*See also, "International Minister update for October 12 2006"
*See also our Iran page
We are organizing a campaign against Third World lackeys of the CIA trying to ruin communist organization in countries where Islam predominates--Iran and Afghanistan in particular. A party of the RIM ("Revolutionary Internationalist Movement," a name stolen from us) is openly organizing to defeat the Iranian regime in what they are hoping is a U.$. invasion. We would not be talking about this at all, except that the lackeys call their organizations "Maoist." [Here we will take quotes from lackeys and lackey cultivators and abbreviate them "LL" as "lackey line."]
LL: "At the same time Iranian Maoists could play on the contradiction between imperialists and clericals. To our pleasure the Communist party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) acts from the same positions."
International Minister of MIM: Those who play off imperialist nations against oppressed nations are vacillators. Among the inexperienced, it is a petty-bourgeois political expression. Among the veterans it is service to imperialism.
What this formulation does once again is substitute a culture analysis for a nation and class analysis. Where that word "clericals" is can only be the words "oppressed nation, Iran." That is how Maoists look at it, principally.
For the politically inexperienced the imperialism vs. clerical line can only be on account of sectarianism. Clericals do not exist above nation and class. To imply so is to buy into their argument about having divine ideas untouched by material considerations.
It is completely correct to play off imperialist countries against each other. The only way to play off the imperialists against the oppressed nations is by being more anti-imperialist than anyone else in that oppressed nation. Only then is it possible to lead exploited and oppressed people to victory.
LL: "You are also effectively applying the Three Worlds Theory (the 1976-77 one, I mean) in a way that even Hua or Deng would have blushed at applying in the 1970s. How did you people manage to combine the worst of PLP and Klonsky 'in the same flask'?"
IM replies for MIM: This is more Avakianite drivel. It's not a question of a "Three Worlds Theory" anymore. Mao is dead. We have historical materialism now and there was no instance, not once of Mao supporting the defeat of a Third World nation by U.$. imperialism. So the correct approach is to sum up history, the history of Mao's practice. There can be no genuine communist division over that; although Trotskyists and neo-conservatives are certainly free to adopt your position.
The PLP was denouncing Mao over and over again precisely because Mao's official publications hailed every victory of Third World peoples against imperialism, including those not led by genuine scientific communist parties. You are echoing PLP on this again, not MIM. And you are doing so exactly at the moment when Iran stands accused by imperialism of giving material aid both to Lebanon and Iraq. [The persyn who said this knows all this very well and counts in the "veteran" camp.]
LL: Like that very same PLP, you have now denounced every single Maoist (OK, "calling itself Maoist") People's War everywhere: the Nepalese are, according to you, "Kautskyites," the Philipinos, "Browderites," et cetera ad nauseam.
IM replies for MIM: This is where identity politics slips in. I find it very interesting to what extent alleged scientific communists play on post-modernist petty-bourgeois fears of being a moment without a People's War identity. And I mean in practical terms it will be a long time before the other imperialist country RIM parties catch up with the amount of public opinion work MIM has done in support of People's Wars--even if the RIM shed its CIA agents and suddenly adopted genuine Maoism today.
Do our critics mean to imply that if we criticize the parties leading People's Wars that those People's Wars disappear? Our critics are Cominternist and for them if there is no party leading there is no class struggle, but beyond that they think the Peoples Wars cannot survive criticism? Do our critics imply that if the CIA bribed a handful of leaders (in this case our critic mentioned a whole two that would have to be bought off) we have to support the CIA or give up our identity as supporters of People's War? Forget the Cultural Revolution, even Hoxha would not have bought such a naive view of the class struggle and parties.
MIM has criticized Joma Sison and the Communist Party of the Philippines by name. We have also criticized the entire RIM. Does that mean MIM has criticized all organizations carrying out People's War? No, it does not unless the persyn asking is a world super-spy and can prove that they all oppose MIM's Central Committee statement.
What this incident proves is that nestled beside us were those uncomfortable with struggle. If the CIA bribed a handful of people and there had to be a struggle, these identity politics types would be locked arm-and-arm with the CIA. They would not budge out of step with the CIA appointed leaders of a People's War, because they value their identity more than their alleged goals.
Then too, within the RIM camp, they try to hook people with such an incredible medley of views ranging from peace accords to forming Fort Bragg support groups. The only thing that binds them together is the CIA infrastructure and the identity politics outlook. Here is one of the views in the RIM camp:
The contradiction between the imperialist powers and countries invoking upholding national independence has in fact resulted in wars that are even more dramatic for a certain time than the revolutionary wars of oppressed peoples and nations. Any government, whether motivated by bourgeois nationalism or socialism, invokes national independence against imperialism to assert its legitimacy and compliance with the sovereign will of the people. We have seen the blitzkriegs launched by the US and its allies against Iraq and Afghanistan. The governments of Saddam and the Taleban have fallen. But the people continue to wage a war of liberation against the occupation and has pushed the US into a quagmire.We're going to leave it to the CIA and identity politics supporters to figure out who and for what context someone said that dastardly thing against all the existing People's Wars organizations September 22 2006.
Our critic says that in 1999 we had a line for generally supporting even the party leaderships that lead People's War. That is true, but in 1999 we did not have troops in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran etc. Bad luck for us--our materialist tough shit--but none of those places had Maoist parties ready to lead, despite MIM's many years of publicizing the existing People's Wars. So now we are pausing to see if these People's Wars can make an adjustment. Apparently our critic believes they cannot or will not, without specifying if the reason is a bribe or not. Without launching the struggle, the critic simply assumes that all the People's Wars will oppose the MIM line. Of course our critics do not mention Aztlán at all. Who is going to bat for Aztlán in the international communist movement?
Our critic could be right that it ends up that every single People's War leadership refuses to break with RCP=CIA/SARBEDARAN and support Aztlán. If so, sorry, but promoting people who support serving as puppet lackeys in Third World countries and who oppose Aztlán is not going to inspire what needs to be inspired.
In 1999, MIM did not know to what extent the People's War in Nepal understood what had happened with SARBEDARAN's role squelching revolutionary Peruvian journalism just when the People's War in Peru most needed that voice in exile after the arrest of Gonzalo.
It just so happens that it was only after 2001 that concretely speaking, MIM's true first duty slapped MIM in the face with several demonstrations inside u.$. borders against Iran led by pseudo-Marxists and even fake Maoists. MIM in no way anticipated in 1999 that we would find ourselves in a position where RIM would back the defeat of Iran openly and where most of the communists would find themselves using culture war formulations or half-way culture war formulations instead of nation and class war formulations.
If we read the internal documents and arguments of the Trotskyists in China, some referred to the Trotskyist line supporting invasion against China as "sectarian." For purposes of youth instruction, that is accurate. The line is sectarian, but more than that it becomes openly pro-imperialist in some circumstances as with Iran.
Even some of the Trotskyists in China correctly reasoned that calling for the defeat of China by imperialism just to stand apart from the "Stalinists" and be noticed was building up a party at the expense of a colonized country. That's what all this "third pole" and "neither imperialism nor Islam" line is all about--sectarianism that clears the way for culture war instead of class war. That is in the case of the people 18, 19 or 20 who might be sucked into such a line. Of course, the veterans who use this line know very well they are in direct service to imperialism and should not be called "sectarians," because that would underestimate the problem.
Now we have the same thing with alleged "Maoists" trying to differentiate from Islamic theocrats in Iran and Afghanistan. The line appeals to politically inexperienced youth, Westerninized Liberals and the CIA sponsoring them.
Sectarianism is putting the needs of the organization above the strategic needs of the oppressed and exploited. All around the world this came up among Trotskyists trying to differentiate from followers of Stalin, the Marxist-Leninists as they were called in that day. If we are to get new parties going to lead People's Wars we have to lead an exemplary battle against sectarianism, which is not uniting culture warriors with Marxists but uniting in the strategic interests of the oppressed and exploited.
For the CIA to bribe a few People's War leaders into putting their interests above those of occupied countries would not be hard. Our critics are already sure the People's Wars won't unite with the MIM line, because they take correct line as something static and eternal, but MIM is not so sure.
The first step is for these parties to recognize who put the united $tates in the "quagmire" as the author mentioned above noticed and what that means about the nature of class and national struggle without vanguard parties. After recognizing reality the next step is to adjust, to do something specifically aimed at that problem.
Islam is a culture. It is almost a nationality too, because of how it is geographically dispersed. Islam is an intra-proletarian problem. It is in no way permissible for scientific communists to mix culture problems in discussion of class struggle. It is not imperialists versus a culture. It is imperialists versus oppressed nations, and capitalists versus proletarians. Our inexperienced critics refuse to recognize this and therefore they slide into the imperialist camp, where veteran agents wait with outstretched arms.