[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.