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The founding documents of MIM's predecessor organization called RIM in 1983 prioritized internationalism and anti-militarism to guide MIM. In a nutshell, the founding documents answered a majority of questions about how to handle questions of dialectics without really going into the question of dialectics.
MIM's middle name is "internationalist," but why did MIM select "anti- militarism" in 1983 as a vision for the imperialist countries, one might ask. Why not pick "anti-patriarchy" or "pro-environmentalism" for example, one might wonder.
In the last two years, the original guiding vision of MIM has come to the fore with special force in current events. A number of events show that MIM's vision of how the world is put together is still valid.
Stalin and Mao told us there were four candidates for "principal contradiction" at any given time. MIM has more or less dumped one, that of the workers versus the capitalists in the imperialist countries, because those workers have been bought off and made into a global petty-bourgeoisie. Another candidate, socialist countries versus imperialism is also gone de facto, because there are no socialist countries. Both of these truths have held since 1983.
The two remaining candidates for principal contradiction can both be tapped into by prioritizing anti-militarism. It is by arguing about priorities that we gradually can ease our way into a discussion of dialectics. At the time in 1983 there was a Soviet Union and its imperialist conflict with the West was one possible candidate for the leading contradiction shaping the world. Under no circumstances could any progress be seen by siding with one's own imperialists in conflict with the other imperialist power.
Likewise, when it came to the best choice of principal contradiction, the conflict between imperialism and oppressed nations, anti- militarism was again useful. For this reason, anti-militarism served as an answer, a strategy for resolving two very big contradictions in the world.
If we were in a socialist country about to face attack by an imperialist power, it could well be wrong to advocate anti-militarism in our socialist country. So elevating anti-militarism as a prioritizing principle for MIM Thought depends on the situation prior to socialist revolution in the imperialist countries. That has been the situation since Khruschev came to power with the death of Stalin in 1953. It's been a long-run stage of history.
In 1983, the term "globalization" was not yet popular. The elite used the term "bourgeois internationalism" to refer to a situation where multinational corporations were willing to hire managers from Third World countries and not export colonial administrators from a mother country. The essential view of bourgeois internationalism is to give all countries a chance to have people join the exploiter class.
Today, the principle of anti-militarism quickly separates proletarian internationalism from globalization. We have seen that again and again. When it comes to Black troops operating in Japan, whose side do we take, one might wonder. Some of the organizations in the proletarian camp might even say side with the Blacks, including in rape cases in Japan. In contrast, MIM sides against the troops every time.
On the question of Iran, there are those seeking to drive a wedge into the Iranian people with Western pseudo-feminism. They arranged for counterrevolutionary demonstrations styled on the Rockefeller Foundation view of feminism. The Rockefeller Foundation has openly put money into finding visible feminists for every Third World country. This project has been a means of increasing Western influence. MIM opposed those calling themselves "Maoist" when they conveniently lined up with the intelligence services of the united $tates and State Department to denounce patriarchy in Iran specifically, as a pretext for war.
The reverse is also true. In 2007, Iran used gender to drive a wedge into the imperialist war machine by dragging a female British soldier before TV cameras and making conservatives in the imperialist countries squirm. If we had named "feminism" as a guiding principle on par with internationalism, we might have seen the fight for female representation in the military as principal. We did not and we contend that the way patriarchy really works, it will be taken down faster with anti-militarism than equal-opportunity-militarism. It's a question of cause-and-effect. Either MIM is right that that is how the world works or MIM is not. It has to do with how the world is put together, what we call the "dialectical interconnections."
On the question of Iran and abortion, again, a sharp fight is due. MIM supports those going into the Bible Belt and pointing out that the Iranian regime is more "pro-life" than the Bush regime. Again, anti-militarism comes first.
In the case of Palestine, MIM fought against the propaganda against an Amerikan womyn seeking to marry a Palestinian man. By itself, the vague idea of "feminism," could mean giving children and youth rights to run their own sex lives or it could mean state protection of the Amerikan womyn. The Bush regime took the opportunity for "siren abuse" by acting as if some crime had been committed when an Amerikan womyn tried to date a Palestinian. The regime returned the womyn to her parents with insinuations about the danger of Palestinians as "terrorists." Clearly romance culture is put into the war-machine's spin room. Shortly thereafter, of course I$rael attacked Lebanon and committed various atrocities against Palestinians.
In Iraq, the story is the same, with the u.$. military already putting veils in museums and bragging how the united $tates opposed them. At the same time, MIM supports universities that ban military recruiters for their ambiguous stand on gays and lesbians.
Regarding enviromentalism, MIM has noticed on occasion propaganda against Third World countries on that point. Yet we believe that the proletariat, the people with nothing to lose but their chains have the most natural self-interest in line with that of the species to have a good environment. It is those with ties to corporations and leading the labor aristocracy consumer lifestyle with the most to lose in an environmentalist movement.
Inside, the united $tates, an even more high profile question is the migrant workers. One side wants to have the migrants unite with the white petty-bourgeoisie for higher living standards--the majority of the so-called "left." MIM's side, the proletarian side answers the question, again with reference to militarism, and it is clear that by integrating into empire, one is strengthening its military, so once again, the national approach of oppressed nations as internationalism has to be key, not the Martin Luther King approach as some substitute for internationalism.
On all these questions, it may seem as if there is no underlying principle, but there is--proletarian internationalism as opposed to globalizing or bourgeois internationalism. MIM has prioritized anti-militarist internationalism from the beginning. A quarter of a century later, the essential problems remain the same.