Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 11:43:00 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #27en: 2/5 Who fights "green" fascism?


UNITE! Info #27en: 2/5 Who fights "green" fascism?
[Posted: 02.02.97]

[Continued from part 1/5]

HOW - IF IN ANY WAY - MIGHT PROLETARIAN FORCES
ENTER INTO AN ALLIANCE ON CERTAIN POINTS WITH THE
LAROUCHE GROUP OR OTHER BOURGEOIS FORCES?

In the first place, I'd like to point out that I don't think that there's
much basis for any closer concrete co-operation between the
Marxists, on the one hand, and "the LaRouche people", on the
other. This is because of the respective parts' quite opposing standpoints
concerning the proletarian revolution and because
today, the contradiction between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie is so acute.

And it's a basic tenet of Marxism of course that those forces who
want to represent the interests of the proletariat, however small
and seemingly insignificant they are, must *never coalesce* with
bourgeois forces but must always uphold the principle of the
necessarily *self-dependent* organising of the proletariat, this
also in such cases where they perhaps enter into alliances with
non-proletarian forces on certain points. They mustn't let such
forces decide for them.

But the possibility of alliances of the type mentioned of course
should not on principle be negated either. And in this particular
case, I shall tell you, Jacques - and others too -, what I, as an
individual who's trying to act as a political representative of the
proletariat, concretely have done so far. (See below.)

In what you recently wrote:

>And to Rolf: how can you explain that a counter-revolutionary >organization
as this one can have some good points? Maoism
>is intransigent against all the reactionaries....

there seems to me to lie a certain questioning of the possibility
for Marxists in general to enter into alliances on certain points
with bourgeois forces against the very worst reactionaries. But
such alliances of course on principle were always advocated by
Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong.

In my "UNITE! Info #3en", for instance, I quoted what Lenin wrote
in 1916 against some Polish and Dutch socialists who made the
mistake of saying that it was "always" "impermissible" to support
the national independence of imperialist bourgeois countries:

 "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."

This I quoted against the reactionary "RIM Declaration" of 1984,
which vilifies Mao Zedong's line and quite openly says that this
important principle of Lenin's, which Mao Zedong upheld too,
absolutely "should be broken with". The Chinese communists of
course quite correctly went into an alliance with the forces of
Jiang Kaishek in the 1930s, against the Japanese imperialist
invaders. The then socialist Soviet Union correctly allied itself with
the undoubtedly imperialist countries the United States and Britain
against aggressive Hitler fascism and its friends in World War II.

These respective bourgeois allies of course did have some
good points, in that they were against the very worst or most
dangerous reactionaries at the time. Only the Trotskyites went
against such alliances, clamouring that they were "intransigent"
against "all reactionaries" and that, e.g., the war efforts of such a
country as the USA "under *all* circumstances must be opposed",
which then in reality meant that in WW II, they *helped Hitler & co*.

Since the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoi-
sie of course is an antagonistic one, the Marxists on principle
indeed should also be intransigent against all bourgeois forces.
But this doesn't mean that they cannot ally themselves on certain
points with some such forces against the very worst of them.


A CRITICISM OF THE  "SOCIALISME MAINTENANT!" ARTICLE
"LE CAPITALISME ET LA CRISE DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT"

(Or "Capitalism and the Crisis of the Environment", in the special
supplement to the issue No. 2 (49), Vol. 7, July 1992, of the
newspaper of the group Action Socialiste, Canada - which I'm
grateful to comrade Jacques Beaudoin, AS, for having mailed
me a copy of in November last year)

This article was considered as a quite important one by your
organization, Jacques, as readers of it were informed by an
introductory note which i.a. said that it in its entirety constituted a
resolution adopted by the 4th Congress of the Action Socialiste,
held in June, 1992, and that it laid the basis for a position of the
AS on the questions of the environment, of the "wasting of the
natural resources" ("le gaspillage des ressources") and of the
"environmentalist" or "green" political trend ("l'écologie politique").

The note also said that "it is with pleasure" that the editors are
publishing the result of their reflections - an article of 8 newspaper
pages, corresponding in length to some 16 A4 pages - now that
"the commotion over the holding of the summit meeting in Rio
de Janeiro" (the imperialists' so-called "Earth Summit", and in
fact their biggest ever, in June, 1992) "has not yet dissipated".

In fact this is an extremely reactionary article - whatever may be
the causes of this character which it has. Your organization is
chiming in precisely in that mendacious propaganda which was
disseminated by the very worst reactionaries in the world at that
Rio meeting, only now cloaked in the terms of a completely
upside-down "version" of Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong
Thought, with i.a. a number of rather long quotes from the writings
of Marx, Engels and Lenin included to "support" the article's
"conclusions" (which they don't support at all), so that the AS is
selling that poisonous "medicine" to its members and to the
general public under a false and indeed opposite label.

All honest comrades must criticize that article most severely,
Jacques. They must study the actually Marxist writings on the
questions of principle involved - writings of which there in fact are
a number - and strive to get the facts straight on those technical-
scientific issues on which the article time and again is repeating
some of the most absurd bourgeois-ultra-rightist lies dissemina-
ted by the mass media of the imperialists.


*Where to find the really Marxist standpoint on and criticism of
the bourgeoisie's strivings, and some pointers for fact-finding*

On the question of why the main bourgeois forces today
seemingly are so preoccupied with questions "concerning the
environment" and a purported "waste of natural resources" and
what stand the proletarian revolutionary forces should really take
in relation to this, I can recommend a few things that are on the
Net already:

Firstly, a speech held by Marx in London on 14.04.1856 - yes, he
even at that time had seen through that element in bourgeois
society that was, 136 years later, to come out so extremely clearly,
under the much further developed conditions then, as the *real*
main point of the Rio summit. I brought it on 27.07.96 as "UNITE!
Info #5en" and it can also be found in the Marx-Engels archive at
<http://www.marx.org>.

Secondly, an article in Peking Review No. 4/76, of 31.01.1976 -
thus, from the then socialist China of Mao Zedong - "Human
Cognizance and Utilization of Energy Sources is Never-Ending",
posted by me on 18.01.97 in "UNITE! Info #26en".

And thirdly, an article of my own, largely based on the analysis by
the earlier KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) in Germany and posted on
21.03.96 as "UNITE! Info #4en: A barbaric anti-industry attack". 

With that Info I also brought as an appendix the important so-called
Heidelberg Appeal, signed by a considerable number of scientists
and originally published precisely in connection with the start of
the Rio summit, whose "conclusions" it indirectly sharply criticizes.
I shall include this Appeal in the present Info too, as part 5/5 of it.

It so happens that it was a representative of the Schiller Institute in
Stockholm, which is one of the organizations of the LaRouche
group, who in 1995 finally provided me with the full text of that
document, after I vainly had been looking for it in the "mainstream"
media and magazines for some three years. Though the political
views of that representative and those which I have long had of
course are different and in vital respects opposed to each other,
this was one small fact contributing to my later writing that "his"
group does have some positive points.

I also was recommended by him some reading which I indeed
have found to be quite informative, despite my disagreement of
course with the political line that this material also contains and
despite the obvious necessity of checking on the information in
it, as on that in all other material: For instance the magazine "21st
Century (Science and Technology)" published in Washington,
USA, (I'm subscribing) and the really quite revealing book, con-
cerning certain aspects of the "environmentalist" "movement",
written by R. A. Maduro and R. Schauerhammer in 1992: "The
Holes in the Ozone Scare". Together with this representative of
the Schiller Institute, and with some other individual members of
the (non-party-political) association in Sweden Environmental
Friends For Nuclear Power (MFK) too, I earlier this month sent
some motions to the coming annual meeting of this association.

What I've mentioned immediately above here constitutes the
concrete extent of what one might call an "alliance" of mine with
the LaRouche group or with representatives of it.

It's also a notable fact, among other things, that its publications
now and then contain articles by some scientific experts who
obviously are not adherents of Lyndon LaRouche's theories on
society etc but who simply are having difficulties in making their findings
known otherwise, because of their being "uncomfortable"
to the "green" Inquisition.

Below, I shall at a couple of points also refer to the writings of
that group, when scrutinizing various statements in the 1992
Action Socialiste article. And on the questions discussed there,
at least, it's *not* the LaRouche group's writers that are taking
up the really ultra-rightist positions, but precisely those of the AS.

Some sources of information which I'd also recommend in this
context - again, without my necessarily agreeing with all views
expressed there or wanting to guarantee the correctness of all
the information given - are the home pages of, respectively, the
MFK (Sweden) mentioned above, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.,
USA, and John McCarthy, Computer Science Department,
Stanford, CA (where i.a. "sustainability" is factually discussed):
<http.//www.sbbs.se/com/home/dambo/enp.html>,
<http://www.openweb.com/AAE/> and
<http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/>.


*The main theses of the "SOCIALISME MAINTENANT!" article*

The main theses of the article are, firstly, that there is a "crisis" in
the environment on earth and that a big "waste" ("gaspillage") of
the natural resources is taking place. Neither of this is true. Both
propositions in fact are inventions of the most reactionary forces
of the bourgeoisie. The 1976 Peking Review article which I
mentioned  above, and which I mailed you too, Jacques,  i.a.
points out that

>Politically, such views [as those of "energy exhaustion"] meet the >needs
of the declining reactionary classes and are used by them
>as tools against progress.

It's precisely above all a purported "exhaustion" of the energy
resources that the bourgeois media mean when they're raving
about this "wasting" of the natural resources. But those energy
resources which are known and fully exploitable even today are so enormous
that one can say that mankind already has a practically
unlimited supply of very cheap and clean energy at its disposal.

And as soon as you have plenty of cheap energy, you also without
difficulty can get plenty of iron, aluminium, plastic etc, of all mineral
and similar resources in fact, since it's above all energy that's
needed for their extraction, respectively, for their formation. The
practically only field today which is basically dependent on other
factors than energy as well is agriculture - on principle, nothing
seems to speak against the possibility of smacking together
tasteful beefs etc by purely chemical means either, but such things
undoubtedly lie only in the more distant future. Also for the cleaning
up of garbage, chemical wastes etc, and for the industrial reuse of
them, on such points where this today or in the future is desirable,
it's precisely above all energy that's needed, so this on principle -
given "only" an acceptable social system - is no big problem either.

The AS article does say, and stress, that "only socialism, only the
proletarian revolution" can solve those problems of the environ-
ment and of "waste of resources" which it maintains exist. And, as
far as those *actual* environmental problems which there are
today are concerned, this is basically true too. But firstly, those
actually existing problems by far are not as great as the article maintains;
secondly, they to some extent can be solved, even
within the existing society, by means above all of increased use
of the most modern and clean energy source, nuclear energy -
precisely *against* which the article i.a. is making propaganda.

And thirdly, the article also goes so far as actually to maintain that
in some regions in the world, "not even socialism" will manage to
solve the purported "environmental" etc problems. Speaking (on
p. 5 col. 5 - p. 6 col. 1) about the possibility - and "great difficulty" -
of developing agriculture i.a. in tropical and desert regions, it says
that "even if they were suitably developed, these agricultural zones
would not be sufficient to meet the needs of the entire third world."
Factually, this is utter nonsense. Politically, it's a very nasty piece
indeed of rightist extremism.

A purported propaganda for socialism, for the proletarian
revolution, together with *such* things, does no good at all; it can
by no means even be said to be a positive aspect of this article,
since what it in reality does, as a whole, is that it completely
*discredits* the whole idea of proletarian revolution, which is so
vital, and that of the possibility and necessity of creating a really
socialist society.

[Continued in part 3/5]



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