Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 14:52:50 +0100 (MET)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: Re: M-G: Congo: People wins! US govt., Trot etc muppets lose!


Dave B. wrote, on 25.03:

>Rolf exclaims:
>
>> Congo: People wins! US govt., Trot etc muppets lose!
>> [Posted: 24.03.97]
>> 
>> To the subject line I should perhaps add: "So far, at least".
>
>Rolfs excitement about the Kabila forces progress in Zaire is 
>understandable.  He Thinks that "so far" the result is 
>Rolf 1 Trots 0

I don't really know how sincere or not you are, Dave. Your reply
here to my Congo/Zaire posting at any rate is one more typical
example of reactionary Trotskyite propaganda and confusion-
mongering. Typical is also that you bring nothing whatever to 
support you repeated, in reality pro-US-imperialism, fantasies.

So far, actually, the result here above all is: Advantage people,
disadvantage US imperialists & muppets & friends. 

*But* you're right too, in that developments also show: Mao
Zedong adherents 1, Trots (etc) 0, on analysis on this list since
last November.

And this I hope is one more little lesson to subscribers. For
the proletarian revolution, it's necessary that the very
harmful Trotskyite ideology is refuted and abandoned. People
need to learn that Mao's line was and is the correct one.

>Do the people win?  The people win if they can take control of the
>popular struggle against the Mobutu regime and prevent Kabila from 
>setting up another imperialist client regime. 

The people so far obviously *has* control over that struggle.

>Kabila may have a long 
>track record as a rebel,... 

precisely; that's one positive factor too, so far

>but he looks today like any other 
>nationalist leader trying to  win control of the mineral resources of 
>Zaire from the corrupt, dictatorial Mobutu clique, in order to offer 
>his services to imperialism.  

That's bullshit, vilification, with no substance behind it.
*What*, pray, did you base it on?

Another matter is - all know that such things *can* happen in
the future. Again, and again, leaders at certain points have
been bought up and/or have degenerated. But such things can
be countered too by the people.

>In the process, Kabila is using the desire of the masses for 
>democracy to win his war. 

Once again, pro-US-imperialist vilification with no foundation
in fact.

>The problem will come when he turns on the 
>masses having gained power.  He must do so to consolidate his rule 
>and do a deal with one or other imperialist power. 

The Trot US muppets from last November on said that the AFDL
and Kabila *already were* US muppets. Events refuted it. Now
you say they *must* turn into such. This isn't true either.

>There is no room 
>for democracy when it comes to extracting the mineral wealth of the 
>region because the mineral wealth will not go to the `people' but to 
>imperialism and its local bourgeois lackeys..  

But there *is*. History shows it. A new regime in Congo - we're
not there yet - would have have options in this direction even if,
yes, they *will* have to sell the minerals to imperialists.
But they *can* build up some sort or other of democratic institutions,
can base themselves on the masses of people and on international
support too - precisely that support which the Trots all along
have been *trying to take away from them* and will continue to try
to take away from them - and squeeze the imperialists in various
ways. It has been done before.

>We should not take the 
>"troubled" US officials as evidence that the US is against the 
>rebels. 

Oh no? Oh yes! This evidence in this case is very clear.
Apparently you, Dave, are such a diehard that you don't
want to see even this. Then practically nothing will convince you.

>The US is only "troubled" because there is no 100% guarantee 
>that Kabila can deliver the goods. 

Baseless vilification, repeated *third* time here.

>As all revolutionaries know,  an 
>armed people is potentially dangerous, even if they lack class 
>organisation and independence. 
>This is because any popular fight for democracy coming up against 
>imperialism will unleash class forces that may get out of hand.  It 
>is our job to make sure that this happens. 

*Not* yours, Dave - if one is to go by your performance on this
question so far. By that standard, yours is the *very opposite*.

>Therefore, while Kabila is 
>fighting a genuine struggle against Mobutu for democracy we can point 
>our guns in the same direction.

Again, the "we" has no foundation. *You* have been pointing
your guns the other way.

>However, we cannot give him any 
>political support.  To do so would be to become an accomplice in  his 
>bourgeois programme for national unity and independence which we know 
>cannot deliver real democracy or independence from imperialism. 

The typical Trotskyite anti-united front and pro-imperialism
propaganda. Such a programme as you mentioned is not necessarily
only bourgeois. Yor fourth instance of vilification of Kabila's
present policy too, with no foundation behind it.

>Instead revolutionaries have to fight for their armed independence 
>and to mobilise  workers and poor peasants under their own class 
>banner. 

Today, the real revolutionaries should be with the AFDL and
Kabila. What good would a separate army do in the present
situation? This is one more "rrrrrevolutionary" trick in
fact only helping the US imperialists. Real revolutionaries,
it's true, *must* act independently of the bourgeoisie. But
this doesn't mean they shouldn't today be in the AFDL.

During the North American Civil War in the 1860:s, where
were the friends of Marx and Engels? In the Union army under
(the undoubtedly bourgeois) Abraham Lincoln. You in fact, 
Dave B., are functioning like some emissary of the slave-owners' Confederacy....

>Our object is such a situation should be to  form independent 
>multi-ethnic militias so that Kabila cannot use the rebel forces as 
>his military fodder. 

*Not* yours, Dave. And vilification #5.

>When it becomes clear that Kabila is trying to 
>form another bourgeois regime,.....

...baseless vilification #6...

>then an independent militia of workers 
>and poor peasants can remove him and proceed to take power.  
>Otherwise Kabila, as a `left' nationalist will disarm the militia and 
>do a deal with imperialism like Mandela in South Africa at best, or 
>turn on the militia and destroy it like the KMT in China at worst.. 

...and #7...

In China - rembember that revolution? -, Mao & friends *did*
go into a united front with that KMT in the 1930:s, even *after*
it indeed had massacred the people in the late 20s as a result
of mistakes then, and this was a prerequisite for their eventual
vistory, precisely opposed by the Trotskyites. True, This was
based on independent proletarian armed forces, which it had then
become possible and necessary to build. 

>If Rolf wants a South African solution in Zaire he should say so.

That phoney"radical" talk again. The very broad anti-apartheid
struggle which went on for decades eventually did lead to
Mandela's regime, which - true enough - is showing some very
bad sides *but* which if course was an important step forward
compared to what was before.

>He 
>should also point out the probability that this will lead to another 
>bourgeois regime every bit as reactionary as Mobutu's. 

The *possibility* is there. "Probablity" is *bullshit* of the
already many-times-infamous Trot variety.

>Trotskyists on 
>the contrary, fight for a permanent revolution which will put the 
>workers and poor peasants in power. 
>
>Dave.

Nope. They, or some of them, may think they do. And on my part,
I've been in some united fronts with certain Trots and also others,
against racism and Nazi small groups here in Sweden for instance, 
with not bad results at all. But in reality, the Trot ideology as 
a whole makes for "permanent" leading the masses astray, precisely 
into the jaws of ultra-reaction.

Rolf M.



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