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.

From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 17:22:37 1995

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:22:37 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3@nyxfer.blythe.org>

Subject: Re: Unproductive labor: imperialist countries

 

 

 

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

 

> Dear mim3:

>

> In your last post, you seem to use the words "whites" and "white-collar

> workers" interchangeably. Was that a mistake?

 

MIM replies: Right, I was telescoping too much. Whites became a majority white collar workers in that same 1980 Census, so on a group level we mush the two things together.

 

When we speak of a country's working class, we make a generalization.

In the imperialist countries, the working class is a majority

or headed to a majority of parasites. Within the borders of

the United States, the Euro-Amerikan workers have such a small

proportion of productive laborers that it is not possible for

them to form a class. Rather we have scattered pockets of exploited

white workers who are on the whole influenced by the far more

numerous white-collar class.

 

Pat for the Maoist Internationalist Movement

 

From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 17:43:54 1995

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:43:54 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3@nyxfer.blythe.org>

Subject: Re: Unproductive labor: imperialist countries

 

 

 

On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Louis N Proyect wrote:

 

> On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Zodiac wrote:

> >

> > MIM employs tinker toy Marxism with an eye to encouraging a fundamental

> > rift in the international proletariat... (as if it needs help right now).

> > I suppose one shouldn't be surprised at this, since Maoists don't have

> > anything to do with the proletariat. They are peasantists. (And the

> > ultimate sectarians carrying the answer to the suffering of the masses in

> > their hip pocket.)

> >

> Louis: I think we're going to have a jolly time with our Maoist comrades.

> Ever since Leo Casey disappeared, things have gotten a bit dull around here.

>

>

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

>

 

Maybe you should form alt.marxism.entertain or try applying

for editorial positions at George.

 

Pat for MIM

 

 

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

 

------------------

 

From owner-marxism Mon Sep 11 17:40:47 1995

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 13:40:47 -0400 (EDT)

From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3@columbia.edu>

Subject: Re: Unproductive labor: imperialist countries

 

On Mon, 11 Sep 1995, Maoist Internationalist Movement wrote:

 

>

> Maybe you should form alt.marxism.entertain or try applying

> for editorial positions at George.

>

> Pat for MIM

>

Louis: Hey, that message was supposed to be private to Zodiac and I

accidentally posted it to the list. I apologize, fellas. No hard feelings. Put it there.

 

By the way, there weren't any jokes in the NACLA piece on Sendero I just posted. Why don't you tell us where you stand on that?

 

Dr. Louis Proyect

Department of Hydrophonics,

Columbia University

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.J. Wodehouse: "You know, whatever you may say against old Jeeves--and

I, for one, have never wavered in my opinion that his views on shirts for evening wear are hidebound and reactionary to a degree--you've got to admit that the man can plan a campaign. Napoleon could have taken his correspondence course. When he sketches out a scheme, all you have to do is to follow it in every detail, and there you are."

 

 

 

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

 

From owner-marxism Tue Sep 12 00:41:44 1995

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 20:41:44 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3@nyxfer.blythe.org>

Subject: Lenin on the future of the labor movement

 

Lenin--

 

"On the one hand, there is the tendency of the

bourgeoisie and the opportunists to convert

a handful of very rich and privileged nations

into 'eternal' parasites on the body of the rest

of mankind, to 'rest on the laurels' of the

exploitation of Negroes, Indians, etc., keeping

them in subjection with the aid of excellent

weapons of extermination provided by modern

militarism. On the other hand, there is the

tendency of the ITAL masses END, who are more

oppressed than before and who bear the whole

brunt of imperialist wars, to cast off this yoke

and to overthrow the bourgeoisie. It is in

the struggle between these tendencies that

the history of the labour movement will now inevitably

develop."

 

Lenin, "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism"

 

This quote will not appeal to those not claiming Lenin in

their tradition. For those who do, they should notice

some points above:

 

1) It was not Lenin or MIM that split the working class;

the imperialists did it.

2) Of the two tendencies above, the tendency of the

masses has lost out so far this century on the whole.

3) Lenin did not say the issue of the labor aristocracy

was one of ethnicity alone. In fact, it was an issue

for "the labour movement."

 

The course of class struggle this century does matter to

those claiming our Marxist-Leninist tradition. Had

revolutions ended capitalism in 1920 or 1930, things would

be different--without a split in the working class.

 

Pat for the Maoist Internationalist Movement

 

 

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

 

 

From owner-marxism Tue Sep 12 01:21:23 1995

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 21:21:23 -0400 (EDT)

From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3@nyxfer.blythe.org>

Subject: Re: Unproductive labor: imperialist countries

 

Again on the subject of imperialist country "labor,"

here we can raise a quote from the COMINTERN when Lenin

still attended meetings and Trotsky was still a member.

(I can hardly wait to see the Trots worm out of this.)

 

"Our Attitude to the Semi-Proletarian Strata"

"In Western Europe there is no class other than the proletariat

which is capable of playing the significant role in the

world revolution that, as a consequence of the war and the land

hnuger, the peasants did in Russia. But, even so, a section

of the Western-European peasantry and a considerable part of the

urban petty bourgeoisie and broad layers of the so-called

middle class, of office workers etc., are facing deteriorating

standards of living and, under the pressure of rising prices,

the housing problems and insecurity, are being shaken out of their

political apapthy and drawn into the struggle between revolution and

counterrevolution. . . It is also important to win the

sympathy of technicians, white-collar workers, the middle-

and lower-ranking civil servants and the intelligentsia,

who can assist the proletarian dictatorship in the period of

transition from capitalism to Communism by helping with the problems

of state and economic administration. If such layers

identify with the revolution, the enemy will be demoralized

and the popular view of the proletariat as

an isolated group will be discredited."

 

COMINTERN, 1921 "On Tactics"

Alan Adler, ed., ITAL Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of

the First Four Congresses of the Third International END

(London: Ink Links, 1980), pp. 293-4.

 

We don't like to argue from authority by quoting the great texts.

However, there are two things here. One is that there is

a call to purge MIM from the list. We would ask readers to

consider MIM's "credentials" by examining these last two

quotes of the Lenin era.

 

Secondly, the text is an interesting

historical point, in considering that "office workers" were

NOT considered proletarian when Marxism-Leninism first

considered the question. It raises the question, at what

point did imperialist country Marxists start to take it for

granted that white-collar workers were proletarian? It also

points toward the social-patriotic deviation of simplistic

faith in "our" workers.

 

Furthermore, (and I would advise re-reading the quote above),

without counting office-workers as part of the proletariat,

we cannot arrive at the "majority" of white workers being

proletarian within U.S. borders--as is so important to the

conscious social-democrats and others enamored of

bourgeois democracy's siren call.

 

Pat for the Maoist Internationalist Movement

 

P.S. Does anyone think I'm making headway toward

getting back to the original issue I wanted to handle

here on this list?

 

P.P.S. I hope the person who called us "peasantist"

will either act with great determination to separate

the office-workers from the proletariat or alternatively,

reject the COMINTERN tradition. In the quote above,

it is clear that office-workers are seen as lower

on the Marxist-Leninist totem-pole than peasants are.

 

 

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