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.