Maoism on Foreign Affairs vs. Pseudo-Marxist Geopolitical Pragmatism

The Collapse of the Soviet Union: Causes and Lessons: For the
Revolutionary Revival of the International Communist Movement
by the International Communist Seminar
Brussels, BELGIUM: 1998, 313 pp. pb

reviewed by International Minister, December, 2000

This book represents a triumph of the work of Ludo Martens and his Belgian
PTB, a party seeking to reconcile with Castroites, Brezhnevites and
Hoxhaites. Doing so, Ludo Martens is very close to the numerical center of
gravity amongst those calling themselves communist in the world, since
there are still many revisionists hanging on to their world views.

To the Maoists, Ludo Martens encourages "constructive engagement" with
revisionist parties. By befriending the revisionist parties, one could
receive the impression that the revisionists are gaining someone to talk
to other than their revisionist selves. Such would be a tactical
justification for a a Maoist to do what Ludo Martens does.

On the other hand, such a tactic cannot be justified beyond a certain
price. Seminar participants are supposed to all uphold Stalin, but in
fact, some Trotskyists hang about and the Castroites are allowed in and
welcomed despite Castro's many statements of praise of Gorbachev and Deng
Xiaoping. (See
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5973/leftover.html )

Hence, it is one thing to have tactics of "constructive engagement," but
it is another thing to allow someone to call him or herself
"Marxist-Leninist" when s/he does not truly defend Stalin. Yet, such is
not surprising since Ludo Martens himself and a portion of international
Hoxhaism fell for Gorbachev--that being another story about "Back to
Leninism" for another time.

Thus the seminar supposedly unites to defend Stalin, but on page 10 we
already learn that the vast majority of seminar participants welcomed the
party representatives from Cuba and Korea and upheld "the defence of
socialism in Cuba." For MIM, that puts this conference of 136
organizations beyond the pale from a proletarian point of view.

Whenever MIM raises phony communist Cuba, we never hear about the mode of
production in Cuba, but we always hear about the geopolitical necessity of
defending Cuba against invasion. Such is the tell-tale sign that Marxism
has taken the backseat to geopolitics. 

There is nothing special about Cuba facing imperialist invasion. Panama
saw Yankee troops. Somalia saw Yankees land and so did Iraq. None were
"socialist" countries and still the Yankee invaded. Opposing Yankee
invasion is not something we do only for countries like Cuba calling
themselves "socialist." Opposing Amerikan imperialism is an
internationalist duty. Creating a "special deal" for Cuba and Korea
despite their modes of production is an example of neo-colonialism, very
typical of the kind of revisionism that would rather fight than switch to
scientific Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is the ideology of those hoping to
restore a Soviet social-imperialism and a new neo-colonial orbit.

Thus, from these forces it is as if nothing in the world has changed,
largely because they wish to restore the Soviet social-imperialist
realm. These parties cannot admit their own failures with regard to
defending Stalin and so now they continue defending the same old politics
without missing a beat. The collapse of the Soviet Union might as well
have not happened, because these people are essentially not interested in
the mode of production. They are communists in sentiment in some cases and
manipulators of geopolitics in others, but they are not Marxist-Leninist
in any case.

The first interesting essay in the book with something new in it is from
Dr. Kurt Gossweiler of the former East German revisionist
party. Gossweiler seems to realize that there might be some criticism that
he is in for given the ruinous collapse in East Germany. 

His analysis is that China was a large and independent country which was
why its communist party was able to resist Khruschev revisionism. His
analysis of Albania is that it had selfish reasons of self-defense against
Yugoslavian annexation to oppose Khruschevite revisionism.  However, such
material analyses of the respective parties would be more persuasive if
Gossweiler did not end up excusing the German party leaders essentially
because of their geopolitical situation, something we hear about Castro
all the time too. We are told that because of the Western troops on its
border and because of the force of the USSR, the leadership of the East
German communists wanted to side with Mao but did not. "It would be wrong
to call the SED a revisionist party. Under the leadership of Walter
Ulbricht it put up the maximum resistance possible at that time to the
revisionism of the Khruschev clique, and it did so to such an extent that
in October 1964 its activities were suppressed."(p. 83) This statement by
Gossweiler is indeed something new in the world.

Because of Honecker's anti-fascist role, Gossweiler also excuses him when
he replaced Ulbricht at the request of the USSR. "It was more a question
of exchanging one of the most gifted leaders, and one of the most seasoned
in the German and international class struggle, for a well-meaning party
functionary who was too easily led astray owing to his poor leadership
qualities."(p. 84)

Gossweiler also gives Honecker credit for repressing Gorbachev's
statements in East Germany and states that a violent repression of the
pro-Gorbachev demonstrators would have missed the real
counter-revolutionaries. Thus, overall, we have some notion that the party
in East Germany deserves criticism, but we are told that the true inside
story is that all that could be done was done under Ulbricht while
Honecker was simply incompetent when he implemented revisionism.

Whether Cuba's Castro, China's Hua Guofeng or East Germany's Ulbricht and
Honecker, we are told there are good reasons not to hoist the banner of
communism. Had Ulbricht done it, invasion would have resulted. Had Cuba
not gone along with Khruschev, we are told Cuba would have been done
in. Essentially we hear again and again that the geopolitical situation
demanded compromise of the mode of production itself without an open
fight, without an open call to the people to attack revisionism. To take
such a stand is to put geopolitics in its own right above Marxism. It is
one of the root reasons for the continued division of the revisionists
from the genuine international communist movement; even though the Soviet
Union is dead. The mere death of the Soviet Union did not erase all the
fallacious pseudo-Marxist methods of thought ingrained in the Soviet
Union's revisionist followers. As long as geopolitics is put above the
mode of production's advance, Marxist-Leninists have no chance of
uniting. It is Marxism's attention to the material world that makes unity
possible, while making cardinal principles of geopolitical calculation
means endless division.

Next in the book follow some essays from the Castro brothers and North
Korea--as if nothing has changed in the world and as if Gorbachev and
Yeltsin could have occurred without some major betrayal in the Soviet
CP. These people just go on singing the same old revisionist song.

After the grossly reactionary documents from Cubans and Koreans, we
received another even more reactionary contribution from a Syrian Ammar
Bagdache, who seemed hell-bent on being social-fascism incarnate. In the
split between Khruschev and Mao, Ammar Bagdache still cannot discern one
side being more correct than the other.(p. 174) Instead, it is clear that
this particular persyn seeks the restoration of the Soviet empire. Like
the Nazis before, Ammar Bagdache focuses his hatred of parasitism on the
Jews. This would be one thing on the West Bank, but according to
A. Bagdache, the Jews a.k.a "Zionism" were mainly responsible for the
restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union.(p. 165) Most of Khruschev's
advisers and the "main" force behind revisionism is supposedly
Zionism.(p. 168)

While MIM is all for having Marxism-Leninism-Maoism take national forms,
what Ammar Bagdache is doing is a violation of the universal aspects of
Marxism-Leninism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It's not surprising that
this reactionary essay was also allowed in the book. Again, it is not
focussed on the mode of production, only how geopolitics--in this case
Mideast geopolitics--intersects with capitalist restoration in the Soviet
Union. This geopolitical focus goes to such an extent that it wipes out
the parasitic nature of imperialism except for the Jews. From the
proletarian view, this is the class essence of Hitler's ideology too--an
attack on parasitism of the Jews in essence to cover for the parasitism of
imperialism generally. It's a sacrifice of some parasites to let the much
bigger bloodsuckers off the hook. Anybody who thinks Amerikan imperialism
would miss an imperialist beat if the United $tates had no Jews has major
illusions. Such illusions create a major escape hatch for imperialism when
it gets into trouble like Germany in the 1930s.

The DKHP-C Turkish comrades also have an essay in the book. Once again,
the focus is geopolitical. "It is a matter of fact that it is much easier
to create the conditions for open interventions and to put them into
practice since the USSR is not a factor of balance anymore, and since the
USA is the sole 'superpower.'"(p. 256) This is exactly the kind of
reasoning that says, "because the USSR is powerful in a geopolitical
sense, we will call it socialist." However, Lenin did not call the Kaiser
socialist when the Kaiser gave him a railroad car to ride back to Russia.

Furthermore, we heard the traditional Brezhnevite and Trotskyite
complaints about Mao from the DKHP-C: "The CP of China, who regarded the
USSR as the 'main enemy', went even so far as to confront progressive and
revolutionary movements, if they were supported by the USSR. The support
for the counter-revolutionary FNLA and Unita in Angola, and even for
Pinochet in Chile were consequences of this policy."(p. 259)

On this point, DKHP-C is one of many parties that has adopted the white
man's double standard toward the Soviet Union and China, a standard so
white that even some Trotskyists uphold it though it means giving some
credence to Stalin. Almost without exception, these organizations accepted
and defended the Stalin-Hitler pact, which included real material aid such
as the shipment of raw materials from the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany,
but let Mao so much as recognize Pinochet or shake hands with Nixon, and
these hypocrites attack Mao with no shame--even seeing the obvious today
of capitalist restoration in the USSR. If there were all these progressive
and revolutionary forces backed by the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union, these
critics of Mao should show us one that has a socialist society to show for
it. There aren't any, because these forces were all
revisionist. Furthermore, as MIM documents elsewhere, Mao supported all
the anti-colonial forces in Angola. Perhaps the DKHP-C thought that
exclusively supporting the Soviet side was more important than ejecting
Portuguese colonialism! That's how important neo-colonialism is for these
people to make such a principle of it before colonialism is even done
with!

Entire parties have split around the world over the question of the Three
Worlds Theory--that's how much the pseudo-Marxists have managed to
convince us that geopolitics is so cardinal instead of a matter of
strategic calculation of the balance of forces, and not something that
would come up in a conference first attempting to regroup around cardinal
questions. In the realpolitik world of geopolitics-first thinking, it is
not surprising that Great Russian nation interests come to the fore easily
and without a second thought, while Mao has to justify himself several
times over or entire parties will split. It's exactly the kind of garbage
that explains why the Soviet Union under Brezhnev was an equal superpower
to the United $tates, but also an equally capitalist society. Pragmatist
geopolitical considerations can in no way guide the revolutionary advance
of society on a consistent basis. Doing that requires knowledge of the
mode of production.

The essay by Harpal Brar does the most to discuss the actual economic
conditions in the USSR, but on the whole, none of the essays in the book
systematically cover the factual situation of the mode of production in
the USSR. One last essay worth mentioning is so stuck in the past, it
still has not theoretically admitted that the bourgeoisie in the party --
not landlords or imperialists outside the party--restored capitalism in
the USSR. The Iniziativa Comunista (Italy) would appear to be one of those
organizations too far brain-dead to make sense of current events: "While
acknowledging the non-antagonistic character of the contradictions amongst
the internal classes, we have to be conscious of the antagonistic
relationship that exists between the socialist countries and their
capitalist counterparts."(p. 302) Although Yelstin joined the Soviet CP in
1961, the Italian Stalinists have the nerve to tell us that there were no
internal contradictions with the enemy in the Soviet Union! Hello, hello,
hello supposed Stalinists! It was not the landlord class or the
imperialists or even the cultural intellectuals you mentioned who restored
capitalism outright in the Soviet Union. It was Ramiz Alia, Hua Guofeng,
Deng Xiaoping, Khruschev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev and
Yeltsin who restored capitalism--the bourgeoisie in the party. Not in a
single case did  the imperialists invade or the landlords rise up in armed
struggle to restore capitalism.

Such supposed Stalinists we have to admit are like family to us. However,
in every large family taken far enough, there is one retarded child,
especially in the imperialist countries. Yes, we must uphold Stalin's last
great work, the "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR." Without
understanding this work, it is impossible to understand the material basis
for capitalist restoration. However, historical events have left the
supposed Stalinists behind. Some retarded children are left in special
homes. Some live in the basement lacking the care they deserve and would
receive under socialism. We hope for the best care for our Stalinists that
medical science can deliver, but we have to move on with the issues, pay
detailed attention to issues of the 21st century and not be stuck behind
with the supposed Stalinists. Capitalism has ruined the mental and
physical capacities of many people. "Bury the dead and return to the
fight" also applies to the brain-dead.

Why "social-fascism" and "social-imperialism"

In 1993, Ludo Martens of the Belgian PTB attended a conference to
celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong, a meeting very
important in attempting to regroup Maoist parties, some of whom met for
the first time and challenged each other with scientific issues not found
in their own countries. At such a meeting, and indeed, at all
international conferences of the moment, cardinal questions should be the
order of the day.

It is often stated that for Mao Zedong, political line was merely a matter
of intention. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Mao analyzed
the superstructure and its connection to the mode of production, he did so
scientifically and giving full accord to the economic base's active role
in determining the superstructure.

Today's neo-revisionist and Brezhnevite critics of Mao dovetail because of
their underlying combination of Menshevik views. One component of
Menshevism is anarchist idealism or nihilism when it comes to the state or
leadership under socialism. When it suits them, these Mensheviks criticize
power-holders for holding power! How remarkable! The Mensheviks have
discovered that people hold power and have self-interests! Such
infantilism underlies much of the criticism of Mao Zedong with regard to
the Soviet Union and foreign affairs.

Since the Soviet Union called itself "socialist," but its mode of
production was capitalist, Mao had no choice but to refer to the USSR as
"social-imperialist." Even more problematically for the critics of Mao --
who in many cases, such as Ludo Martens or the now defunct "Communist
Workers Party" of the U$A and countless others, believed that the
political leadership of the Soviet Union was degenerate under Khruschev
and Brezhnev--the critics admit that the Soviet Union after 1956 was not a
bourgeois democracy. So what was it? The Soviet Union was a dictatorship,
but of what class and in what form? Once again, it is the mode of
production that prevails in deciding the question. If the mode of
production is capitalist, but the superstructure is not bourgeois
democratic and in fact is openly dictatorial, then "social-fascist" is the
right term. Not for nothing the Nazis also claimed to be "socialists," as
a matter of historical coincidence.

In his 1993 speech, " Mao Zedong et Staline," (See
http://www.wpb.be/doc/doc.htm) Ludo Martens (like many others in the world
before and since) raised this question in an opportunist way. He said that
Mao opposed the Soviet Union and called it the main enemy for a spell,
because of China's self-interests. Yet, here we are talking about
something purely superstructural. Ludo Martens accuses Mao of "bourgeois
nationalism," and connects that to what he considers the incorrect
"social-imperialist" thesis, but what national bourgeoisie is he referring
to? Certainly he is not referring to the bourgeoisie in the Chinese party
which wanted to follow the path of Khruschev and Brezhnev. It was not
their self-interests creating this "bourgeois nationalism." Then what is
Ludo Martens talking about? He is talking about an idea detached from the
mode of production, a nitpick if even 100% correct would have no business
being raised as a cardinal question at an important conference marking
Mao's 100th birthday. Mao Zedong did not own any means of
production. China did not have a mode of production driving it toward
incorrect foreign affairs positions. That is the cardinal issue at stake.

At most if we accept all of Ludo Martens's observations, some of which are
historically jumbled (another subject for another date), we will prove
that Mao made errors. These errors might even reach to the level of
"deviation," but these errors would not change the fact that the Soviet
Union was social-imperialist and social-fascist. Strategic and tactical
calculations do not change the mode of production in the Soviet Union and
Mao's errors were unconnected to a capitalist mode of production in
China. Errors are not of cardinal importance. All leaders will make
errors: that is guaranteed.

To say Mao did something against the Soviet Union to protect his own power
is the anarchist strain of Menshevism. Mature Marxist scientists become
tired of learning that people hold power, a truism as true as the rising
sun each morning until the day of communism established
internationally. It's not interesting to us anymore to hear that people
hold power. 

We want to know about the mode of production, and the superficial nature
of pseudo-Marxism stands exposed when geopolitics takes the main
theoretical role in discussion. Geopolitics can only be the expression of
underlying modes of production. If there are no capitalist relations of
production there will be no imperialism, and that is the real cardinal
question at hand, but Ludo Martens, the Workers World Party (USA), the
Trotskyists, the defunct CWP and countless contributors in Ludo Martens's
seminars held in Brussels with parties from around the world say that
geopolitics is decisive. It's not just that Ludo Martens is saying
political line scientifically arrived at is decisive. No, he and the other
anti-Mao troopers are saying that geopolitics is decisive, and doing so,
they seek to take us into a "lesser evils" world of foreign policy. In one
of the few great errors in his life, W.E.B. Du Bois advised the Chinese in
1936 to abide by Japanese occupation as a lesser evil than European
occupation and Mao subsequently proved that more was possible than this
seemingly lesser evil. Yet, in 1936, Du Bois did not claim to be a
scientific Marxist-Leninist yet. The geopolitical pragmatists masquerading
as Marxist-Leninists have systematized Du Bois's error and have called it
Marxism-Leninism.

Although Ludo Martens did catch onto the idea of the "new bourgeoisie in
the party" from Mao Zedong, he never really confronted the mode of
production in the USSR. In fact, he and his party in 1993 could be heard
saying that there was no unemployment in revisionist China, when even the
social-fascist regime there was admitting 8 digit unemployment. That is
how far removed from economic realities these
geopolitics-is-decisive-folks are. If geopolitics or other sentiment
demands it, these people are fully prepared to say there is no
unemployment even when the regime in question does not say so. For this
sort of superficial reason of geopolitics, Ludo Martens objected to the
term "social-fascism." Since Stalin and Dimitrov had established that
fascism is the rule of the most reactionary segments of the bourgeoisie
and with no pretense of democracy or civil liberties, and since the USSR
was capitalist, Mao had no choice within Marxism-Leninism other than to
refer to the USSR as "social-fascist." Certainly it was not a bourgeois
democratic society.

Like many others including many Trotskyists, Ludo Martens says that the
leaders of the USSR were parasites on a mainly socialist economic
foundation mostly in order to justify a certain easily understood line on
foreign policy. "The socialist basis of society was not yet destroyed," he
says in his essay called "Balance of the Collapse of the Soviet Union,
April 2, 1992." A thing is always a unity of opposites, but one of the
opposites is always principal. Never is there complete purity, so that in
a struggle in the worst situation--bourgeois prison for instance--even in
such circumstances, the enemy does not obtain 100% of what it wants and
the proletariat does not obtain 100% of what it wants. Hence, Ludo Martens
wants to say that the economic base under Khruschev and Brezhnev was at
least 51% socialist and somehow the superstructure was more reactionary
and out of synch, so it needed to wait till Gorbachev to implement total
capitalism. In this way, Ludo Martens justifies his and others' belief
that Chinese foreign policy should have been pro-Brezhnev, if not in
reasoning, then in substantial alliance. What it means is that Ludo
Martens is willing to ape Trotsky on a disjunction between the Soviet mode
of production and the state and hold to such an idealist analysis for a
generation or two of the Soviet Union's existence, all so that he can
defend a certain geopolitical approach that was popular in the 1960s to
the 1980s and still exerts its influence on the minds of older
revisionists Ludo Martens is seeking to reconcile with.

The problem with this understanding of having the superstructure out of
synch with the mode of production for decades aside from its idealism and
obvious Trotskyist origins--and this is true of his review of the USSR
called "Balance of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, April 2, 1992" and
his 1993 remarks at the Mao Centennial organized by Joma Sison--is that it
presents the Stalin era as having no new bourgeois elements despite the
victories of class struggle. Yes, Stalin won out against the bourgeois
lines of Trotsky, Bukharin and Tito. Yes, collectivization went
forward. Yes, World War II was won. It is our duty to defend all these
gains under Stalin. Yet, at the same time, our current dialectical
materialist understanding must be that the new bourgeoisie did not
disappear. Quite the contrary, many of the necessities in fighting the war
involved a material basis for the new bourgeoisie. It is the Hoxhaite
metaphysical error to see victories and assume that they were won with the
100% purity of redness of the entire people. A word on the creation of the
new bourgeoisie under Stalin is not to be found in Ludo Martens's
discussion of cardinal subjects, only reference to the usual
exploiters--the rich peasants, imperialist spies and so on that Stalin
tended to.

Although we talk about many things in regard to Soviet
history--Khruschev's "three peacefuls" and capitulation to imperialism for
instance--there was only one factor needed to push the new bourgeoisie
over the top from dominated to dominating, and that was Khruschev's
loosening of the atmosphere in the party, his creation of the
"dictatorship of the whole people." The moment when the bourgeoisie in the
party knows it will no longer face a strong possibility of being violently
repressed is the moment it takes charge, not because the superstructure is
decisive mainly, but because the new bourgeoisie is already in a very good
position and getting a good portion of what it wants even under
socialism. Perhaps it is determining 35% of what is going on and goes to
51% or 70% with Khruschev's attack on Stalin. It is not a case that the
new bourgeoisie started from no where and instantly became 51% as the
Trotskyists like to caricaturize our views. So the superstructure is only
decisive at a certain moment of time, that being the time when the new
bourgeoisie no longer faces violent repression in the case of the USSR and
China.

The bourgeoisie is not entirely "gutless." This view is a mistake. One
only need witness various intra-bourgeois civil wars to know that the
leaders of the capitalist class will take risks for their rule, (even
though the oppressed classes do most of the fighting in civil wars) and
such is even more true when fighting socialist rule on behalf of the whole
capitalist class. Hence, it takes considerable violence to keep the
capitalist class underfoot.

Anyone who has stopped to consider the careerists in the CPSU, anyone who
has read any anecdotes or talked to any of the common people of the Soviet
Union knows that the state and the means of production attract careerists
like flies. Such people mouth communism at the proper moment, but everyone
knows that they don't really know how or desire to apply communism in
practice. These people protect their own interests and careers, but damage
the interests of the proletariat, if they even know what they are since
many have not studied politics in any systematic way. The only
counterweight to such people in a society where there is yet a
contradiction between leaders and led, the only counterweight to these
careerists is violent repression, for they will certainly chance being
criticized for implementing capitalism.

When a Khruschev comes to power almost by inertia (and only almost because
he still did have to stage a coup), the reason is that the material
situation of the bourgeoisie is already good. Layers and layers of the
bureaucracy with access to the means of production in that peculiar
superstructure known as socialism in the 20th century already exist ready
and willing to follow and support a leader who will only "relax a
bit," maybe focus on making some goulash and taking off his shoes in the
UN.

As the bourgeoisie has centuries of training leaders behind it and
propertied ruling classes more than centuries, and because there is a
shortage of trained proletarian leaders, and also because it is not easy
to discern those with genuine socialist conviction and those mouthing
phrases at the appropriate moments, "democracy," "relaxation" and "free
speech" become the excuses and battering rams of the new bourgeoisie
seeking to oppress the proletariat in this era of imperialism. Once
Khruschev erased the fear of a leader like Stalin, the new bourgeoisie
implemented the things it always wanted to implement, and partially did
implement under Stalin. The revisionists emphasize that it took more than
a generation to restore capitalism, because they deny the role of force in
history in addition to the fact that the new bourgeoisie does not have to
start from scratch. The revisionists deny the role of Khruschev's coup and
use of the military against Molotov and Stalin's other allies, and more
importantly, they deny the role that the leadership has to play in
violently repressing the would-be ruling bourgeoisie in the party, a group
of people who do after all have access to the means of production once the
government plans production under socialism (but not in the stages leading
up to the socialist revolution unless there are base areas where the party
is running the economy).

Conclusion

Recently we had a discussion with a member of the PTB who asked us about
the band "Rage against the Machine" which had just done benefit concerts
for Tibet. Ironically after discussing with us how many still put
geopolitics above the mode of production, the PTB comrade asked why
"Rage" did what it did. MIM answered that probably with all the watering
down done by revisionism, no one ever talked to them about the mode of
production. Hence, the "Rage against the Machine" did not understand the
advance over slavery that the communists including communist Tibetan
slaves brought to Tibet. Instead "Rage" adopted simpler political ideas
with regard to the national question. It's not surprising that people
focussed on geopolitics will have no real answer to the "human-rights" and
"free speech" for slaveowners point of view and even bands like
"Rage" will be unpersuaded. We do not defend Mao's work in Tibet just
because the United $tates opposes it. The pseudo-Marxists consciously and
unconsciously seeing geopolitics as decisive have led us down a pragmatist
road to endless division and revisionism.

[To see the "International Communist Seminar" speak for itself, go to
http://www.wpb.be/icm.htm   ]