This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes 88 May, 1994
MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the
world's oppressed majority, and against the
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in
the service of the people. support it, struggle
with it and write for it.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. MIM TURNS 10!
2. LETTERS
3. FMLN LEADS THE WAY DOWN THE WRONG ROAD:
MASSES LOSE IN SALVADORAN ELECTIONS
4. BLACK NATION DAY CELEBRATED
5. REPARATIONS FOR ROSEWOOD
6. JAPAN-U.S. CONFLICT STIRRING
7. JAPAN COMPARED TO EVIL EMPIRE?
8. TEN YEARS OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
9. MIM HISTORY: HOW IT ALL BEGAN
10. MIM'S MUST READ BOOKS
11. THANK YOU, RCP!
12. RCP STUDY PACK
13. COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN RWANDA
14. AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM IN HAITI
15. PCP RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS:
REVOLUTIONARY PARTY IS NOT ANTI-GAY
16. MIM HOSTS TALKS ABOUT REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN IN PERU
17. THE PAPER
18. NPA ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED
* * *
WHAT IS MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a
revolutionary communist party that upholds
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist
parties in the English-speaking imperialist
countries and their English-speaking internal
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.
MIM is an internationalist organization that works
from the vantage point of the Third World
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans,
but world citizens.
MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups
over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM
knows this is only possible by building public
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.
Revolution is a reality for North America as the
military becomes over-extended in the government's
attempts to maintain world hegemony.
MIM differs from other communist parties on three
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution,
the potential exists for capitalist restoration
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in
this country.
MIM accepts people as members who agree on these
basic principles and accept democratic centralism,
the system of majority rule, on other questions of
party line.
"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is
universally applicable. We should regard it not as
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases,
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208
* * *
COMMUNISM IS ALIVE!
MAOISM THRIVES!
MIM TURNS 10!
MAY 1, 1994!
On International Workers Day 1994, we celebrate a decade and more
of victories in the self-reliant people's wars of the Philippines
and Peru--led by Maoist vanguard parties. We celebrate the current
resurgence of the revolutionary Maoist science in the world. We
celebrate the first 10 years of existence of the Maoist
Internationalist Movement--born humbly in struggle on May 1, 1984.
We celebrate the just anti-imperialist and anti-militarist battles
that have been waged in this decade by the masses of Somalia,
Chiapas, Iraq, Azania, Los Angeles, Eritrea, Miami, Kurdistan,
Bougainville, Haiti, Palestine, El Salvador, Nicaragua--to name
but a few.
We sympathize deeply with the masses of the ex-Soviet Union and
China and Eastern Europe who are--once again--afflicted by
capitalism, reactionary nationalism and corporate fascism. We
acknowledge that World War Three has become the daily experience
of 80% of the world's people--who live in the many nations
deliberately under-developed and torn by imperialism, semi-
feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
Imperialism means war. Forced labor, super-exploitation and the
planned starvation of hundreds of millions are instruments of war
and increasing genocide-for-profit. Destruction of the planet's
ecosystem is an act of war. Monopoly of the world's media by the
patriarchs on Madison Avenue is a frontal attack on the human
spirit and a war on human culture. Cash-cropping is war. The
profitable crushing of technological improvements of the means of
production and distribution are forms of mass death banally
calculated in corporate board rooms and departments of the state.
International usury, super-profits and the theft of raw materials
are the spoils of war. The International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank and the "non-governmental organizations" are pillaging
war-machines in their own right. Amerika is war-crazed Babylon
riding the many-colored consumer-beast as it fire-bombs the
innocent from Waco, Texas to Bosnia to the Middle East to Central
America and plants its evil nuclear seeds far beneath the seas and
into orbits in outer space.
Despite the tactical prowess of the alternately competing and
colluding European, Amerikan and Japanese monopolists--it is as
true in 1994 as it has been in all of our history--that the power
of groups over groups breeds successful resistance. As we
celebrate the scientific advances in making and continuing the
revolution brought forth by Mao Zedong and the great Chinese
people from 1911 to 1976--we focus, in 1994, on the need for
proletarian unity and the decisiveness of political line in the
international communist movement, in accord with these relatively
recent lessons.
We have tremendous strategic confidence in the ability of the
earth's vast majority to shake off the clear and present danger to
the very survival of our species: patriarchal capitalism. In the
communist centuries to come, humanity will look back upon the
present period of planet-wide war and universal destruction as but
the birth pang of a truly social civilization--as but the primeval
wail of a mass self-consciousness organizing itself while
straining to break the chrysalis of commodity production.
MIM's vanguard contribution to this effort has been to make and
promote a concrete class, nation and gender analysis of North
American society as we work to build independent power of the
oppressed and help to turn the old society into a new thing. If
you want to become useful: join MIM and be a part of the future.
* * *
LETTERS:
Some criminals must be stopped
I enjoyed your post [MIM Notes 87 Crime Bill article] and agreed
with much of it. However, there are some issues and ideological
considerations you cannot or should not skip.
Granted, the broadly-defined aspects of this growing movement
[anti-"crime" proto-fascism] covers too much, but there are some
valid reasons for it beyond right-wing ideology. I've had
experience in both probation (group counselor 5 years) and
education. There are people who are dangerous, and they will do
harm to others, regardless of social-economic class, ethnicity, or
whatever. I've watched the same people leave institutions and
return for the same or similar violent crimes, which are more
often than not perpetrated against working class people. I just
read yesterday about a client I knew years ago who's going to the
joint for life. He blew the head off a woman who refused to give
up her car.
I was nearly killed by a male juvenile about three weeks ago as I
drove home from work on a freeway. The kid tossed a brick, a
cinder block, from a freeway overpass. Had I not been trained as
an interstate bus driver to "get the big picture," I would not
have seen the kid or the brick. I would be dead or crippled, and
others on the freeway with me would have suffered.
This kid got away, of course. Had he been arrested, he would have
one strike. Two more acts of similar violence against others,
regardless of class, would remove him for over 20 years in
California. I have no problem with this. Every time I see the
damage to my truck I think the brick could have and probably would
have hit me. Whatever deep, underlying hostility caused this kid
to "act out" his aggression may or may not have something to do
with fascism and the repressive apparatus. A week ago on the same
freeway another young man shot a woman in the face as she drove
home from the airport. What we do know is that these guys will
hurt others.
Violence is not a statistical abstraction for me. I work in center
city L.A. and have dealt first-hand with gang violence. The last
fight I broke up involved a knife and a gun. I have had students
who stopped coming to school out of fear for their lives. I would
probably do the same if I was in their shoes.
On the one hand, prisons are over-crowded. On the other, money's
not going in the right direction. As for what is the right
direction, I don't know, but I gather it would have something to
do with eliminating the isolation and alienation throughout mass
industrial, capitalist society.
I don't necessarily disagree with the boot camp idea, but I do
disagree with its rigid, hierarchical structure. One thing we've
learned about kids in trouble (whatever underlying cause may be
involved), they do at times respond when placed in a highly-
structured environment with adult leadership, 3 meals a day,
school, positive peer pressure, and physical activities. In fact,
most kids in trouble are in trouble because they've had too little
structure in their lives. Consistency in an environment is not a
bad thing. Although, the military structure of what's planned is
not the best track, I'm sure.
Nice post, anyway. Regards.
--L.A. Internet reader
MIM replies: Thank you for writing with your comments and
criticisms. MIM is glad to see people thinking seriously about the
injustice system, even when we don't agree with their conclusions.
Sure some people do bad things, but there are some big problems
with your view:
1. Amerika has no right to pass judgment on those it has
oppressed, no matter what "crimes" they have committed. In a just
society, people who throw bricks off of overpasses will need to be
struggled with and/or corrected. That does not make it right for
Amerika to imprison that person today.
2. Imprisonment, the death penalty, etc., have been demonstrated
over and over to do great harm to "criminals" while doing
absolutely nothing to reduce violence, death, rape, etc., in
capitalist society.
3. The people who run this society do much more damage to many
more people than all the "criminals" in Amerika put together. They
don't drop bricks, they drop nukes. They don't fight with knives
and handguns, they fight with Napalm and cluster bombs. And, of
course, the greatest crime of all is the imposition and
enforcement of a system which systematically starves, enslaves,
and otherwise oppresses billions of people worldwide.
The U.N. counts 800 million people as "chronically
undernourished."(1) And that's just the very bottom. Who's going
to hang for that?
Thanks again for writing.
Notes:
1. AP 3/22/94.
Black nationalism not MIM turf
What I really would like to know is: what Black Nationalism has to
do with MIM? [In response to MIM's articles on Farrakhan in MIM
Notes 87.] When Marcus Garvey (considered by many African
Americans to be one of the founding fathers of Black Nationalism)
was alive, he had many debates with avowed communists. In fact,
Garvey hated them because he felt they would use the black masses
for nebulous causes which have no relevance to our community--like
some white liberals do today. ...
Who cares what MIM thinks? They are far removed from anything
which has any relevance to the Black Community in the U.S. anyway.
That's why Garvey didn't like the bullshit communists who tried to
align themselves with our community in the first place.
--Black Internet critic
MIM replies: Garvey was by no means the first Black nationalist.
Nor is his view of communism decisive on the relationship between
Black nationalism and communism. Black nationalism has to do with
MIM the same thing it had to do with the Black Panther Party and
other revolutionary Black communists and Maoists who understand
the need for revolutionary nationalism in the struggle against
imperialist national oppression.
Revolutionary nationalism, the national liberation struggle led by
the proletariat of the oppressed nation in strategic alliance with
other anti- imperialist classes, is crucial in the struggle for
emancipation and the construction of a socialist society.
Find us some white liberals who say that. We agree that white
liberalism has nothing to offer the oppressed.
The mostly Black southern chapters of the Communist Party, USA
worked with Garvey supporters on anti-lynching campaigns in the
early 1930s.(1) Garvey himself was not a communist, but many
Blacks then--as now--were. But if you think MIM is removed from
the Black nation, then you must not have been reading MIM Notes
much. We urge you to subscribe, on e-mail or in print, and
struggle with us more.
Notes:
1. Robin Kelley, Hammer and Hoe, University of North Carolina
Press, 1990. p. 81.
Are Israelis sub-human?
I am truly perplexed. [In response to MIM Notes 87 article on
Hebron] I realize you are a Maoist organization and as such are
for radical changes in society and against reformist measures that
don't solve repression. I assume you are a humanist organization
and believe in ultimate social harmony. Yet your views on the
Palestinian-Israeli situation seem as strident and extreme as the
Kach/Kahane views on the other side. They are "purists" whose ears
are closed to the rights of the Palestinians as people. Are you
not the same as to the people who are Israelis? Are they wicked
sub-humans? The "peace process" may be flawed, but what's your
solution? Is it the same as the Israeli extremists, but for the
other guys? All I hear from you and the extremists of the other
side is uncompromising stridency. Is compromise and compassion for
all people (even Jewish Israelis) so evil? When I pose this
question to extremists on the other side I'm greeted with
contempt, anger and inflexibility. I'm hoping for a more reasoned
response from you. Thanks.
--West Coast reader
MIM replies: Thank you for writing.
We are not against reformist measures that don't solve oppression.
When reforms have good consequences, we support them. When reforms
are bogus attempts at political pacification, we call them out.
What are the good consequences of the non-peace non-agreement
between Arafat and Israel?
We do believe in "ultimate social harmony" (by which we mean
classless society with no oppression, otherwise known as
communism) and see nothing in this agreement that moves us toward
that goal.
Our solution begins with the national liberation of Palestinians,
who are currently oppressed by Israel acting as agent for
imperialism. National liberation means self-determination on their
own land. Self-determination means no international economic,
political or military domination. It does not mean a token police
force on a strip of desert surrounded by hostile forces of
occupation and dominated by a hegemonic economic power.
We do not think Israelis are all wicked sub-humans. Their society
is using the force of imperialism to oppress another nation. To
the extent that any Israelis oppose that oppression, in deeds as
well as in words, then we welcome them into the community of
humanity.
The Coalition Against U.S. Imperialism (CAUSI)
MIM recently received the following "Proposal for a Statement of
Purpose for CAUSI" from some friends in the St. Louis area.
1. We oppose imperialist U.S. foreign policy and U.S. oppression
of captive nations within U.S. borders.
2. We support the struggles for self-determination and
independence of the oppressed peoples under U.S. dominance and
rule.
3. We recognize the military, police, corporations, prisons,
courts, FBI, CIA, NSC, and others as repressive institutions of
the capitalist-imperialist state.
4. We want freedom for all political prisoners in U.S. jails.
5. We do not recognize the legitimacy of the artificial U.S.
borders carved by imperialism. We support immigration without
restriction.
6. We oppose U.S. economic embargoes and blockades.
7. We support every person's basic human rights as outlined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
8. We recognize nuclear weapons and power as a threat to all
people which must be disassembled.
For more information, or to help CAUSI build public opinion
against imperialism, write: CAUSI, PO Box 78842, St. Louis, MO
63178.
Housing is a Battlefield
In many respects the phased destruction of social life in the city
during the 70s and 80s has meant that radical urban politics are
at an impasse. That impasse is no more clearly revealed,
especially since job flight, than in the area of housing. In the
90s, housing is one of the most crucial political theaters
remaining. It encompasses subsidized (Section 8) housing, housing
projects, and homeless shelters. In the wake of job flight, these
structures are teeming with individuals and families that have
been condemned to welfare, prison and low wage work by insecure
First World regimes still smarting from the urban rebellions of
the recent past. These institutions are also the checkpoints for
high and low level functionaries, landlords and utilities,
university researchers and church missionaries. Across the country
multiculturally diverse and politically centrist municipal
administrations are engaged in a civic crusade to further
demobilize and intimidate the urban poor in the name of fighting
drugs, violence and moral anarchy.
In Cleveland, the city government is transforming Section 8
housing. Following the recommendations of the city elites who make
up a 21-member Building and Housing Task Force, the Housing
division has been reorganized. Such a reorganization entails
increasing the number of field inspectors, changing the process
for certificates of occupancy, creating a code-enforcement section
in the city's law department, etc.(1) By requiring every
commercial and residential structure be inspected annually, and
the vigorous prosecution of housing code violators, social life
has been made more of an object subject to bureaucratic regulation
and law enforcement.
In St. Louis, senior citizens, grassroots reformers and urban
planners have consolidated their efforts to extirpate the
disquieting presence of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project.
Built in the early 50s on 55 acres near downtown St. Louis,
Pruitt-Igoe comprised 33 11-story buildings that, in 1972, housed
10,000 low-income occupants.(2) Since that time, planned social-
welfare policy initiatives have cast its residents to the four
corners of St. Louis. The housing project was razed in 1992 to
make way for a school for gifted children.
In Washington D.C. homeless shelters, taking their cues from
public fears of crime, have begun imposing restrictive rules and
regulations on its indigent clients.(3) Sunset curfews, lights-out
orders, 6-month to 12-month occupancy limits, curtailing outside
visits, and coercive work requirements are measures being
employed, not only in D.C. but nation-wide. Applying techniques
from penal institutions, homeless shelters are instruments that
discipline people; people for whom housing is not a commodity, or
a right, but a battlefield.
--MA115
Notes:
1. Cleveland Plain Dealer 1/9/94.
2. Chicago Tribune 2/13/94.
3. Washington Post 2/14/94.
MC234 responds: While the motives of the state are always
suspect, we think it would be a good thing for something--be it
the masses or the state--to force landlords to bring their
buildings up to code.
* * *
FMLN LEADS THE WAY DOWN THE WRONG ROAD:
MASSES LOSE IN SALVADORAN ELECTIONS
by MC12
The remains of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) in El Salvador lost a national election in March, after
abandoning armed struggle following the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the electoral loss of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The
FMLN-backed party, Democratic Convergence, came in second behind
the Arena party, their former military enemies--the party of the
oligarchy and military. A runoff election was to be held in late
April, after MIM's deadline, which Arena was expected to win.
The FMLN's defeat should be taken as a lesson for those who think
socialism can be won through electoral struggles. No ruling class
has ever given up its power in an election; even when the leaders
of government change, such as in Chile with the socialist-leaning
middle class Allende government, elections don't lead to
socialism. That this Salvadoran election was a fraud only
underscores the point.
The Arena party claimed 49% of the vote, just short of the 50%
they needed to avoid a runoff. The Democratic Convergence (which
includes several parties), came in second with 26% of the vote. In
the end, only 54% of eligible voters voted in the first round,
between fraud and refusal to participate.(1)
Fraud
The Salvadoran comprador ruling class showed no signs of
permitting the FMLN to win even if a majority of Salvadorans
wanted to vote for them. Some 340,000 voting cards were never
distributed, most of them in areas where the FMLN was more
popular.(2)
In fact, one poll showed that 38% of Salvadoran thought there
would be fraud in the election (there always has been before), and
the FMLN found itself in the ridiculous position of trying to
defend the bourgeoisie's election process!(2)
The New York Times reported: "In addition to concerns over fraud,
many voters said before the election that the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front, straining to appear mainstream and
avoiding language that revived memories of the war, seemed much
like any other party."(2)
Even though the Times' words should be taken with unsafe dosages
of salt, this is a good representation of the FMLN's campaign.
Speaking in Boston before the election, Democratic Convergence
candidate Ruben Zamora said, for example: "The fight in El
Salvador is no longer between left and right. It is now the
interests of a nation versus those of a small minority....
"We have learned that we cannot get rid of the top 25%. The
government needs to hook into that wealth for the other three-
quarters of the population."(3)
So, he called for higher taxes, land reform, education, health
reform, "jobs" (making what for whom?) "professionalizing" the
military (no thanks!), and so on. Zamora acted as if it was
possible to escape economic dependence and imperialist domination
through an open trade policy and progressive social policies in a
Third World country. This tired song-and-dance has been tried and
failed many times.
In fact, the land reform policy that the FMLN and Arena agreed to
before the election would redistribute even less land than the
bourgeoisie's last land reform in the 1980s.(4)
Zamora went further. After the Cold War, he said, the United
States would no longer be hostile to progressive governments, as
"'divisions of right and left are becoming increasingly
irrelevant' to U.S. foreign policy. 'The U.S. interest now is in
our position regarding free trade and whether we can offer
stability.'" And finally: "There is no choice regarding whether to
globalize. The choice is whether to globalize or be
globalized."(3)
So, if Zamora, the Democratic Convergence and the FMLN plan to
appease U.S. imperialism by supporting "free" trade (free for the
imperialists), and promoting "stability" (the status quo of
oppression), then why should the oppressed vote for them?
President Clinton congratulated current Arena party President
Alfredo Cristiani for the peaceful vote: "Clearly, enormous
progress has been made toward national reconciliation," he said.
"A solid foundation has been laid for the future of democracy in
El Salvador."(1) From a man whose definition of democracy means
periodic voting for non-options in between years and years of mass
exploitation, suffering and starvation, this is high praise
indeed.
Fight to win
To win the support of the people, socialists need to demonstrate
the advantage of socialism: the strategy of people's war is built
upon winning areas of territory and starting the construction of a
new society there, then expanding the revolution progressively
from those bases. Without such a strategy, the words of socialists
and communists are just more rhetoric in the masses's ears--and
they should be.
People who enter into battles they can't win, such as this
electoral battle, and then blame their opponent when they lose,
are guilty of opportunism and misleading the masses. Foreseeing
the treachery of the bourgeoisie is always the responsibility of
revolutionary leaders.
The FMLN has joined the ranks of the Sandinistas, the African
National Congress and the Palestine Liberation Organization, in
abandoning class struggle for electoral efforts that are doomed to
failure. In so doing, all four organizations showed their
dependence--ideological and material--on the Soviet Union's
revisionist conception of liberation struggles and a Cold War
strategy of fighting not to win power, but to win negotiating
position.
MIM and other anti-imperialists supported these movements as
resistance to U.S. imperialism, the dominant oppressing force in
the world today. Still, we had no illusions that their strategy
would ultimately result in real national liberation and socialism.
Rather, we hoped these efforts would strike blows against
imperialism and lay the groundwork for future struggles. Learning
the right lessons from such losses is crucial to making the great
sacrifices of the people worthwhile. Likewise, failure to learn
from previous mistakes is itself a crime and a betrayal of many
martyrs.
In the post-USSR era of Third World liberation struggles, the path
is cleared for the reassertion of Maoist revolutions, self-reliant
movements engaged in people's war to seize power, to achieve
national liberation and socialism. These are the movements that
will free the people from imperialist domination, rather than
trying to accommodate it.
Notes:
1. Reuter 3/22/94.
2. NYT 3/22/94, p. A3.
3. Central America Reporter Jan-Feb 94, Central America Solidarity
Association, Cambridge, Mass. p. 1, 12.
4. Elisabeth Jean Wood, "The Transformation of Agrarian Social
Relations and the Prospects for Economic Development in El
Salvador." Dec. 1993, Stanford University, unpublished.
* * *
BLACK NATION DAY CELEBRATED
WASHINGTON D.C--On April 1-2 the Provisional Government of the
Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA) sponsored the annual Black Nation
Day Weekend at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The PG-RNA
was founded in 1968 in Detroit when they announced a Declaration
of Independence for the Black nation and set up a provisional
government for the nation while it is a colony.
On Saturday, April 2, the PG-RNA held a rally at Lafayette Park in
front of the White House to demand justice and reparations for the
Black nation.
There were several dynamic speakers, some focusing on "spiritual
warfare," and others talking about concrete organizing strategies
to achieve reparations. All demanded: "Free the Land!"
Some of the speakers spoke of a bill currently in Congress, House
Resolution 40, entitled "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals
for African Americans Act." The bill is supposed to "acknowledge
the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of
slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between
1619 and 1865."
MIM asked the Minister of Defense of the PG-RNA about whether this
congressionally-oriented kind of political work could really be
effective. She explained that the PG-RNA does many kinds of
political work and that they needed to set up the demand as a
rallying point to organize the people and to force the racism in
Amerika to the forefront of the nation's consciousness.
MIM doesn't believe that the U.S. Congress will give reparations
to Black people in the U.S., so we think that it is misleading to
tell people to petition the Congress for reparations. We think
that oppressed people should organize to take back what is rightly
theirs, instead of petitioning the oppressor. While we disagree
with the strategy taken by the PG-RNA, we wholeheartedly support
revolutionary nationalism and the correct demand for reparations.
The Minister also spoke about the historical basis for reparations
given to a people for a wrong done to them, and gave the examples
of reparations given to Japanese internment victims and the
reparations that Germany gave to Jewish people for the Holocaust.
She said that reparations are becoming a big issue, and noted, for
example, that the town of Rosewood, Florida is now demanding
reparations for a 1923 racist attack that resulted in the entire
town being burnt down. (See accompanying article.)
The PG-RNA calls for reparations only on the basis of slavery. MIM
would encourage the PG-RNA to expand the idea of "stolen labor" to
include the labor power expropriated from Black people in this
country under capitalism, including paid labor.
* * *
REPARATIONS FOR ROSEWOOD
The survivors and families of survivors of the 1923 massacre of
the Black town of Rosewood, Florida are seeking millions of
dollars in reparations from the state of Florida.(1) A Florida
official, although admitting that Florida has a "moral obligation"
to compensate them, did not recommend that they be paid the $7
million they are demanding. He instead recommended that the state
should set up a fund to repay only the claimants who can prove
they lost property and $150,000 each to the seven known survivors
who are still alive. The official admitted that it "is clear that
government officials were responsible for some of the damages."(1)
The massacre started on Jan. 1, 1923 when a white woman, Fannie
Taylor, accused a Black man of assaulting her. A study on the
Rosewood massacre suggested that the Taylor may have been lying to
cover up a visit from a white lover.(2)
The massacre has been described as a "scorched earth raid."(3) At
least eight people were killed during the week long attack.
Survivors of the massacre testified before hearings on the issue
of reparations in February. Houses and property were burned to the
ground and the entire town was wiped out. They reported seeing
family members killed and recounted memories of running from white
vigilantes and hiding in the woods buried under weeds.(3) The
sheriff "reported that the situation was under control" and the
governor went hunting.(3)
The hearings are being held in response to bills proposed by
Florida state representative Miguel De Grandy and Daryl Jones to
pay reparations to the survivors.(3) One survivor explained that
she never asked the government to pay up earlier because "I didn't
know how to file a claim ... I'm scared those crackers might come up
there and find me and kill me."(3)
Ernest Parham, a white man who witnessed one of the Rosewood
lynchings came forward to testify for the first time just this
year.(2) He said that he never spoke out before because "I was
never asked." He also refuses to name one of the killers because
even though he is probably dead, "he has relatives and I don't
feel like it would be fair for me to tell it." Meanwhile, Parham
witnessed the man whose name he is protecting choke a Black man
with a rope, beat him in the chest and then shoot him.(2)
The massacre and killings are part of Amerika's long tradition of
murder. Researchers have documented over 4,000 lynchings before
WWII, and that is only a fraction of the number that actually
occurred.(3)
MIM knows that even if Amerika pays off to the seven known
survivors, now in their 70s and 80s, it is only a drop in the
bucket of what is owed to the Black people in this country whose
labor was stolen under slavery and the Third World people around
the globe whose labor is still being stolen through U.S.
imperialist violence.
Notes:
1. New York Times 3/23/94, p.B8.
2. Orlando Sentinel 3/27/94, p.B1.
3. Houston Chronicle 2/27/94, p.A9.
* * *
JAPAN-U.S. CONFLICT STIRRING
by MC5
It seems that the people of another imperialist country have the
impression that the United States "is a nation of gun-wielding
maniacs, unfit for tourism or study." (1) They are right.
"They" is the people of Japan. On March 25, two Japanese students
studying in the United States died from gunshot wounds inflicted
by a car thief in Los Angeles.
Walter Mondale, the ambassador to Japan, had to go on television
in Japan to calm people down with an apology. The incident occurs
against the backdrop of a trade war between Japan and the United
States. President Clinton has started the bureaucratic machinery
to impose ever stiffer tariffs (taxes) on Japanese imports. The
matter is currently in negotiations between the two imperialists.
Such national tensions between countries are an inevitable part of
capitalism, which demands cut-throat economic competition between
countries. The relations between peoples will always be poisoned
as long as capitalism exists.
The white nation chauvinism and crime of the United States is
another major source of tension between Japan and the United
States. Another Japanese student was killed in a more racial
context in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1992 when a homeowner shot
him for showing up at his door by mistake. The Japanese student
had the wrong address for a Halloween party, which was happening
next door. Last May, a jury acquitted Rodney Peairs of all charges
connected to the killing of the high school student.(1)
The United States has the highest murder rate of the
industrialized world, and ranks third in the whole world.(2) The
gun-toting character of the United States is a part of its settler
history, where each homeowner like Rodney Peairs saw fit to carry
a gun to kill the indigenous people they stole land from. While in
other countries John Wayne may be an idol, in North America, the
Euro-Amerikans actually try to imitate Wayne in real life. They
never gave up John Wayne, because they continued to live in a
society where internal colonialism was more important than in any
other imperialist country.
The repression of the oppressed nations within U.S. borders is so
extensive and bound up with a luxurious settler lifestyle, that
even a portion of the oppressed nation peoples buys into the John
Wayne approach and white supremacy. The only thing coming close to
such popular support for repression was Hitler's support from the
German people. His support from the people was admittedly more
intense for a shorter period of time, but the support for Amerikan
repression of the oppressed nations has proved much more stable,
refined and deadly.
Today, the U.S. government leads the world in imprisonment rates,
thus qualifying as a police-state par excellence. But no matter
how many people it imprisons, it will not get over its illness,
because the illness is the politics of the labor aristocracy.
Until Euro-Amerikans come to grips with their settler past and how
they continue to live the settler life, they will never solve the
crime problem. They will go on voting for politicians that favor
tougher crackdowns on national minorities and the poor, while
nothing changes.
Every year the settlers demand a more repressive crackdown on the
national minorities and every year they get it in the democracy of
the dominator. Yet, between 1975 and 1989, the time spent by
violent offenders in prison almost tripled but violent crime did
not decline.(3) The reason is simple: imperialist repression does
not solve the crime problem; it does not work.
State prisons tripled their holdings of prisoners, but violent
crime did not decline in the 1980s. Now settler President Bill
Clinton proposes more of the same (See MIM Notes 87) in the effort
to rally the settler vote to his side, and without the slightest
shred of evidence that repression can stop crime. Already the
United States is the world's leading police state by one measure,
and yet the settlers want to keep reaching for higher records of
imprisonment.
Even other imperialist countries have managed to live with one-
tenth the murder rate. More importantly, in China under Mao, they
had one-tenth the murder rate, no drug problem, no prostitution
and, more importantly, no white collar crimes of the rich that
resulted in the starvation and war-related deaths of tens of
millions. It is possible to do better than what the U.S. system
allows, but the Euro-Amerikan working class must stop clinging to
its historical privileges to see the solutions. Unfortunately,
this is not likely to happen to the people of John Wayne without
disastrous wars or environmental catastrophe.
NOTES:
1. New York Times 3/29/94, p. 1.
2. John Hagan, Crime and Disrepute (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge
Press, 1994), p. 24.
3. Ibid., p. xiii.
* * *
JAPAN COMPARED TO EVIL EMPIRE?
The resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Hosokawa on April 8 put
the Amerikan imperialist press in a surly mood. Recognized as
someone Amerikan corporations can do business with, Hosokawa was
the hope of Amerika-first business for doing "fair trade" with
Japan.
The New York Times said his resignation may derail supposed
efforts to "deregulate a country choking on bureaucracy." Since
this kind of criticism used to be reserved for so-called communist
countries, MIM read on with interest.
The New York Times has summed up the new candidates for Prime
Minister in Japan as follows: "The leading candidate is Foreign
Minister Tsutomu Hata, who once said that the Japanese could not
import more American beef because Japanese intestines could not
fully digest American hamburger.
"Another candidate is former Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe, who
once said that the problem with America is that blacks do not pay
their credit card bills. The third likely option is some sort of
coalition spearheaded by the Socialists, the most protectionist
party in Japan." Protectionists are those who want to add higher
taxes to goods imported from other countries.
Rarely do we see the Japanese and Amerikan ruling classes go at it
with such bluntness, and just in case anyone thought the Cold War
was over, "Some analysts wonder whether the Clinton Administration
did not exaggerate Mr. Hosokawa's willingness to accede to
American demands, much the way it built up President Boris N.
Yeltsin of Russia. In both cases, the United States seemed to be
counting on reform-sounding leaders and seemed unaware that they
were steadily losing public support."
Damn it all, it seems that Clinton lost "Russia" and "Japan" to
the, the, the--well what do we call them?--the "conservatives" or
"anti- reformers" or "hardliners." The endorsement of the New York
Times requires that "reformers" be vaguely for free market
reorganization that somehow results in a balanced U.S. trade
account. Though the rhetoric is not yet as sharp as it was for the
Soviet "evil empire," the latest round of disputes with Japan has
seen a steady increase in bile.
Under President Clinton, the U.S. ruling class's willingness to
poison public relations with Japan has increased. This represents
Clinton's particular plan to hold out select incentives to
Amerika-first corporations and the Amerikan labor aristocracy
threatened by the trade deficit with Japan. Clinton's "managed
trade" concept contrasts somewhat with George Bush's tendency to
"laissez-faire"--the belief in keeping government out of business;
yet, both presidents had a solid lock on the internationalist
bourgeoisie represented by the likes of the Trilateral Commission,
which doesn't care where capitalists make their profits as long as
they are allowed to make them in ever greater quantities.
When the two respective capitalists classes in Japan and North
Amerika cannot agree on the terms of their multi-billion-dollar
deals, they know enough not to publicize what their real concern
is. Instead, they launch their fire at the whole country of the
competing business. Clinton is whipping up Euro-Amerikan public
opinion against Japan in such a way as to benefit certain U.S.
business interests, and to show the Amerikan labor-aristocracy
that he hasn't forgotten about them in the proud partnership of
Amerikan capitalists and Amerikan labor against the rest of the
world.
The conflicts between the United States and Japan cannot be
resolved under capitalism, because dog-eat-dog competition is
built into capitalism. Instead of working against the hatreds
built up between entire countries, the leaders like Clinton seek
to use that hatred for their own purposes. Racism and national
chauvinism are the result.
MIM is for letting the capitalists devour each other so that the
peoples of all different countries may live in harmony without
fearing for their jobs because people of another country also
work. It is absurd that the Japanese and Amerikan workers fear
each other. Peace and the fight against national chauvinism depend
on eliminating the law-of-the-jungle in economics. Ironically, it
is only under communism that there will be truly free and fair
trade.
Note: NYT 5/9/94, p. 1, 5.
* * *
TEN YEARS OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
As MIM celebrates its 10th anniversary--and the 100th birthday of
Mao Zedong--it is appropriate to review MIM's accomplishments.
When the original RIM decided to form its own party, its critics
often took the pragmatist view--explicitly refuted by Mao--that
numbers of members, not political line, are decisive.
From the beginning, various sectarians said what we wanted to do
"would be difficult." The pragmatists criticized us for not having
large enough numbers and expressed disappointment that we did not
have above-ground offices, bookstores and a presence in all the
cities we work in like the wealthier communist parties.
These people are afflicted by sizeism and above-groundism and
never attribute any importance to questions of line and scientific
method. Like the CP, USA, they will wake up one day to find that
their work--and that of many others--was wasted because they
didn't pay enough attention to line.
MIM's first accomplishment was to establish under what conditions
the formation of a party was necessary. The clear break with the
RCP over issues of line, as described in the previous article, was
such an advance. The decision to "go it alone" as the vanguard
party also correctly acknowledged Mao's stress on political line.
The next accomplishment, in 1984, was the distribution of
explicitly Maoist literature. That literature eventually became a
newspaper. A theory journal--and other organs of public opinion
building--developed later.
Continuing to forge ahead on questions of line--MIM's analysis of
the political economy of the Amerikan white working class
decisively broke with imperialist economism. In parallel fashion,
MIM attacked reductionist, economist and liberal theories of
gender. On these questions MIM holds a unique platform within the
imperialist countries. This platform follows the spirit of Maoism
in practice by deepening our concrete understanding of our own
conditions.
MIM has won numerous tactical victories in its public opinion
campaigns--many connected to distributing party literature and
some connected to elections in mass organizations. MIM also played
a large role in stopping the deportation of Dennis Brutus and in
the unleashing of solidarity struggles with Azania.
MIM's newspaper and journals have assumed ever-more professional
formats. The first 35 issues of MIM Notes were photocopied sheets,
and many months passed between some issues. In 1988, MIM shifted
to a bigger newsprint format, and went monthly a year-and-a-half
later.
Articles based on mass contact now predominate. Artists finally
stopped floating around MIM and have started to produce graphics
and other materials for MIM use. Separate cultural efforts are
getting off the ground--with prison poets and artists in the lead.
In prison, MIM is clearly the leading revolutionary organizer of
any stripe--as has been acknowledged by other organizations. These
efforts have attracted the attention of some middle class anti-
fascist forces, such as the ACLU--who on occasion win tactical
victories for MIM literature distribution in prison.
MIM's influence is growing on college campuses. Students and
scholars can be found discussing MIM's theories, and our influence
can been seen in many campus organizations and publications.
Among industrial workers of the labor aristocracy, MIM has found
that not all of them are closed to the idea that they must rebuke
their class, gender and dominant nation interests to join the
revolution. Some have given considerable financial and other
support to MIM--contrary to what the opportunists are wont to
expect. MIM is in the process of gathering information on how to
expand on this dialectical phenomenon.
MIM's recruitment of women has increased and solidified. Parallel
to its influence on Third World solidarity, anti-militarist and
prison organizations, MIM finally gained an influence on advanced
elements in women's organizations by breaking decisively with
reductionist assumptions that socialism automatically makes sense
to the women's movement. Women do not join the revolution because
they have the most to gain from a plethora of anti-militarist,
anti-poverty and pro-equality movements. Joining the revolution
means rejecting the material foundations of the gender privileges
available to Amerikan women. Here again, MIM found the concrete
analysis of conditions to be the key.
Unlike sectarian idealists, MIM has no qualms about making use of
the most advanced literature at hand on all questions--even if it
is not party literature. MIM realizes that a materialist method
requires making use of the best weapons available in all of the
infinite number of fields in which we must attack the
imperialists.
While the next spiral upwards awaits a consolidation and deepening
of line on the national question, Stalin, and the united front,
MIM's public opinion efforts among the First Nations have
skyrocketed and steadied. In sections of the Black Nation, MIM's
organizational, political and theoretical work is much appreciated
by the masses struggling to create independent power structures.
MIM Notes has long-featured a Spanish page--soon a Spanish edition
of MIM Notes will be coming out on a quarterly basis. MIM's
foreign-language efforts are increasing overall--as MIM prepares
the ground for the separate national forms of revolutionary
struggle that will take place in North Amerika.
Internationally, MIM has circulated its media in places as far-
ranging as Peru, England, Germany, Azania and the Philippines.
MIM's international distribution effort has reached the desk of
Jose Maria Sison, former chair of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, who said he has a high regard for our literature.
On the international Internet, MIM has taken a vanguard stance--
promoting Maoism and hacking and slashing revisionist
pronouncements from Peru to Pittsburgh.
Recently, MIM united with diverse multi-national forces from here
and abroad to help create the Philippine-American Workers
International Solidarity Committee (see article this issue).
In conclusion, MIM assures the international proletariat that it
will not allow itself to become "dizzy with success." Indeed, MIM
has often been referred to as "grim," because that attitude is
appropriate for work within North America. Rather than
idealistically work to create a false unity with objectively
bourgeoisified labor aristocrat and petty-bourgeois forces, MIM
has chosen to face reality in North America and not make light of
the actual conditions for revolution in the belly of the beast. On
a global scale--we are confident that the international
proletariat will destroy imperialism and the patriarchy.
MIM does not water down its principles to gather large numbers of
supporters. It won't cater to homophobia or anti-Mexican
chauvinism or anti-Japanese chauvinism or pseudofeminism or
electoral politics in order to maintain a non-communist unity. MIM
does not care how unpopular our line on the labor and gender
aristocracies may be in some circles--we know that it will
prevail--because it is true.
MIM will never isolate itself from the oppressed people who reside
principally in a Third World tortured by patriarchal-imperialist
parasitism. Militant and undeviating attention to the decisiveness
of line--the practice of Maoist science--is our greatest
accomplishment and guarantor of future success.
* * *
MIM HISTORY:
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
October 1, 1993, marked the 10th anniversary of the founding of
the Maoist Internationalist Movement's predecessor--the original
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
May 1st, 1994 is the 10th anniversary of the changing of the RIM's
name to MIM--after our original name was appropriated. These
anniversary dates were consciously chosen in 1983 and 1984 to
celebrate the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and International
Workers' Day, respectively.
The basic principles which caused the original RIM to form are as
valid today as they were 10 years ago. In 1983, the organization
announced that anti-imperialism and anti-militarism are the two
most important revolutionary principles and that proletarian
internationalism is our guiding ideological vision. Since that
time MIM has deepened its line considerably.
In 1983-84, the comrades in Peru rejected the "Marxist-Leninist"
unity that the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA was trying to
forge internationally.(1) At this time, MIM also made a series of
decisive breaks with the RCP, USA, though MIM's members were never
members of the RCP, USA--and had no contacts with the Communist
Party of Peru.
In 1984, we changed our name to MIM to reflect that while the RCP,
USA/RIM might claim its "Marxist-Leninist" unity internationally:
MIM contains the real Maoists. As was typical at the time,
spokespeople for the RCP, USA consciously denied that they were
Maoist. This reflected the RCP, USA general line as expressed in
Revolution #50, 1981--the infamous "Conquer the World ...," in which
Chairperson Bob Avakian eschewed Maoism for crypto-Trotskyism.
The origins of MIM are inextricably bound up with the phenomenon
of the RCP, USA. Before 1987, MIM did not assess the RCP as
consciously revisionist--even though MIM criticized the RCP for
Trotskyite tendencies. To this day, there is confusion as to why
MIM founded itself and the difference between the RCP, USA/RIM and
MIM. We take our 10th anniversary as an opportunity to explain
this difference generally, with emphasis here on the pre-1987
period.
The founding documents of the original RIM describe the RIM as a
"pre-party." The reason for the "pre-party" label is that these
documents were a qualitative advance in the struggle between
Maoist elements as yet unorganized into a party--and the RCP, USA-
-which had not yet adopted its current Maoist veneer.
The founding documents solved two problems simultaneously.(2) They
laid down the basis for membership in the original RIM and
delineated the relationship of the new Maoist forces to the RCP,
USA in practice. Ideological, political and organizational riddles
solved themselves simultaneously when a comrade close to the RCP,
USA used our document "Manifesto on the International Situation
and Revolution" as an application for membership in the RCP, USA.
The comrade explained that if the RCP accepted the comrade on the
basis of this document--then the other comrades would also commit
to joining.
The RCP, USA rejected the application and a decisive break ensued.
The issues entailed the nature of vanguard parties, Maoism versus
Trotskyism and many smaller matters.
The RCP then raised a number of criticisms of the new-born Maoist
forces--which had existed for a long time as an organization named
the RADACADS before changing its name to RIM and finally to MIM.
Likewise, the new-born Maoist forces criticized the RCP.
Pre-1983
The RADACADS had openly worked with various organizations claiming
vanguard status--but principally with the RCP. The RADACADS had
consciously worked with parties that descended from the Maoist or
Maoist-influenced elements of Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) and had consciously refused to work with Trotskyists or the
CP, USA. At RADACADS events, surviving splinters from the SDS
could all be found tabling and distributing literature.
Contrary to mistaken impressions circulated by enemies, the
foundation of the organization was with a majority of national
minorities and a majority of women. This was not by conscious
design but through the natural pace of events and the political
line promoted by the organization. The RADACADS were leaders in
struggles concerning Azania, Central America, the Middle East and
anti-militarism. Not surprisingly, the RADACADS attracted the
corresponding social base with its line and work.
As time went on, the RADACADS crystallized into more developed
poles. Although we can only raise this objection in retrospect--
because we did not raise it then--the RCP, USA played a role in
dividing the forces within the RADACADS, despite the overall
Maoist tilt of the RADACADS from its very foundation.
The clearest Maoist pole within RADACADS defended Mao and the
Cultural Revolution and opposed Soviet social-imperialism. This
pole constantly had to defend Maoism from attacks by those who
associated Maoism with the RCP, USA. Many activists with a solid
impression of the RADACADS did not favor the RCP, USA. The
clearest Maoist pole within the RADACADS was forced to defend the
RCP, USA--and usually pretend that there was no difference between
the two. Indeed, the conscious political differences were often
not clear enough to say that there was a fundamental ideological
difference--though there was clearly an organizational difference.
Conscious struggle and a decisive political break had preceded
even the formation of the RADACADS. The question raised was why
the new-born Maoist forces did not work with the Revolutionary
Communist Party's Youth Brigade (RCYB).
Actually, the new-born forces had worked with a number of
organizations--but principally the RCYB. A period of strong unity
with the RCYB gave way on the issue of El Salvador.
The official RCP position was that the FMLN was "not objectively
anti-imperialist" and that it "struck no blows against U.S.
imperialism."
While the RCP admitted that the masses in oppressed countries
always rise up against imperialism, it held that without a
vanguard party formed on Marxist-Leninist principles, the masses
could land no blow. This was a sticky point within the RCP itself
and the RCP was not always clear on whether or not the masses
could land any blows spontaneously. For this reason, the words
"objectively" and "are not anti-imperialist" and "strike no blows"
were very important.
The RCP gave as reasons for the "strike no blows" assertion that
the FMLN was not led by a genuine vanguard party and was
influenced by Soviet revisionism. The role of Soviet revisionism
was emphasized because--in practice--the RCP believed the FMLN was
led by a party, a revisionist party.
The new Maoist forces did not disagree that the FMLN was
influenced by Soviet revisionism or, more importantly, that Soviet
revisionism was fatal. When the new Maoist forces asked to go over
this question in detail, the RCP obtained some FMLN/FDR documents
for discussion.
In this crucial discussion, the RCP comrade attacked as
revisionism those aspects of the documents that were correct. In
particular, the new Maoist forces defended the need for a new
democratic revolution against imperialism and semi-feudalism.
In contrast, the RCP was not sure that El Salvador needed a
revolution against semi-feudalism and criticized the documents for
talk about capitalism and the necessity of a two-stage revolution.
The RCP was more perceptive on the question of imperialism,
however, than were the new Maoist forces. The RCP correctly
labelled the conflict as a disagreement over the principal
contradiction in the world. The RCP view was that the principal
contradiction between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-
imperialism ruled even in El Salvador. The RCP seemed to soften
this view at times, while honestly asking us: "How can you expose
U.S. imperialism while simultaneously attacking Soviet
revisionism?"
The key to this lies in objective versus subjective conditions. In
other words, MIM was saying that despite subjective leaders like
the FMLN, the masses were landing anti-imperialist blows, because
the masses were objectively revolutionary in El Salvador. In
contrast, the RCP could not imagine objectively revolutionary
conditions existing without a motivational subjective factor. This
is a kind of 19th century philosophical idealism which says that
the conditions are not revolutionary unless there is a Marxist
there to perceive them as revolutionary--and form the vanguard. In
essence, the RCP was saying that, "You can't support the FMLN and
the Salvadorean people against U.S. imperialism without supporting
Soviet revisionism."
Some time after the break on the question of El Salvador, the RCP
summed up the new Maoist forces as having a line that the
oppressed nations versus imperialism was the principal
contradiction. The RADACADS did not deny this, but at the same
time, to be quite frank about our theoretical weaknesses, the
RADACADS were not clear on this point and openly debated the
question, while the RCP had a worked out position and correctly
labelled a practical difference. The RCP also correctly stated
that this difference should not be considered a big deal and the
Maoist forces agreed to co-exist.
The real tell-tale difference between the RADACADS and the RCP was
that many activists considered the RADACADS to be substantially
more involved in leading and influencing mass movements. RADACADS
people also received the compliment of speaking more concretely
than the RCP. Even those who swore they would never join any
organization like the RCP--because of their reputation for
sectarianism and dogmatism--quickly joined the RADACADS and the
original RIM and took up leading roles.
The biggest weakness that the RADACADS had was not being able to
put together the nature of the white working class and the
question of imperialism and the principal contradiction. This
worked itself out in practice.
One of the things that slowed down the developing break between
the new Maoist forces and the RCP was that the RCP frequently lost
itself in the mists of formalism and it was difficult for the
RADACADS comrades to pin down the RCP. For quite some time, the
main question appeared to be the necessity of a vanguard party.
Whenever the RADACADS raised a political issue, the RCP would
retort: "You must not understand the need for a vanguard party."
This got so bad that one comrade in the most Maoist pole of
RADACADS said we should join the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) en
masse, "Because, at least, I can understand what they are saying!"
This was a joke, because the PLP used simplified language like
"bosses." (PLP had informed RADACADS that they were deemed
"centrist" forces by the PLP.)
The RADACADS labored for a while under the illusion that maybe
they had not tried hard enough to understand the RCP. But practice
quickly proceeded and the differences became more and more
difficult to cover up. The new Maoist forces were to learn their
differences with the RCP principally through practice. In
retrospect, it is clear that some Trotskyists masquerading as
Leninists with a confused respect for Mao were the ones who did
not understand these real differences.
After the fall-out over El Salvador, the RADACADS formed and its
comrades resumed work with the RCP from something of a distance--
but in some ways on a larger and more diverse scale. The RADACADS
held a quick succession of political education lectures and
demonstrations over a period of years. Many events came off in a
matter of days, and created a large impression.
The RADACADS summed up that their experiences were drawing forth
thousands of people as well as the attention of numerous
revisionist and more genuine forces--yet RADACADS lacked a
consolidated organization. The questions that pressed to be
answered continually became more advanced; and those claiming
themselves as vanguard organizations seemed unable to capitalize
on the work that the RADACADS was doing so closely with them.
The RADACADS concluded that the RCP had a problem in understanding
the mass line relationship between the vanguard and the masses.
When the RADACADS and elements of sympathetic organizations
renamed themselves the RIM, the suspicion that the RCP was stuck
in formalism and Avakianist mysticism was quite strong.
As described above, the RIM comrades went to the RCP after years
of joint work and told them that they were definitely not agnostic
and wanted to join or form the vanguard party. Even then, the RCP
comrades said that the RIM still did not understand the need for a
vanguard party. On the other hand, the RCP spokesperson said that
the application would be evaluated and that it had some merits.
When the RCP came back with their response another decisive break
ensued. Criticism number one was that the document did not
recognize the RCP, USA as the vanguard. Criticism number two was
that the RIM's criticisms of Trotsky were really criticisms of the
RCP! (To which MIM says, "If the shoe fits, wear it!") Criticism
number three was a series of opportunist doubts raised that the
comrade was a cop for making the application.
The RIM responded that if the RCP accepted the principles in the
written document--then certainly the RCP was the vanguard party.
If not, the RIM hinted, then the RIM was the vanguard. This point
still causes confusion here and internationally. MIM believes
there is a vanguard in every society--even if it does not
consciously recognize itself as such. The vanguard is simply the
scientifically most advanced element. It exists materially.
Failure to recognize this truth creates excuses for agnosticism
and liquidationism on an idealist basis--which amounts to
criticizing reality with ideas only.
The RIM consciously set out to test: who is the vanguard? Should
the new Maoist comrades struggle within the RCP or form their own
party? The founding documents of the RIM answered this question.
By writing these documents and using them as a test, MIM's
predecessor, the RIM, followed Mao, who said: "Ideological and
political line is decisive."
A symbolic example of the basic difference between the two
organizations was in how they conducted their work on the street.
While RADACADS/RIM was supposedly soft on party-building, it was
RADACADS/RIM that did the most on the street to demarcate Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism from Trotskyism and other revisionist variants.
The RCP line was that it did not know what its actual differences
with other organizations were--and that it was up to concerned
individuals to find out for themselves. Despite this agnosticism,
RCP comrades intervened in one instance to physically remove a RIM
comrade from conflict with the Spartacist League at a literature
table. The RCP referred to us as "Spart-killers" and laughed--
because it was RIM practice to stand up to the Sparts and repel
their ideological nonsense in front of the masses.
After a certain number of political defeats, the Spartacist League
learned not to confront the RIM on the street--a lesson that MIM
must teach such revisionists anew from time to time. But to this
day, MIM maintains that the majority of RCP members do not
comprehend the dividing line differences between Trotskyism and
Maoism.
After the break over the membership application, the RCP started
treating the RIM as half enemy, half friend. It started telling
the RIM some lies for the first time (of notice) and it indulged
in formalist cop-baiting.
Nonetheless, relations continued and some some joint work was done
with RCP organizations, under their own names, and RIM, under its
own name. Then the RCP consciously stole the RIM name for its
international mutual aid society.
After MIM hoisted its current name and declared itself as the
Maoist vanguard in North America, the RCP's formalism and anger
eventually cooled down and overtures at substantive unity were
made.
Seeds of further division
MIM observed that the RCP's relationship to the masses was
formalist and obscurantist. Even on MIM's weakest point at the
time--the nature of the white working class--there were telling
differences in practice.
Some time after the original RIM's break with the RCP in 1983, the
two sides had come together again to discuss deep differences. One
thing the RCP did not like was the way RIM's founding documents
ended: "Neither before nor after the revolution will RIM wait for
class relations to change. RIM will not even wait for the
proletariat itself. 'Workerism'--worship of the workers whatever
they do--and 'economism'--waiting for economic conditions to dish
up revolutionaries on the silver platter, especially through wage
struggles--are not only not ways of advancing the revolutionary
line now, they are also good ways to blow a revolutionary
opportunity."(3) The RCP said, "We'd like to see you say that shit
to the workers!" The RCP also had us pinned as seeing "youth as a
class," which we denied.
Ironically, the RIM had previously criticized the RCP newspaper
for having nothing to say about the workers' struggles--nothing
concrete at all. In response, an RCP comrade made one of his
better statements: "You're right; we should [have something to
say], only to criticize them!"
By 1984, MIM held a confused duality of views:
1. That the white workers were exploited--a view rarely acted on--
except in vague ways--because of the confusion shared with the RCP
about "economism";
2. That the RCP had Trotskyist tendencies; and that maybe the
principal contradiction was between the oppressed countries and
imperialism.
It was not until 1987 that the pieces really started to come
together with MIM's study and circulation of Settlers, The
Mythology of the White Proletariat, by J. Sakai, and Labor
Aristocracy: Mass Base for Social Democracy, by H.W. Edwards. In
accord with this new spiral development in theory, MIM made the
question of the non-revolutionary, bourgeoisified white working
class a dividing line question in practice for U.S.-based Maoists.
Looking back--on this 10th anniversary of our founding--we see
that the most ironic struggle the original RIM had with the RCP
concerned the class nature of the new bourgeoisie formed under
socialism in the Soviet Union, China, Albania, etc.
In an argument over this point, the original RIM discovered that
an RCP spokesperson did not know who Liu Shaoqi was!(4) This
argument did much to persuade the RIM that the RCP was not on any
real Maoist footing. In discussions with an associate in 1983, one
RIM comrade said, "If they are going to force us to choose between
Lenin and Mao: who are you going to pick?" Our associate (not a
RIM member, but active in RCP circles) replied, "I don't know
about that." The RIM comrade continued, "Don't you think you would
pick Mao?"
In a subsequent series of arguments, MIM learned that the RCP held
the productive forces as principal under socialism and that the
RCP had no idea that inside the Party leadership under socialism a
"new" bourgeoisie was created through the various components of
"bourgeois right," the division of labor, and other internal
contradictions. The RCP believed it was class remnants from the
old system and the external force of imperialism that created the
bourgeoisie in the party.
One irony of these old struggles from the early 1980s is that in
1993, Raymond Lotta, a theoretician for the RCP, criticized a
conference of Maoist parties held in Germany, principally with
regard to its lack of a line on the "new bourgeoisie." On the
other hand, Avakian's recent works still support the constantly
recycled RCP productive forces and external causation theories.
Meanwhile, the RCP has also adopted the label "Maoist" under
pressure from the Shining Path, and we believe--though
unacknowledged--MIM's continued existence and growth.
While the RCP has moved forward on a number of issues, it stands
confronted on many other issues that remain unresolved. The
touchstone unresolved issue between the RCP and MIM is the nature
of the Amerikan working class.
One vanguard
In 1992, after years of struggle, MIM finally concluded that the
RCP is, in reality, a revisionist party--a Trotskyist blend. The
RCP has proven unable to resolve the key ideological and political
issues confronting it and has not benefited from articulate,
organized explanations over the years. These issues range from the
RCP's absurd, anti-proletarian line against homosexuality to their
continued, patently erroneous stance on the principal
contradiction the world.
On the international scene, comrades should cast aside the RCP
slogans and rhetoric and carefully study recent RCP writings on
the role of democracy under socialism; the "revolutionary" nature
of the bourgeoisified working classes; the political economy of
super-profits; the basis for the emergence of a new bourgeoisie in
the party under socialism; the ideological tailing after
pseudofeminist movements; and the theoretical liquidation of the
role of revolutionary nationalist movements in the new-democratic
revolution.(5)
Unlike some imperialist countries' parties that claim the banner
of Mao, the RCP has no excuse for its dogmatism. Material reality-
-practice--including struggle with MIM--has shown the RCP a number
of correct analyses that it has consciously rejected. In some
countries, RCP-like parties and affiliates are actually the most
advanced elements available. Founding vanguard parties on correct
principles in those societies is a struggle dawning on the horizon
as Maoism continues its modern resurgence.
In more objectively revolutionary societies, the vanguard parties
are more advanced in practice than MIM. As MIM enjoys its 10th
anniversary, it resolves for the new year to become an
increasingly international force and a political factor in the
imperialist countries for the advancement of internationalism on
the touchstone questions: the restoration of capitalism in the
Soviet Union and China; upholding the lessons of the Cultural
Revolution; and the political economy of the imperialist country
working classes.
Notes:
1. El Movimiento Comunista Internacional/El Movimiento
Revolucionario Internacionalista, El Pensamiento Gonzalo, Central
Committee, Communist Party of Peru, 1991, p. 318-324. English
translation available from MIM for $2.
2. Founding documents available in What Is MIM? $2.
3. What Is MIM? p. 4.
4. Liu was the leading revisionist proponent of the capitalist
road in China, before he was purged during the Cultural
Revolution.
5. Order MIM's The RCP Study Pak, revised 1994, $15.
* * *
MIM'S MUST READ BOOKS
Krooth, Richard. Arms and Empire. $8 This book covers economic
history and the roots of WWI and WWII and is a key to
understanding the roots of the present WWIII.
Sakai, J. Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat. $10.
This history of the United States from the viewpoint of the
international proletariat, argues that most Amerikans are bought-
off allies of U.S. imperialism.
Shanghai People's Press. The Fundamentals of Political Economy.
$15. A basic introduction to Marxist political economy and the
economic laws of socialism and communism.
MIM Bound Volume. $15. This contains MIM Notes issues 1-34 and MIM
Theory 1-13.
Wheelwright, E.L. & McFarlane, Bruce. The Chinese Road to
Socialism: Economics of the Cultural Revolution. $5 Information
and explanation of the economic organization and strategy of the
most advanced economy seen in history to date.
* * *
THANK YOU, RCP!
The Revolutionary Communist Party has finally owned up to its
erroneous and social-chauvinist position that the bourgeoisified
Euro-Amerikan working class is economically exploited.
The January 16, 1994 issue of the Revolutionary Worker contains an
article about a two-day conference in Germany on Mao Zedong
Thought during November 1993 that was initiated by the
International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and
Organizations.
At the conference, MIM presented a position paper demonstrating
that the majority of the Euro-Amerikan working class is not
exploited--which has obvious implications for concrete class
analysis in all the imperialist countries. (See MIM Notes 85,
January 1994 for more in depth coverage of the excellent
conference.)
In the Revolutionary Worker article on this conference, there
appears an interesting paragraph--which for surface theoretical
purposes might as well be a MIM criticism of the RCP:
"The conference also revealed how some organized Marxist-Leninists
have sought to invoke Mao's name but to rob his teachings of their
revolutionary thrust. This was especially apparent with groupings
from the imperialist countries (like the MLPD). [The Marxist-
Leninist Party Deutschland hosted the event.-ed.] Many are mired
in economism--trailing after the economic struggles of the workers
and not building an all-around revolutionary movement that aims to
be prepared, when the objective conditions ripen, to launch the
armed struggle for power. And they are also mired in social
chauvinism--downplaying imperialist domination of the Third World
and the key role of national liberation struggles in the world
revolution, as well as downplaying the struggles of immigrant
workers and oppressed nationalities in the revolutionary process
in the imperialist countries."
It is heartening to see the RCP appear in print supporting the
concept of real-life national liberation struggles--and we can
only hope that the RCP uses the content of this paragraph to
rectify its political economy and abandon Trotskyism.
Unfortunately, the RCP immediately proceeded to undue all this
good self-criticism in a small, but sectarian, footnote.
"The participation of a questionable organization called the
Maoist Internationalist Movement must be noted in this regard.
This organization tries to associate itself with the people's war
in Peru, and it was seemingly opposing social-chauvinism when it
spoke from the floor about imperialism and the Third World. But it
argued that white workers as an economic-social grouping in the
United States are not exploited, are part of the process of
exploitation of the workers of the Third World and have no
revolutionary interests. This is a wrong and counterrevolutionary
idea. Some conference participants thought this was the RCP, USA
and RIM's view, which it is not."
Aside from the feeble attempt at cop-baiting and the attempt to
split and wreck the practical unity of those in the International
Communist Movement who do support the PCP and the revolution in
Peru--it is a crying shame that the RCP, USA and its self-
isolating Revolutionary Internationalist Movement remain willfully
and consciously in denial about the political economy of North
Amerika.
In MIM Notes and MIM Theory, MIM has done its best over the last
10 years to present the scientifically developed case for a real
and material class, gender and nation analysis of the North
American societies. The RCP has tried to publicly ignore MIM's
existence and has never bothered to make a case in rebuttal to
MIM's political economy. MIM has done its best over the years to
positively influence the RCP, but mostly MIM just proceeds with
the mundane work of slowly and patiently organizing the Maoist
vanguard forces in North America.
What can we say? Where there's smoke--there's fire. MIM urges the
RCP to use the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to reassess its
fallacious Trotsky-type theories, drop its social-chauvinism and
worship of the bourgeoisified Euro-Amerikan workers and work hard
to support the most advanced revolutionary forces in all the
imperialist countries and all the oppressed nations and internal
colonies. For its part, MIM will always leave the door open to any
groups struggling to develop a Maoist theory and practice to
mutually enter into rational and scientific discussion of concrete
conditions.
MIM pulls few punches and has made principled, well-documented
criticisms of published RCP, USA theory. MIM would have hoped that
the RCP had enough strategic confidence in its own political
economy and general line to debate a vitally important question--
now pressing on the agenda of the revitalizing International
Communist Movement--without resorting to pointless calumny and
infantile posturing. MIM suggests that the RCP leadership cease
its senseless tactic of useless sectarian slander: if the white
working class in Amerika is exploited--prove it.
Note: Revolutionary Worker 1/16/94, p. 5.
* * *
RCP STUDY PACK
MIM is often asked: "What is the difference between the Maoist
Internationalist Movement (MIM) and the Revolutionary Communist
Party, USA (RCP)? If you are both Maoist parties--then why don't
you work together?"
This collection of published and unpublished MIM documents
concerning the RCP, USA shows the development of MIM's political
line over time in contrast with the line of the RCP.
Political line is decisive and practice is principal. The true
test of a revolutionary party is its practice based on its
analysis of concrete conditions. MIM urges all revolutionaries to
talk to us, write to us, and enter into polemics with us around
the important questions addressed in these pages.
The principal focus of these theoretical documents is on the
differences between the RCP and MIM. Both MIM and the RCP were
born out of anti-imperialist movements and have shared at certain
points similar theoretical views. MIM scientifically applied
Maoism to North Amerika from the point of view of the
international proletariat and developed three dividing line
questions to demarcate genuine Maoism from revisionism in the
United States.
These questions revolve around the nature of the capitalist
restorations in the Soviet Union (l954) and China (l976);
upholding the Cultural Revolution as the furthest advance of
communism; and the fact that the non-revolutionary North Amerikan
white working-class is objectively allied with imperialism. The
RCP currently fails the test on all three questions--principally
on the last.
In its history the RCP has wavered from right to left and back to
right imperialist economism and social-chauvinism. MIM holds that
the political economy of the RCP has always been and remains mired
in crypto-Trotskyite opportunism.
Although there may be honest revolutionaries in the RCP ranks, MIM
finds the RCP to be a revisionist party. Despite tremendous hype
to the contrary, the RCP cannot practice genuine Maoism today
because its theoretical foundations rest on economist theories of
the productive forces, external causation theories, and the
revision of Marxist truths and the abandonment of the Marxist-
Leninist-Maoist method.
"Left" economists elevate the purely political struggle over the
economic struggles of the people. "Right" economists emphasis
economic determinism over political movement. Modern imperialist
economism, "right" and "left," is blind to both the economic and
the political struggles of Third World people--and views the world
through the eyes of the non-exploited classes.
The most obvious manifestations of the RCP's economism are the
ridiculous cult of the personality, the absurd homophobia, the
lack of a developing gender line, and the RCP's outstanding
theoretical liquidations of anti-imperialist/revolutionary
nationalist class struggles in the oppressed nations as necessary
stages in Maoist-led revolutions. This results in disdain for the
truly exploited masses.
Unraveling the political economy of the RCP is no easy task. For
one thing it flip-flops from left to right economism and back
again even as it mouths dare-devil sentiments and adventurist
slogans while revising Maoism. The RCP cloaks itself in high-
sounding jargon mixed with hip imitations of the revolutionary
people's language. Although the RCP's organ, the Revolutionary
Worker, often accurately covers proletarian struggles, the RCP's
theoretical work belies this attention.
The RCP Pack does not cover everything that the highly repetitive
RCP has published. It does cover the most important works and MIM
is happy to debate anyone on the entire corpus of RCP materials.
Long ago MIM came to the conclusion that the RCP is not a genuine
Maoist vanguard party. MIM set about to concretely make a
scientific, statistically verifiable Maoist analysis of the United
States and to build a vanguard party out of what is at hand--in
accordance with reality--as opposed to wishful thinking.
The RCP Study Pack has been prepared to expose our differences and
to help people get a grip on the main dividing line issues of the
day for Maoists.
Send $15 cash or check payable to "ABS" for the 1994 revised
edition of the RCP pack to MIM, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-
3576.
* * *
COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN RWANDA
by MC79 and MC86
The heaviest recent fighting took place on April 7 in the hills of
Kigali, Rwanda's capital city. Kigali was attacked by the Tutsi's
Rwandan Patriotic Front following the April 6 shootdown of a plane
carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and President
Cyprien Ntaryamira of neighboring Burundi. Government radio
stations exhorted citizens in the embattled city to join Rwandan
government troops (Hutus) in battling the Tutsi rebels.
Since gaining independence from Belgium in 1962, Rwanda has
experienced constant tensions between the minority Tutsi group and
the majority Hutu group. The Hutu compose 90% percent of Rwanda's
population. In 1993-1994 alone, the death toll in this south-east
African country reached 100,000. The civil war continues as the
Tutsi group rebels against the 30-year long rule of the Hutu
group.
The Rwandan government accused the Rwandan Patriotic Front of
shooting down the plane carrying the two Presidents. Both men were
members of the Hutu, which had been subject to Tutsi domination
under Belgian colonial rule in Rwanda prior to national
liberation.
Six hundred armed Tutsi guerrillas, operating from base areas in
Uganda, went for the Hutu jugular and engaged the elite Hutu
presidential guard with heavy weapons. The 20,000-strong Rwandan
Patriotic Front controls at least three neighborhoods in Kigali
with 2,000 rebel troops.
The 1,500 Belgians doing business in the Rwandan neo-colony have
always favored the Tutsi in the struggle for political power. On
April 12, Belgium informed the United Nations that it planned to
withdraw its 400 soldiers from the 2,500-strong U.N. occupying
force in Rwanda "at the earliest possible date." Tutsi rebels were
careful to guarantee the United Nations and foreign governments
that they would do nothing to interfere with the evacuation of
rich foreigners.
Belgian diplomats said the evacuation was necessary because of a
strong current of anti-Belgian feeling in the strife torn capital
of Kigali. With European lives on the line, the imperialist media
noticed the slaughter. The United States transferred marines from
ships off Somalia to Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, to aid in the
evacuation of 250 U.S. citizens from Rwanda.
An airlift planned by Belgium was initially blocked by angry
Rwandans, who barricaded the airport runway with firetrucks. On
April 16, 280 French paratroopers landed at Kigali airport. U.N.
troops escorted convoys of Europeans fleeing south by road to
Burundi. A spokesman for the Rwanda Patriotic Front said rebel
troops were only waiting for the evacuation to be completed before
launching an all-out assault on Kigali.
United Nations officials in New York urged the formation of an
interim government by the military and the police to stabilize the
situation. They evinced concern that the elite presidential guard
would seize power for itself.
As in Bosnia and Somalia, imperialist governments and their media
attempt to paint pictures of civil wars as primitive "ethnic" or
"tribal" conflicts lacking economic or political justification.
Beneath the class and national conflicts between the Hutu majority
and the out-of-power Tutsi minority, lie the imperatives of
neocolonial institutions representing primarily the United States,
Belgium and France.
According to Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe, chairman of the Rwandan
Patriotic Front, the Tutsi are rebelling against Hutu rule. "It is
a war against a dictatorship," said Kanyarengwe. When imperialist
powers even tacitly support a rebel movement, MIM smells a rat.
The Tutsi held political power in Rwanda under German rule prior
to World War One; and under Belgium rule until 1962. In 1959,
oppressed Hutu masses liberated Rwanda from direct Belgian and
Tutsi control. On April 12, 1994, the Hutu radio station accused
the International Red Cross of using its convoys to help only
Tutsi wounded. The Red Cross suspended humanitarian operations for
a day--until the radio station retracted this statement.(1)
Rwanda is the size of Vermont. With a population of 7.5 million it
is the most densely populated country in Africa. It is also one of
the poorest nations in the world. Its import to export ratio was
an exceedingly uneven $279.2 million/$111.7 million in 1990. Death
by starvation and preventable disease is a normal occurrence. The
economy is dependent on coffee exports and "foreign aid," (which
rises and falls in inverse synchronicity with the local market
price of coffee).(2) The civil war is further depressing the
economy and even more misery is in store for the Rwandan people in
yet another round of World War Three.
In international capital's game of divide and conquer, the coffee
companies and assorted non-governmental organizations will swoop
in like vultures--once the bloody dust has cleared--to pick at the
corpses of Hutu and Tutsi alike.
Cup of coffee, anyone?
Notes:
1. New York Times 4/11/94-4/14/94.
2. CIA World Factbook.
* * *
AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM IN HAITI
by MA307
Of course we all know that the United States of Amerika as the
foremost nation of Democracy in the world would do everything in
its power to support the return of exiled president Aristide,
Haiti's democratically elected president. While the press has done
everything it can to portray Haiti as a complicated morass of
interests, in truth a thin ideological veil weakly screens the
United States's actual policy towards Haiti, in which Clinton &
Co. have no intention of returning president Aristide except under
conditions where he would be a figurehead for the military. Part
of this veil has been the pressure on Aristide to accept the
"Parliamentary Plan," in order to facilitate his return.
The U.S. envoy to Haiti, Lawrence Pezzullo, recently admitted that
the "Parliamentary Plan," supposedly advanced by the military coup
government in Haiti as their solution to the "Aristide Question,"
was in fact drafted and covertly delivered by the U.S. State
Department. The United States also channeled funds through the
Center for Democracy (CFD) in order to have Haiti's special envoys
return the proposal to them. The CFD was also helped by another
institute, the National Freedom Institute headed by Kevin Kattke,
former Oliver North aide, in bringing the February delegation for
the parliamentary plan.
Amerika trying to speed up the peace process?
Meanwhile, in Haiti from March 1-15 there were at least 21 extra-
judicial executions and suspicious murders in combination with
systematic rape, beating, torture, and random arrests of Aristide
supporters and others who oppose the parliamentary plan. The U.S.
embassy in Haiti announced that it "shared the anxiety expressed"
by the UN agency observing the situation. But other minions of the
empire like the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) head,
Sam Martin, dismissed these atrocities (off the record) as "all
bullshit," made up by Non-Government Organization observer
organizations like Americas Watch and Amnesty International.
Trying to deny the systematic execution and suppression of the
Haitian people, the U.S. government says that it will continue its
policy of automatic repatriation of Haitians, in spite of an
Aristide announcement in Springfield, Massachusetts on April 6
that Haiti would no longer honor this arrangement. Of course, with
the U.S. Coast Guard intercepting fleeing Haitians and
repatriating them without attempting to determine their possible
status as refugees, the original repatriation treaty has been
effectively annulled for the last two years.
Furthermore, the CIA has been exposed in the bourgeois press for
training officers of the Haitian military at U.S. military bases
since the coup. This is shocking evidence that the U.S. government
takes its commitment to autocracy in Haiti extremely seriously, so
much so that it is willing to risk being charged with hypocrisy in
order to shore up the Haitian regime.
In short there is an INS that will continue to repatriate
refugees, a State Department that is attempting to force an exiled
President to accept a "Haitian" Parliamentary plan, and a
rapacious military government which does not seem to be crippled
by the current U.S. blockade of Haiti.
Why is the U.S. government micromanaging the politics of a small
Caribbean island? Because, Haiti has been the traditional location
of U.S. firms like Spalding baseballs, who divested from Haiti
after Aristide was elected. Because nearly one-third of Haiti is
owned by foreign agricultural sugar cane-growing operations, and
the richest third at that.
Because there are more foreign manufacturing firms located in
Haiti now than before the coup. Because a repressive government in
Haiti can provide cheap labor-power in the Dominican Republic and
other Caribbean Islands, through forcing Haitians to emigrate to
the cane fields there. Because Haiti, in 1791, was the site of the
only successful slave revolution, which has made the country the
focus of repression by U.S. imperialism ever since.
A liberated Haiti signified the possibility of liberation for the
whole Black nation and dictatorship over the white nation,
prompting Thomas Jefferson to fret that "a revolution of the wheel
of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events."(1)
In other words, behind the thin veil of helping the
"democratization process," the U.S. is engaged in covertly
supporting a dictatorial military regime, hell-bent on oppressing
the Haitian people into highly profitable submission. The new
"democratization" ideology is nothing more than the same old
imperialism with a transparent liberal veneer.(2)
Notes:
1. J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, p.
20. Send $10 cash or check payable to "ABS" for a copy.
2. Most of the current events information in this article was
cited from Haiti News Digest, an Internet affiliate in Boston.
* * *
PCP RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS:
REVOLUTIONARY PARTY IS NOT ANTI-GAY
In March, Prison Legal News (PLN) published an article that
included statements from the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and gay
activists in Peru, all denying that the PCP persecutes gay people
for their sexual orientation.
The PCP, or Shining Path, has been subjected to slander that it
rounds up and executes homosexuals. For the past two years, both
MIM and Prison Legal News have searched for evidence to back up
these charges, and have challenged the gossip-mongers to prove
their slander The PLN article should hopefully put this matter to
rest.
The PCP always takes responsibility for its actions and explains
them to the masses, so we expected to be able to find the truth--
if these charges were true--very easily. None of the PCP's critics
ever offered proof, and the PCP denied the charges and claimed
that it had no line on homosexuality.
PCP statement
The discussion in PLN was started by a transsexual prisoner who
while supportive of the revolution, repeated information he had
heard from members of the Movimiento Homosexual de Lima (MOHL).
The prisoner also suggested that those of us doing the
investigation into these charges didn't have any connections with
the MOHL.
The PCP replied to the prisoner:
"We have sought articles on the homosexual question written by our
teachers, that is to say Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao and even
others, but we have not found any, nor has our party specifically
addressed this question in its documents. In general, it appears
to us that there is an excessive pre-occupation with this subject
in certain revolutionary and militant circles, which does not
exist in Europe. They are, as we have previously stated, lies and
slander which claim that the PCP kills gays for being gay or makes
statements against them.
"In reality, if we examine what Marxism says, the problem is not
one of a person's sexual orientation but rather the class position
that they take as everyone is classified as revolutionary,
progressive, democrat, revisionist or reactionary. Far from making
a lengthy analysis here, we can see that homosexuals have existed
in all societies, some from birth, others converted by the social
environment in which they live or have lived, the latter seems
extremely influential to us. Our view is that homosexual
orientation is not an ideological matter but one of individual
preference.
"It is probable that the PCP has executed a homosexual, but rest
assured that it was not done because of their sexual orientation
but because of their position against the revolution. It is not
difficult to see that in the bars and brothels of Peruvian cities
frequented by elements of the police and army some homosexuals
work as snitches and collaborators and because of this they
accumulate blood debts with the revolution so that when the party
seizes that city it will settle accounts with those elements,
regardless of their sexual orientation. What then happens is the
government and reactionary media report that the Party killed gays
or 'cleaned up' the city.
"We reiterate that the PCP does not attack, slander nor
discriminate against anyone because of their sexual orientation.
In fact, party membership is open to all who support the cause of
communist revolution and the principles of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, regardless of what their sexual
preferences maybe. We believe that there are other more important
and crucial topics over which to open major discussion, as for
example, that of revolutionary violence, which is concretely the
universal weapon of the people's war, etc."(1)
MOHL denies allegation
Prison Legal News reported that the "Uruguayan weekly Brecha, in
its Feb. 12, 1993, edition" published an interview with "Enrique
Bossio, a member of the Homosexual Movement of Lima. Bossio is
quoted as saying that the PCP has not made gays the focus of any
attacks" but indicated that the Tupac Amaru (MRTA), a pro-Cuban
focoist group in Peru, did persecute gays.
Prison Legal News also contacted Lucien Chauvin, a gay journalist
and activist in Lima, who "confirmed that the PCP does not attack
homosexuals because of their sexual orientation. He stated that
there were opportunist elements in the gay community in Peru who
had jumped on the anti-PCP bandwagon to advance their own
interests. Mr. Chauvin makes clear that he is no supporter or
sympathizer of the PCP. He suggested that perhaps [the prisoner]
is confusing the PCP" with the Tupac Amaru.
What started rumors?
A Peruvian exile in Europe speculated that rumors of PCP
persecution of homosexuals grew out of the PCP's opposition to
prostitution. Women and men in Peru are sometimes forced into
prostitution by poverty. This includes men who are not gay, but
prostitute themselves to other men for money. When the PCP
liberates territory, prostitution is opposed. That could look like
opposition to homosexuality.
Carol Andreas, at a recent lecture in Boston, said that
homosexuality is accepted among the indigenous people of Peru, who
make up the majority of the PCP.
Gossip serves imperialism
Prison Legal News concluded: "When an allegation is made it helps
to look at who stands to benefit from making it and of course who
is making it. Support for the PCP is controversial because they
are an openly communist party who are engaged in a peoples' war
with the express goal of seizing state power and installing a
popular, communist government and economy. But the goal of the
anti-imperialist countries who do not define themselves as
communists or revolutionaries should be to ensure that their
governments do not intervene in Peru. The choice of the form of
government in Peru must be made by the Peruvian people, not the
U.S. government or the International Monetary Fund. The goal of
non-intervention is a simple one that should not be influenced by
baseless allegations."(1)
Notes:
1. Prison Legal News 3/94, pp. 11, 13-14.
Subscribe to Prison Legal News. Suggested contribution $12. Prison
Legal News, PO Box 1684 Lake Worth, Florida 33460.
* * *
MIM HOSTS TALKS ABOUT REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN IN PERU
Professor Carol Andreas gave a number of lectures in Amherst and
Boston, Massachusetts in early April, as a part of MIM's ongoing
campaign to support the struggles of the people of Peru. The talks
brought out an interest in and support for the Communist Party of
Peru (PCP) even in the face of a strong misinformation campaign on
the part of the Amerikan government and media.
Andreas discussed the history of women's efforts in Peru as they
led to the revolutionary movement, and stressed the significance
of the feminist movement in Peru as a revolutionary struggle and
as an important part of the PCP. She described the PCP as an
expression of proletarian feminism. Pointing out the unprecedented
levels of poverty and unemployment in Peru, Andreas noted the
strong support the PCP has among the population--particularly
among indigenous women. This she contrasted with the other "left"
parties that are all hostile to revolutionary feminism.
Andreas's research shows that indigenous women of Peru have a long
tradition of leading resistance to capitalist expansion and
destruction of their culture. At present, imperialist
appropriation of the indigenous people's land, labor and resources
all represent attacks on indigenous women in particular. Their
response is a Maoist revolution that seeks to break the parasitic
ties between Peru and the imperialist world and build a new,
liberated culture and society.
Her lecture helped dispel myths that Peruvian women are dupes of a
sexist, patriarchal organization that cynically uses women for
"its own" ends. She buried that lie with the truth that
revolutionary women in Peru--like oppressed women anywhere--can
and do decide for themselves that communist revolution is the best
solution to their problems.
In response to a question about what we can do to support the PCP
in this country, Andreas said that what the PCP really wants is
for people to join Maoist parties and work toward world
revolution.
These events, enthusiastically received by attentive audiences who
participated in lengthy discussions afterward, were important
elements of building a mass movement in support of the revolution
in Peru, and against Amerikan imperialist aggression.
For copies of Andreas's book--When Women Rebel: The Rise of
Popular Feminism in Peru--the result of her extensive research and
work with the people in Peru, send $15 to MIM. Write to MIM for
information on organizing similar events in your area.
* * *
THE PAPER
1994
This movie about a New York city tabloid misses the true story
entirely. The plot focuses on the writing of a story about two
young Black guys who got framed for the murder of some rich white
guys. The lead character, the news editor, is convinced that the
kids didn't do it and is very moral about not wanting to run an
incorrect story because he doesn't want to hurt the kids' future,
and he doesn't want to incite more racial tension and possibly
riots. He makes great personal sacrifices for this important
principle.
The movie tells us this is an isolated incident, Black kids don't
regularly get framed for crimes they didn't commit. Reality: This
happens all the time.
The movie shows us that all the Black guys in the city jail are
big mean criminals who are a menace to society and to the nice
framed kids. Reality: Prisoners are a menace to society, but not
because they are social deviants, it's because they know who the
real criminals are--the rich white imperialists.
The movie says bourgeois newspaper editors want to get the story
right and will sacrifice sensationalism for principles. Reality:
Newspapers print whatever sells papers and will not lose thousands
of dollars just to delay printing so that they can get a story
right.
The movie shows us that cops don't want to frame the wrong guys.
Cops know that young Black kids have a potential future outside of
prison and they just want to get the real criminals, in this case
the white mob. Reality: this is bullshit.
There was also a subplot thrown in about the news editor's
pregnant wife being angry at him for ignoring his responsibilities
to his family and placing his job first. Fortunately, in order for
it all to end happily ever after, she forgot all about all her
complaints once the baby was born. Phew. Race riots avoided.
Everyone's family problems resolved. And they got the exclusive.
Now you don't have to see the movie.
--MC17
* * *
NPA ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED
During the week of March 29, people in North Amerika celebrated
the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the New People's Army
(NPA) led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
In San Francisco and Berkeley, California, and at a college campus
in the Midwest, the Philippine-American Worker's International
Solidarity Committee (PAWISC) presented the NPA video documentary
Medics of the People to multi-national audiences of activists and
supporters of the Maoist-led people's war in the Philippines.
In California, the events featured live and energetic singing of
revolutionary songs in Tagalog--including "Ang Bagong," the anthem
of the NPA; a newly composed song called "People's War," which
extols the recent CPP rectification; and "The Internationale."
A statement from the Central Committee of the CPP was read. The
statement firmly acknowledges the successful return of the CPP to
the Maoist road and the acceptance of the rectification by the
vast majority of CPP members. The Party reaffirmed the basic
Maoist principles that guided its establishment in 1968 and
proclaimed its leadership of the NPA and the National Democratic
Front (NDF).
According to the CPP statement, "The NPA has thousands of full-
time guerrilla fighters with automatic rifles, excluding the more
numerous forces of local guerrillas, militia and self-defense
units with inferior weapons. They operate in guerrilla fronts
which cover 25 percent of the villages (more than 10,000 out of
40,000 villages) or substantial portions of more than 60 of the 73
provinces."
Medics of the People follows an NPA Barrio Health Committee as it
serves the medical needs of the workers, peasants and soldiers.(1)
At the campus showing, one audience member said s/he attended the
event because s/he is interested in giving medical care to poor
people, and discussed the importance of preventative care. All
audience members liked the CPP medic's attention to prevention
through education. They noted that the stress in health care in
the United States is on marketable skills and not prevention.
Healing skills become less marketable once the people learn how to
prevent serious illness and this interferes with the profit system
in health care.
MIM pointed out that Maoists recognize that poverty and starvation
are just as violent a form of death as gunshots, and in some ways
worse because the bourgeoisie trains us to think that poverty
"just happens" to people. The importance of the people's armed
medical units is that they join the war against starvation and
preventable disease with the armed struggle against capitalism and
imperialism.
In California, PAWISC fielded questions from the audience
regarding the leading role of women in the Philippine Revolution,
the relationship of the revolutionary nationalist Moro National
Liberation Front to the CPP/NDF, the semi-colonial and semi-feudal
character of Philippine society, and the resurgence of the
international Maoist movement in the Third World since the
increasingly blatant exposure of the counterrevolutionary
capitalist regimes in the ex-Soviet Union and China.
Audience members were concerned about how to create a practice in
solidarity with the 65 million Filipinos afflicted by, mainly,
U.S. multinational corporations and their military forces.
Activists were encouraged to read the NDF bi-monthly magazine
International Liberation and to work with PAWISC as it struggles
to expose the role of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines,
everywhere in the Third World, and in the occupied colonies inside
North Amerikan territory.
MIM remarks that the best way to support the international
revolution is to make revolution in your own country in solidarity
with the international proletariat. In North Amerika, the most
effective way forward is to work with and join MIM.
Watch your local alternative newspapers and telephone poles for
announcements of more PAWISC events. Read MIM Notes and grow
politically.
Notes:
1. See MIM Notes 87 for a review of the video, available for $25,
cash or check made out to "ABS," P.O. Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI,
48106-3576.
Write to MIM for more information about PAWISC and to obtain new
CPP and NDF literature.
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