MIM Theory 12, pp. 82-3
See future issues of MIM Theory for an update to this review
Unity and Struggle is the new organization of Dengist Amiri Baraka. The April 1996 issue MIM reviewed contains articles about the Black NIA Force and American Communist Union joining U&S, the Million Man March, New Jersey Gov. Whitman's assault on the poor, coverage of the repression of Rutgers University activists, the sell-out leadership of the AFL-CIO president, and a defense of Stalin. There are also articles by the cop-run "MPP-USA," although we read more recently on the Internet that Unity and Struggle has broken with the MPP. We also see many ads for more theoretical books and pamphlets. MIM is ordering U&S's materials on Stalin and on the Black Nation to review as well as the theoretical statement, "Revolutionaries Unite!" (MIM had not heard of the Black NIA Force or the American Communist Union before.)
MIM was sent this newspaper by a friend who described U&S as a "Maoist grouping." It is unclear to MIM without reviewing "Revolutionaries Unite!" and other theoretical materials whether U&S claims to uphold Mao or Marx. It could be that U&S merely considers themselves a mass organization of revolutionaries. MIM didn't see a mention of Marx or Mao in the issue that MIM read, but we did see a discussion of Engels' and Lenin's idea on the oppression of wimmin. If U&S is a mass organization, MIM would simply criticize some of their positions as wrong. If U&S claims Marx for their ideas, we would go farther and call U&S revisionist and much more dangerous than mass organizations with incorrect ideas. We await word from U&S on their foundations. For the benefit of the friend who sent us the newspaper and those on the Internet who refer to U&S as Maoist, we will compare the theory and practice of U&S to the concrete application of Maoism in North America. MIM's four dividing line questions serve to make this distinction, as they are the minimum points of unity necessary to distinguish Maoism from revisionism here in the imperialist societies.
Question 1. Capitalist restoration in the USSR after the death of Stalin in 1953 and in China in 1976 after Mao's death and the arrest of the "Gang of Four." U&S correctly gives Khruschev responsibility for capitalist restoration in the USSR. On China, they are much murkier:
"Revolutionaries the world over watch the Peoples Republic of China closely, because of its revolutionary history. But also because we all hold our breath watching the Deng Hsiaoping-led Chinese government lurch and sway towards revisionism, for which Deng in the 60's was made to wear a dunce hat as "The Person In Power Following the Capitalist Road."Previously, Amiri Baraka and his League of Revolutionary Struggle defended Dengist China as socialist (while maintaining that capitalism was restored in the USSR under Khruschev). This being an unsustainable position especially with the passage of time, we now see a more muddled position."Deng is still following the capitalist road. China is riddled and beset with revisionist premises and programs, including deep economic relationships with the same international imperialism that helped overthrow the corrupt social fascist USSR."
Since our founding in 1983, MIM has been clear that China under Deng was a capitalist country. Now, it is even more incorrect to refer to China as "lurching" towards capitalism, when China has already been there for 20 years.
It is progress that Baraka now sees Deng as a state capitalist, but it is incorrect to make this reference without explaining that only another revolution could restore the means of production to the control of the proletariat and peasantry. MIM would go much further than Baraka and label Deng a capitalist-roader long before Mao's death, and would support Mao's struggle against Deng Xiaoping during the Cultural Revolution.
In addition, blaming external causes for the restoration of capitalism in a socialist society is incorrect. Capitalist restoration is carried out by a new bourgeoisie that arises within the Communist Party itself. It is expected for Dengists to gut this essential part of Mao's theory of contradiction (internal contradictions are principal) in order to defend Deng's hold on power while upholding, at least superficially, the Chinese criticism of the USSR under Khruschev.
2. MIM's second dividing line question holds that class struggle continues under socialism and defends the Cultural Revolution in China as the closest a society has ever gotten to communism. The Cultural Revolution was the closest to communism because it was initiated out of scientific understanding of the roots of state capitalism and the need to struggle against the capitalist road during the socialist stage and to decentralize authority and increase the masses' political initiative over their society and their lives. The Dengist theory - of which we can find no mention in this issue - holds that class struggle does not intensify under socialism. U&S talks repeatedly of "winning the advanced to communism" but without discussing the most important historical battles that have occurred on the way to communism, U&S is at worst misleading the people and at best shooting only for more state capitalism.
3. MIM holds that the white working class is a bought off labor aristocracy and not a revolutionary proletariat. The article about the AFL-CIO in U&S clearly upholds the rank and file of the AFL-CIO as oppressed proletarians, which is incorrect.
4. The U&S "Principles of Unity" contain the only mention of party-building in the paper. The entire reference, which is sometimes quoted from in other articles, is: "D.) Build a Democratic Workers' Party (an independent mass party)." Nowhere in U&S do we see mention of Lenin or Mao and the necessity of a disciplined party to carry out the mass line and complete the circuit from practice to perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge and redirect that rational knowledge back into practice.
All four questions are necessary to determine Maoism and it's best path forward, and U&S strikes out all on four. Many U&S articles are progressive in their opposition to U.S. imperialism in the Third World and Amerikan/FBI war on the oppression nations. However, we wish that U&S would be clearer on whether they do or do not uphold Marx, Lenin or Mao so as not to confuse the masses on the difference between Marxism and revisionism.
Party building is vital to revolutionary organization; the bourgeoisie is well organized in the maintenance of imperialist society, and revolutionaries who take the cause of the international proletariat seriously must work to build structures that can rival and eventually destroy the bourgeoisie's.
Maoists should join MIM, and supporters of Maoism should work with the Maoist Support Group and the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL). While MIM has not yet done all the research on Unity and Struggle, we can already claim the theory and practice of MIM and RAIL to be superior.