Date: Sun, 22 Dec 1996 13:32:46 -0500
From: Vladimir Bilenkin <"achekhov-AT-unity.ncsu.edu"-AT-ncsu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-G: Re: M-I: MRTA Has History Of High-Profile Attacks


Rolf Martens wrote:
> 
> Vladimir B. wrote:
> 
> >Rolf Martens wrote:
> >
> >> As for "left", there are TWO KINDS of such: 1) genuine, 2) fake.
> >> The "MRTA" by no means is "further to the left" than the PCP
> >> (an organization which I judge to be at least in the main
> >> *genuinely* revolutionary, though it does support some
> >> reactionary things too). The "MRTA", for instance, says "Cuba
> >> is socialist" and "the former Soviet Union was socialist",
> >> doesn't it? Therefore, it's unlikely that on the whole it's
> >> really on the side of the people. These things are not all
> >> "black-and-white" either of course, but on the whole, one
> >> must suspect that the MRTA is being used as a pawn by some
> >> reactionaries.
> >
> >Do they really say these awful things in public?! Ha, the reactionaries have
> >indeed unmasked themselves. Let's hope Fujimore will squash this
> anti-proletarian
> >conspiracy. The other day I heard some specialists from nearby Fort Braggs
> >flew to Lima to help him. I may buy flowers to greet them upon return. Thanks
> >Rolf, good show.
> >
> >Vladimir
> 
> Well, you see, Vladimir, that it sometimes does happen in
> real life that some reactionaries first pull some
> strings to launch a certain very rrrevolutionary action,
> and then send some people on "the other" side to shoot at it.
> The era of imperialism and - not to forget - social-imperialism
> has contained many such instances already, and if full of
> conspiracies of many sorts.

	I am not into conspiracy stuff. Traditionally, this sense of history 
has been cultivated by the ruling classes. It is in their interests to mystify it.

> And do *you* really think that the hostages-taking action in
> Lima will produce any result that will help the struggle of
> the masses in Peru?

I don't know this. Neither do you.  All I know is that those people in
the embassy are risking their lives to save their comrades from Fujimore's
torturers; that the people they hold hostage are not workers and peasants
but their mortal class enemies. I don't need anything more to know not to
say a single bad word about these people, especially at a moment when they're
under the direct military and propaganda attack.

I also think that the forms of struggle like this one have their place and
function in the tradition of the oppressed. An act of revolutionary histrionics
in the moment of deep demoralization of the masses may have a beneficial 
psychological effect and cheer them up. The bourgeoisie has its Rembos, teflon
and real. Why can't the oppressed have their Robin Hoods? 


> Speaking of conspiracies, I believe you once wrote something
> sensible, namely that you held that the line of "sustainable
> development" was a US imperialist conspiracy (well, I don't use
> that exact word and you didn't either), a trick at any rate,
> designed to curtail industrial development and combat the
> workers. on this we do agree, in that case. Couldn't you
> enlarge a bit on your views concerning this?
> 

I didn't study this issue in  any depth. But from what I read and heard the
sustained development line is an ideological ploy and perhaps a viable
strategy to enhance the neoliberal mode of exploitation on a global
scale.  In essence, as I see it, the intended goal is to preserve and to deepen
the integration of backward countries into the production/exploitation regime
of the advanced capitalist system without modernizing them. Industrialization
takes place but is limited by its dependent character, both technologically
and as export-oriented, surrounded by the sea of semi-barbaric modes of existence
and economic activity. It does not form a harmonious self-sufficient productive
base, cannot be "de-linked" from metropolitan production. Accordingly, 
consumption has the same pattern of dependency and backwardness. The export-
oriented, technologically advanced islands of production form the enclaves of
relative prosperity surrounded by the world of primitive want. Relative is the
word. For only by "sustaining" the "development" of backwardness and poverty 
of society as a whole, metropolitan capital can provide a sufficient wage
differential,i.e. enough of motivation for the labor it employs in such society 
and at the same time to preserve and even increase the enourmous differential 
in wages re metropolitan labor.  And we are talking not only about industrial
but intellectual production as well. The US company settlements of native computer
programmers in India, or Russian scientific research institutions employed
by western capital are the pockets of relative prosperity in their respective
countries and yet they generate enourmous profits since the cost of labor is 50-
100 times less than in the metropoly.  If the backwardness of these countries is
gone so are the profits. Western productivity without western level of consumption -
this is the essence of "sustained development." To enhance backwardness is to 
stabilize it economically and politically, to give it a more decent and self-
sufficient character. Some expendatures are necessary here. It's worthwhile to
invest a little money to imrove water supply and to prmote local crafts in a
Philipino village so that the village young man don't join the revolutionary
war.  For what is at stake here is the very existence of the imperialist 
system that allows to sustain the acceptable rates of profit.

Vladimir



For sustained development is one of the catch ideologemes and set
of practices that are intended to facilitate the extraction of surplas value by


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