From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 02:48:06 1995

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.

Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 22:48:06 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement

Subject: Re: Maoism and the people

Just so we are all clear, the Peruvian Communist Party and MIM have no connection to the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge has denounced our politics as counterrevolutionary.

On the other hand, for die-hard anti-communists I point out that Democrats in Congress and George Bush as president gave the Khmer Rouge military aid.

I'd also recommend reading the Monthly Review book on Kampuchea. The evacuation of the city was a rational solution to the problem of disruption of agriculture caused by U.S. bombing, war and the cut-off of international food-aid upon the collapse of the U.S. puppet regime.

It's not really appropriate for intellectuals in the West to be talking about the Khmer Rouge this way when a) They don't offer a better way to have handled the crisis in 1975

b) They failed to stop U.S. imperialism from creating the situation.

In other words, it's too easy to criticize people in state power and thereby prefer not holding it.

mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement

On Sun, 10 Sep 1995 glevy@acnet.pratt.edu wrote:

> Maoist Internationalist Movement wrote:

> > How could the Peruvian Communist Party become

> > such a threat to the state, if it did not have

> > support from the people, support that more than

> > makes up for their lack of rich high-tech backers like

> > U.S. imperialism?

> >

> Let's move away from Peru and go to Kampuchea under Pol Pot. Did the

> Khymer Rouge policy towards re-educating urban residents, professionals,

> and intellectuals not look to the experience of Mao's policy during the

> Cultural Revolution for inspiration?

> Isn't it not only a question of what some Marxists do to seize power, but

> what they do also to hold state power?

> Jerry

> --- from list marxism@lists.village.virginia.edu ---

From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 17:14:52 1995

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:14:52 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement

Subject: Re: Maoism and the people

On Sun, 10 Sep 1995 glevy@acnet.pratt.edu wrote:

> Jim Jaszewski wrote:

> > I'd sure like to know what was so `communist' about Pol Pot.

> >

> > I'm sure we all remember who helped the MOST to keep them in power

> > (and how many MORE died as a result of it) -- Uncle Sam...

> Did the US help the most to keep Pol Pot in power? I'm not so sure about

> that. The Khymer Rouge received, especially in the early period, large

> amounts of material assistance, including military aid, from China.

MIM replies: What you are talking about is aid from state capitalist

China. We too mourned the loss of laboring class life during the

Vietnam-China war.

> Furthermore, the Khymer Rouge owed a large amount of its ideological

> inspiration to Maoism. Of course, one could argue that Maoists under

> Pol Pot distorted Mao's position (during the Cultural Revolution) regarding

> the advantages of re-educating those citizens infected by bourgeois

> culture and pro-imperialist thinking. For background on this topic, I

> recommend viewing "The Killing Fields."

MIM replies:

Hollywood is not a very good way to settle detailed questions. However,if you want to blame us for "inspiring" killing fields, we will agree to that as long as you credit us for "inspiring" all the anti-colonial struggles that came after Mao led China to "stand up." We would do this to encourage people to look at the objective implications of a struggle.

Mao died in 1976. His supporters and the leaders of the Cultural Revolution were overthrown in a coup that same year. Pol Pot then explicitly denounced the Cultural Revolution as "counterrevolutionary."

Instead of Hollywood, the New Republic or CIA covering its tracks, we recommend that people read what the protagonists actually said and also keep the chronology in mind.

We had nothing against Khmer Rouge's knocking out the U.S. puppet regime in 1975. If other "Marxists" had done it, we would have something to talk about. However, as usual, it was the revolutionaries in the legacy of Stalin and Mao who did the fighting. Soon after, Pol Pot changed his line on the Cultural Revolution and gained support from the number 2 target of the Cultural Revolution who came back to power in China--Deng Xiaoping. As it stands, the historical amnesia on these questions leads to a whitewash of the U.S. imperialist war on the peoples of Indochina.

mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement (how 'bout Pat as my name)