MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
POSITION PAPER ON VIOLENCE, PART II
Last edit: August 26, 1992

Capitalism: A Bloodthirsty system

Shanghai vs. New York City
A comparison of infant mortality rates (deaths per 1,000 births) shows the effect of revolutionary health care for the people.

Year	Shanghai	NYC	NYC
	(inclusive)	(whites)	(Blacks)
1949	150	24	41
1972	12.6	18.1	27.1

Notes: Statistics for 1949 from New York Times 4/29/91; for 1972 from Science For The People. "China: Science Walks on Two Legs." New York: Avons Books, 1974.

"Violence and Mao: Who are the real butchers?"

By a comrade

In this comrade's opinion, the best reason to be a Maoist communist is that Maoism is the most effective analysis and plan for the reduction of violence in society internationally. Other analysts ignore or de-emphasize the largest causes of violence--starvation, followed by imperialist militarism.

Lately there is a lot of hype in the media about the failure of communism. For example, the killing of a few hundred demonstrators by the revisionist regime in China June 3rd-4th is cited as evidence of the barbarity of all communism.

Furthermore, in Eastern Europe, all the revisionists are admitting their bankruptcy and declaring themselves outright capitalists.

Revisionists like Deng Xiaoping in China or the ones in Eastern Europe were always opposed by genuine communists like Mao Zedong. (See MIM Notes 38) More importantly though, the volumes of space dedicated to the Tiananmen massacre is actually an indication of Amerikan society's insensitivity to violence.

There is something sensational about seeing people mowed down with tanks and machine guns. Amerikans watched the events of Tiananmen unfold with some of the same interest they watch "Miami Vice."

Somehow in this country, unless an Amerikan sees an individual shoot or stab someone else, the death caused doesn't count as violence. People can die from starvation or discrimination in health care and no one will notice.

What would happen if the television stations and newspapers dedicated themselves to covering daily the starvation of children, which happens mostly in capitalist countries? Most of these children starve to death in a painful process that if covered in the press regularly would dispel a lot of the current capitalist cheerleading frenzy. Is there really a legitimate reason that starvation is not the number one story in the news each year? Is there anything more notable than the deaths of tens of millions of people caused by one preventable cause? Even the AIDS epidemic receives more coverage than the major source of violence in the world -- starvation. The single largest number of AIDS victims are Amerikan citizens and they are well-organized compared with the starving poor of South Asia. The AIDS epidemic also gains the interest of the public because of its association with sexual practices and drug habits.

The Amerikan public knows that the system has failed in the AIDS epidemic. Some band-aid action is occurring as the West dedicates its resources to caring for and finding a cure for AIDS.

What the media try to make people forget entirely, however, is that U.S. backed capitalist countries in the Third World are where most of the world's violence occur. In the capitalist countries, a child dies every two seconds. (1)

In the United States alone, "from 1980 to 1985, for example, more children in the United States died as a result of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition than the total number of U.S. battle deaths in the Vietnam War." (2)

The cause of life has benefitted in communist countries. It is the capitalist countries that have failed in ending the most important violence in the world--starvation.

"It is the capitalist countries that have failed in ending the greatest violence in the world -- starvation."

It is not fair to compare the United States, which benefitted from hundreds of years of slavery, the stealing of land from the Native Americans and the superexploitation of the Third World peoples with poor countries like China.

Amerikans are richer than Chinese and have been for a long time. That does not mean the Amerikan system is better, only that the Amerikans have succeeded more in war and pillage.

That superexploitation of the Third World by Amerika and other imperialists has caused its relative lack of economic development.

By breaking away from imperialism, China under Mao (1949 to 1976) gained a lot of ground on the much richer countries of Western Europe in reducing violence. The median life expectancy in Western Europe is 74. In China life expectancy is 69. (3)

So even compared with countries much richer, China is not doing so badly in keeping its citizens alive.

Compared with capitalist countries that started in the same place of poverty, China led by Mao demonstrates that communism is the victor and capitalism the guarantor of starvation death.

No where is this better demonstrated than in comparison with India, the second largest country in the world after China in population. Both countries were very poor at the time of their independence. Both populations were three-quarters peasants. Both had private ownership of land. Pseudo-pacifist Mahatma Gandhi led an independence movement in India. India became independent in 1947.

Mao led China to independence in 1949. But since that time, China has made more progress than India, which kept the capitalist system, especially private ownership of land. (See the chart from Monthly Review, November, 1989, p. 42.)

Figures per 1000
Under age 5 child mortality rate, 1945
India: 430
China: 520

Infant mortality under 1, 1945
India: 203
China: 280

Infant mortality rate under 1, 1985
India: 105
China: 36

Life expectancy at birth, 1985
India: 57
China: 69

Daily per capita calorie supply as percentage of daily requirements, 1983
India: 96%
China: 111%

Source: UNICEF reports, 1984, 1986, 1987.

It is easy to look at such figures without appreciating their significance. Yet, in this table alone is a story of violence greater than any comparison than can be made between a capitalist and communist- led country.

In fact, this table tells of more violence against the people of India than all the violence claimed by the anti-communist propagandists against Stalin and Mao combined.

When China was capitalist, India enjoyed better health than China. Now each year India suffers 2.92 million deaths because it does not do as well as China -- mainly thanks to its private property in land which results in landlessness, unemployment and starvation. (4)

The story is the same in other Asian countries similar to China and India -- countries with large, poor peasant populations. Bangladesh for instance suffers 1.76 million deaths annually because it is another poor country with a big population like China but with capitalist institutions. Bangladesh has a life expectancy under 50 years of age as of 1986. (5)

Even China itself is going back to the dangers of famine now that it has had a recent counterrevolution that reinstituted virtual private property in land. According to the Chinese government, 20 million faced starvation in 1988. (6)

In any case, the reason India has had such problems is that people like Gandhi failed to lead a movement against institutional violence. He was sensitive to armed acts of aggression, but Gandhi was insensitive to most of the violence that occurred around him. But what is the difference if someone dies from starvation or a gunshot wound? There is none, but Gandhi and most Amerikans ignore the violence, such as starvation, caused by institutions.

"Gandhi was insensitive to most of the violence that occurred around him."

It is the capitalist institutions of this world killing those 14 million children a year who die from hunger. Right now, the world grows enough food to give every person five pounds of food every day. In fact, 10% of the grain fed to livestock in rich countries (about 2% of world grain production) would solve the world hunger problem. (7)

It is the capitalist institutions of this world that are starving 14 million children to death each year. Right now, the world grows enough food to give every person five pounds of food every day.

It's the world's most astounding scandal, but food is wasting. How is this possible?

Such large quantities of food are hard for the individual to imagine, just as the starvation death of 14 million children is. The food wastes away in storage, Amerikan storage bins and others. Often times, Amerikan farmers destroy their food in order to keep the price up. Other times the government pays Amerikan farmers to plow their crops right back into the ground and not grow anymore food.

The world's starving people would surely seize the food if they were able. However, as unorganized victims, the wretched of the earth don't get as much press as the Chinese students or NFL football players, never mind manage to seize food. Organized, they are written off as terrorists in El Salvador, the Philippines, Peru etc.

The imperialist governments don't even let the starving people from the Third World inside their borders. The police, army and Coast Guard keep starving people away from Amerikan borders. The same is true of other imperialist countries. They use force to keep people dying.

It is sometimes said that communists are authoritarian, totalitarian or pro-dictatorship. That is true. The bourgeoisie uses force to prevent the poor from eating. Communists would take food and the means of producing food by force to give to the poor. That is an admittedly authoritarian act, an act of dictatorship.

If the only justification for dictatorship the communists had was to feed the poor, that would be enough reason for this comrade. MIM should be proud to be in favor of such dictatorship.

(1)Vincente Navarro, "Historical Triumph: Capitalism or Socialism?" Monthly Review, November, 1989, p. 43; that's 15,768,000 deaths. According to Ruth Sivard the figure for the whole world is 14,000,000 annually from starvation. The vast majority occur in capitalist Asian countries. World Military and Social Expenditures 1987-8, p. 25.

(2)Navarro, op. cit., p. 49.

(3)Ibid., p. 42.

(4)India's mortality rate is 11.5 per 1,000 annually. China's is 8 per 1,000. The 2.92 million figure is based on India's population of 833,422,000. World Almanac and Handbook of Facts 1989, pp. 663, 683. MIM should point out that the actual figure is higher than 2.92 million because the Almanac figures do not correct for age differences between the two populations.

(5)Bangladesh has a mortality rate of 16.3 per 1,000 and China a rate of 8 per 1,000. World Almanac and Book of Facts 1989, p. 654. Bangladesh has a population of 107.76 million as of 1988.

(6)New York Times, 10/28/88, 3.

(7)William W. Murdoch, The Poverty of Nations: The Political Economy of Hunger and Population (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1980), p. 98.