Red Banner Society: It's important to ask a question, what does the MIM do to build socialism in China and take the revisionists from the power?(the same question can't be asked of the members of Red Banner Society because we are in a very small number if compared with MIM, as well as many of us lives in small and retrograde cities, but we actuate.) mim3@mim.org replies: As we state here, MIM does not consider itself to be active outside the imperialist world (except for its internal semi-colonies) and in fact, we are not much active in Japan at all either, though we have a document from Mao for the Japanese as well on our web page. So to answer your question, we are not attempting to organize the Maoists in China. On the other hand, it's no secret that we have many texts available in Chinese on our web page to combat revisionism. We would like the comrades in the Third World to know that MIM exists and to know the basic line of the MIM, but we have said many times in many places that MIM's approaches would not be strategically or tactically valid in the Third World. The people over at the pseudo-Comintern called the "RIM" have on occasion issued documents equating conditions in separate countries. We at MIM have broken with that line. Specifically, I realize you wonder about the necessity of what Ludo Martens does for China. It is our opinion that the existing Maoists in China are far better than anything that Ludo Martens references. What he does can only add to confusion, and this is yet another case where it would be better to trust in the comrades already there in China and not making a show as Ludo Martens does to parade with the Deng Xiaoping-style revisionists. Red Banner Society continues: We marxist-leninists think that ML, communist, stalinist is an enought denomination, we automatically accept the propositions of Enver Hodja, how about you, is the denomination "maoists" really apropriated? As every communist knows, the comrade Mao Tse Tung wrote a very famous book called "Stalin, friend of Chinese people", what shows a friendship between to peoples, a proletarian internationalism, but in the reply of MIM we see constantly the term "russophiles"... The author of this reply already wrote some articles on this question and about the slavs, but, what was the essence? The comrade Lenin shows in his works, through an article of Karl Kautsky, that the center of gravity of communist movement moved to the Eastern Europe, to the slavs, to a region that was the bastion of reaction, but now is the center of gravity of communist movement. Marx also emphasized the fact that Russia could be the leading revolutionary force in the east. Were Marx, Lenin and Stalin "russophiles"? I think that MIM don't want to appear that is full of theoretical contraditions... I also remember your that this was the accusation used by trotskiytes against some members of RBS. mim3@mim.org replies for MIM: Ugh, as Lenin and Stalin both explained many times, "love of your own country" is well and good when it is socialist and needs defense against imperialist attack! To continue with love of Russia after it has had capitalism restored is reactionary sentimentalism! We cannot keep beating on the door of a lover who has turned its back on us. The CPSU is no more what we loved. Red Banner Society continues: It was very good that you reminded me of the question of Chechnya in your reply to attack the VKPB... The MIM and the RMP shows the VKPB as chauvinists for the condemnation for the war in Chechnya, it also does a mechanical citation of a position of Lenin concerning the Muslim question. As we know, in the V Tome of Collected Works, Lenin says in "The Colonial Question" that is a task of the communist parties to reject and condemn the action of all "mulahs", because they are feudalistic elements in the struggle of peoples. As we know, the Chechen rebels as Shamil Bassayev are not separatists, but bandits linked with International Terrorism(as themselves admitted). mim3@mim.org replies: Comrades, since you are in Brazil you should know that we do not believe that MIM strategy and tactics really apply to you. In addition, we may not have much to say after the above statement. Putin, Bush and you refer to "international terrorism" by the Chechens. We have enough of that kind of talk to fight here in the u$a without adding more from Brazilian Hoxhaites. We have no way of knowing if you are for real at all or a pure concoction, maybe even within the united $tates. What is more important, we must leave this task to the RMP in Russia. It's just unlikely that we will know it as well as they and we have trust that Russians can decide how to handle the national question. If they can't the cause is lost anyway, because we certainly cannot direct it from here, if Stalin and Mao could not direct the global revolution in their days and decided to break up the Comintern. If you are truly interested in Stalin, Khruschev and Mao, then what we say you will study. You will either decide that we can do without Mao on capitalist restoration or we can't. Red Banner Society continues: In Chechnya fight Albanians, Chechens, Arabians, Afghans and ultil Africans (!!!) not because they believe in "proletarian internationalism", but because they are fighting for the establishment of a new "taliban power" in Chechnya! To defend these terrorists are more than a ANTI-MARXIST position, but a support to the INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, which contains in it's essence extremism of the lumpem- proletariat and great bourgeoisie, the same classes which conducted nazism to power in Germany in the 30's... The Putin's Russia is not a socialist country, but the capitalism is more advanced than feudalism. mim3@mim.org replies: This last sentence we agree with. Red Banner Society continues: Sure that we, marxist-leninists, are against the war. We understand that this war is motivated by capitalism, by a conflict of the Chechen bourgeoisie with the Russian. In Chechnya lived Chechens, Russians, Greeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Daguestaneses and another people in full harmony, but today with capitalism, a war happens. We understand that to stop this thing, the USSR must be restored, and for this to happen, it's very important to happen a unification of Russia, Ukraine, Belarussia, nations with practically the same cultural traditions (despite some diferences in their languages) and the same history, something very well known by those who are not afraid to study the history of these 3 countries and the formation of Slav states, and we from the RBS are not afraid! Before to put in question all these questions, it's important before all to do a reflection: what's the essence of the attacks of MIM, are they ML? The reply of MIM has in it's density an impressing arrogance, as well as an infantile fury, something that never was pointed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hodja, Bland or Ludo Martens, something completely distant of 2 cardinal principles of socialist science, which I must remember: the proletarian internationalism and the SOLIDARITY BETWEEN THE WORKERS, something that Marx referred with enphasis! I think that all this fury of MIM is nothing more than a proof of it's inconsistence and instability in it's discussion. We communists must ask: Who are you to say what is correct and wrong line? Who are you to condemn all the marxist-leninists parties over the world? Who are you to condemn that who follows the examples of Lenin and Stalin? mim3@mim.org replies: This reminds me of the criticism of Stalin as "rude" used over and over again by the Trotskyists to avoid political substance. The question is not "who" MIM is but "what" MIM is saying. There is a fairly constant post-modernist undertone of social relativism underlying both the first and second message of the Red Banner Society. We at MIM are either correct or not. Our lines and explanations are all available in our magazines and web page. If we were Martians it would hardly matter as to whether we are correct or not. We have chosen the big questions to divide over--three plus democratic centralism! You only agree with us on one, the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Either you or we are wrong on the Cultural Revolution and the imperialist country labor aristocracy. Fortunately, there can only be so many splits justified by the largest experiences with revolution and the conditions of the imperialist countries themselves. We just happen to believe we stand on the correct side of both splits. Again, comrade, we believe a patient approach would be appropriate in the Third World. In some sense, you have stumbled upon MIM, but MIM tailors its work for the imperialist countries. Please keep that in mind. Please understand that we are in constant battle with the labor aristocracy and that the people would not have anything but a "revolutionary arrogance" in its leaders claiming to take on nuclear-weapons-owning imperialists who seem so fearsome but have feet of clay. That is our specific thesis for the imperialist countries. We do not claim it necessary where the exploited are in such large numerical preponderance as in Brazil. Red Banner Society continues: A political struggle must be done against the rightist and leftist opportunism, against the trotskiyte and the revisionists, but the so called "MIM" moves a theoretical struggle against the marxist-leninist parties. This can be explained not by the scientific socialism, but also by the psychology... The members of MIM who reply to the articles show something called "masochism super-ego"(I think that this is the denomination in English). They show that they are not interested in a fight for the people, but to prove that they are correct, something very strange to marxist- leninist circles. The selfishism of MIM shows that is more important to attack the sovietist circles as "brezhnevites" and give replies with aggressions than to contribute to the marxist-leninist practical theory. mim3@mim.org replies: For the record, MIM had nothing to say to the Red Banner Society at all. RBS sent the first salvo already listed in the previous message. We will let readers judge "aggression." We do not consider the Ludo Martens affiliated "ML" parties to be Marxist-Leninist. In any case, again, we see this post-modernist undercurrent when Red Banner Society takes this position that we fight "to prove that they [we] are correct." That's what all parties should do and they must set aside a valuable place for such science, and swallow their pride even if it means public beatings and counter-beatings. We have been told that we are now the only organization in the world distributing the allegedly Hoxhaite book on the restoration of capitalism in the USSR by Bill Bland on the web. That proves not only that we can work with those we find extremely distasteful but that in fact MIM plays something of a pathbreaking role by doing the ordinary in its practice. We urge our readers not to adopt any facile notions of what "sectarianism" is. It's been all wrong for a couple generations now, and that is how we have found the international communist movement in deep revisionist shit with the blood sacrifices of many surrendered in the revolutions of China, the USSR and elsewhere. Red Banner Society continues: We conclude that the method used by the trotskiytes is just scissionism. They are not interested in the reunions of Marxist-Leninist Parties, as the Seminars of Brussels and Athens, but to do scission and attack marxist- leninist organizations. The TIM(the most appropriate name for the organization) doesn't show interest in the building of a revolutionary party, and for this reason, we marxist-leninists have as a task to be engaged in a theoretical struggle against every kind of opportunism, as shown by Stalin and Lenin, to edificate [?] the union of marxist-leninist parties from all the world, as well as in each country, to act with all energies, as did Che Guevara, to make the socialist revolution in the XXI Century! mim3@mim.org replies: It is unfortunate about how truth advances that in many cases the old and habit-inclined cannot face new truths. The lessons of the dissolution of the USSR and Albania can be moderately slowly digested by the proletariat and its allies. On this point, it would be wrong to be pushy or arrogant even as time might be running out for nuclear war. However, in 2003 to have alleged vanguard organizations still in denial on basic points of there being a bourgeoisie that restored capitalism--such organizations are more or less hopeless. They are rather like an organization that would lose a million comrades in combat before noticing that the enemy fired a gun. It will be better for teenagers to look at this all fresh and go from there as long as they do not relinquish the gains possible from studying history. At best some members of these slow organizations could be good rank-and-file members but not leaders of new proletarian parties. So for this reason, we proudly conform to the label of "scissionist," because we are splitting away from the politics of parasitism both for the imperialist countries and the ex-socialist countries. It may be a long time before the MIM line comes to bear fruit in the imperialist countries and before the Third World Maoists recognize its necessity and it's more than likely that in the meantime we will suffer another round or two of revisionist international centers, Brezhnevism without Brezhnev. The comrade errs in thinking that we are a large organization. We are not. We simply have cleared the way scientifically for efficient contributions from a small number of comrades. We look developed in regard to our central task, but we are rather undeveloped especially compared with the Maoist parties conducting People's Wars in the Third World--in many, many areas. We do believe that our per comrade efficiency is better than in other organizations competing with us in the imperialist countries. A large part of efficiency is "cutting losses." Spending time on old revisionist organizations is very wasteful of time, money and energy that could be spent on talking to completely new people, in some cases teenagers. Comrades of the Red Banner Society, may I suggest that we refocus this discussion: 1) Please answer where you stand on the Progressive Labor Party and its stance on there being no armed struggles worth supporting in the last generation. 2) Please give us your own stance on armed struggles existing in the whole world of the last 30 years. Are there any you find worth supporting? 3) Please answer point-blank whether or not Khruschev was a member of the bourgeoisie in the party. Thank you and again please remember that we do not claim to have the correct path for Brazil. That would be something comrade Gonzalo in Peru would be much closer to. Nonetheless on the universally important questions of Stalin and Mao, the vanguard of Brazil must have the most able leaders of the proletariat--"the best sons and daughters"-- not people stuck in the past or sentimental Russophilia.