Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 21:52:34 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: 


Leszek writes to Malecki;

>        Well, I never painted up the Eastern block countries as "some sort
>of horror story and especially Poland!" Of course not! And fortunately
>not! Peo ple were born here, they grew up and died just like anywhere else
>in the world. They were rid of certain rights, e.g. free speech, trade
>unions, access to free media(i.e. bourgeouis ones), travelling abroad
>(i.e. to the capitalist countrie s), demonstrations, privacy(your home
>could be broken into any time by the Secret Police), true history and the
>like trivia. These things need not be considered important because, in the
>words of Carl Marx, being precedes consciousness (I'm sorry if I've
>rendered the maxim inexactly). Are you trying to imply that the meat
>ration is the decisive factor in establishing whether you live in "some
>sort of horror story" or not? Sorry for being malicious, but we really are
>not at Sotheby's! I know the tragic statistics for the Third World. And
>the question I often ask myself is: whose fault is it? Let me draw your
>att ention to one country: former Rodesia now Zimbabwe. What has happened
>to this once so rich and resourceful country? It seems that once they got
>rid of wretched colonialis ts and started following certain Marxist
>economic solutions, they've managed to drag their own country from the top
>to the bottom of the list in Africa! But this is just off the record, as
>that has hardly anything to do with the topic. 

Actually the meat rations are a fairly important question. But I will get 
back to that later on. You point to Zimbawe as and example of "marxist 
solutions" which have thrown it to the bottom of the list. In fact Zimbawi 
was hardly ever Marxist and in fact the solutions you talk about after the 
gurreillas took power were first in a situation where a state of war stilll 
existed with the then Aparthied South africa. In fact the Cubans did play a 
fairly important role in this difficult period. And despite the bureaucratic 
planning, the military support from the Cubans and the dependency on the 
still then Soviet Unionn it was a better solution then aparthied. This 
concretely means for "real" Marxists that we were for the military victory 
of Zimbawi and the ANC against the aparthied regime while at the same time 
did not give one ounce of political support to the Black nationalist 
guerillas backed up by the Cuban and Russian stalinists. Communist do 
however take sides when the guns come out even knowing that the Soviet Union 
used the African states not as models of a correct marxist economic planning 
connected to proletarian Internationalism and extending the revolution 
throughout Africa with a strategy of drawing the Black South African 
Proletariat into the struggle. But the Stalinists saw these states as client 
states and wanted to bureaucratically control the situation from the 
beginning. The Stalinists are always ready to make a deal with im,perialism 
and certainly would have been prepared to trade these African states for 
peaceful coexistence and keeping the east European block countries in their 
sphere. It did not turn out that way and in fact those African countries who 
were dependent on Soviet Economic help like Zimbawi are in deep shit today 
just like Cuba is! 

But you Lezek are taking the easy way out and siding with something worse 
imperialism and its fake democracy. In fact many of the realities of the 
Eastern European Stalinist regimes which you mention above exist in every 
western country to one degree or another. And for millions of people the 
"meat" question is pretty decisive when you live under the starvation level 
as 30 million Americans do in the United States. If you look at some of the 
statistics  you will see that the United States on most key questions lie 
lower then any of the western counties and I would not be surprised the 
Eastern block countries of the then Stalinist regimes. So the price for 
"democracy" for some people is pretty fucking high. In fact I will send you 
a short piece which I call "Lumpen Rage" which describes some of the 
incredible stuff poor and working class people have to experience in your 
model democracies in this case America where I grew up as a Pollack. Not to 
mention some of the incredible conditions in the slaughter houses in Chicago 
during the early 1900,s where mostly Pollacks were employed. Because of the 
"Meat Question"..

>        Another thing you wrote - "In fact the Catholic Church wants to
>reintroduce forbidding abortions (If they have not done it already)". The
>right to abortion was granted by the Parliament in November/December 1996.
>The Catholic church naturally opposed it. So did about 10 million people
>in over 3 million petitions which had flooded the Parliament before the
>crucial session. Most petitions were signed by your beloved working class
>members. How about that? Do you smell any menshevik agents among the
>working class who managed to successfully deaden the working class
>instincts of the petition writers? What is more, according to the new
>abortion law, all Polish citizens, even those who oppose the new law, will
>have to pay for the right of every single woman to have an abortion
>because abortions will be "sponsored" by the state budget! I understand
>that there are people who can't see anything wrong about abortion, but it
>does not mean that if they want to introduce such a forbidding law, it has
>to be financed by its opponents as well! Which reminds me of my main point
>- the right of choice.

The Menshevism in the above is in fact capitulating to the effect that the 
reactionary Chatholic Church has over the masses. They supported the 
Solidarnisc' to get rid of the Stalinists only to impose new medevil chains 
on poor and working class people who mistakenly thought that the Chatholic 
church stands on their side. The Chatholic church has always supported 
repressive imperialist, capitalist and Monarchist regimes to in fact keep 
poor and working class people in chains. So a Menshevik usually in order to 
be with the "masses" is usually prepared to not take a principled position 
on the right for women to decide about their own bodies. And in fact if what 
you are saying is true then that is great! Of course society should be 
responsible for the health of women and the freedom of choice is the 
question of a woman deciding if she wants to have an abortion or not. I mean 
you would not be saying that smokers who get cancer should not be treated 
with money of people who don,t smoke claiming the "right" to choose would you?

>        Another thing. You wrote that "For Communists the problem is put
>in freeing people from this medieval institution". If by "this medieval
>institution" you happen to mean the family, then you're simply mistaken,
>as the family, fortunately, has been in existence for more than 500 years. 
<snip>

When it comes to the family as and institution you defend it. I say that the 
family is something else entirely. Well we have a big difference here Lezek! 
 So perhaps we should be more concrete and take up the question in 
relationship to for example child uppbringing.Schools, daycare centers, 
healthcare for example. I think that we could start here and talk about the 
above in relationship to collective responsibility verses the family 
responsibility. Is this the absolute private property of individuals in 
society or the collective responsibility of the whole. Is their positive and 
negatiuve consequences to the two forms etc. How do women vis a vis men view 
this stuff? Then perhaps we can draw others into this discussion and see 
where it takes us.

Finally once again I see you grasping for solutions that are what you think 
are in "your" interests but in fact have become a pawn in institutions and 
systems of another sort. Your motivation is your hate of the Stalinist 
regimes who in fact use many of the same kind of tactics to impose their 
bureaucratic rule as the capitalists do to enforce their economic rule. And 
you are doing this under the cover of the "right" to choose. In fact the 
choices overed you are in fact made by institutions whose only interest is 
to in the final analisis oppress poor and working class rule either for 
their *own* economic priviledge or their *own* bureaucratic priviledges!

Actually you are being sucked into the old trap about being given the 
"right" to decide the color of the curtains while everything else is decided 
by either the capitalists or in your case the former Stalinist bureaucrats 
that you obviously hate. But the only real solution is overthrowing 
capitalism and in the case of the former Soviet Union then was a political 
revolution against the priviledged Stalinist bureaucracy.

PS:  the piece "Lumpen rage" which I mentioned above I will send in a 
private letter.

Bob Malecki 
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