What the "RCP-USA" means when it attacks "Lin Biaoists" "RCP-USA" still uses code words to attack Mao and the strategy of People's War July 18, 2002 [expanded slightly July 31, 2002] [The following was a message to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Maoism , a place that we recommend for debate after seeing to your Internet security.] We've had about 40 recent messages now on the subject of "labor aristocracy." By now, people in this Yahoo group know that this is a real world question and there is nothing unfamiliar about it anymore, even though the term "labor aristocracy" is not exactly common currency even in the supposed communist movement in the imperialist countries. On June 6th, 2002 in the "Road to Revolution" section of their www.2changetheworld.info website, the "RCP-USA" attacked MIM for some "Lin Biao fantasy of foreign invasion." People can search, but it was not MIM or its alleged supporters or real supporters raising this question. So it is not only MIM using obscure terms like "labor aristocracy" and it would be a big, big mistake to see this attack by the "RCP-USA" as a bit of trivia about "Lin Biao." This statement by the "RCP-USA" is in fact a stunning example of imperialist country arrogance. Reminiscent of Trotskyism, the "RCP-USA"'s root message here is to denigrate the Third World proletariat and oppressed peoples and their capabilities to take on and bring down u.$. imperialism--without compromising with exploiters. We've already explained that factually speaking the Germans came down by foreign invasion in 1945. In 100 years since "What Is To Be Done?" there has not been one single revolution in an imperialist country, with the exception of Russia which Lenin called "semi- imperialist." Those are the facts that people can review without getting into what may at first glance seem to be trivia. Lin Biao was an important army leader in Mao's armed forces. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, it was Lin Biao who gave Mao a base to launch a struggle against revisionism in the early 1960s while people like Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun did not agree with Mao's theories. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao and the party named Lin Biao Mao's official successor. He gave a crucial speech at the 9th Party Congress in 1969. Lin ended badly in a coup attempt against Mao. He died in a plane crash while fleeing to the Soviet Union in 1971. However, today there are no Maoists in state power. So the question arises, why does the "RCP-USA" attack Lin Biao today? Where is MIM going to wage some coup against genuine Maoist leaders in state power? The answer to this lies elsewhere. The answer lies in why people in imperialist countries attack G. Zinoviev today--to get at Lenin and his line on the imperialist countries. Cowardly social-democrats did not like what Lenin said about whole countries being parasites, and they knew they could not win in a frontal assault on Lenin as the proletariat would rush to fend off such attacks. It is a strategy everywhere to attack the first lieutenants in order to get to the leader.(1) While the "RCP- USA" says it's OK to capitulate if a majority is not going to be on your side, Lenin and Zinoviev repeatedly exhorted the imperialist country communists to hold out against World War I, regardless of the majority of public opinion. They referred to majorities of imperialist countries as bourgeois, but did not advocate capitulation, unlike the "RCP-USA." When it comes to subverting the international communist movement from within, attacks on Lin Biao are meant as attacks on the strategy of People's War and the elevation of Mao's contribution to "Marxism-Leninism" that made it "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism." That's why the "RCP-USA" has been attacking alleged followers of Lin Biao since the 1980s and aiming this charge at MIM. The "RCP-USA" takes Lin Biao's coup attempt as an excuse to attack everything Lin stood for before the coup. In the early 1980s, MIM and comrade Gonzalo simultaneously pointed out that the "RCP-USA"'s "fraternal" parties did not uphold Maoism. They united in "Marxism-Leninism," and left Mao at the level of a practitioner of previous theories--which by itself demoted the Cultural Revolution. The "RCP-USA" claims that in 1993 it fully corrected this problem and took up "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" and contrary to the 1980s when they scowled at the term "Maoism," the "RCP-USA" has since allowed use of the term "Maoist." Yet it was Lin Biao and Chen Boda who had led the struggle inside the Communist Party of China to elevate Mao's Thought to being of universal importance alongside that of Marx and Lenin. On December 16th, 1966 for instance, Lin Biao had a preface to the "Quotations of Chairman Mao," where crucially Lin said that Mao had advanced "Marxism-Leninism" "to a completely new stage."(2) Of course, we know today that Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and many others were resisting this elevation of the importance of Mao's thought. So too was the "RCP-USA" resisting this elevation of Mao's thought in the 1980s and the Communist Party of Nepal(Mashal) resisted it till its final expulsion from the RIM, which the "RCP- USA" used for 15 years to shield itself from criticism by MIM and others. On April 1, 1969, Lin's speech reviewed by Mao prior to the Congress said that Mao had elevated Marxism-Leninism "to a higher and completely new stage." Hence, it is obvious why the "RCP-USA" still might be harboring some resentment against Lin Biao in today's context of 2002. Yet before the Chinese comrades chose Lin as successor to Mao, Lin was known particularly for one long article--"Long Live the Victory of People's War!" of September 3, 1965. This official publication of the Communist Party of China under Mao explained the universal characteristics of People's War and rebutted the many military leaders in China and elsewhere who believed Mao's theories were out- of-date. This article remains crucial to uphold today. What cut the "RCP-USA" to the quick and caused the "RCP-USA" to link MIM to the international significance of People's War was the quote below from Lin Biao and published as official line in the Communist Party of China press: "Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called the 'cities of the world,' then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute 'the rural areas of the world.' Since World War II, the proletarian revolutionary movement has for various reasons been temporarily held back in the North American and West European capitalist countries, while the people's revolutionary movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been growing vigorously. In a sense, the contemporary world revolution also presents a picture of the encirclement of the cities by the rural areas. In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. The socialist countries should regard it as their internationalist duty to support the people's revolutionary struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America."(3) The Communist Party of China said that at a time when its fraternal party in the united $tates was the "Progressive Labor Party," which went over to crypto-Trotskyism a few years later and broke with Mao. Thanks to uneven development, we do not know what Mao and Lin would have said if MIM had existed in the imperialist countries at that time. As it was, there were those in the Communist Party of China who wanted to spell out in even more detail what "temporarily held back" the revolution in North America and Western Europe, but of course, complications included things like the existence of the Progressive Labor Party as the fraternal party in the united $tates. Hence, there is now and always has been a very close link between exposing the labor aristocracy and People's War. Is it any accident that parties in the Third World that oppose People's War link up with parties with the most brazen labor aristocracy lines? The "Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany" is tied to parties in India, Nepal and Peru that oppose People's War--even while People's War rages in those countries. The larger the numerical basis in the labor aristocracy, the more likely that party is to abandon People's War. The relevant party with the slightest basis numerically along these lines is the "RCP- USA." Now it is has been lambasted by Luis Arce Borja,and admits trouble with the TKP/ML (Turkish comrades) and it admits to having incubated a non-Maoist organization in the RIM that now openly opposes the People's War--the CPN(Mashal). MIM knows of several other degenerations the RIM is tied to, but we speak of what the RIM has admitted to in public. Meanwhile, even more popular in the labor aristocracy than either the "RCP-USA" or the "MLPD" is the PTB, Ludo Martens's party in Belgium--which has become openly ex-Maoist, a fact we thank them for. On their web page, the PTB hosts attacks on the People's War. The CPI(ML) New Flag in India said in 1998, "But the emergence of the Lin Piaoist trend within the CPC by the time of its 1969 Ninth Congress with its extremely sectarian and idealist positions did incalculable damage to the working class movement. Under its influence the necessity for building trade unions was rejected. Almost during this time various other tendencies, projecting every other section of classes in society except the working class as leader of the revolution, also surfaced. As a result the trade union movement almost as a whole was abandoned to the control of reactionaries, revisionists, reformists and opportunists. Even now there are quite a large number of political organisations, parties and groups in numerous countries, who call themselves Marxist- Leninist, who strongly reject the task of building trade unions." The only trouble with this passage and the document it came from, to put it mildly, is that the whole document does not mention People's War. Likewise, the fraternal Indian comrades of the "MLPD" launch their attack against Lin Biao--and also oppose "People's War."(4) So there is a pattern here: they can't attack Mao in the open and still ruin the movement from within, so they attack Lin Biao as if everything he ever said or did was wrong once he launched that coup attempt. In fact, one of the last struggles Lin Biao had was against Zhou Enlai. Today it is undeniable that Zhou Enlai cleared the way for Deng Xiaoping, whatever other merits Zhou had. We do not want to say Zhou while in charge of the foreign policy of China did nothing for the international communist movement, but it was Lin who believed that People's War should be the principal focus and it was Lin who was willing to sacrifice China's diplomatic relations and Zhou Enlai's prestige to accomplish this. Of course, we know that Deng Xiaoping waiting in the wings as a protege of Zhou Enlai eventually came to power and wiped out the concept of People's War in the Communist Party of China. Today the Deng Xiaopingist party in China condemns the People's War in Nepal openly. The would be social-imperialist and comprador bourgeoisie of China wanted to be done with ideological struggle in China to focus on economic stability and capitalist restoration. That bourgeoisie in the party only too gladly abandoned People's War and internationalist obligations, as we see in China since 1976. Today there is no socialist China to accomplish anything by diplomatic means. There is nothing to weigh anymore in whether the People's Wars can hasten or not, because there is no question of imperialist war against a socialist state. There is nothing but the People's Wars today. All the struggles of the deluded to "Smash Busing" or other stunts in the imperialist countries do not change that fact. Some white punk rockers are not going to change white people's minds and bring about a revolution in the West, unless the People's Wars hasten tremendously first. Nor is New Age mysticism or political correctness training going to alter the political nature of imperialist country populations. To change the parasitic nature of the imperialist country population, a whole stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat will be necessary. State power will be necessary to do the job. That is the meaning of the fact that armed struggle– not cultural work, not public opinion work, not trade union work-- is the highest form of struggle and it is no accident that that thesis is closely tied to understanding the labor aristocracy question. While some can learn through patient discussion, others, as in the case of Nazi Germany, have to learn through the criticism of weapons. In the imperialist countries, parties that represent the labor aristocracy and deny that surplus-value from abroad has turned their countries into parasites oppose People's War. The more labor aristocracy they represent, the more various parties drop Maoism. The "RCP-USA"'s attack on Lin Biao is the same as these other organizations' attacks on Lin Biao. Since the "RCP-USA" often appears to support People's War it is only the most dangerous expression of the whole contradiction. Parties that uphold the labor aristocracy and oppose People's War need each other and justify each other. That is an unavoidable law of revolution in our time. The imperialist country "comrades" talk about reform and ultraleft stunts by which workers will suddenly find themselves in power, thereby to justify a lack of People's War in the Third World, where the comrades can afford to await their great nation chauvinist big brothers in the Western imperialist countries. For their part, the Third World leaders opposing People's War offer up their people for neo-colonial exploitation as an inevitable part of sealing the deal with the imperialist country social-democrats and revisionists. This is regardless of the intentions of the leaders of any party. It is not for nothing that Lenin wrote of the labor aristocracy in his preface to "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism": "Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problems of the communist movement and of the impending social revolution." Notes: 1. See MIM Theory #13, p. 98. 2. Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao, K. Fan ed., Post-Revolutionary Writings (Garden City, NY: 1972), p. 415. 3. Ibid., p. 396. 4. http://www.wpb.be/icm/98en/98en21.htm