| Theory |
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Mao in Wonderland May 11, 2003 by RedStar2000 |
These are some of my earliest posts on the internet...an argument with a couple of Maoists. Right from the start, I found myself arguing basic Marxism with people who believe that personality determines history. It is a kind of testimony to how powerful capitalist ideology really is...even among those who want to be communists.
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Where did you get the notion that the ideas of the Workers' Opposition were new or unique or that I said they were new or unique? I said those ideas provided a genuine alternative to the path proposed by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. The ideas clearly owed much to syndicalism...how much, I will leave to historians to debate.
To examine "what if" questions in history is not only not idealist, it's necessary if you are to make a balanced judgment of events. Or do you favor the "whatever happens is right...and could not have happened any other way" interpretation of history? And if so, how then do you ever criticize your own mistakes? They weren't mistakes at the time, after all.
"The only time it is correct to criticize a socialist practice is when there is a better one." Just as a "wild guess", I'll take it that by "socialism" you mean Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism et.al.---which are presently conspicious by their abysmal failure and total collapse and theoretical bankruptcy. As Lenin said that social democracy was a stinking corpse in 1915, Leninism and all its variants in 2002 are stinking corpses.
I will freely admit and even insist on the fact that communism today is in a theoretical crisis...but the answer is not to attempt to animate the dead of the 20th century. That never works (and the smell is really bad).
Yet, I find the works of Marx and Engels as fresh and invigorating as ever; their analysis of the evolution of capitalism seems to be more verified by modern conditions than was the case in the 20th century. So, that being the case, perhaps we should pay more attention to what they had to say about proletarian revolution and communist society: perhaps a fresh application of their ideas may prove fruitful...and will certainly be no worse than the dead end of Lenin & Co.
I did look at a few pages of your link. What I found, as you very well know, was the customary wretched infatuation with leadership, authority, centralized command, militarized concept of class struggle ("Prussian or barracks socialism" I think Marx called it), etc., etc. I will not speculate what psychological needs are being fulfilled by this cringing servility "in the name of revolution"...but, frankly, I think it's a goddam shame!
That intelligent people who say they want to break the chains of class society turn right around and positively drool with anticipation of having a "great leader" to prostrate themselves to...that's just fucking awful! It's one of the kinds of sickness that capitalism creates in people's heads.
To convert Marxism into a religion is like using life-saving surgical instruments to murder people. And make no mistake about it, that's exactly what your group is doing, unconsciously.
And, since your group is so down on "anarchists", let the record show that the anarcho-syndicalists did succeed in liberating people in portions of Spain from 1936 to 1939. But Spain has always been a big embarrassment for you guys, has it not?
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First posted at Politics Online on November 17, 2002
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For the Leninist cargo cults, of course, time has stopped sometime in the last century. They must argue the virtures of their favorite historical figure because...well, without him, they don't really have anything to talk about. They just want to replay their favorite video tape over and over again. It's sad for them...but we don't have to do that and we shouldn't.
One of the things we could talk about is "the cult of personality" (an awkward phrase). That is, what would it take to radically discourage the tendency that many people have to elevate some individual far above human status?
I understand, of course, that under capitalism most people have such boring lives that it is only by living vicariously through "celebraties" that they can feel alive at all. And politicians, likewise, are as much celebraties as rock stars or football players.
What could we do, as communists, to get across to people the idea that vicarious "living" is just another form of death? That servile identification with and submission to anyone is a kind of suicide? Because it is, you know. Being "free" means first of all the ability and willingness to be autonomous, to consider and decide matters inside your own head. You may indeed, upon careful thought, decide a particular person is especially admirable, thoughtful, worth listening to and paying attention to. But you don't, you never roll over on your back like a puppy to have your tummy scratched...unless you've decided to be a lapdog.
It is tough, it is really tough. I know I'm really hard on the folks who identify with Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, etc. -- think about the millions of poor fucked bastards who identify with Tony Blair or George W. Bush!!! Somehow, this shit has got to be stopped. But how?
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First posted at Politics Online on November 17, 2002
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Where did I ever say that new ideas "drop from the sky"? That is so stupid it practically drools. If you had read Thomas Kuhn's work on scientific revolutions, you would know that "new ideas" come precisely from the accumulation of problems and difficulties with existing ideas.
And all of you Leninists have a real problem: the collapse and failure of your entire project. In the real world, your whole political strategy has resulted only in the transition from capitalism to capitalism. What is the Leninist "explanation" for this completely wretched result? So far have you departed from Marxism that you can only summon demons: this leader "betrayed" the revolution/no, that leader "betrayed" the revolution/no, some other guy did it. It was Stalin's fault! It was Trotsky's fault! It was Khrushchev's fault! It was Mao's fault! Blah, blah, blah!
And your remedy: just join my cargo cult, follow me, obey me and everything will turn out ok. Really???
Many people have it engraved in their minds that communism is "Marxism-Leninism", but that's wrong and you know it. First, there was Marxism...then there was the Leninist version of Marxism. If the Leninist path has failed--I dare you to mount a rational argument against that proposition--then we must return to Marx and Engels and see if we can't figure out a new path. In science, when an experiment fails, you try something different. Simple, isn't it? Well, isn't it?
Of course, saying it and doing it are two very different things. But the realization that something new must be tried is the essential beginning. Yes, many things have been tried before, many other paths were apparent failures, possibilities were raised that for historical reasons were never explored...those things can be discussed and argued over. What will undoubtedly emerge is a synthesis of some past ideas and some completely new ideas that will point in a more hopeful direction. That is often how science works. And it is also possible that there is a "budding genius" somewhere in the world today who will come up with such a brilliant and totally unexpected extension of Marxism that it will take the world by storm. That would be a scientific revolution in Marxism; but I'm not counting on genius. I maintain that even ordinary working people (like me) can figure things out, at least partially, that may suggest some ways progress can be made.
Yet even if it turns out that I can't come up with even one new idea, what I can do is tirelessly reiterate the utter hopelessness of Leninism-Trotskyism-Stalinism-Maoism...AND I WILL!
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First posted at Politics Online on November 18, 2002
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Yes, I do believe that most of the arguments about past failures of the international communist movement are "sterile".
Why? Because no effort is made to learn from those failures. Instead, what I've seen is endless squabbling among fan clubs, cargo cults, and de facto churches. The people who indulge themselves in this kind of crap have a favorite hero (angel) to uphold and a favorite villian (demon) to denounce...and that's it. Your outfit thinks it's being "ecumenical" because you admit all four of the "greats" to your pantheon--Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao. Your "demons" are named Tito, Khrushchev, Deng, etc.
Nowhere do I see the slightest effort to apply Marxism to any of these matters; all I see is angelology and demonology. And you have the gall to suggest that I am an idealist?
Your outfit "compares realities and says which of those is the best." I take it this is the Martha-Stewart-Comparison-Shopping school of historical analysis. I'm really impressed. "Arguing scientifically means arguing from reality and that means only arguing within the range of what the humyn [sic] is capable of." Setting aside your efforts at spelling reform, I take it that if people have not yet done something, your presumption is that they cannot do it. You are not very coherent, but that's what your sentence says...and I hope you don't really mean that, because it's obviously wrong.
Or perhaps you claim your outfit has a special insight into "the range of what people are capable of"--I believe that's called "revelation" (not science). Where would you get the nerve to say X can be done but Y is impossible? Because Y has never been done before? Because your group has determined in advance that Y is something that lies "outside the range of human possibilities"? And what is the reason for that determination? Oh, because Y has never been done before. Tell me, do the words "reasoning in a circle" ring a bell with you?
(There were no more than a tiny handful of communists in the world when Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto, a document that bluntly asserted that something was going to be done in the world that had never been done before--the end of class society. What a couple of "idealists"! They didn't even have a "website"!!)
A couple of niggling historical points. Stalin didn't "give" the Spanish Republic the sweat off his balls. Like any good state-monopoly capitalist, he sold the Spanish Republic arms, he was paid in gold, and he doubtless made a handsome profit.
Many Leninists went to Spain to fight the fascists--good for them. Many syndicalists and other kinds of anarchists also went for the same reason--good for them, too.
As to the changes in the Spanish Republic brought about by the anarcho-syndicalists, they went at least as far as the Bolsheviks (1917-1920) if not farther. Like the bolsheviks, the anarcho-syndicalists doubtless would have done much more if they had not been fighting a war at the time.
But, I forgot, you don't like those "what if" questions. Still, it must be disheartening for you folks: your vanguard is currently what? A bunch of Nepalese peasants (hope you like butter in your tea)? A bunch of Phillippine bandits? Or, your last hope, the Communist Party of Turkey. To be fair, the CPT might indeed amount to something for a while...I'm not really familiar enough with their work to fairly criticize them.
Otherwise, your idols lie broken in the dust and your enemies are celebrating triumphs. Like you, they too believe that what exists will endure, that nothing new under the sun is possible.
But Marx and Engels thought otherwise. So do I.
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First posted at Politics Online on November 18,2002
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quote:
People who are serious about ending capitalism choose Maoism.
Good ad slogan there. Short, punchy, and lacking even a nodding acquaintence with the facts. I mean the Chinese peasantry chose Maoism and they've got capitalism so far up their ass, their eyes are green.
But hey, ads aren't supposed to be true, they're ads.
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First posted at Politics Online on November 18, 2002
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You and all Leninists stand in the midst of a collapsed structure and say there's nothing wrong with your paradigm that a little disciplined obedience won't solve. You may try, with considerable desperation, to pin a "religious" or "idealist" label on me to discredit my criticism...but my posts are here for all to read. It won't work.
The truth is that it is you and your associates who have only faith to sustain you now; your "redeemers" are gone, your cathedrals are rubble, and all you can do is assert that there will be a second coming.
Having uttlerly abandoned Marxism, what is truly left for you but faith?
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First posted at Politics Online on November 19, 2002
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"Nepalese peasants and Phillippine bandits"--do you wish to argue that such folks would know the difference between Marxism and rheumatism? As to the Turkish Communist Party, I admitted my inability to criticize them at this time. What more would you wish? But the very fact that you celebrate them is not, in my view, very encouraging.
As to trying to pin labels on me--"national chauvinist", etc.--do you think you can convince people through simple abuse? Your comrade has been trying desperately to label me as "religious" and himself as "scientific" ...without once even trying to explain the abysmal failure of his and your politics. The best he (and you?) can do is boast of how grand your temple once looked...before it collapsed.
As a matter of simple historical fact, Marx and Engels were not aware of primitive communism at the time the Manifesto was written; it was the American anthropologist Lewis Morgan whose researches in Native American social organizations later inspired Engels' Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State.
Furthermore, the revolutions of 1848 were bourgeois-nationalist--how did Marx and Engels conclude from those events that a proletarian revolution was possible? By your lights, they should simply have advocated more "radical" bourgeois revolutions, based on what has "already happened".
Since, you at least like to simulate an interest in "history", why not ask yourself something about the real nature of peasant revolutions? Yes, they do struggle against feudal/semi-feudal conditions. What happens when they "win"?
For many centuries, what happened (in places like China) is that the leaders of such revolutions simply put themselves at the top of the feudal structure, establishing new imperial dynasties. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the leaders instead have paved the way for rising capitalists to take over. But, notice...there is no such thing in the real world as a transition from feudalism to communism. Realistically, in terms of the means of production & the relations of production, there was no more chance for communism in Russia or China than in 15th century England! Maoism is thus revealed as an idealistic attempt to do what really is impossible...to make a communist revolution with the peasantry. Sure, you can wrap that nonsense in Marxist rhetoric and terminology--but who do you think you're fooling?
Naturally, Mao was even more of an "emperor" than Stalin. After his death, the modernizations that he promoted turned out to be sufficient for capitalism to emerge in China...which it has. The same process is under way in Vietnam (more slowly) and Cuba (even more slowly)...but capitalism is always what comes after feudalism/semi-feudalism. You can, if it makes you feel better, call this "the most advanced class struggle so far"--but you can't change its class nature without abandoning any pretense of being a Marxist.
(In case you're curious about really advanced class struggle, my list would be: The Paris Commune, 1871; the Russian Soviets in 1905 and 1917-1920; the anarcho-syndicalists of Spain, 1936-39; and the general strike/workplace occupations of France, May 1968. Not a long list, to be sure, but one that is both proletarian and democratic. All "losers" in your view, I'm sure...but then that's all you have too, losers.)
And I love how you smuggled in that little phrase "authoritarian means"--got your throne all picked out, do you? Think you're going to run the show? Think you'll just shoot anybody who disobeys, do you?
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First posted at Politics Online on November 19, 2002
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And, pray tell, what kind of "proletarian ideology" instantly collapses upon the death of the founder? I mean, Mao dies and WHAM! counter-revolution and state-monopoly capitalism with hardly a shot being fired!(?)
The Paris Commune was defeated by a counter-revolution organized by the French bourgeoisie (with the cooperation of the Germans); had the Bolsheviks been defeated in the civil war, their defeat would have been at the hands of the "white" armies, a coalition of landed aristocrats and foreign imperialists...a real counter-revolution. When the Spanish Republic fell, no one hesitated to call Franco and his Nazi/Fascist allies a counter-revolutionary force
Where was the counter-revolution in China except within the Leninist "Communist" Party? The party "fell in line" with Deng & Co. within what, four months?--and there was no resistence from the membership? Are you suggesting that Mao was not only the single "communist" in the CCP but its only real Maoist?
No, I would not suggest the French Communards, the Russian Bolsheviks, or the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists should not have tried to make a communist revolution simply because the risk was too great and they were ultimately defeated. But this was not the case in China. China, in fact, had no bolsheviks (all killed in, what, 1926 by Chaing kai-Shek's gangsters), never, to my knowledge, had any anarcho-syndicalists, and had no communards except briefly in Shanghai toward the end of Mao's life (the Shanghai Commune was the single Chinese attempt to organize a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat--a city run by the working class--and was disbanded on Mao's orders).
See where I'm going with this? The Chinese Revolution was not a communist revolution at all (except rhetorically)...it was a peasant revolution that gave China a new "modernizing" emperor. His "modern" version of oriental despotism simply created a state-monopoly capitalist society which, after the emperor's death, simply dropped the mask and became openly capitalist.
That's my explanation...and it has the advantage of doing without such bourgeois "factors" as "betrayal." What can your explanation be? The party spontaneously "betrayed" itself? Deng was possessed of "satanic powers" that allowed him to over-rule the party and restore capitalism without a shot being fired? Original sin?
Sometimes I feel a little guilty at giving you poor sods such a hard time for your idelogical confusion...but you make it so damn easy!
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First posted at Politics Online on November 21, 2002
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1. "Learning from history means using what has worked the best so far and improving on that."
2. Leninism has failed; all the countries that followed that path are now either capitalist or returning to capitalism.
3. When something has totally failed, learning from history means rejecting it and trying something different, something new that has never been tried before or has been overlooked by accident of historical circumstances.
That should be simple enough for even a Maoist to understand.
PS: It's pointless to attempt to taunt me with "my lack of followers among the masses". I'm not the messiah and I'm not looking for disciples. "My" victory will come when the masses reject both their existing rulers and those who seek to rule over them in the name of "communism". In the lottery of history, I don't have to be present to win.
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First posted at Politics Online on November 21, 2002
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Your fingers not tired yet? You keep repeating yourself while I keep trying different ways to get through to you and your comrade.
Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between defeat and failure? The Paris Communards were defeated. The anarcho-syndicalists were defeated.
The Bolsheviks and the Maoists won their civil wars...but did not establish communism. In fact, they failed even though they had state power...their best efforts resulted in the restoration of capitalism.
Doesn't that tell you anything or even suggest any conclusions that might be drawn? Why did your favorite revolutions fail, since they were militarily victorious? Did some evil demon become the Big Gorilla and restore capitalism inspite of these "successful" Leninist parties? Did these parties spontaneously "betray" themselves?
You keep repeating the formula "build on what has worked best"...when what you want to build on didn't work at all.
Just what "birthmarks" of the old (capitalist) society do you think Marx had in mind? That would be an interesting question to explore. What "imperfect means" do you have in mind to deal with this "imperfect world"? That would be another interesting question to explore.
And what do you think Marx meant when he talked about "men who dispose of a certain practical force"? You guys nominating yourselves for that position?
Then, when you speak of leadership, do you mean the power to pursuade the masses or command them? When you speak of the dictatorship of the proletariat, do you mean power in the hands of the working class or in the hands of a small group ruling "on behalf of" the working class?
With the possible exception of Nepal, the masses have clearly not chosen Maoism...though certain groups may have. You understandibly pin your hopes on those groups...Leninism needs a "win" in the worst possible way. If I were there, would I tell people to pass those groups up? Of course I would. Why should I tell people to risk their lives so that Maoists can manage the transition from feudalism/semi-feudalism to capitalism? Which is the only thing you've thus far proved you can do...let the capitalists and their supporters risk their necks for that transition. They are the ones who will benefit...whether you win or not.
The inter-action between chance and necessity is, I'm afraid, a subject beyond you. But thanks for the reading list; I'm a regular at the marxist archives and always glad to re-read the guys who really knew what they were talking about.
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First posted at Politics Online on November 21, 2002
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To clarify: I do not think a viable communist revolution is possible in a predominately peasant-populated country. That hasn't and won't stop people who sincerely believe themselves to be "communists" from attempting and occasionally succeeding in seizing state power...either through an urban coup supported by the small minority of workers (Russia) or through successful peasant insurrection (China).
What can these pseudo-communist regimes do, given that their countries are still semi-feudal? They do what the capitalist class would have done had there been no "communist" revolution. They introduce mass production and mass education, they double the life-expectancy, they crack down on drugs, etc., etc. Everything Russia did and China is doing all took place in England, France, Germany, Japan, the U.S., etc. in the 19th century.
I will pass on arguments over details about which form of modernization is more or less "humane"--it's complicated and the statistics are not reliable. But it seems clear to me that any assertion about how the workers in Russia or China had any real power over matters of significance (as opposed to whether or not to shoot the local landlord)...simply fails for lack of evidence. (With special exceptions: the Soviets apparently had real clout in the period 1917-1920; the Shanghai Commune apparently began to involve the masses in real decision-making power before it was dissolved by Mao.)
Meanwhile, the creation of bouregois means of productions and their reflection in the relations of production (that is, party bosses tell workers to produce surplus value; workers who disobey suffer unpleasant consequences) more or less "naturally" leads to the emergence of a new bourgeosie within the party. The dictatorial powers that the party has already accumulated make it "easy" and even "bloodless" to "switch over" to open capitalism when the time seems appropriate.
(I am very far from being a "theoritician", but I will offer a hypothesis: state-monopoly capitalism is inherently unstable...like one of those huge atoms that scientists have created, it quickly decays back into ordinary monopoly capitalism.)
It's quite possible that you are right about Mao's awareness of the emergence of a new capitalist class and the role of the GPCR in trying to stop or even reverse that trend. But recall Mao's slogan of the last months of the GPCR: "95% of the party cadres are sound" (I don't remember if "sound" was exactly the word used, but you see my point). Those were the cadres who would rush to approve Deng almost before Mao's corpse was cold. (Note that there may have been a few real communists in the GPCR; I read of one wall-poster that proclaimed: 95% of the party cadre are rotten capitalist-roaders. Somebody got it right!)
Thus my crude summary: Mao as a "modernizing emperor" who created a state-monopoly capitalist system; Deng and his successors are a new bourgeoisie "just doing what comes naturally". Of course, in Russia, Lenin and especially Stalin both played Mao's role; Khrushchev and his successors did (more slowly) what Deng did and his successors are doing now. The only real "qualitative" change involved was the change from feudalism/semi-feudalism to monopoly capitalism.
Yes, I reject the rigid version of the two-stage theory of post-capitalist society; first, socialism, then communism. I think Marx and Engels would have done so as well, even though they did speak of a "lower" and "higher" stage of communism. If you'd like an analogy, try this: socialism is a construction shack on a building site; communism is the structure that we are building and actually intend to live in. This means that "socialist" measures are introduced as explicity temporary; communist measures are introduced as explicitly permanent. This also means that at least a few communist measures are introduced at once, on or immediately after the day of the revolution. This also means that public political life is dominated by debate over the transition to communism...not on the best way to furnish a construction shack.
The "dictatorship of the proletariat", if it means what the words say, is the organized power of the working class and definitely not a dictatorship of a self-appointed elite over the working class. Lenin was wrong!
But I do not "blame" him, or Trotsky or Stalin or Mao. They were all sincere revolutionaries. They all believed that they were doing the right thing to some day achieve communism. They were not cynical power-grabbers or capitalist agents or whatever. They were just wrong.
But that was then; this is now. Your group's desire to repeat their mistakes does not speak well of you at all. Since you ought to know better, having these historical examples in front of you, why do you persist in a not-very-well disguised effort to grab power for yourselves? On what grounds does any Leninist/Stalinist/Trotskyist/Maoist group assert its "right" to "lead" (read: command) the masses? How dare you?
The emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves. If Marx was wrong about that, then he was wrong about everything. But if he was right about that, then you are wrong.
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First posted at Politics Online on November 22, 2002
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"Back to square one?" I can't even get past "square one" with you guys!
Just look at how you replied to the first statement of mine you quoted. Did I say "there shouldn't be any class struggle after the revolution"? I did not, but you chose to put (stupid) words in my mouth in order to score debating points. On what basis can I discuss anything with you if you refuse to respond to my real arguments and make up pseudo-arguments that you can then easily "demolish"?
"The class struggle went further" in Russia and China? Further than what? Are you going to seriously maintain that workers under Stalin in 1935 or under Mao in 1970 had more power than workers in Petrograd in 1917 or Paris in 1871???
The "amazing things" accomplished by Russia and China were all likewise accomplished by the bourgeoisie in western countries...they are necessary for the functioning of any modern economy. At most, you might argue that the Leninist pseudo-communists did it a little "faster"--but others might well counter that the Leninist version involved more human pain and suffering in the working class. I won't take a side on that dispute--it's complicated and the statistics are not reliable. What was absent in both Russia and China (except briefly in the Soviets and perhaps the Shanghai Commune) was POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE WORKING CLASS!
See, that's what's really at the heart of all these thousands of words of arguments. What class rules? A self-appointed and self-perpetuating elite can only in the end become a new, capitalist ruling class. I don't care how sincere they are, how dedicated they are, how much they've sacrificed themselves, how many Marxist texts they've read, memorized, or even written...none of that counts against the fact that they command the means of production and, in time, will inevitably come to believe in their right to own those means of production. Being determines consciousness, said Marx, correcting Hegel. I wonder what it will take to correct you?
When the workers elected representatives to the Soviets--elections that were contested by various workers parties--that was working class power, not anarchism; and it was directed against the old ruling class (aristocrats and capitalists did not get to vote). When the CPSU/B began to appoint (de facto or de jure, it doesn't matter which) delegates to the Soviets, that was dictatorship over the working class. In class struggle terms, it was the first faltering and tentative step towards the ultimate restoration of capitalism. Stalin and Trotsky were in it up to their eyebrows; Lenin might be able to avoid some of the responsibility on the grounds of illness...though he surely knew what was going on.
"The working classes in imperialist nations are not and have not been for many years proletarians." I guess you have to say that to justify your peasant ideology. Where are you posting from? Surely not the Kathmandu Internet Cafe???
Enough! My fingers are tired. I'm going to insist that you start responding to what I actually say and quit putting words in my mouth or this discussion is at an end.
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First posted at Politics Online on November 22, 2002
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And here's a more recent post on the same dreadful subject...
Oh, my.
I can't really fault this document for putting an optimistic "spin" on recent events; vanguard parties have the kind of "military mind-set" such that "morale-boosting" speeches to the "troops" are required at regular intervals.
A more realistic assessment would run something like this: the world-wide opposition to U.S. imperialism in Iraq was a small but significant step in the right direction...the task is to deepen and extend it by many orders of magnitude.
Nor can I really dispute the emphasis on forming Maoist vanguard parties in pre-capitalist countries with peasant majorities...they "work." That is, a small and quasi-military group can overcome the old semi-feudal classes and their bourgeois allies by relying on the peasantry as a revolutionary force.
What happens after the conquest of power is less inspiring. When the peasantry wins, that turns out to be a win (sooner or later) for the rich peasantry. A rich progressive peasant evolves into a merchant...who evolves into a capitalist. This may all take place within the context of "state-owned property", but as we have seen in Russia and China, take place it does.
Pre-capitalist countries cannot "skip capitalism"...if Marxism means anything.
As you might imagine from a Maoist document, the advanced capitalist countries are dismissed with a few platitudes. What Maoist parties want from these countries is a body of sympathizers with their groups in pre-capitalist countries. They have no revolutionary perspective for us because none of us are peasants.
The formation of a "Peasant International" (under the banner of communism) would certainly be a new and very strange bird in the political aviary. I have my doubts if something like that would work, but who knows?
"Look to the Himalayas" sounds like a slogan for a travel agency.
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First posted at Che-Lives on April 28, 2003
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