[mim3@mim.org for MIM: The below is from
www.2changetheworld.info. It is a response by the
"Revolutionary Communist Party" to some unofficial
supporters of the MIM line. ]
Subject: On method and the proletariat
Posted by: Rolpa on 2002-24-07 22:42
I wanted to put something out there for more than
just people buried in the discussion “the vanguard
and oppressed nations” posted by aftersorrow...
When looking at the arguments advanced by those
defending the RCP’s line, and those advanced by
aftersorrow (as representative of MIM’s line) I
hope that people are noticing the great
differences in method practiced.
To quote Mao on whether or not to go to the
masses:
“We should go to the masses and learn from them,
synthesize their experience into better,
articulated principles and methods, then do
propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to
put these principles and methods into practice so
as to solve their problems and help them achieve
liberation and happiness.” the Red Book pg. 129
“We Communists must be able to integrate ourselves
with the masses in all things. If our Party
members spend their whole lives sitting indoors
and never go out to face the world and brave the
storm, what good will they be to the Chinese
people? None at all, and we do not need such
people to be Party members. We Communists ought to
face the world and brave the storm, the great
world of mass struggle and the mighty storm of
mass struggle.” the Red Book pg. 273
I think Mao is describing an attitude towards the
masses that MIM does not display. Aftersorrow
says:
so lets say that in Amerika the minimum wage is
around $5.00. approx.(actually it was $5.15 in
1998) now multiply that by even 35 hours a week
(assuming it comes to between 3 and 4 with taxes
taken out) and we have what? over one hundred
dollars a week. maybe that isnt riches galore but
it is enough to get by.
I think that statement shows contempt for the
masses and serious misunderstanding of the reality
of life in the US for our people, of all
nationalities. Someone else in this forum already
went into breaking down the spending of that
minimum wage paycheck, so I’ll leave aftersorrow’s
words as they are. I really hope that folks
reading the discussion recognize the huge
differences in method here, though.
Oh, and aftersorrow... I would recommend, when you
get a minute, that you take a look at the Red
Book. It’s actually filled with good stuff like
that above, and immense love and respect for the
people. On Practice should also be studied. And
you guys should actually go to the masses...as Mao
quoted Stalin, “theory becomes purposeless if it
is not connected with revolutionary practice
***************************************************
mim3@mim.org replies March 14 2004:
The key word in the above is masses.
Mao said to go out among the masses, not the exploiters. He wanted
"mass line," not "exploiter line."
If anyone does read Mao's Little Red Book as suggested
by Rolpa I will point out one thing, which is that
Amerikkkans, Kanadians and other oppressor nation people
have more in common with the Japanese troops Mao references in the
Quotations of Chairman Mao, economically speaking, than the Chinese peasants.
The Japanese troops came from an imperialist country.
Mao's people constituted an oppressed and semi-feudal nation. The best thing
for those Japanese to do was go home. Next would be to make
revolution in their own countries. It was not considered a good
idea for the Japanese to come to China to form an integrated struggle for
socialism. That would have been seen as downplaying the national
question to a fatal degree by Mao.
As for aftersorrowcomesjoy's statement of doing a little
arithmetic, Das Kapital is full of examples like that.
Apparently Rolpa finds it too "insulting."
Of course, we at MIM should be open to criticism.
If the "RCP=U$A" can find a quote where Mao said
we can go among the exploiters because they count
as "masses," listen to them say they are not
exploiters, bring back their pearls of wisdom to
the party, synthesize them and that is how we move
forward, then MIM will make self-criticism
afterwards. To our knowledge, Mao did say to go
among the enemy and learn from them, but that was
not the same thing as the "mass line."
Not only that, but if "RCP=U$A" can prove that Mao
meant to blur the line between exploiters and
exploited with his formulation of "mass line,"
then I will propose to the next Congress that we
split the party and I will want Mao's name removed
from the new party name. If MIM did not make such
an offer there would be no way to check on MIM and
ideology can become numbing dogma. We at MIM have
studied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and we've applied
it, so we think we know how these things were
intended and how these concepts work together, but
if we are wrong go ahead and prove it.
The trouble with the Reactionary Centrist Philistines is that
for them basic words in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
like "exploitation" have no meaning. They don't know it when
they see it. The same goes for
what the "RCP=U$A" calls "right opportunism." With their recruiting
basis in the philistine elements in the labor aristocracy, it's possible
for "RCP=U$A" to tell people the MIM line on the labor aristocracy
is "counterrevolutionary" while simultaneously telling people if you have
that line you are still welcome in our party anyway.
That's just an example of how they have made "counterrevolutionary"
a meaningless term.
If you do not know the definition of the words "masses" or "exploiter," you aren't
going to be able to apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and
you will end up making a jumble of it. And quite frankly,
anyone at all who thinks about it for a minute should know that
we North Americans don't have much chance of knowing Marxism
(with German context), Leninism (started in Russia) and Maoism
(based in China) off the top of our heads. One may intend to go among
the "masses," but in fact, because you went with what was there
on the top of your head, you went out among the exploiters, summed
up the exploiters' mood, brought together solutions from the exploiters and
then smuggled that into what you call "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism."
Marx, Lenin and Mao all wrote based in countries where the majority
of people were exploited. Nonetheless, they gave us the definition
of the words "masses" and "exploited" and still the Remarkably
Clueless Party does not use them, even after Lenin told us in advance:
"V. I. Lenin
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1973, p. 120
"The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of
imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production
and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by
exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies."
Lenin already told us that and yet the "RCP=U$A"
just blithely starts from the assumption that the
people they see on the street are the "masses" referred to in
"mass line" and so we can take the mass line as
applied in China and apply it here in the U$A.
Instead, they should be thinking that separating
exploiters from exploited has to be the first job
in a country where we have "the seal of
parasitism on the whole country."
"RCP=U$A" wants to accuse MIM of not getting out
among the masses and I want to combine that point
with a discussion of scientific decisiveness.
Scientific decisiveness is really the flipside of
scientific integrity: they have to go together.
Scientific decisiveness based on dogma is the enemy
of scientific integrity, but scientific
decisiveness on behalf of correct science
is identical with scientific integrity. Dogmatic decisiveness follows
from reading something in some book from another
country in another time and copying. That's one
way to be decisive, but it kills
science. Another way to be decisive is to observe in your
own conditions and make judgements about the likelihood
of certain developments in your own conditions.
From MIM's point of view, there is a yawning gap
between MIM and "RCP=U$A" and also MIM and someone
like Adolfo Olaechea on a point like this. The
modern language for this is the "no-brainer."
For MIM, it was a "no-brainer" that the "RCP=u$A"
program calling for eradication of homosexuality
was the oppressors' ideology. To this day, of
course, we see that the labor aristocracy still
thinks that gays are the cause of the breakdown of
the family. For them, gay marriage is not a no-
brainer at all. Even as they see single mothers with
children everywhere--unlike the Third World--even though
they see everything as it happens in imperialist countries,
including children having sex,
they cannot figure out for themselves that gays are not
the cause of the changes they do not like.
We do not hear them saying single motherhood
should be abolished legally-speaking and day care strengthened.
They just want gay marriage illegal, so there's nothing
consistent there. Hence, with what they see in front of them and the conclusions
they reach, we have every right to write off the Amerikan
labor aristocracy on gays scientifically-speaking. Even from within
their own twisted views, there is nothing going on scientifically
speaking. It's all anti-gay emotion.
Likewise, a lot of places in Amerikkka are having
a hard time with evolution in the curriculum. They
want creationism included in the curriculum. For
MIM that is another no-brainer.
In this context, I want to point out that
aftersorrowcomesjoy thought s/he was in a forum
set up by a party claiming to be "Marxist-
Leninist-Maoist" when s/he went
into www.2changetheworld.info. S/he would not have
any reason to think s/he should have to come to
such an organization treating the participants as
"masses." Of course, Rolpa does not know the
difference between the party and the masses
either, that just being another thing that Rolpa
did not study or care about in M-L-M. So when
aftersorrowcomesjoy made that response and Rolpa
responded as if aftersorrowcomesjoy should have
used the mass line instead of writing that
particular sentence, Rolpa reveals that s/he also
does not distinguish between the masses and the
party.
MIM has "written off" the "RCP=U$A" on scientific
questions. The "RCP=U$A" has noted this in a
tangential way when it attacks MIM practice for
"writing off" the "American (sic.) workers." The
truth is that MIM does write off certain things.
There is a kernel of truth in that and we need to
understand that "writing off" is the key to
setting up a proletarian pole, a vanguard beacon.
The "RCP=U$A" has been directly confronted with
the MIM line for a long time, 20 years. The
details rebutting the "RCP=U$A" precisely are in
print. However, the "RCP=U$A" is simply unable to
respond to the basic point about surplus-value
extraction from the Third World. We've known that
10 years now. We've also known a lot of other
things that they just don't deal with. Instead of
Avakian and Lotta getting into the details
themselves to rebut MIM, they let their followers handle this,
and that is a way to keep control in the organization,
but it's not a way of moving forward scientifically.
When everybody let's the blind lead the blind, it
sure does look democratic and uncoercive. The leaders
aren't saying, "here's the answer point by point" and the
followers can hardly think that their initiative has been
squashed, because here is Avakian and Lotta letting you go
your merry way with no rebuttal to MIM. Yet, in fact, Avakian and Lotta have
squashed initiative without necessarily saying so.
They have adopted an approach which crushes
initiative. Avakian and Lotta should be saying, "we don't have answers to
that, so you should use what you have at hand,
even if that is MIM line." Materialism like that does not
occur to them and training in materialism is the only way to stay
on the right road and undertake initiative in a successful proletarian way.
Part of the problem
is that this does not appear to be an urgent issue
in the "RCP=U$A," because the people in that party
do not have any scientific discernment. They are not
able to recognize when a whole range of fundamental questions
are unanswered, much less be able to rise above sectarian
pettiness to know when their line has been thoroughly
defeated. Based on the facts about what "RCP=U$A" stands confronted with and
what it has no answers for, we are right to make judgements about the
people individually in the "RCP=U$A." U.$. imperialism is the headquarters
for imperialism and before anything else--like discerning who exactly in Turkey
is a closet Hoxhaite something they do put energy into over there at "RCP=U$A"--
the Maoists of North America ought to know how much surplus-value
the imperialists suck out of the Third World
and how that impacts the u.$. class structure.
The reasons for that lack of urgency on the
central question of imperialism
and its class structure are a combination: 1) some
"RCP=U$A" may be police infiltrators anyway 2)
some know the truth but want to represent the
labor aristocracy 3) some do not have the
subjective proletarian umph to go into this; even
though "RCP=U$A" claims to be the vanguard party for the
"United States." (The point being if that's what
they think, then who's job would figuring out
the total of super-exploitation be if not
theirs?)
So the question becomes this: what combination of
things does it take for someone to write off
someone else scientifically. If we do not write
off people, we could end up spending all our time
talking to creationists and in the process of
uniting with creationists, we may in fact dim our
beacon more than brighten it. If we mistook the
exploiter majority for masses, we would be tempted
to do just that.
In this sort of calculation, MIM Notes and the
website play a key role. A key point is that our
material is available. In this sense no one is
written off and Marx told us that a fraction of
the bourgeoisie is going to go for the socialist
revolution. We need to have the confidence that we
have done our job in creating public opinion and
focus on that instead of worrying about who we
have "written off." We must have revolutionary
decisiveness in writing off bad science.
It's painful, because especially in a bourgeois
democracy, what MIM says goes completely against
the grain. In bourgeois democracy we are told
everyone has one vote. That is the ultimate
political equality. Then we are told by much of
academia and churches that there really is no
science of the social and political world. All
kinds of relativists lurk saying that "my opinion
is as good as anyone else's, because it's all
subjective anyway." That's not Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism.
Now some in the international communist movement
would probably blame MIM for our approach to
"RCP=U$A" especially since they haven't seen the
history up front. From their own context, MIM
should be more like the unwanted suitor, the one
who pushes it to the point of harassment. He's
supposed to show up with flowers outside the
doorstep even after she told him to piss off.
Likewise, if MIM does know what "masses,"
"exploitation" and "right-opportunism" are, then
some people think we should show up in all the
"Revolution Books" outlets every day, ( flowers
optional), until they relent. One thing we want
to say right here is that we do not advocate
MIM's approach to the "RCP=U$A" for the Third
World. It's something we say over and over again,
but MIM Thought has some application in the Third
World because the root is the universal truth of
Maoism, but MIM Thought on the whole is designed
for imperialist countries, and specifically those
imperialist countries with exploiter majorities
using languages that MIM can speak!
We don't want to say that the exploiters' are
"entitled" to their own parties, but the fact is
that they are going to exist and there's nothing
MIM can do to break completely the alliance of the
labor aristocracy and imperialists until MIM
seizes state power. Hence, if there were no
"RCP=U$A" there would simply be another party
doing the same thing in its place. In contrast, in
the Third World, there is more of a question
whether a whole party should exist claiming Mao to
represent the exploiters--maybe, maybe not. As
Luis Arce Borja has shown, even in Peru, they
don't necessarily have tons of exploiter people to
pose as dedicated "comrades," but police do plot
to take over whole parties. Other parties' leaders
have received bribes from the Peruvian regime. So
even in Peru, it's not a simple matter to say that
there is no material basis for a party with an
exploiter line. It's not just always a mistake
that people should sort out through a process of
unity-criticism-unity. Unlike the "RCP=U$A," we at
MIM do not believe it is possible to start from a
position of unity with police.
If the "RCP=u$A" were composed of exploited
people, we might be wrong to "write them off" and
it would be a much more serious issue why MIM and
the "RCP=U$A" are not united. Sometimes divisions
exist for bad reasons and sometimes for good. It
is our analysis that the "RCP=U$A" more or less
fills the same role as Kautsky in World War I.
There's a class reality behind that which we
cannot talk away. We have to have successful armed
struggle to remove the underlying class basis for
our difference from Herr Kautsky/Avakian. If there
is no labor aristocracy anymore to represent and
people have forgotten what it is, there will be no
Avakian to represent the labor aristocracy.
Another relevant point is that MIM does pay
written attention to the "RCP=U$A," because we
have identified it as playing centrist games. We
train people that if you can see through "RCP=U$A"
revisionism, you can see through any other.
Precisely because "RCP=U$A" throws around rhetoric
with words that seem the same as our own, if
someone can understand the difference between MIM
and "RCP=U$A," the rest of Trotskyism and social-
democracy will be easy.
As for what Rolpa says about not getting approval
for the MIM line among the "masses," this is
another point that justifies our "writing off"
Rolpa and "RCP=U$A." One has to be excruciatingly
painfully shy to not know that the Amerikan
population in no way thinks that it is objectively
revolutionary like the "RCP=U$A" does. So whatever
it was Rolpa was smoking when s/he made that
post, we hope it's legal so we can sell some. At
the same time, whatever it was s/he was smoking,
we have to make sure no one in the MIM is allowed
any!
The population in the united $tates partly wants
an answer for why the rest of the world is having
liberation struggles and the united $tates is
putting them down or to put it crudely in the
population's language, "why is the rest of the
world so socialist?" and in the current terrorism
furor "why do they hate us?" MIM has neutralized
countless petty-bourgeoisie by showing them
Amerikans are less revolutionary because they are
bought off. We can talk about the price of bananas
and how coffee gets made and we find that the
middle-classes immediately perceive it and
understand the difference. MIM's explanation also
answers why the government is intervening
everywhere instead of "minding its own business"
as much of the public would tend to suppose. Who else
but MIM is explaining to the petty-bourgeoisie
that the imperialists intervene to secure their
profits and to continue bribery to secure their
political basis. The petty-bourgeoisie can chew
on that and decide if the imperialist method is really
the best one for peace, whether that is really
going to work with "terrorism" and all.
Yet, standing in the way
of MIM work is the "RCP=U$A," which comes forward with
some crazy thing about how the majority is objectively
revolutionary. Instead of being serious and thinking,
"I am among petty-bourgeoisie here, better be careful
not to create a crazy impression of the proletariat,"
the "RCP=U$A" tells them the u$a is on the cusp of
revolution, and by the way, here is a poster with a picture
of our leader, "go for it." (Check out that cap!)
While MIM gives answers that neutralize the petty-bourgeoisie,
and give them something to chew on for the long run--
like whether that is the reason for Amerikkka's wars
and reaction, being bought-off--
the "RCP=U$A" answer leaves even advanced people wondering why so-called
false consciousness is worse here. The "RCP=U$A" answer leaves
people feeling isolated but without answers. MIM's answer
tells the budding advanced forces, yes, you are isolated, but not
on a global scale.
MIM's answers make sense and that is why MIM is better
read in all the major sectors of the Amerikan
population than the "RCP=U$A." The "RCP=U$A" started
with the 1960s and MIM started in the dark days of the 1980s,
so of course "RCP=U$A" started with numerical advantages,
and a willingness to flatter the petty-bourgeoisie,
but already fewer people read "RCP=U$A" than MIM. It may sometimes
appear that way, but in times of war, even the petty-bourgeoisie
does not necessarily want to be flattered. They want answers
for how someone could still be a communist today and "why do they hate us?"
The MIM could be crushed completely later today, but we would have
already proved that smaller parties can get more done
than larger parties. Specifically we have already
proven that a party with our line can have the
numerical degree of influence that Lenin expected.
Many "RCP=U$A" comrades are so opportunist that they
imagine telling the petty-bourgeoisie even indirectly
that "yes, you are petty-bourgeoisie" would offend them
and insult them as Rolpa says. Needless to say, that is
an obstacle (and excuse for shyness) to giving the
petty-bourgeoisie something to chew on. Whether fascists
or cops or ultra-reactionaries say otherwise, we must
still go in the face of the majority and tell them
that the majority supported the Iraq War because it is bought
off and that won't change without body bags coming back.
Then when it occurs as MIM says, the petty-bourgeoisie
can decide whether their imperialist partners really
have a road going forward or not. If like "RCP=U$A" we
are afraid to insult the U$A, then current enemies of
the international proletariat have no way to
compare something and back down at least into neutrality.
To back down from enemy into neutrality or to flip into
friendly territory, someone has to know that s/he is acting
as enemy. Even in the camp opposing the Iraq War, we will find
those that support the Afghanistan war or support candidates
who have been in charge of a number of covert wars around the
globe.
The "RCP=U$A" is not allowed to give MIM's answers
in practice of course, and hence anyone who does
get out in public in the "RCP=U$A" circles does
not know what MIM is talking about and how we know
how it is received in public. All that is by way
of saying, the "RCP=U$A" is not going to get any
support from the population for its differences
with MIM. The "RCP=U$A" has found that when MIM
writes off fascists or police informers, "RCP=U$A"
can get support from those to attack MIM.
"RCP=U$A" unites with exploiters and anti-
communists on a regular basis, but one thing it
will never get is for these exploiters and anti-
communists to say they are objectively
revolutionary. So much for their attempt to use
the "mass line" against MIM.
Those communists who do pop up, especially those
youth wondering why communism seems so reasonable
to them but not to Amerika, want answers, and the
"RCP=U$A" cannot give them any, just more
confusion. MIM is there fortunately, telling them
to hold on to their communist principles, because
the majority is just bought-off and in an idealist
stupor to boot. It's not that communist youth made
some scientific error or that these philistines
have studied harder or know something
from real life from being older. We say, "yes,
you are in the minority and probably will be
for a strategic length of time if
you stay communist, but you do have the truth.
The question is whether you are willing to fly
in the face of the bribery making Amerikans the
enemy of the world." But to do that, we do have
to show the youth scientifically, that they are not
isolated on a world scale, and yes that means
talking about polls and proportions of societies.
That's where the "RCP=U$A" philistines always interfere,
because they hate it when we expose the mere truth
about white people in Amerikkka.
So it's quite an irony to raise the "mass line" against
MIM when it is the "RCP=U$A" putting forward the
completely wrong but also indigestible abstraction that
Amerikans are "objectively revolutionary." They aren't
yet, but we can tell them what conditions will make them
so, under what circumstances imperialist wars will end.
We can point to I$rael and ask if they really think the
whole world can afford to go down that road on this terrorism
question and do they really think the imperialists have an
answer if they have not had an answer since the creation of
I$rael.
We say to the
newly born forces, "take a close look at it.
There's a reason why Amerika and England had the
highest percentages of their populations backing
the war." Meanwhile, the "RCP=U$A" is there saying
philistine things about how all polls and
statistics are wrong so ignore MIM on the Iraq
war, surplus-value extraction etc. and yes,
the Amerikans are objectively
revolutionary they say. In resisting MIM on this point, it
is the purpose of the "RCP=U$A" to demoralize
those who want to set up a proletarian pole in
society. It is the point of "RCP=U$A" to make
youth think they must be "crazy" to set up a
communist pole, and not just people who observe
reality as it is with people who think like them
quite common in the world as a whole.
One criticism we will not return to the "RCP=U$A."
Rolpa ends by quoting about theory that becomes
"purposeless." The "RCP=U$A" theory is not
purposeless. It serves the labor aristocracy.
Now the last thing I want to do is summarize and
point something out about our philistines in the
"RCP=U$A." This particular criticism from the
"RCP=U$A" came out in 2002 and although the
"RCP=U$A" referenced other MIM documents from 2001
in other parts of the discussion, Rolpa did not
bother responding to our document on
the masses from 2001. I think this gives a
pretty clear indication of how little they study
and how much of this is just shooting off rhetoric
to make themselves feel good. It's a lot of
excuses why they don't have to read Lenin to know
the definition of "masses" or Marx on
"exploitation." They want a lot of excuses for why
they don't have to study the profits of
imperialism like MIM says and where they come from
and go. They think they don't have to know
what percentage of the population supports
the war in Iraq or the insurgents fighting the
u.$. troops. Their whole attack on MIM is one
big excuse for philistinism. This whole discussion of "mass line" is in
fact a hallmark of "RCP=U$A" criticism of MIM
lately and it probably also reflects some
misguided thoughts among the international
comrades as well, but despite using this sort of
criticism repeatedly, we will never see the
"RCP=U$A" go over this point thoroughly. They're
actually afraid that people might learn what
"masses," "exploitation" and "right opportunism"
really are.