File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-03-29.115, message 28


Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 07:11:52 +0100 (MET)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #31en: 5/8 What c. Adolfo's riddles hide


UNITE! Info #31en: 5/8 What c. Adolfo's riddles hide
[Posted: 29.03.97]

[Continued from part 4/8]

MY 1994 CRITICISM OF THE REACTIONARY
"RIM DECLARATION"

The following criticism of the so-called "Declaration of the RIM"
completely unmasks and refutes that declaration, which was
firts published in 1984 and has since been translated into more
than 20 languages, as a phoney, reactionary document, which
in reality vilely attacks Mao Zedong's correct line.

It was first published, as the last part of the article "Why Does 
the RIM Help U.S. Imperialism Encircle the PCP?", in my 8-page 
English-language leaflet "INFORMATIONSBLAD No. 24 Eng" on 12.08. 
1994, and later posted on the Net on 01.01.1996 as "UNITE! Info 
#3en". I reproduce it here from part 3/3 of that Info.


[From "UNITE! #3en", part 3/3, 01.01.1996:]

*The Revolutionary Line of Mao Zedong and of the Former KPD/ML
(NEUE EINHEIT), and the Phoney"Marxist" Declaration of the RIM*

The RIM Declaration of 1984 contains some vicious open attacks
on (at least formerly) well-known correct principles of Marxism 
and some flagrant untruths about the then existing situation in 
the world and recent history, including omissions of vital facts. 
It's difficult to see how these things could have been the results 
of even gross ignorance on the part of its authors.

With particular fury, the Declaration attacks Mao Zedong's 
extremely successful foreign policy of a united front against 
imperialism in general and against one or two superpowers in 
particular. By the 1960:s, U.S. imperialism had long been the main
protagonist of reaction. Such imperialist former big powers as 
Great Britain, Germany, France and Japan could no longer 
compete for hegemony. Mao Zedong correctly analyzed them as 
belonging to an intermidary zone between the then only hegemonic 
power and the socialist countries. 

In the well-known "A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the 
International Communist Movement" of 1963, one of the CPC 
documents of "the Great Polemics" unmasking Soviet revisionism, 
he correctly urged the working-class in the capitalist countries 
which U.S. imperialism was controlling or trying to control to 
"direct their attacks mainly against U.S. imperialism but also 
against their own monopoly capitalists and other reactionary
forces who are betraying the national interests".

For heaven's sake, no!, the Declaration cries out (p. 23, English
version). We're all for Mao Zedong, of course, but that was one of 
his mistakes! Imperialist countries, you see, can have *no* 
legitimate "national interests" but *only* imperialist ones. Mao 
Zedong's "erroneous" view "seriously affected the development of 
the Marxist-Leninist movement in these countries". It also "had a 
long history in the international communist movement", and it 
definitely "should be broken with" (p. 23). You must never 
advocate such united fronts against one or two superpowers!

Mao Zedong's view did have a long history in the communist
movement. As all who have had to use Marxism to fight back 
against the attacks by phoney"Marxist" helpers of imperialism 
and social-imperialism on this point know, it was precisely the 
correct view of Lenin, too. His "The Discussion on Self-
Determination Summed Up", for instance (in Collected Works, 
Vol. 22), written in 1916 in the middle of the then raging 
imperialist war, was aimed precisely at refuting the view of some 
Dutch and Polish socialists that there could be "no" *national* 
wars, at least not in Europe, in the imperialist period and that 
it was "impermissible" ever to support the national independence 
of an imperialist country. He wrote, i.a.:

"If Belgium, let us say, is annexed by Germany in 1917, and in 
1918 revolts to secure her liberation, the Polish comrades will be
against her revolt on the grounds that the Belgian bourgeoisie 
posess 'the right to oppress foreign peoples'! - There is nothing
Marxist or even revolutionary in this argument. If we do not want 
to betray socialism we *must* support *every* revolt against our 
chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not 
the revolt of a reactionary class."

Was this unknown to the RIM Declaration's authors? If you read
some of the many articles and books by the chairman of and one
other "theoretician" (RW/OR) of the RCP, USA, comrades Bob 
Avakian and Raymond Lotta, you can see that they at least are 
very well read in the works of Marx and Lenin. Did they have a 
hand in, in 1984? This is unknown but does seem likely. Anyway, 
calling that Declaration "Marxist-Leninist" is a lie.

China's successful foreign policy under the leadership of Mao
Zedong, which helped the proletariat in the world and the 
oppressed peoples and nations enormously and which gave 
China itself an international prestige which was never greater 
than in 1976, was one of the important achievements of the 
Chinese revolution in general and of the Great Proletarian 
Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, in particular, which made the 
leadership remain in the hands of the revolutionary proletariat.

The last five years even have seen an enormous "posthumous victory", 
so to speak, of that foreign policy. By 1974, the situation in the 
world described above had developed further so that, against a 
rising tide of national liberation struggles in or by countries 
of the third world, of revolutionary struggles by the masses in 
many other countries as well and even some struggles by 
capitalist/imperialist countries to shake off foreign domination, 
the entire imperialist system was being upheld mainly by two 
superpowers, which also were contending with each other for 
hegemony, Soviet social-imperialism and U.S. imperialism.

Mao Zedong in that year presented his famous and correct 
analysis of the countries' in the world being divided into three 
groups, three worlds, neither then nor later forgetting the class 
struggle continuing also within the different countries, never 
ceasing to advocate revolutionary war as the way for the 
proletariat to seize power. 

And he was at that time already advocating the forging of a 
broad international united front against the two superpowers, 
in particular against social-imperialism, and later sought to 
include not only small and medium-sized imperialist countries, 
those of the second world, but even certain forces of U.S. 
imperialism into a united front against Soviet social-imperialism 
as the then most dangerous source of war, which had put its 
economy on a military footing and above all was threatening an 
aggression against Western Europe.

The danger of a war in Europe being started by social-
imperialism was a very serious threat in the mid-'70:s. Mao 
Zedong's China and, in Europe itself, above all the KPD/ML
(NEUE EINHEIT), whose genuinely proletarian revolutionary 
character enabled it to see the facts, persistently warned about 
it, while almost the entire bourgeoisie pretended there was 
"detente". 

When the Russian new tsarists could not realize their hegemonic 
plans, their entire empire got into increasing difficulties and by 
1989 started to crack. The masses oppressed by it revolted.

The recent partial downfall of that pillar of reaction, Soviet 
social-imperialism and social-fascism, on the whole greatly has 
improved the world situation. This upheaval also has caused 
further economic misery but it will in the long run be very beneficial 
for the peoples of the world. Bourgeois leaders as one man are 
calling it "a defeat of communism". That's a good one. Most of 
those people licked social-imperialism's boots while Mao Zedong 
and his adherents told all how like Hitler fascism it was.


 *"Never Unite the Many to Defeat the Few!"* 
 *"Superpower Lackeys Are the Real Revolutionaries!"*

Even more loudly than at Mao Zedong's correct analysis of the
world situation in the '60:s, the RIM Declaration howls at his 
correct analysis of the situation in the '70:s and at the immensely 
important foreign policy decisions which followed from it, which 
were intensely disliked by that group within U.S. imperialism which 
had connived at the social-imperialists' aggressive plans because 
they suited its own counterrevolutionary aims.

These decisions weren't Mao Zedongs's at all, you see! It was "the
revisionists" in China who then "to a large degree" "controlled" its
diplomacy! (p. 25) (Precisely when in fact Chairman Mao was
receiving more foreign heads of state than ever, precisely when 
more people than ever listened to his words.) 

And to advocate unity of the third world was "all wrong"! To 
portray countries of the second world as intermidate forces was 
even - "counterrevolutionary"! "The Marxist-Leninists" (who? - 
perhaps the above-mentioned "uncle" comrades Avakian and 
Lotta, who both had published books with such attempts) have 
"correctly refuted" the "revisionist slander" that "the 'Three 
Worlds Theory' was put forward by" Mao Zedong! (p. 25) It was 
indeed a "nasty" theory to the superpowers and their helpers.

Here again, one basic principle of this Declaration stands out: By
no means should there be a united front against those reactionary
forces in the world which at the time are the most dangerous! This
"principle" is being upheld by today's "RIMlers", too.

The Declaration does contain many phrases which may look
very revolutionary. It even repeats some important truths, 
including *some* of those extremely important principles 
concerning inner-party struggle which were stressed by the 
Documents of the 10th Congress of the Communist Party of 
China (CPC), in 1973. However, it never refers directly to those 
Documents, which, like practically all the other very important 
CPC documents of the 1966-76 period, the RIM has always 
been discouraging people from studying in the original. And, 
significantly, it leaves one thing out which, i.a., precisely 
hits at the RIM's line:

"It is imperative to note that one tendency covers another. The
opposition to Chen Tu-Hsiu's Right opportunism which advocated 
'all alliance, no struggle' covered Wang Ming's 'Left' opportunism 
which advocated 'all struggle, no alliance'. The rectification of 
Wang Ming's 'Left' deviation covered Wang Ming's Right 
deviation. The struggle against Liu Shao-chi's revisionism 
covered Lin Piao's revisionism." (CPC's 10th Congress, Zhou 
Enlai's report, Peking Review 35-36/1973, p. 21)

This element, one tendency covering another, also was present in
the struggle within the CPC at that time and played a significant 
role in the later overthrow of socialism in China, in 1976-78. Here, 
too, the RIM Declaration grossly falsifies the demonstrable facts 
of what happened, this time in order to justify the admiration which 
the RIM has always tried making people feel for its quite particular 
"heroes", the phoney"leftist", in reality ultra-rightist, group of 
persons who had degenerated into becoming, i.a., superpower 
lackeys, known as the "Gang of Four".

The "gang" was named so by Mao Zedong, who in 1974 repeatedly 
urged them to stop functioning as a such. Their leader, Jiang 
Qing, in 1972 already, through a series of secret unauthorized 
interviews with historian Roxane Witke, had started seeking U.S. 
support for herself as "Dowager Empress" after Mao Zedong's death. 
Even better suited their line social-imperialism. 

The CPC's CC's two decisions, proposed by Mao Zedong, on 
7.4.1976 to dismiss the publicly criticized openly-rightist Deng 
Xiaoping and to appoint Hua Guofeng First Vice-Chairman also 
hit the "gang", whose member Zhang Chunqiao had "outranked" 
Hua Guofeng but was "bypassed" as less to be trusted.

Mao Zedong at CPC meetings towards the end of his life 
repeatedly sharply criticized not only Deng Xiaoping and his 
"right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts" of 1975-76
but also Jiang Qing's phoney"left" reactionary line, explicitly 
warning against her "wild ambitions" of "becoming CPC chairman" 
and even saying: "After I die, she will make trouble".

This the Gang of Four did. Less than a month after Mao Zedong's
death (9.9.1976) they attempted a coup to seize power.


*How Was Socialism Overthrown in China, How Did the Marxist-
Leninists Analyze This and What Has Been the RIM's Fairy Tale
About It?*

 The phoney"left" gang was dealt a decisive blow and its coup
attempt foiled when all its four members were arrested on 6.10.
1976 by the forces of of Hua Guofeng, who publicly promised to
continue Mao Zedong's line completely and thus also continue 
the criticism against the "traditional"-rightist Deng Xiaoping.

This blow against the long-hated Gang of Four, therefore, 
received massive and enthusiastic support from the Chinese 
people and also from genuinely Marxist-Leninist forces abroad.

But the RIM, e.g. in its Declaration (pp. 25-27), portrays this blow
as "the counterrevolutionary coup d'e'tat in China". This "theory" 
is not only obviously very strange, it also defies the facts. 

How could suddenly, in revolutionary China, a coup d'e'tat have 
succeeded without at least great turmoil; why wasn't there mass 
resistance against the action hitting Mao Zedong's "closest 
comrades in arms"(!), as the Declaration calls the gang? 

What really is inferred here, together with the untruth that China's 
diplomacy "to a large degree" was controlled by revisionists, is: 
The great beacon of the early '70:s, China, was "half revisionist". 
It's pure fantasy, aimed at promoting "Gang-of-Four-ism" today.

What actually took place was that Deng Xiaoping's right-
deviationist group utilized the damage caused and threatened 
by the phoney"left" clique and the intense hatred it caused, to 
further their own purposes step by step, secretly being joined by 
Hua Guofeng's group, who as early as in November, 1976, started 
breaking their promise wholly to uphold Mao Zedong's line.

One revolutionary party in the world - as far as I know - analyzed
this correctly: the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) in Germany. Comrade 
Gonzalo's PCP (fraction), for instance, never did show an 
understanding of it. It never distanced itself from the Gang of 
Four and, even before its "RIM days", held some correspondingly 
phoney"left" views on international issues.

Such a stand, as taken by an isolated revolutionary party in a
comparatively backward country like Peru, may well be judged 
to be an honest and relatively harmless mistake.

It takes on a different character when propagandized 
internationally and systematically since 1984 by an entity such as 
the RIM. This all comrades inside or outside the RIM must see.


*The RIM's Utter Silence on a Historic Reverse by the Bourgeoisie, 
Led by U.S. Imperialism, and What This Reverse Must Mean*

During the decade before the RIM Declaration was written, a 
series of mutually interconnected issues had risen to great
importance, at least in Europe: The extremely reactionary anti-
growth, anti-nuclear-energy, anti-science, anti-technology and 
anti-industry campaigns instigated by the most right-wing 
bourgeoisie, including the revisionists, in general and by U.S. 
imperialism in particular. And it was the preceding 
phoney"Marxists" who had provided and misled those groups of 
ignorant people who supported these assaults on vital interests 
of the masses, mainly under the upside-down pretext of 
"environmental protection".

These attacks, which continue today, with ever more bourgeois
forces behind them, stem from the bourgeoisie's fear that the
technological and industrial development might make conditions
ripe for a revolutionary workers' movement which would endanger
their entire rule in the world. Marx even noted the beginnings of 
this fear some 140 years ago, pointing out: "Steam, electricity 
and spinning machine were revolutionaries of a much more 
dangerous character than even the citizens Barbe*s, Raspail and 
Blanqui." (Speech in London, 14.4.1856)

Today the bourgeoisie on certain vital points already completely
have reversed their earlier striving for more and more industry, 
better and better technology. In most so-called "advanced" 
countries, they are retreating from nuclear energy, in part even 
>from the use of oil; they are advancing backwards into the coal 
age, even into the windmill age, are systematically creating mass 
unemployment and tearing down earlier welfare systems.

Clearly, all this calls for radical counterattack by the Marxist-
Leninists. Such has been delivered by one, only one, party, the
KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT), which thereby also, when it was still
revolutionary, gruesomely further unmasked the earlier phoney-
"Marxists". And what do the RIM and its Declaration say on this
enormous subject? Not one word. Again, the RIM's standpoint 
greatly pleases, above all, U.S. imperialism, which is engineering
anti-nuclear-energy campaigns and other foul things in the world 
and greatly fears those counterattacks against them which only 
our ideology, actual Marxism, makes possible.

In order also to reverse the reversal, the proletariat must strike
down the bourgeoisie's rule in the world completely, and the 
genuine Marxist-Leninists must begin do do some uniting.

[So far the extract from my 1994 article, posted on 01.01.1996.]

[Continued in part 6/8]



     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005