This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement


European writer indirectly raises Wang Ming question

[MIM publishes this letter as a piece of data for international communist leaders to consider. It is not from the same European we published last. The letter responded to our request for a stand on Iran and RIM. This is someone who has corresponded with MIM a very long time, but this is the first time we have any indication of a stand on Iran. In a part of a letter we excised, we see that the comrade fell for persynal attacks on MIM and loose charges of sectarianism before claiming to see otherwise.]

I oppose the US and everything it stands for, just as I oppose the rest of the West (especially but not exclusively the Axis of Evil of the USA, UK and Israel). I would sooner cut my hand off than support anyone taking aid from the yanks to fight the Iranian reactionary regime. I am not neutral about Iran.

MIM has legitimate questions to ask. Whether you have found the right answers is another matter and I don't yet know the answer. At the moment I probably accept that the First World workers live off the surplus value created by oppressed nation toilers. What the political implications of that are, I haven't had time to work it all out. (As I said before, many you put in the enemy camp seem to agree with this thesis too.)

My thought is led by the '5' (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao). No other leader has my respect to the extent that these do. Other leaders have to earn the respect of the people, including me, they haven't earned it yet because they haven't achieved anything like the great achievements of the 5. Maybe they will do in the future. How will MIM leaders earn the respect of the people?

I don't know what role someone like myself can play in the proletarian struggle. Writing an article defending Mao seemed like a good idea because it was suited to my own capacities and interests. Also, I was worried that bourgeois propaganda against Mao might even start to shape the consciousness of those in the oppressed nations (like when the Phillipino government started showing videos of 'The Killing Fields' to peasants to undermine the NPA struggle.)

Should the proletarian struggle be led from imperialist countries? If MIM leads the ideas of the world movement then wouldn't this lead to a problem? Yes, I know this will be a problem for rival groups too but this fact doesn't help you much. If this is a problem do I or you have a role?

When I travelled through oppressed nations I noticed that most people I met wanted to find out if I could do something to improve their wretched position (especially give them tips on how to emigrate to the West) but if I spent a lot of time with them the resentment tended to boil over. A "friend" I made out there saw me put a water purification tablet in my water bottle and then angrily thrust a cup of dirty water in my face and said "this is what we have to drink."

Even among revolutionaries in the oppressed nations a "colonial consciousness" might develop. We have so much money, so much freedom, so much power that the revolutionary might start thinking--"if we get close to this person they can do something to really help us." Mao had to fight against those so dazzled by Stalin's successes that they did not want to pursue an independent line (which wasn't Stalin's fault, revolutionaries should know themselves to be independent of outside influences). Maybe our only real role is to tell people "If you spend your time hanging around with us you will always be drinking dirty water."

[International Minister comments:

I believe even our most capable people in the international communist movement are confused on a number of points. This letter raises questions that have all been raised and answered on our web page before, but they combine them in a unique way.

The last paragraph gets us to Mao's struggle with Wang Ming. This is true and correct. Also it is a problem, because MIM gets requests every day from the Third World to join MIM. People are not even reading all the way thorugh our FAQ where we say we don't do that and deciding that MIM is the right thing--then the enemy says communism is dead! Hah!

The rest of this letter is not correct, mainly because it mixes together correct thoughts in the wrong way.

Mao's point about Stalin and Wang Ming was the opposite of the points raised earlier that "my thought is led by the '5.'" That's exactly why all this time we do not know where this persyn stands on Iran or the class structure of the country the persyn is from! Ironically this is coming from someone echoing someone claiming to oppose Wang Ming!

This comrade has for some months been echoing incorrect ideas in the international communist movement, taken out of original context. They boil down to failure to commit; although, the comrade has a good attitude toward future investigation.

1) Saying there are no great leaders other than the five in this context is something taken from someone else to dodge having to take a stand on Iran and other questions. Those 5 are dead. Mao's struggle with Wang Ming was precisely over taking a stand on conditions of his day. It does not matter great leader or a lumpen drunk, if someone asks you where you stand on Iran, you should have a position. If someone comes to you and points out that an organization calling itself Maoist is echoing Bush up and down the line on the principal contradiction in the world being Iran, you don't get to back out of the question because of the identity of the persyn asking. That's the nature of science.

2) The next point is about some kind of concession to multicultural politics, again effectively along the lines of identity. Everybody chooses who they associate with. If George W. Bush starts calling himself a Maoist or some lackey like the King of Jordan does, I don't have to believe them. You have to draw the line--great leader, drunk lumpen, white, Black, old or young--no matter where you first heard the question under discussion.

3) The question of MIM leaders gaining the respect of the "people" again comes from the conciliators. It's as if the phrase "enemy of the people" did not exist. Here again is the failure to commit. Maoism is not a straight jump into peace and love. If we don't see enemies, we don't have Maoism. Enemies are not counted in the "people" and MIM has raised that several times on our web page. If the comrade is led by the "5," she can go read Mao about working behind enemy lines or even among the enemy.

Oddly enough, the questions being raised in a jumbled way are the positions of conciliators seeking to preserve the RIM. These questions all need to go to the RIM, because they believe they are an emerging international center and they have written articles about how Mao was wrong to dump on the Comintern, which was one international party with central discipline. When these questions are asked of MIM, the effect is identity politics--going too far in denying the unity of the international proletariat as one class discernible by science potentially possessed by all.

Diplomatic formalism on questions of the international communist movement are going to lead to identity politics and failures to struggle through questions. If Iranians want their regime defeated by the u.$. imperialists, fine, but they should call themselves neo-conservatives or Trotskyist-Avakianists, not Marxist- Leninist-Maoist. There is no sacred diplomatic right for the Pentagon to use Mao as a cover in Afghanistan or Iran.

Neither I nor anyone else puts in time, energy and maybe blood into the struggle just so Uncle $am can co-opt it through clever use of labels. Nor will proletarians follow leaders who allow that to happen in the long run.

We communists in the imperialist countries have a strong vested interest in seeing Maoist People's War break out on the front-lines. So do all communists. Then there is the question of how we are evaluated by outsiders. Imagine an oppressed nation persyn from an Islamic country trying to evaluate Maoism at this time and more of the parties concerned are more worried about abortion rights than defeating imperialist occupations. This sort of impression being created by the imperialists is deadly and has to be fought. It should not be fought because I am a "great leader" or because I am the right or wrong identity. It has to be fought in the interests of the international proletariat which just so happens not to have Maoist parties in place conducting People's War where it needs them. Yes, that means part of what is going on is that these oppressed nation people are looking at us, because there are no Maoist parties nearby to look at. We cannot pretend the situation is otherwise! Especially not for the benefit of diplomatic formalism!

Diplomatic formalism and identity politics have no reality in our history. Even three generations ago when communications were less developed it was already not true imperialist country comrades play no role. Most of the world's most famous communists had some initial contact with Western communists. It even stands to reason that the Western communists play a special part in the struggle against capitalist restoration, because the question is no longer one of just feudalism.

The Western comrades should play support roles, but only for real Maoist parties, not those operated by the Pentagon or conciliating with such. If there are no real Maoist parties in the world, then Western comrades should still oppose their own imperialists and do so staunchly enough that a Third World comrade could imagine forming a party to conduct war against imperialist occupation. Push comes to shove, our first task is to oppose our own imperialists, in particular in their wars of occupation. This will set the right example for genuine Third World Maoists down the line who will cut right through the murk into the question of national oppression, imperialist exploitation, war and peace.

You will search in vain to find any joint communique by any list of parties claiming Mao that says defeatism in an oppressed nation belongs in the Maoist repertoire. That's even counting all the watered down and exploiter resolutions done in the name of Mao. Why? Because this is just so obvious, so incredibly over the line, that even the entire past variety of revisionists failed to anticipate it as being anything other than obvious stooging.]