MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
The Chican@ Movement continues to grow and evolve as it reacts and
responds to the social reality that we encounter today. For this we need
to put our goals in perspective so that we may build today and guide our
future guerrer@s who will continue the struggle for liberation and
self-determination for the nation. Today we delve into our predecessors’
actions and previous lessons and ideas that shaped our political line
and which guide us into the future. For these reasons it’s crucial that
we define what our true objectives are today in our movement that we
hope outlines how our movement has evolved and continues to grow into
the future.
In the 1960s many within the Chican@ movement of that period sought
Chican@ power in the form of better schools, of an end to abuse or the
murder of our people in the imperialist wars like in Vietnam. For many
others Chican@ Power meant to have community control in some form, of
having our own teachers and schools or even a parcel of land. Many
Chican@ organizations did not study political theory, even today
political education is not promoted in the nation on the level that it
should at this stage in the decaying of capitalism.
A true classification today of Chican@ power should push the
boundaries and transcend generations in ways that cut the path for our
future cadre. For these reasons Chican@ Power today can only be seen as
based in a socialist revolution and a communist future less it be
reduced to simply a defective label. Seeking more jobs or “funding” for
our community which is ultimately strangled out of the Third World by
imperialism no longer quenches the thirst we have for justice and
liberation.
The pairing of Chican@ power with revolution is the natural cause of
development if we are to take a materialist approach. We know that the
capitalist State will not hand over power, it will not unseat itself, on
the contrary the natural cycle of imperialism demands that it “eats
more”, it must in order to continue to exist. In the initial stages of
revolution a joint dictatorship of the oppressed nations will ensure the
U.$. capitalist state and all of its imperialist lechers are thoroughly
stomped out for good, thereby cutting a path for Aztlán and other
oppressed nations to finally exercise people’s power in their liberated
nations where socialism can blossom.
Today’s Chican@ movement is in agreement for the most part that we
the Chican@ Nation are a people who should be free from oppression and
who deserve to be free to organize in our own fashion and even our own
government. Where the road becomes blurry for some is what Chican@ power
should look like as the term Chican@ power can fill many different
buckets.
One challenge we have today, to be quite honest, is the rise of the
petty bourgeoisie within Aztlán, and as a result, the dominance of
bourgeois ideology is taken for granted. Taking a Materialist approach
was rarely done in the past where our concrete reality and the ever
changing conditions, very material conditions in which we exist as an
oppressed nation highlight the terrain in which we are up against.
Another challenge is the strong pull towards integration with the
oppressor nation and what these two challenges mean or how they affect
the activity of the Chican@ nation and its vision for power or what
power even looks like to Aztlán especially for those under the influence
of Amerikkka or capitalism more broadly. As communists we know that
humyn activity and how they move through life affects their production
and one’s mode of production. How and what we as Chican@s produce
defines how we are developing as people and as a nation. Production is
key to assess a people or productive forces but here in the U.S. the
“productive forces” are for the most part bourgeoisified.
For Aztlán the most revolutionary elements that push for power would
be the lumpen and migrants. The Chican@ lumpen exist in a tribal type of
structure within these false U.S. borders with a definite class
formation and antagonism between lumpen and the capitalist state. At the
same time some of the petty bourgeoisie will ride with the revolution
and we should understand these social forces collectively and build with
this in mind. All socialist revolutions proved this to be true,
including Mao’s Chinese revolution.
Chican@ Power at this stage will not come from a gun. We have much
work ahead, mental work, theoretical production to get our gente where
they need to be theoretically or ideologically. But consciousness
raising cannot elevate a nation if this effort is devoid of practice,
and correct practice does not arrive without error in which to learn
from. So practice is necessary for us to propel Aztlán onto the stage
where Chican@ power is finally realized as without practice we are left
with what Marx called “dead facts”. Within U.S. prisons I read of a lot
of resistance and theory including new Chican@ revolutionaries and
others. Some of this writing is very good but without practice and
putting some of these ideas into reality the U.S. prisons can degenerate
into warehouses of dead facts. Likewise the semi-colonies can end up as
prison houses of dead facts.
Our hystorical conditions as a semi-colony will compel us to obtain
national liberation. Our ideology will streamline this process. Our
colonizers today control the dominant ideology taken up by the majority
of the masses here in the occupied territories, even among the most
oppressed we can see and hear them parroting ruling class propaganda.
The capitalist state spends a lot of money and time from its many
agencies in order to spread its brainwashing on a mass scale. It’s our
job to counter this as best we can. Chican@ power relies on how
effective we are at this.
We should know and understand that Chican@ Power will be realized in
a world lead by the Third World. What’s more is the Chican@ Movement is
also part of the International Communist Movement (ICM) and millions of
people around the world who are a part of the ICM are also currently
fighting for national liberation just like us. They fight against class
and gender oppression just like us. We are not alone, on the contrary we
are with the majority of the world’s people in our fight for
justice.
Today Chican@ organizations should be building Barrio Committees in a
hood near you. The Barrios Committee will be the cultural center and
political laboratory for Aztlán at a regional level. The Barrio
Committee is but the seed for the Chican@ Communes. These are the steps
towards dual power and community control. This is the path towards
Chican@ Power that needs to be utilized in order to guide the nation
towards a society that is free from oppression.
In the past, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), and its mass
org at the time, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League, campaigned
to get the University of California to Divest from I$rael.(1) This was a
correct strategy, because U.$. imperialism is the number one backer of
the I$raeli war machine. Behind the flag of I$rael is the stars and
stripes.
More recently, United Struggle from Within (USW) carried out a
petition campaign, which read in part:
“Therefore with this declaration we angrily express our indignation
with the state of Israel for committing genocide, and for the Israeli
people for allowing it to happen in the 21st century after vowing”never
again.”
The petition recognized that Palestinian political prisoners had
supported the California hunger strikes in recent years and it was time
to return solidarity. By 2016, comrades in 16 prisons had gathered 189
signatures. Recognizing the limitations of conditions, the petition also
read:
“Within these walls we are as yet powerless to tap into the potential
of the imprisoned lumpen; the oppressed internal nation lumpen in
particular as agents of social change, but we are not yet powerless to
sign a piece of paper to denounce the state of Israel and their support
in the U.$.”
Still today, comrades are asking what can we do to support
Palestine?
Settlers Supporting Settlers
The war against Palestine is what Amerika has always done from its
very founding – land grab, occupation, genocide. Therefore, there is
much support in the United $tates for I$rael’s current bombing campaign
and invasion of Gaza. And the tactics being used against Palestine could
easily be tried against indigenous people here on Turtle Island
next.
MIM and others have documented the history of Amerikan labor union
support for I$rael.(2) Yet, in recent months not only has the U.$. seen
millions demonstrate to oppose U.$. militarism in Palestine, but labor
unions representing millions of Amerikan so-called workers have signed a
call for a cease fire.(3) While Amerikans have always been settlers, the
United $tates is more and more a population of people who do not come
from settler backgrounds. And more and more, people from non-settler
backgrounds are joining the ranks of labor unions, big tech companies
and other professional roles. This is one factor behind the wavering
support for I$rael. Of course, it is the Palestinian resistance that is
forcing Amerikans to take a position.
The cease fire call is a shift for many Amerikan labor unions away
from outright Zionism to the left wing of white nationalism. Despite the
cease fire statement, these unions will still be campaigning for
Genocide Joe this year. And while some members of the International
Longshoreman Workers Union (ILWU) participated in a one day protest/shut
down of the port of Oakland in support of Gaza, there has been no
sustained strike by Amerikan unions that are actively involved in
shipping arms to I$rael.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), having been in the news for strikes
last year, is one of the unions to issue a statement for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the UAW has been hosting talks with employees of arms
manufacturer Raytheon for a “just transition” to guarantee labor
aristocracy union jobs in thefuture technologies of war and genocide.
Brandon Mancilla, director or UAW’s Region 9A, announced in a tweet on
Dec 1st the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group
to explore how “we can have just transition for US workers from war to
peace.” Behind the UAW’s ceasefire resolution, was UAW Labor for
Palestine. Self-described on their website as a “nationwide group of
rank-and-file UAW members” that seeks to “organize UAW worksites that
send arms and other material to Israel.” They have faced great
resistance from the UAW in general to taking any action to stop
producing arms for I$rael. Like the Amerikan leaders who mumble words
about humanitarian efforts in Palestine while continuing to authorize
more and more shipments of war machines to I$rael, Amerikan labor makes
statements about ceasefire, while continuing to produce these machines.
Actions speak louder than words.
As we reported in ULK 84, arms shipments must get to the
Red Sea before they face real resistance; resistance by Yemen’s
armed forces. And following I$rael’s attacks on Iranian diplomatic soil
in Syria in April, Iran has seized an I$raeli-linked cargo ship passing
through the Strait of Hormuz. While the Strait, which accesses the
Persian Gulf, does not lead to I$rael, it does lead to I$rael’s new Arab
allies in the UAE.
Doing Better
The #1 thing people in the United $tates can be doing in the
short-term to stop genocide in Palestine is to stop shipments of arms
and aid to I$rael. Just as the imperialists have used blockades to
weaken the Palestinian resistance. The question is how to make such a
blockade meaningful and sustainable.
In the longer-term it is our responsibility in the United $tates to
weaken imperialism from the inside. As we see the principal
contradiction in the United $tates to be between nations, it is by
supporting national liberation struggles at home that we believe we can
best make this happen faster. And without building the revolutionary
forces here in the United $tates, we do not foresee a successful,
sustained blockade of aid to I$rael.
Another realm of struggle we should be tuned into is the struggle
against political repression of those supporting Palestine, and
especially the state imposing limitations on the exchange of information
between Palestine and the world. The labeling of organizations linked to
the Palestinian struggle as “terrorist organizations” is parallel to
organizations in the oppressed nations in the United $tates being
labelled “security threat groups (STGs).” As our readers know well the
right to free speech and association is not guaranteed but must be
struggled for within this bourgeois democracy.
Finally, correct political line must lead for us to succeed on all
fronts. Democratic Party-supporting labor unions calling for “cease
fire” is not the correct political line. Stopping all aid to I$rael is
correct. Supporting national liberation struggles of the oppressed is
correct. Recognizing the populations of the exploiter countries to be
part of the bourgeoisie is correct. And recognizing the need for
independent communist organizations in all parts of the world is correct
for avoiding past mistakes that restricted the revolutionary potential
of oppressed nations (see next section).
There is a reinforcing effect between revolutionary nationalist and
communist movements around the world. Communism was more popular in
Palestine when communists were demonstrating models of success in
practice in other parts of the world. The revolutionary nationalism of
Palestine today will impact the consciousness of revolutionary
nationalism around the world, including within U.$. borders. Amplifying
this effect in the short-term will help us build the type of movement
that can provide real solidarity with Palestine in the short-term. The
history and class interests of Amerikan labor prove that their current
level of sympathies with Palestine are tenuous and lacking in
militancy.
It is the struggle of the occupied indigenous populations, the
largest of which is Aztlán, that are most parallel to Palestine in our
context. Meanwhile New Afrika has probably been the most ardent
supporter of Palestine in the United $tates historically. Though it’s
also worth noting the prominence of Jewish voices in opposing the war
from the United $tates, due to the connection the existence of I$rael
has forced onto all Jewish people. As a resistance movement based in a
compact area of land that is mostly urban, there is much to be learned
tactically from the successes of the ongoing struggle in Palestine today
that relates to the conditions of oppressed nations in the heart of
empire.
The ICM, Pan-Islamism and
Palestine
Support from communists around the world, especially those waging
People’s War in the Third World, has been unwavering on the side of
Palestine liberation since October 7th. But the history of the
International Communist Movement (ICM) has led to setbacks in
Palestinian and pan-Arab liberation.
MIM(Prisons) has been working on reiterating MIM line on the
Communist International in recent years as part of an effort to compile
MIM’s
work opposing crypto-Trotskyism. One of the key issues we have with
Trotskyism is its view that the most advanced capitalist countries
will/should lead the communist movement. MIM line says that the most
exploited and oppressed nations will lead the way, and recognizes the
need for independent initiative and direction from within each nation.
We also see the need for a Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the
Oppressed Nations (JDPON) as a tool for overthrowing imperialism. Under
the JDPON, it will be the communist minorities in former imperialist
countries that are benefiting from the assistance of more advanced,
socialist, former colonies.
From 1919-1943, the third Communist International (Comintern) was the
first experiment in an international communist movement that involved
parties in state power. At that time the idea that the advanced
capitalist countries would lead the socialist revolution was more
popular. Bolshevik leader Mirza Sultan-Galiev was one of the biggest
critics of this position. In 1923, at the 9th Conference of the Tatar
Obkom, Sutlan-Galiev stated:
“If a revolution succeeds in England, the proletariat will continue
oppressing the colonies and pursuing the policy of the existing
bourgeois government; for it is interested in the exploitation of these
colonies. In order to prevent the oppression of the toiler of the East
we must unite the Muslim masses in a communist movement that will be our
own and autonomous.”(4)
MIM positively reviewed eir ideas:
“Sultan-Galiev was for the formation of a”Colonial International” to
replace the Comintern as organization of central importance. He also
called for the “dictatorship of the colonial nations over the
metropolis.”“(5)
Sultan-Galiev applied this concept to Russians, who were far more
oppressed and exploited than Amerikans today, as well as to the United
$tates, which ey saw as built on the genocide and labor of First Nations
and New Afrikans.
Cuban revolutionary Che Guevarra and Georgian leader of the Soviet Union
Joseph Stalin. Despite eir mistakes in building the first socialist
state, Stalin is part of the lineage of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. While
friendly to Maoism in many ways, Guevarra is known for focoism, a
military strategy that is the opposite of Mao’s Protracted People’s War.
For a brief period, about 5 years after the Russian revolution, the
Bolsheviks had created a Muslim communist party separate from the
Russian one. But this project was quickly abandoned. Decades later, USSR
leader Joseph Stalin, who also played a leading role in the Comintern,
abolished the Comintern in 1943. Stalin and Mao both said the communist
international was no longer appropriate for the complicated conditions
of international struggle. One of the problems with the communist
international was the mixing of people from exploiter countries and
exploited countries in one organization. Another was the mixing of
people engaged in armed struggle against imperialism with those who are
not. Sultan-Galiev’s proposal for a “Colonial International” addresses
the first problem. However, eir ideas were not ultimately adopted by the
Comintern, and ey was purged from the Bolshevik Party in 1923.
Current
Events in Russia and Palestinian Communism
Last week a horrible mass shooting took place in Moscow, killing 143
people. The gunmen are reportedly from Tajikistan and working with the
Islamic State-Khorasan, based in Central Asia. An Amerikan analyst
explained that this group “sees Russia as being complicit in activities
that regularly oppress Muslims” and that a number of other Central Asian
militants have allied with the Islamic State group due to their own
grievances against Moscow.(6) Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic.
One must wonder if a Muslim Communist International, separate from the
Russian one, could have avoided the emergence of militant groups in
Central Asia today that have violent beefs with Moscow. This goes both
ways, with chauvinist attitudes by many Russians today towards the other
former Soviet republics. As the capitalist/imperialist USSR collapsed in
1991, both sides of this national divide perceived the other to be
exploiting them.(7)
On the Western side of the USSR Sultan-Galiev helped establish a
separate Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921. This
became a bastion for German Nazis in the 1940s, leading to the native
Tatar population being relocated by Stalin, and the area populated by
Russians and Ukrainians – leading to disputes over the territory today.
This suggests that Stalin was correct to oppose Sultan-Galiev for narrow
nationalism in the late 1920s and ultimately have em killed in 1940 as
the Nazis were preparing to invade.
The problems with trying to unify too quickly with a communist
international seems to have played a role in Palestine and the Arab
world as well. The Soviet Union supported the partitioning of Palestine
by the Zionists, leading to the Nakba (“The Catastrophe” or ethnic
cleansing of Palestine) in 1948. Despite the Comintern having been
dissolved in 1943, apparently it was still policy for the Communist
Parties in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon to support the USSR line on the
partitioning of Palestine against their own beliefs. This led to massive
loss of support for the communists in Syria and Lebanon for years to
come (there was not much support in Palestine until years later).(8)
While U.$. and I$raeli imperialism played a role in suppressing
communist organizing, these internal contradictions and short-comings
are what allowed such efforts to succeed. We can see how the strategies
we choose today can have grave and lasting impacts decades later. That
is why we, as communists, must do a better job of implementing an
effective internationalism by recognizing the national
self-determination of each oppressed nation. Independence in action must
coincide with a struggle for unity in ideology.
“The early stages of socialism according to both Lenin and Stalin
would see a vast multiplication of nations seizing their destinies. It
was only under advanced communism that we could contemplate the
disappearance of nations.”(7)
The above is in line with USW’s slogan of “unity from the inside
out.” It is only with true self-determination of the oppressed nations
that they can fully unite with other nations. Of course, the more unity
we have the stronger we are. So we must struggle for unity, without
forcing it before conditions are ripe.
We call on comrades to continue to make connections between Palestine
and national struggles in occupied Turtle Island, and to build national
liberation struggles here in the heart of empire.
As I understand it, Chicano nationalism draws heavily from Indigenismo – an ideology of the settler colonial Mexican state that says that all the inhabitants of Mexico are indigenous, all are Mestizos, and so on. Such an ideology is fundamentally anti-indigenous as it seeks to indigenize Mexican settlers. The conception of Aztlan is similar – it is a land claim based on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – land taken from Mexico during the Mexico-American war. It’s worth noting that the treaty itself distinguishes between Mexican settlers in this territory and Indigenous “savages”.
While it is true that a section of the colonized proletariat of the America is from Mexico, I am convinced that they are not members of an oppressed Chicano nation. They are more often members of Indigenous nations in Mexico displaced from their homelands.
Chicano nationalism is ultimately a form of settler nationalism. It expresses the class interests of mainly Euro-Mexican settlers against Euro-American settlers. It disguises the legitimate claims for decolonization by oppressed indigenous and African nations in Mexico and the American Southwest, by pretending that all Chicanos are descendants of ancient Aztecs. It is extremely unfortunate that this ideology has taken hold in America’s prisons by people who are not connected to Aztec/Nahua people, culture or elders.
I’m not an expert in this, I’m still learning much about it. But I’m just letting you know that the issue is a lot more complicated than it seems from the outset. There’s lots of liberal carry-over on reddit where I see people lumping all POC together and assuming they are revolutionary. Which is just not the case.
Xipe of the Communist Party of Aztlán responds:
On Indigenismo
Chican@ revolutionary nationalism has often been misunderstood. Our belief is that this is due to the Chican@ Nation not meeting its responsibility in addressing a correct political line to the ICM (International Communist Movement) on the one hand and in the ICM’s mostly incorrect analysis of the social forces within these false U.S. borders.
To be clear the CPA does not draw heavily on indigenismo – which is steeped in metaphysical trappings. We draw heavily on materialism. As materialists we recognize that not all inhabitants of Mexico are indigenous – although according to Jack Forbes most are! What’s more We disagree with your understanding that Chicano nationalism believes all are “mestizos” in Mexico, the CPA(MLM) believes that the term Mestizo is actually a label deriving from the colonizers agit/prop that strips Chican@s of many features of nationhood. “Mestizo” is anti-materialist, that as Jack Forbes suggests, is better suited to describe many of the European nations such as Italy, Sicily, etc.
Our analysis overstands that the inhabitants of current day Mexico are a combination of bloodlines that include indigenous, Spanish colonizer, African and others. And yet blood quantum don’t define a nation. We draw from Stalin on the national question for what defines a nation and we thoroughly address this in the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán.
On Land
It seems to many that the political line of some Chican@ cultural nationalists is interpreted as the political line of the entire nation, this is incorrect. Our stance on land does not simply derive from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, although we certainly cite this treaty in much of our agit/prop surrounding our struggle for national liberation. To rely simply on the colonizers treaty to validate our struggle for national liberation is akin to anti-imperialists within these false U.S. borders simply relying on the U.S. Constitution to validate its anti-imperialism. Although one can use the imperialists’ words and articles against them, we are not reformists who simply want our class enemies to re-word a document or follow its own law. We want a complete transformation of society and to free the tierra! Our lucha for land is for a Chicano Socialist Government not for permission from the colonizer to own acres of land under an imperialist rule.
Those who confuse Chican@ revolutionary nationalism with the settler need to study the development of nations, specifically the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán, which includes the political line of the CPA when it comes to a nation. We ask those who are curious on our line to read the Chican@ Red Book (Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán).
Even if the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was never written our national liberation movement would be just. Chican@s developed in what is now the “U.$. Southwest” as surely as Africans developed in what is now Haiti to become Haitians. Our line is not anchored in us believing we are descendants of ancient “Aztecs” – although some actually are! We overstand that the term “Aztlán” was used 50+ years ago within the Chican@ movement as a rallying cry and point of unity for Chican@s of the time and we see the relevance of using it in our struggle today.
On 11 September 2021, Chairman Gonzalo has been reported to be dead
by the Peruvian prison service and the Peruvian government.(1) The
president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has tweeted in regards to Gonzalo’s
death:
“The terrorist ringleader Abimael Guzmán, responsible for the loss of
countless lives of our compatriots, has died. Our stance of condemning
terrorism is firm and unwavering.”
Born as Abimael Guzmán, Chairman Gonzalo was the leader of the
Partido Comunista del Perú(PCP) also known as the Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path in English). The PCP initiated People’s War in Peru in
1980, and waged a righteous struggle against the U.$.-backed regimes in
Peru until the capture of its leadership in 1992. Arguably the first
communist leader to explain Maoism as the next stage of communism,
Gonzalo was instrumental in pushing these ideas within the international
communist movement.
At age 86, Gonzalo had lived in complete isolation in a Peruvian
prison for 29 years. Long-term solitary confinement is a form of torture
used around the world to combat political dissent. It is used most
extensively within the United $tates, where in recent years over 100,000 people
languished in such conditions.
Religious Idealism Barks
Gonzalo was an infamous figure in Peruvian society. The revolutionary
violence of the PCP sparked hostile reactions especially from the petty
bourgeoisie, the middle-peasants, and the likes within Peru. One
outspoken figure which repeated these sentiments condemning Gonzalo on
his death day was Archbishop Eguren of the Catholic Church in Peru.
During a mass on September 12, a day after Gonzalo’s death, Eguren said
this referring to the Maoist ideology and the Maoists of Peru:
“Along with him fell the principal members of his communist,
terrorist, genocidal, and murderous gang, which caused the massacres of
entire communities of poor inhabitants of our Andes and jungle regions
in the 1980s and 1990s.”(2)
The Archbishop continued:
“The day Guzmán was captured was also one year after the start of the
campaign ‘Peace in Peru is well worth a Rosary.’ This campaign was
conceived and promoted by Bishop Ricardo Durand Flórez S.J., a great
Peruvian bishop who, throughout his life and ministry, worked hard for
the poor according to the Gospel.”(3)
After condemning Marxism through the usual Christian idealism,
Archbishop Eguren replaces the anti-capitalist vacuum with the Catholic
church’s historical response to poverty and capitalist ills:
distribution of wealth and charity to the poor. We Maoists do not
believe in the metaphysical notion that “the poor will always be with
us,” nor that walking across a homeless person on the street is a test
by god to prove ourselves of our good heart and soul. We believe poverty
– and the impoverished proletariat along with the rich bourgeoisie –
comes out of material phenomena: rise of capitalism through revolution,
class struggle, and change of production relations. Thus, the
elimination of poverty and capitalist ills will be done through the
proletarian revolution against capitalism, class struggle, and change of
production relations as well; not through wealth redistribution nor
through charity.
Along with condemning Marxism, Eguren used this chance to call for
the elimination of the politicians and bureaucrats of the current
Peruvian government who had historical ties to the Maoist movement:
“We Peruvians should not forget, for an instant what this
intrinsically perverse ideology embodies, as well as the immense
suffering it has caused in the recent history of our country, much less
allow it today to be able to seize total power. Therefore:
Mr. President, clean up your cabinet!”(4)
Reformism Barks
Chairman Gonzalo and the PCP’s legacy in Peru is often associated
with the “violent left.” So it is appropriate that one of the most
popular opportunist and reformist newsletters, Jacobin,
condemned Gonzalo by saying that Peru’s left is finally free to “move
forward.”(5)
In the article, “The Shining Path’s Abimael Guzmán Helped Keep Peru
in the Past,” Jacobin news cited the Lucanamarca massacre and the
violence of the PCP against the indigenous masses as one of the main
arguments against the PCP. The Communist Party of Peru (PCP) has
mentioned in their writings the attacks against the masses by the
masses, and how the state security used the differing class levels of
the peasantry against itself (poor peasants, middle peasants, rich
peasants). These tactics to divide the masses are used against the
communists of India as well. In the remote and countryside regions under
the leadership of the Communist Party of India (CPI-Maoist), the
capitalist lapdogs in India find it much more useful to use local
reactionaries against the guerrillas than using the army. If not the
local police, it is the paramilitary organizations of rich peasants,
middle peasants, lumpen-bourgeoisie, lumpen-proletariat, etc. that is
attacking the Maoists. In Peru, the majority of the PCP guerrillas were
indigenous themselves as the main population base in the communists’
base areas were indigenous.
When judging the legacy of a People’s War and a revolutionary party,
communists should know when to throw away the baby with the bathwater
and when to still keep it. Before the capitalist roaders overthrew
socialism in the Soviet Union, many of the errors of what would become
the capitalist line (commandism and economism) has been planted by
Stalin as well and other comrades. This did not cause Mao to throw away
Stalin’s legacy. In the same breath, when Fidel Castro liberated Cuba
from imperialism and semi-feudalism, his merits were part of a worldwide
movement for national liberation of the colonies at the time – it isn’t
until Castro’s selling out of the entire island to the Soviet
social-imperialists as a sugar factory that Maoists should throw Castro
away.
Heavier Than Mount Tai
It is well within the realms of material reality that the PCP’s
legacy among the general Peruvian society lies not only in the Peruvian
comprador bourgeoisie who propagate the ideas of the PCP as bloodthirsty
terrorists, but also within the bad lines and practices of the PCP as
well. It is an often repeated idea we hear that if the revolution fails,
it is the fault of the revolutionaries. In the same light, it’s the
internal characteristics not the external of a communist movement that
will ultimately decide its success and failures.
We must draw a clear line between us and those who condemn the PCP
because they waged People’s War. Whatever internal contradictions led to
the collapse of the Peruvian revolution, it was a shining example in
theory by leading the world to the concrete ideas of Maoism and in
practice in mobilizing the Peruvian people to control a majority of Peru
before their fall.
Communists should learn their lessons from their errors in history.
For the enemy to say, “Denounce Gonzalo!” is for them to also say “Don’t
learn your lessons! Give up revolution!” Nevertheless, no matter what
the Catholic idealists or the writers of Jacobin wish, the PCP
and Chairman Gonzalo’s legacy will not go away as easily as they
wish.
Long Live Chairman Gonzalo – Death Heavier than Mount Tai.
Notes1. RPP, September 11th, 2021,
“Murió Abimael Guzmán, el sanguinario cabecilla del grupo terrorista
Sendero Luminoso.”
2. David Ramos, September 13th, 2021, “Archbishop calls on
Peruvian president to rid his administration of ties to Shining Path.”
Catholic News Agency.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Miguel La Serna, September 15, 2021, “The Shining Path’s
Abimael Guzmán Helped Keep Peru in the Past.” Jacobin.
by MIM(Prisons) August 2020 permalink A Critique of Maoist Reason J. Moufawad-Paul Foreign
Languages Press 2020
A Critique of Maoist Reason serves as a follow up to Continuity
and Rupture, as a way to both sum up the different trends in Maoist
thought within occupied Turtle Island and to respond to the critiques of
the earlier book. As the latest book gives a more proper address to MIM
Thought, we thought it important to read and respond.
Again on Maoism-Third
Worldism
In a recent interview, JMP flippantly rejects our complaint that MIM
Thought was referred to as “Maoist Third Worldism” in Continuity and
Rupture. To reiterate from our last review, this is an ahistoric
application of the term. As we said in one of our founding documents, Maoism
Around Us, we opposed the term for two reasons. The first is
fundamental to the arguments made in Continuity and Rupture as
to the path of development of revolutionary science. We argued that
there could be no new stage without new practice that supersedes the
past. MIM has never suggested such a thing, and the term was coined
after the original MIM dissolved.
The second reason, that recent works by JMP and the online journal
Struggle Sessions seem to take advantage of, is that by calling
our line something other than Marxism-Leninism-Maoism you can otherize
it and make it seem more fringe. This new book from JMP serves to place
the RIM strain of “Maoism” as the most legit one, and paints MIM as a
“shadow Maoism.”
A Falsifiable Thesis
Other than making some of the common arguments made against MIM’s
thesis on the labor aristocracy, JMP’s philosophical argument against
our line is that it is not falsifiable. This appears to be a
tautological argument based in some of the lines shared by JMP and
Struggle Sessions. Yet, it would be easy to falsify our thesis
by organizing petty bourgeois First Worlders (who they call proletariat)
to overthrow imperialism; the very thing such projects claim to be
working towards. We’ll gladly follow the leadership of anyone who does
this.
JMP writes,
“What ultimately disqualifies MTW [Maoism-Third Worldism] from
correctly representing Maoist reason is that it has no logical basis
upon which to develop its theoretical insights. If there is no
proletariat in the imperialist metropoles, and thus no proletarian
movement, the first world third worldist cannot make a correct
assessment of anything since it cannot practice the mass line. With no
revolutionary masses in which to embed a revolutionary movement (because
these revolutionary masses are elsewhere) how can it test its ideas,
struggle with the masses, and thus develop theory through practice?
Considering that MTW disagrees with the assessments of the most
significant third world Maoist movements regarding the first world
proletariat, it is not as if it is learning from the revolutionary
masses it claims to valorize, either. Thus, even if MTW is correct it
has no way of knowing it is correct, or developing a theory regarding
its correctness, since it has no means of testing these ideas in
practice. That is, MTW is not falsifiable and thus not scientific. And
if it is not scientific then it is disqualified from Maoist
reason.”(p.91)
JMP is saying that since MIM(Prisons) asserts that the First World
has no masses to do mass line with, we cannot come to the correct
position to guide communist practice.
Our claims however, are far from this. Our claim is that the masses
here are a minority force: they are oppressed nation, they are migrants,
they are prisoners, etc. We have been saying this for many years, yet
JMP ignores this line and claims that we do not believe that anyone is
oppressed in the First World. We don’t claim that there is no masses
here, we claim that the constantly dying imperialist system needs to
fall in order for proletarianization of the labor aristocracy to
happen.
To support our claims we look at history, not just abstract economic
models as JMP implies. It’s been over a hundred years since the first
successful revolution leading to a dictatorship of the proletariat. Of
all the efforts since then, that reached different levels of success,
how many occurred in an imperialist country where most people own homes
that value 6 digits in U.$. dollars, automobiles, have access to any
food from around the world, not to mention unlimited clean water and
practically uninterrupted electricity? Zero. So let’s flip the challenge
on our comrades who believe that there is a majority proletariat in the
First World and ask them to falsify our thesis by waging a revolution
from within these countries. Because from where we’re standing, the
historical evidence seems to be on our side so far.
Second, as the prison ministry (the most public cell representing MIM
line at this time), we can say that developing mass line is central to
what we do. A typical MIM(Prisons) cadre will interact with 100s of
imprisoned lumpen a month. And we synthesize the best ideas through our
newsletter and other work, providing ideological leadership for a prison
movement that is true to anti-imperialism and the international
proletariat. Our practice quickly dispenses with the premise that we
cannot develop mass line in the United $tates.
Assuming that our critics cannot achieve a successful First World
proletarian revolution, the question then becomes how will socialism
come to countries like the United $tates? How will proletarianization of
the labor aristocracy happen? Our movement has offered some theories on
how that might transpire. And the future will either validate or falsify
those theories. If there is a significant delinking of the exploited
countries from the imperialist system before any revolutions happen in
the core countries, then we must conclude that their thesis has been
falsified. If revolutions in the core countries requires military
support from the existing socialist countries to install a dictatorship
of the proletariat in those core countries, then certainly we will have
falsified their thesis.
These are some examples of how our line will either be validated or
falsified in the future. It is a dogmatic position to put some universal
model for how revolution must occur onto all countries.
It is circular logic to say that there must be a majority proletariat
for revolutionary science to be applied, and revolutionary science is
universal, therefore there must be a majority proletariat everywhere.
It’s hard to see how JMP’s point can stand without this circular
logic.
Drawing Class Lines
Unlike the other strands of “Maoism” criticized in the book, JMP is
careful to recognize that MIM made real theoretical contributions and
goes so far to say that it would be revisionism to deny that imperialism
transfers wealth from some nations to others.
The question here is how do we draw lines between friends and
enemies? Relatedly, we might ask when does quantitative change in the
distribution of surplus value result in a qualitative change in
class?
Mathematically, the switch from an exploited group to a net exploiter
group is a qualitative change. However, the labor aristocracy is not
generally defined as being net exploiters per se. And the workers are
not conscious of when this theoretical point has been reached (as
evidenced by JMP’s statement that workers in the United $tates are
conscious of the belief that they are exploited, when in reality they
are not). As we have argued elsewhere, while there are workers who are
paid more than the value of their labor power in any country, it is a
very different phenomenon in the Third World than in the First. And this
is because class is colored by nation under imperialism. We see nation
as the principal contradiction, representing the identity that is
imperialism. So we find arguments against our global class analysis that
do not address the national question to be lacking.
Let’s be clear, MIM’s third cardinal principle (MIM has long used 3
cardinal principles to distinguish its line from others calling
themselves “communists”) is that “imperialism extracts super-profits
from the Third World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole
populations of oppressor nation so-called workers. These so-called
workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-bourgeoisie called
the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to
advance Maoism within those countries because their standard of living
depend on imperialism.”
It is within imperialism that we find the qualitative difference that
this labor aristocracy has with workers outside the imperialist core
countries. It is not because First World people fought harder for higher
wages, or First World companies are more democratic and offer higher
wages, it’s not because white people are evil; it is the system of
imperialism that puts some nations in a position of receiving surplus
value and others of losing. Those who gain tend to support the system
and those who lose tend to oppose it.
As an aside, settler-colonialism is one form of this, which defines
occupied Turtle Island. While we welcome the surge in interest in
dismantling settler-colonialism, we must recognize it as one form of
imperialism. We find many who want to “de-colonize” without recognizing
the global class structure for what it is. We also have those like JMP
who acknowledge the economic structure of imperialism, but for some
reason don’t think it changes who are our friends and who are our
enemies.
While the academic economic models of Marxism may not inform the
class consciousness of the labor aristocracy, relative deprivation does.
And there is nothing that symbolizes that divide in relative wealth more
than the imperialist country borders. Closing core country borders
happens to be an issue that has garnered much support from the labor
aristocracies of the United $tates and United Kingdom, as well as in
France and Germany in recent years. Do Brexit and “Build the Wall” not
symbolize enemy ideologies? Are the labor aristocracies of these
countries wrong that open borders would prevent them from hoarding
wealth in those countries? How does JMP reconcile this political reality
with his dogmatic thesis of a revolutionary proletariat in the First
World?
JMP asks, “is it implicitly”first worldist” to argue that there is a
proletariat at the centres of capitalism and go out to organize, for
example, miners around a communist ideology that is also
anti-imperialist?”
Organizing miners in the First World against imperialism sounds
great. But if you are arguing that they are the exploited proletariat
who deserve more money, when they are actually benefiting from
imperialist exploitation of the Third World, then you are not organizing
against imperialism, are you? It just doesn’t follow that JMP sees the
transfer of value in favor of a group from a system and then argues that
that group is going to be opposed to that system. The question here
isn’t primarily about who to organize, though certainly
focusing on the right groups will get us further faster, but rather
what to organize around that will push anti-imperialism
forward. Perhaps the miners are allied with anti-imperialism for reasons
external to income and raw value transfer, such as carbon emissions. To
organize them around a radical transformation of our energy system being
led by the international proletariat could be a form united front work,
but not organizing the proletariat itself.
A Global
Anti-Imperialist United Front
One thing we learn from this book is some of the differences between
JMP and those who use the term “principally Maoism,” specifically the
blog Struggle Sessions. Obviously one should read the latter’s
writings to get their real views. However, one difference addressed is
that the former sees the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM)
as the historical event that solidified Maoism, while the latter sees
the Peruvian Communist Party as having done so alone and the RIM as a
rightest deviation.
Our counter-history of Maoism was presented in our last response to
JMP, where we get into the RIM in more depth and our arguments against
the practice of forming a Communist International. While Struggle
Sessions has some significant agreement with our critiques of the
RIM and its role, they actively promote the formation of a new
International, as does JMP. In this latest book, JMP concedes that the
RCP=U$A sought to and to an extent did control the RIM. To be clear, we
did not argue that other parties in the RIM did not have any
independence or basis outside of the RIM, we specifically said not all
members were revisionists. But those calling for U.$. intervention in
Iran certainly were, and such a position should not be up for debate or
tolerated among communists.
On page 86, JMP implies that MIM blames the RIM for the failure of
the People’s War in Peru. That is not a position that we recall from
MIM’s work at the time. Certainly they harshly criticized the RIM for
its role in endangering the People’s War after the capture of Gonzalo.
This was perhaps one of the most horrific actions in the RCP’s long
history of anti-proletarian work, but JMP has nothing to say about
it.
Our general complaint with the International model is that it tends
to subsume one party under another. Mao fleshed out the theory and
practice around the united front within China and learned through hard
experience in relating to the Soviet Union, principles that we take to
be universal, including the need for the leaders of each liberation
movement to interpret their own conditions. To the extent that RIM was a
think tank that allowed communists from around the world to come
together and agree to the basic principles that defined the latest stage
of revolutionary science, we would support such a project. MIM
participated in such forums in its original form.
It was in the work of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)
that we saw the theory of the united front from Mao summed up and
reproven in practice in their rectification campaign. This struggle
waged in 1992 stressed the importance of the independence and leadership
role of the proletarian party in the national liberation struggle. The
decision of the CPP to not join the RIM reflects the recognition of the
need for independence of each national struggle. This is a line point
where we agree with the CPP against others in the international
communist movement (ICM) who did join.
At the same time, MIM harshly criticized CPP complacency in pushing
a revisionist class analysis within the United $tates. JMP argues
that the global class analysis of MIM is rejected by all Third World
communists of significance and this is evidence against our position.
Yet, we have yet to see any analysis from any of these parties
substantiating claims against MIM line; amounting to an argument from
authority.
Because the Third World communist parties rightfully have more cred,
many will presume they are right about this and follow their lead when
they call for uniting the “working class” in North America and denying
the national liberation struggles of the internal semi-colonies. The
open and conscious rejection of MIP-Amerika’s analysis of its own
country by certain Third World leaders, followed by their promotion of
the integrationist line, was behind MIM’s decision to say that the
global class analysis must be a dividing line question within the Maoist
movement globally.
Without a communist international, comrades in the United $tates are
free to combat incorrect lines being promoted from other countries and
prove our line in practice. Despite whatever great accomplishments
certain members of the RIM may have had, we think joining an
international was a mistake, proven in practice once again, with the
RCP=U$A-run CoRIM promoting revisionism at a crucial point in the
history of People’s War in Peru.
MIM Thought also provides insights here beyond the general point of
the need for independent development on the national level. An
application of MIM Thought to parties in the Third World is that there’s
more enemies than friends in the imperialist countries, and people from
those countries should be treated as potential spies. PCP practice in
expelling Non-Governmental Organizations from territories they
controlled was in line with this.
Going back to the theoretical miner example above, we apply the
theory of united front to unite all who can be united. And we
can frame the global anti-imperialist united front within our global
class analysis. We can look to the internal semi-colonies and the Third
World diaspora as the most likely allies in the First World, without
calling them proletariat. And we can win over sectors of the oppressor
nation as well, just as in everything, 1 divides into 2. So we disagree
with the implied criticism of our line that there is no real proletariat
in the First World to mean there is no organizing against imperialism
that can be done here. Certainly staying on the correct path will
require an active eye on the Third World proletariat, which our movement
has always stressed.
MIM(Prisons) continues to develop the mass line here in the belly of
the beast. We continue to promote organizing against imperialism in a
principled way that puts the interests of the exploited and oppressed at
the forefront. And we challenge JMP, the supporters of eir line,
Struggle Sessions or anyone else who thinks they can apply
Maoism to occupied Turtle Island while ignoring that the vast majority
of people here have a material interest in imperialism, to prove us
wrong. Please, just don’t awaken the fascists in your attempt to do so,
with your cries about the exploited Amerikan.
This is a question which all communists must ask themselves at one point
or another of their revolutionary careers. Furthermore, it is a question
which has essentially dominated the International Communist Movement
(ICM) ever since that movement became a real contender on the world
stage. Suffice to say that there has never in essence been a more
important question to ask and correctly answer within the ICM itself
other than patriotism or internationalism? That said, the concepts of
patriotism and internationalism are not mutually exclusive phenomena
forever separated by the same great impassable divide of ideological
difference, rather, patriotism and internationalism as properly
understood by communists are dialectically interconnected concepts that
we must struggle to unite.
Sometimes general, sometimes particular, but always of universal
importance, the concepts of patriotism and internationalism represent
different aspects of the subjective forces whose task it is to carry out
revolution both at home and abroad. Focus too much on one and you run
the danger of making an ultra-left mistake. Focus too much on the other
and you will not only be committing a tactical mistake, but will be
guilty of committing a right opportunist error. What comrades must
understand however is that pushing the revolutionary vehicle towards a
bright communist future isn’t necessarily about making the decision of
patriotism or internationalism. It’s about both. This is the topic which
the following essay will attempt to explain. Thus in wars of national
liberation patriotism is applied internationalism – but are there other
ways for us to apply internationalism within nation-specific projects?
Contrary to how this quote has been narrowed down by some comrades,
applied internationalism isn’t only about each nation fighting their own
battles and hoping that anti-imperialists from other nations will be
astute enough to recognize the tactical opportunities of our fight and
hence get in where they fit in. Internationalism is about extending our
hands and providing assistance to our comrades whenever we can and
offering lesser but equally important means of support when other
avenues of help have been closed off to us.
Point in fact, MIM(Prisons) can’t physically and persynally reach out to
every prisoner on a one-on-one level. But it has a bi-monthly newsletter
that goes out to the prison masses as well as a Free Books to Prisoner
Program, a website created in part to help facilitate the needs of
prisoners across the United $tates and document abuse. It runs study
groups and most recently help put out Chican@ Power and the Struggle
for Aztlán, a book that will help to build public opinion for
revolution in North America by agitating in favor of the Chican@ masses.
Not to mention the other nation-specific and internationalist projects
which it has been responsible for spawning.
Another excellent but largely forgotten and ignored example of applied
internationalism being practiced outside of a nation’s own borders is
how the Cuban masses under the leadership of Fidel Castro volunteered to
cross the Atlantic to fight alongside the Angolan people in their
struggle of national liberation against Portuguese and Amerikan
imperialism. This act took place for a variety of reasons, but perhaps
none more important than the sheer anger, disgust and solidarity which
Cubans felt at the sight of imperialist bombs falling on Angolan heads.
It could then be said that this sacrifice on behalf of the Cuban people
marked a development as well as a leap in the revolutionary
consciousness of the Cuban nation, both because they were willing to
give up their lives in the service of another oppressed nation and
because with their sacrifice they helped land such a strong and decisive
blow against colonialism, while simultaneously helping to detach Angola
from the imperialist framework. It could therefore be said that this
action on behalf of the Cuban masses was equally, if not more
significant than the Cuban revolution itself. This is just another
reason why Cuba holds such a special place in the revolutionary hearts
of oppressed people everywhere.
This now brings us to a recent debate initiated within the California
Council concerning USW’s potential contribution to a certain nationalist
project, and a certain comrade’s apprehensions/objections about the role
of USW vis-a-vis the national liberation struggles of the oppressed
internal nations, as well as the exertion of influence on USW by
revolutionary nationalists operating within that organization. In eir
argument the comrade in question took the position that no one nation
should be forced to take part in another nation’s struggles, citing that
this would be tantamount to one nation co-opting others to do its job
for them. That said, no nation should be allowed to control another
nation’s destiny or make decisions for other nations that are integral
to the liberation of the latter as this would in effect mark the
beginnings of a neo-colonial relation on a certain level. Furthermore,
the comrade also made the statement that “USW is not one nation united,
it’s multi-national.” Now this may be true, but the correct definition
for USW is the following:
“USW is explicitly anti-imperialist in leading campaigns on behalf of
prisoners in alliance with national liberation struggles in the United
$tates and around the world. USW won’t champion struggles which are not
in the interests of the international proletariat. USW will also not
choose one nation’s struggles over other oppressed nations struggles.”
And from the pamphlet The Fundamental Political Line of the Maoist
Internationalist Ministry of Prisons:
“Rebuilding the anti-imperialist prison movement means uniting all who
can be united around the common interests of the U.$. prison population
in solidarity with the oppressed people of the Third World…”
So while we should definitely be in agreement that no nation should be
forced to participate in another nation’s struggles and that no one
nation should be allowed to come up at the expense of another, this does
not in any way mean that USW, or the California Council in particular,
should be disallowed from initiating proposals and passing resolutions
that will support and lend assistance to nations or nation-specific
organizations represented within or outside of USW. The nation in
question can either accept the assistance or not. This method of action
and participation will ensure that USW retains its United Front mass
organization character by preserving the unity and independence of all
USW comrades and affiliated organizations. Indeed, USW, like all other
organizations, has a dual character. Unlike most other organizations
however USW’s duality is complementary and it is not an antagonistic
contradiction. While it is true that USW is a mass organization created
to represent and fight for the common interests of all prisoners as a
distinct social group, it is also a launch pad for the national
liberation struggles of the oppressed internal nations in which comrades
can cut their teeth thru revolutionary organizing, and from where they
can then go on to initiate and lead national liberation struggles on
behalf of their own respective nations.
This is what USW, as an anti-imperialist prisoner organization, should
be about: the internationalism of prisoners breeding revolutionary
nationalism, and revolutionary nationalist projects breeding
internationalism amongst the prison masses. This requires more than each
nation blindly going its own separate way. It requires unity of action
and unity of discipline. As such, it would seem then that what we have
here with the comrade in question may be a problem of perspective. What
some might see as internationalism others might perceive as a
contradiction. What some regard as mutual assistance others will call
co-optation. For those of us having this problem of “perception”
however, we would be wise to be cautious not to let our own love for our
nations blind us to the plight of others, as sometimes what this fear of
“co-optation” really translates to is our own fear or refusal to
participate in another nation’s struggles. Thus, we should be aware of
how our own nation’s struggles, as well as our failure to act on behalf
of other nations, can affect the ICM, lest we degenerate to the level of
narrow nationalism.
Since this question of whether or not USW should participate in a
variety of nation-specific struggles seems to be one rooted in
perception, let us take a closer look at the supposed pimping of nations
that would take place if USW were to decide to work in the interests of
a distinct national project. As has been the current practice thus far,
nowhere at all has this resulted in one nation’s struggle being taken up
to the detriment of another. But let’s just suppose that this is the
case, then maybe ULK should just stop featuring articles that
promote the struggle of one nation or another so that we may ensure that
no comrades from any nation feel as if they’re being pushed into the
background, or that their nation-specific article is forced to share
space on the pages of an internationalist forum that also represents one
nation or another, lest these comrades begin to feel “co-opted.”
Just because Mao Zedong said that in wars of national liberation the
nationalism of the oppressed nations is applied internationalism, it
does not justify our lack of adherence to other internationalist
principles. This is a guiding line of real communism and should likewise
be seen as a line of demarcation for all revolutionary nationalists
claiming the mantles of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Applied
internationalism is about more than just fighting your own nation’s
struggles and we should never forget that. To give an additional
hystorical example, when Amerikan imperialism attacked Vietnam the
People’s Republic of China aided the Vietnamese by providing all types
of supplies including food, money and intelligence. Most activists of
the time believed this was not enough and that the Chinese should’ve
provided troops as well. We wonder what the previously mentioned comrade
would think about this? Perhaps ey would say it was too much and that
the Chinese were already guilty of co-opting Vietnam’s national
liberation struggle and how dare anyone suggest that the Chinese become
more involved? Of course, in a possible revolutionary future we can even
envision a myriad of situations in which the internal semi-colonies will
be forced to coordinate and work shoulder-to-shoulder to oust Amerikan
imperialism from their territories. Or would this too be a case of one
semi-colony co-opting the struggle of another?
The
Palestinian
campaign initiated by USW last year is yet another internationalist
project that is now shadowed by question marks, at least according to
that one comrade’s perspective. Perhaps this was simply incorrect
practice and “a waste of USW’s time”? As previously stated, while we
agree that no nation should be forced to contribute to another nation’s
struggles, we also believe that no comrade should feel as if they’re
being “forced” to participate in another nation’s struggles. As such,
maybe these type of people aren’t so much for internationalism as they
sometimes claim to be? Because Mao accomplished and wrote so much on the
national liberation struggle of China many have erroneously come to
believe that ey was a nationalist first and a Marxist-Leninist second;
but this view is wrong. Mao loved eir nation but ey was a
Marxist-Leninist first and foremost who recognized the liberation of
China as only a small component in the global struggle for communism.
Choosing and deciding what internationalist struggles one can
participate in besides those that are explicitly national liberationist
exclusive to one’s own is both a tactical and strategical question that
is dictated by the struggles and conditions of the time. Lacking a clear
and coherent reason why not to participate is indicative of a national
chauvinist political line in command. The USW Palestine campaign was a
fairly easy campaign to initiate due to the current stage of the
struggle and most USW comrades’ material conditions. Other struggles
will take more time and consideration to implement, while some might be
outright out of the question. Excluding the labor aristocracy, there is
a reason why revolutionaries from Marx to Mao championed the slogan:
“workers of all countries unite!”
We struggle for the liberation of all oppressed people or we don’t
struggle at all.
Book Review: Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism Gilbert
Achcar Haymarket Books 2013
In part one of this review i addressed the author’s apparent
disdain
for the anti-imperialist Islamic movement. In this concluding
article i will expose the author’s First World chauvinism as being at
the root of his reactionary perspective by explaining how he uses the
Christian liberation vs. Islamic fundamentalist concept in religion and
politics today from a Marxian perspective, so as to better prepare the
reader for his ideas on “internationalism” and “ultra-nationalism” by
which he really means revolutionary nationalism. As such, it would seem
that the entire premise of this book was not intended as a supplemental
analysis of anti-imperialist politics in the Middle East today, but so
that the author can push his crypto-Trotskyist agenda. Crypto-Trotskyism
is a term used to refer to organizations that exhibit Trotskyist
tendencies, but which don’t admit to being Trotskyist. Most
significantly they suffer from the same great nation chauvinism as the
other Trots: over-emphasizing the role of the oppressor nation working
classes, and under-emphasizing the role of liberation struggles of the
oppressed nations.(1)
The author begins the final essay of this book titled “Marxism and
Cosmopolitanism” by tracing the very hystory of the word
cosmopolitanism. He discusses how it went thru many twists and
turns, from its beginning in ancient Greek civilization thru the Middle
Ages and up until today; at one point progressive, while regressive at
another. Hence, we learn that the terms cosmopolitan and globalization
are connected in this regard. We also learn that Marx and Engels shared
Achcar’s disdain at one point or another for any and all national
movements, in particular for those centered in the capitalist periphery,
preferring, instead to champion the cause of the global proletariat,
which in their lifetimes meant focusing on European workers. As a
result, Marx and Engels contributed to popularizing the concept of
cosmopolitanism as interchangeable with international proletariat, which
to many communists of the time was preferable to mentioning by name the
plight of English or German workers because of the obvious connotations
to nationalism. Such connotations were seen by most as giving legitimacy
to nationalist struggles, which at the time were driven by the national
bourgeoisie.
Within this context nationalism was viewed as backward and reactionary
for the proletariat, as the national bourgeoisie was using this concept
to their advantage by inciting the proletariat to kill and be killed by
workers of other countries, for the bourgeoisie’s goal of world
domination. The communists on the other hand rejected nationalism,
considering themselves staunch internationalists; champions of the world
proletariat, whose hystoric mission it was to usher in the socialist
stage of communist development. This being the accepted theory of the
time, well before Mao posited that in the age of imperialism,
nationalism of the oppressed nations is internationalism.
All this is important to remember when assessing the text as it pertains
to the whole reason why Achcar even wrote this book. More so, it is
important to remember because in the following pages the author uses
much of this information to attack the practice and political line of
Joseph Stalin. And while it is undeniable that Marx and Engels at one
point agreed with many of the ideas that Achcar propagates, it is also
undeniable that as reality progressed, so did Marx and Engels’ thinking,
which is more than we can say for Mr. Achcar. So if we want to learn the
genuine Marxist stance on nations and nationalism then we should not
limit ourselves to what the founders of scientific socialism had to say
on these topics early on in their revolutionary careers. Rather, we
should study and learn what they advocated and stood for later in their
lives once they became full-fledged Marxists. As such, the line that
Achcar is pushing is a disingenuous one in which he proclaims that all
nationalism, just like all variants of revolutionary Islam, are
inherently bad, when in reality it is the nationalism of the oppressor
nations and the Western privilege that comes with it that he upholds. As
such, Gilbert Achcar should just come out and say what he really thinks;
which is that the nationalism of the oppressed is what he believes to be
backward and reactionary, while oppressor nation nationalism is
inherently progressive due to its linkage to Europeans, their culture
and tradition. Thus, just as the author correctly pointed out in
“Religion and Politics today from a Marxian Perspective,” that Islamic
fundamentalism is a concept that can be divided into one that is
collaborationist with Western interests and one that is hostile to
Western interests, so is nationalism a concept that can be divided into
one that is bourgeois and reactionary, and one that is revolutionary and
forward looking.
“Cosmopolitanism” as Anathema: the Stalinist Perversion
Trotskyists of various stripes have always hated on Stalin for a
multiplicity of reasons, primarily however for his theory of socialist
development. As Stalin’s line on socialist development progressed it
eventually came to stand for the national liberation struggles of the
oppressed nations, not only within Europe but outside the continent as
well. He correctly saw the revolutionary character of the
anti-imperialist movement in the colonies as both hostile to Western
interests and potentially pro-Soviet. Trotsky on the other hand had
nothing but contempt for Asians, Africans and Latin@ Americans,
believing them too backward and weak to ever launch successful
liberation struggles and/or engage in socialist construction absent the
immediate help of the European working classes, a theory that was proven
incorrect when an onslaught of colonial countries broke free of the
imperialist framework following the end of World War II. And so it is
within the context of “globalization” and anti-imperialist struggles in
the 21st century that Gilbert Achcar now attempts to rehabilitate
Trotsky’s theory of the world revolution led by the so-called
proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries vis-a-vis the
rehabilitation of cosmopolitanism; vis-a-vis his criticisms of Joseph
Stalin. To accomplish this however, Achcar must go in depth into the
hystory of the Soviet Union, in particular into the propaganda campaigns
against cosmopolitanism which Stalin had initiated at the end of World
War II, as well as to the campaigns in favor of Soviet patriotism which
Stalin also had initiated to prepare the Soviet masses for the Nazi
invasion.
According to Mr. Achcar these campaigns were nothing more than a cover
for Stalin’s anti-Semitism. Yet interestingly enough, in making these
accusations the author inadvertently puts forth a plausible explanation
for the oppression of notable Jews during this period in the Soviet
Union; thereby paving the way for a materialist explanation of these
actions and the clearing of Stalin’s name as far as anti-Semitism goes.
Achcar like so many anti-communists before him cannot contain his
contempt for the progress made under Stalin and so he jumps on the
bourgeois bandwagon of blaming Stalin for the so-called Jewish pogroms
that were said to have taken place beginning in 1949 alongside the
further elaboration and popularization of Soviet patriotism as a concept
over that of cosmopolitanism. In addition, the author also contends that
these campaigns were one and the same as the so-called anti-Marxist
movement which supposedly took place during this period. What these
campaigns actually represented however were struggles in the realm of
ideas between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries battling for
the “hearts and minds” of the Soviet masses, and indeed the future of
the revolution.
According to Achcar, the cosmopolitans appear to have been something
like a Trotskyist sect operating inside the USSR, who were agitating
around the need for openness with the West and glorifying the West. Now
remember, this is 1949 and the Cold War is cracking, all of the Soviet
Union’s wartime imperialist allies have retrained their guns on the
communists. And although the author certainly doesn’t say it, the
Communist Party under Stalin certainly believed that these
“cosmopolitans” were in the service of Amerikan imperialism carrying out
intelligence gathering activities and engaging in building public
opinion for counter-revolution and coup d’etat, just like the types of
activities that CIA sponsored groups carry out in Third World countries
with anti-western governments. It would seem then these cosmopolitans
and other so-called “Marxists” were actually involved in sabotaging
socialism from within with actions which thoroughly alarmed the Soviet
government. But according to Achcar these were the real “Marxists,” the
real “internationalists” because they followed the teachings of the
young Marx; but when did Marx ever speak of colluding against a
socialist state?
Furthermore, the author states that in analyzing Stalin’s anti-Semitism
we cannot afford to begin in the post-war period, but must start with
the publication of Marxism and the National Question, which
Achcar describes as “a superficial and dogmatic essay on this most
complex of questions.”(2) Stalin denies the existence of a Jewish nation
within Europe’s borders, based on the Jewish people’s lack of a common
territory. Apparently Gilbert Achcar disagrees with the Marxist
definition of nations preferring instead Otto Bauer’s The Question
of Nationalities and Social Democracy, which clearly defines Jews
as a nation based solely on their “common cultures” by which they should
really just say religion. The author further claims that it is in this
hystorical period that Stalin began his first anti-Marxist campaigns in
which he sought to squelch all opposition and secure his position of
power. Achcar goes on to argue that Stalin’s ideas on internationalism
reflected only a narrow and selfish outlook which took into account only
the internationalism of the “pan-Tsarist” Russia organization of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party when, in Marxism and the
National Question, he mentioned the principle that the party strove
to “unite locally the workers of all nationalities of Russia into
single, integral collective bodies, to unite their collective bodies
into a single party.”(3) In defending this principle Achcar states,
“Stalin launched a fierce attack on nationalism, putting Great Russian
chauvinism on equal footing with the nationalism that was expanding
among oppressed nationalities in the USSR - in a definitely non-Leninist
fashion.”(2) However, this is an extreme misrepresentation of Stalin’s
line on Achcar’s part. Stalin criticized the national chauvinism that
was beginning to develop among some of the more reactionary sectors of
the oppressed nations in the Tsarist empire and certainly not the
nationalism of the oppressed themselves. Apparently, the author believes
that national chauvinism should only be criticized when it originates
with the oppressors and by people of the offending nation themselves and
not by anyone else. In other words, only Russians can criticize Great
Russian chauvinism and only the oppressed nations can criticize any
chauvinism that originates within their own nations. This is certainly
an ironic point that those who have actually read Marxism and the
National Question will note. But Stalin was right to criticize the
chauvinism of the oppressed nations in the old Russian empire,
especially when that chauvinism has the potential to foment violence
amongst the oppressed. Chauvinism is chauvinism no matter who propagates
it.
Later on Mr. Achcar comes out with an ass-backwards refutation of
Stalin’s theory of socialism in one country first, attempting to tie it
back to Stalin’s “anti-Semitism” (Achcar’s term for his denial of a
Jewish nation) and Soviet patriotism. The line goes as follows:
“Socialism in one country: this theoretical innovation central to
Stalinism actually laid the groundwork for a Soviet patriotism, coupled
with a sui generis internationalism that amounted in fact to the
internationalism of Soviet patriotism. Communist members of ‘bourgeois
nations’ had a duty to identify with the thriving ‘fatherland of
socialism.’ Indeed, their Soviet patriotic duty could very well have
taken as its motto ‘our country, right or wrong!’”(4)
The following paragraphs is where accusations of Jewish repression and
anti-Marxism by Stalin really gets interesting.
To give some real context to these accusations, which Achcar himself
provides, I will say that prior to the beginning of the Second World War
an expansive campaign was begun in the Soviet Union to create and
solidify a hegemonic Soviet patriotism for the explicit purpose of
strengthening the bonds and common interests of the Soviet Republics
against the impending threat of fascism. Stalin was well aware that not
only the German fascists, but the soon to be imperialist allies were all
working hard to divide the Soviet people from within on the basis of old
national grievances which were common under the Tsar. And, as stated
earlier, there were counter-revolutionaries inside the USSR consciously
working against the Soviet masses. These were the cosmopolitans who by
and large were composed of “real Marxists.” The struggle between the two
opposing forces is recounted and explained by Achcar:
“The patriotic mutation was brought to completion after the Soviet Union
entered the Second World War, engaging in what the Stalinist regime
called the ‘Great Patriotic War.’ This went along with the
rehabilitation of the Greek Orthodox Church and the resurrection of
Slavophilism.”Soviet Patriotism” became a highly praised virtue in the
Soviet Union and in the world communist movement while Stalin’s brand of
‘internationalism’ reached its logical conclusion in the 1943
dissolution of the Comintern.
“Soviet patriotism mutated into full-fledged chauvinism after Moscow
emerged victorious from the war, especially when the Soviet Union faced
renewed ostracism with the start of the Cold War. It is against this
historical background that the campaign against ‘cosmopolitanism’
unfolded.”(5)
We agree with the decision to disband the Comintern, which was done
because
“it became increasingly clear that, to the extent that the internal as
well as the international situation of individual countries became more
complicated, the solution of the problems of the labor movement of each
individual country through the medium of some international centre would
meet with insuperable obstacles.”(6)
Leszek Kolakowski is then cited favorably by Achcar as giving the
Trotskyist perspective of these events:
“In 1949 the Soviet press launched a campaign against ‘cosmopolitanism’,
a vice that was not defined but evidently entailed being anti-patriotic
and glorifying the West. As the campaign developed, it was intimated
more and more clearly that a cosmopolitan was much the same thing as a
Jew. When individuals were pilloried and had previously borne Jewish
sounding names, these were generally mentioned. ‘Soviet patriotism’ was
indistinguishable from Russian chauvinism and became an official mania.
Propaganda declared incessantly that all important technical inventions
and discoveries had been made by Russians, and to mention foreigners in
this context was to be guilty of cosmopolitanism and kowtowing to the
West.”(5)
Achcar then describes how, according to Isaac Deutscher, Stalin ordered
a crackdown on Jews in the Soviet Union following “massive
demonstrations of sympathy by Russian Jews who in 1948-49 greeted Golda
Meir the first ambassador to Moscow of the newborn state of Israel…”(7)
According to Deutscher the crackdown was in response not only to this
unauthorized public display of support by Soviet citizens, but because
Israel “stunned” Stalin by siding with the West in the cold war. Yet the
author would have us believe that “unauthorized public displays of
support” for a foreign head of state invited to Russia by Stalin would
take precedence in this “crackdown” over that of the machinations of
cosmopolitans and their collusion with a tool of Western imperialism, as
is the sub-text that lies hidden beneath these events. Indeed, just a
paragraph down from this Achcar says that Soviet authorities began to
close down Jewish theaters, periodicals and publishing houses while
purging personnel and arresting various Rabbis and other Jewish public
figures soon thereafter. But aren’t these institutions that which have
been traditionally used by the imperialists to agitate for
counter-revolution in anti-imperialist nations? If Jewish pogroms really
took place, then why is it that only certain people and institutions
were being repressed and not Jewish people as a whole? Clearly these
were political moves with a basis in national security that were
happening and not oppression based on nationality (or religious beliefs)
as Achcar would have us believe. As a matter of fact, when we turn the
page of this book we find a much more coherent and realistic assessment
of these campaigns as detailed by F. Chernov in his article: “Bourgeois
Cosmopolitanism and it’s reactionary role” as published and featured in
Bolshevik, the theoretical and political magazine of the central
committee of the All Union Communist Party (Bolshevik). It begins by
reporting that Soviet newspapers
“unmasked an unpatriotic group of theatre critics of rootless
cosmopolitans, who came out against Soviet patriotism, against the great
cultural achievements of the Russian people and other people in our
country.”
Chernov’s article then states:
“Cosmopolitanism is the negation of patriotism, its opposite. It
advocates absolute apathy towards the fate of the Motherland.
Cosmopolitanism denies the existence of any moral or civil obligations
of people to their nation and Motherland…”
“Present day bourgeois cosmopolitanism with its call for the repudiation
of national sovereignty, with its notions of ‘one-world government,’ the
creation of the ‘United States of Europe,’ etc. is an ideological
‘basis’ and ‘consecration’ of the assembling under the aegis of American
imperialism of the union of imperialists in the name of the struggle
against the toiling masses, against the Soviet Union and peoples
democracies, against the irresistible growth over the entire world of
the forces of socialism and democracy.
“The party unmasked the anti-patriotic, bourgeois-cosmopolitan essence
of servility before the capitalist West. It revealed that this cringing
before foreign countries inevitably leads to national treason and
betrayal of the interests of the Soviet people and the socialist
fatherland. The unmasking of unpatriotic groups of bourgeois
cosmopolitans, the struggle against the ideology of bourgeois
cosmopolitanism, is a striking expression of the concern of the
Bolshevik Party about the education of the toiling masses of our country
in the spirit of life-giving, Soviet patriotism.”(8)
This portion of the essay and the book then end with the statements
that: “With the start of ‘de-Stalinization’ in Kruschev’s Soviet Union,
the eyes of many communists were opened; more accurately, their mouths
were opened, as it is difficult to believe that they had not been aware
of the realities they denounced when the green light finally came from
Moscow…”(9)
“With the end of the Stalinist campaign, ‘cosmopolitanism’ faded away as
a major issue in communist circles, as well as in the public debate in
general…”(10)
Of course it did, but only because the cosmopolitans and other
revisionists were now in power and the Soviet Union was starting on the
capitalist road. The final pages of this book then shift back to
Trotskyist political line as Gilbert Achcar outlines how Marx, Engels
and Lenin thought cosmopolitanism, i.e. proletarian internationalism
charts the course towards communism, i.e. “socialist globalization” and
how national liberation struggles in the Third World “can fit perfectly
in the cosmopolitan struggle for global transformation as necessary
moments of this struggle, as components of the global struggle…”(11)
But when the oppressed nations finally rise up in revolt against
imperialism these national liberation struggles won’t just be “necessary
moments” or “mere components” of the global struggle: but instead will
mark the beginning of a long stage of socialist transition and
development in which the people of Africa, Asia and Latin@ America will
band together in a Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the
Oppressed Nations against the former oppressing and exploiting nations.
In summation, the author opens this book with the chauvinist First World
belief that Western domination of the world brought progress to the
hordes of uncivilized savages and barbarians thru the spread of
Christianity. Apparently, revolution, progress and development are
phenomena inherent only to white people and deliverable in the future
only thru a multi-nation working class approach, led of course by the
workers of the core capitalist countries.
This is why he views with such disgust the success that revolutionary
Islam is having in repelling Western forces, because in those movements
he sees the reactionary and backward Islamic fundamentalists doing what
he says they cannot; engage and win against the imperialists. Likewise,
this is why he cannot stand Stalin and must tear him down, because in
his practice and political line he sees the backward national liberation
and self-determination movements of the oppressed nations as they came
to fruition all throughout the 20th century by using revolutionary
nationalism to establish socialism in their countries and then
vigorously defending it. While the only thing that Trotskyists could do
was complain and criticize that the Soviet Union was moving contrary to
what the young Marx and Engels had envisioned in their early years. Such
is the hallmark of Trotskyism which holds that socialism is impossible
in countries of the Third World before the imperialist countries have
had revolutions. Such is the hallmark of Trotskyism which needs but to
depart from the reality of material conditions and enter the jungle of
idealism to carry out the lofty goals of the white worker elite.
The Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons (MIM(Prisons)), a
communist organization in the United $tates which formed out of the
legacy of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), announces support
for and echoes the urgency of the main ideas in the below statement from
the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement (RAIM). In particular, we
recognize the importance of fighting First Worldism, which incorrectly
identifies the petty bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries as a part
of the international proletariat. First Worldism has played an important
role in undermining the building of socialism worldwide. A correct class
analysis is critical to all successful revolutionary movements.
MIM(Prisons) refrains from being an outright signatory of this statement
because of what it leaves out. In this dialogue within the International
Communist Movement (ICM), we would add that we do not see the legacy of
the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) as a positive one. As
the original MIM pointed out over the many years since the formation of
the
RIM,
it was always a force for revisionism rather than a force for
revolution. Revolutionary parties seeking to re-establish the RIM
should take heed of the mistakes that were inherent in the RIM design
and political line from the start. There is no value in resurrecting a
revisionist organization.
Further, we challenge our comrades in Maoist organizations around the
world to examine closely what
Mao
wrote back in 1943 on the question of dissolving the International.
We do not believe that conditions have changed since that time so that a
new International will be a positive development. Instead we uphold the
original MIM position that “The world’s communist parties should compare
notes and sign joint declarations, but there are no situations where a
party should submit to international discipline through a world party.
Where various Maoist parties from different nationalities have the same
goal, they will then coordinate their actions in joint struggle. This
will occur in the case of the united states when several nationalities
come to exert joint dictatorship over it. Of course there will be some
form of temporary organizational discipline at international
conferences, but such discipline should not extend to what gets done in
the various countries by the various Maoist
parties.”(“Resolutions
on Vanguard Organizing.” 1995 MIM Congress.)
From the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement [This letter
has been co-signed by the Turkish group, İştirakî, and the
pan-Indigenous web-project, Onkwehón:we Rising. To co-sign this
important international document, email raim-d@hush.com]
A Letter to Maoist and Revolutionary Organizations
Recently the Communist Party of Italy (Maoist) called for the convening
of an international meeting of Maoist organizations. This call comes
some years after the RIM collapsed following the development of evident
revisionism within two of its leading organizations, the RCP-USA and the
UCPN.
Comrades! Let us carry out and celebrate the firm break with the
revisionism emanating from the leadership of the RCP-USA and the UCPN.
In doing so, let us reaffirm our defining points of unity based on the
experience of class struggle and distilled into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
These include:
All of history is the result of the development of the means of
production and the struggle between classes over their ownership and
use.
Under capitalism, labor is utilized for the sake of profit. Capital is
accumulated surplus labor turned against the masses of workers.
That capitalist-imperialism entails the indirect and direct exploitation
of the majority of people by dominant monopoly capital and reveals
widening contradictions inherent in capitalism.
The only alternative to the continued barbarism of imperialism is the
struggle for socialism and communism. Broadly speaking, people’s wars
and united fronts are the most immediate, reliable means to struggle for
communism.
Socialism entails the forceful seizure of power by the proletariat.
However, socialism is not the end of the struggle. Under socialism, the
conditions exist for the development of a ‘new bourgeoisie’ which will
seek to establish itself as a new ruling class. In order to counter this
tendency, class struggle must be waged relentlessly under socialism
through the development of communism.
These are points all Maoists can agree on. Yet these do not capture
all significant features of today’s world.
Comrades! A discourse and struggle over the nature of class under
imperialism is sorely needed.
The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement puts forward a line that
includes the understanding that a majority section of the populations of
imperialist countries are embourgeoisfied.
This embourgeoification often contours around national oppression cast
in the history of colonialism and settler-colonialism. It is most wholly
construed, however, as an ongoing global distinction between parasitic
workers in imperialist core economies and exploited workers in the vast
Third World periphery.
Though understandings of this split in the working class was popularized
as the ‘labor-aristocracy’ by Lenin, the phenomenon itself was first
noted by Friedrich Engels in a letter to Karl Marx:
“[T]he English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois,
so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would
appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois
aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation which
exploits the entire world this is, of course, justified to some extent.”
With some exceptions, Marxists have focused and debated primarily on the
ideological effects of the controversial ‘theory of the labor
aristocracy.’ Unfortunately, less attention has been paid to the
economic dimensions of the ‘labor aristocracy.’
Within the imperialist world-economy, First World workers (a minority of
workers in the world) receive compensation which exceeds the monetary
rate of the full value of labor. In effect, First World workers are a
section of the petty-bourgeoisie due to the fact that they consume a
greater portion of social labor than they concretely expend. This
difference is made up with the super-exploitation of Third World
workers. Because prices (including those of labor power) deviate from
values, this allows First World firms to obtain profits at equivalent
rates while still paying ‘their’ workers a wage above the full monetary
rate of labor value. The First World workers’ compensation above the
monetary rate of the full labor value is also an investment, i.e., a
structural means of by which surplus value is saturated and concentrated
in the core at the expense of the periphery.
The structural elevation of First World workers also has strong
implications for the struggle for communism.
One of the most dangerous and devastatingly popular misconceptions is
that social and political reforms can raise the material standard of
living for Third World workers up to the level enjoyed by First World
workers.
The illusion that Third World peoples can ‘catch up’ with imperialist
countries through various reforms is objectively aided by the common yet
false First Worldist belief that First World workers are exploited as a
class.
If, as the First Worldist line states, First Worlder workers have
attained high wages through reformist class struggle and advanced
technology, then Third World workers should be able to follow a similar
route towards a capitalism modeled after ‘advanced capitalist
countries.’ By claiming that a majority of First Worlders are exploited
proletarians, First Worldism creates the illusion that all workers could
create a similar deal for themselves without overturning capitalism. By
obscuring the fundamental relationship between imperialist exploitation
of Third World workers and embourgeoisfication of First World workers,
First Worldism actually serves to hinder the tide of proletarian
revolution internationally.
Another long-term implication of the global division of workers is the
ecological consequences of the inflated petty-bourgeois lifestyles
enjoyed by the world’s richest 15-20%. First World workers currently
consume and generate waste at a far greater rate than is ecologically
sustainable. The First Worldist line, which effectively states First
World workers should have even greater capacity to consume under a
future socialism (that is, First Worldists believe First Worlders are
entitled to an even greater share of social product than they currently
receive), has obvious utopian qualities which can only misguide the
proletariat over the long term.
It is safe to say that First Worldism is the root cause of the problems
associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party-USA (RCP-USA) and the
Unified Communist Party of Nepal (UCPN).
The RCP-USA, desiring some positive significance to offset its terminal
failure to organize what it sees as a U.S. proletariat, chose to
intervene in various international issues. This typically occurred to
the disservice of the proletarian struggle. Now the RCP-USA heavily
promotes Bob Avakian and his ‘New Synthesis.’ This ‘New Synthesis’ is
better described as an old bag of revisionisms. Today, the RCP-USA, Bob
Avakian, and his revisionist ‘New Synthesis’ is a distraction from many
of the important issues facing the international proletariat.
The UCPN has given up the path of global socialism and communism. It has
instead sought to conciliate and collude with imperialism in hopes of
achieving conditions for class-neutral development. It foolishly assumes
monopoly capital will allow it [to] be anything but ‘red’ compradors or
that Nepal will become anything other than a source of super-exploited
labor. The UCPN has abrogated the task of constructing an independent
economic base and socialist foreign policy. It has instead embarked
hand-in-hand with monopoly capital on a path they wrongly believe will
lead to progressive capitalist development.
Through the examples set forth by both the RCP-USA and the UCPN, it is
evident how First Worldism corrupts even nominal Maoists into becoming
promulgators of the most backwards revisionisms. The RCP-USA is
deceptive and wrong in its claim that it is organizing a U.S.
proletariat. In reality it wrecks the international communist movement
for the sake of the U.S. petty-bourgeois masses. The UCPN, whose
leadership falsely believes capitalist development will bring positive
material effects for the masses of Nepal, has abandoned the struggle for
socialism and communism. The RCP-USA claims to represent what it wrongly
describes as an exploited U.S. proletariat. The UCPN takes great
inspiration in the level of material wealth attained by what it wrongly
assumes to be an exploited First World proletariat.
Comrades! Our analysis must start with the questions, “Who are our
enemies? Who are our friends?” These questions must be answered foremost
in the structural sense (i.e., how do groups fundamentally relate to the
process of capital accumulation), secondly in the historical sense
(i.e., what can history tell us about such class divisions and their
implications for today), and lastly in a political sense, (i.e., given
what we know about the complex nature of class structures of modern
imperialism, how can we best organize class alliances so as to advance
the revolutionary interests of the proletariat at large).
First Worldism is a fatal flaw. It is both a hegemonic narrative within
the ‘left’ and a trademark of reformism, revisionism, and chauvinism.
Unfortunately, First Worldism is all-too-common within international
Maoism.
Comrades! The consistent struggle against First Worldism is an extension
of the communist struggle against both social chauvinism and the theory
of the productive forces. As such, it is the duty of all genuine
Communists to struggle against First Worldism.
Comrades! First Worldism has already done enough damage to our forces
internationally. Now is the time to struggle against First Worldism and
decisively break with the errors of the past.
The importance of knowing “who are our enemies” and “who are our
friends” never goes away. Instead, those who fail in these
understandings are prone to wider deviations. Gone unchecked, First
Worldism sets back the struggle for communism.
Comrades! We hope the topics of class under imperialism and the
necessity of the struggle against First Worldism come up as specific
points of future discussion within and between Maoist organizations. The
raising of these questions and the firm refutation of First Worldism
will mark a qualitative advance for international communism.