperialist country petty-bourgeoisie. RCP=U$A's whole line from top to bottom represents the interests of the labor aristocracy and its whole program would be refuted by a single quotation--Lenin's and Stalin's definition of proletariat as excluding office workers, a definition connected with a whole bunch of other things, not least of all the labor theory of value and Marx's particular theory of surplus-value. Hence, this struggle against RCP=U$A line is more like the break with the social-democrats that Lenin experienced; even though the RCP=U$A calls itself "Maoist." Let's not forget that in Lenin's day, everybody including Lenin called themselves "social-democrat." That changed during World War I. We can only hope that the RCP=U$A will be inspired by the World War I split and resulting clarity and call itself "Avakianist" instead of "Maoist" and likewise clear up their distinctions with Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. Another example is the struggle that RCP=U$A had with Luis Arce Borja. That was not a "two line struggle." That was a case where an organization calling itself the "international center" or "emerging international center" contributed to disabling the international support for the People's War in Peru when decisions in real time had to be made. It was a struggle over cops who had arrested chairpersyn Gonzalo and obviously had other programs afoot. One cannot have a "two-line struggle" with cops before seizing state power. One last point I want to make is that MIM does NOT want to be involved as a cover for various factions in RCP=U$A circles to duke it out before the new RCP=U$A program comes out. Obviously it's a way to have a fight and blame any cuss words on MIM when they all kiss and make up eventually. It is our opinion that their followers have been collected after decades of philistine and cop activity and have no hope of being other than anti-math, anti-line-struggle, pawns of cops or cops themselves. For them it will always be a grab-bag of this or that moving them subjectively, when a single quote from Lenin or their stand on Aztlan should really be enough to reveal otherwise. The reason that RCP=U$A circles are always stuck in various Liberal, Christian and subjectivist concerns is that the Revolutionary Worker and RCP=U$A line do not unleash other than philistines, mostly looking to write the next Dickens novel about this or that patch of "exploited" whites and to live their vision of the perfect alternative lifestyle while doing so. That is entirely predictable--all of it--to those of us engaged in a scientific approach to class and nation. There is nothing these philistines do that is not predictable within a limited range of settler individualistic concerns. Instead of cardinal questions, these people have a constant and endless stream of excuses for why the imperialists put successful pressure on them as petty-bourgeoisie. It's exactly why they claimed to have the Cultural Revolution as a cardinal question at the RCP=U$A, but in reality they threw out gays, because they are not really about science but various petty-bourgeois oddities and excuses for not scaling the heights of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. There is nothing else we can expect from the petty-bourgeoisie. It may vacillate in our direction and cause confusion in our own ranks by doing so, if we do not realize that the petty-bourgeoisie is exerting constant pressure on the Maoist camp, constantly coming up with sugar-coated bullets and supposedly righteous reasons to break over cardinal questions. When we think of this vacillating element of the petty-bourgeoisie gravitating toward the MIM line or mixing themselves up with M-L-M, we have to think of a class of people constantly looking for excuses to break with cardinal principles. That's why MIM only has four--to cut down the subjectivists, Liberals and sub-reformists who think maybe their particular pet-peeve justifies their line instead. The extremely dishonest individual "Kasama" supporting the RCP=U$A recently said, "MIM supporters constantly write 'The RCP said this or that about MIM's position.' This is mistaken. The RCP has never written anything about MIM, period, except for the single, poignant one- sentence observation (in a footnote somewhere) that MIM's view of the working class in the U.S. is counterrevoltionary. And then there were some remarks by an RCP spokesperson, D.V., on 2ctw. That's it." The problem with Kasama is at least 10% that s/he does not read his/her own beloved party's literature. Relevant to Kasama's very accusation against MIM, Revolutionary Worker has officially acknowledged that one of its own party members sent in the following quoting MIM: "I think this question of reversing the lopsidedness of the world needs to be raised to higher political level and given more specific emphasis. I have had this concern since the beginning of the DP process and it was again brought to mind when I read the thread [on the 2changetheworld.info web site] where it accused the RCP of allowing "reparations to the exploited and super-exploited Third World take the backburner because `first priority [goes] to rebuilding and improving the ghettos, barrios and depressed rural areas'." http://www.rwor.org/a/1229/dp-soc-econ-dofp.htm That is an official MIM criticism quoted there in the RW article and this proves my point that MIM is being interjected into RCP=U$A's own debates. It is not MIM trying to "slink back in" like Kasama is now saying in response to our pulling everyone out of debate with RCP=U$A. http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=theory&action=display&num=1084314306 Previous non-party fans of RCP=U$A have also provided "public service announcements" by reposting MIM material in RCP circles/forums. This is all by way of saying that RCP=U$A is "beyond the pale." It is not MIM supporters trying to unleash a "two-line" struggle on the Internet. Our own supporters should not be confused when the RCP=U$A or its circles pose as MIM supporters to open up a question and attempt to refurbish their centrism for the philistines and cops. It may give the appearance that MIM is involved in a struggle with the RCP=U$A when it is not except on this web page in the crypto-Trotskyist section. It is our position that we are not in a process of unity-struggle-unity with the RCP=U$A. Some youth or others new to politics may be passing by this conflict. We hope to steer them away from philistinism. That does not mean we are in a unity-struggle-unity process with the RCP=U$A. In another document, and by way of responsibility concerning the RCP=U$A conflict, I am going to list examples of what two-line struggles really are.