Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 23:00:33 -0400
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #71 (Revolutionary Regroupment)


COCKROACH! #71 (Revolutionary Regroupment)

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1.  "Struggle Against Bourgeois Feminism" Ploy..

2. Revolutionary regroupment or 
   centrist alchemy?(part 1)


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 "Struggle Against Bourgeois Feminism" Ploy

Hariette Spierings wrote:
> 
> To LeninList:
> 
> Comrades:
> 
> The anti-communist provocations resulting in the formation of this list of
> combat for the proletarian cause have bought out a very important factor to
> our attention - the plans of the imperialist bourgeosie, principally the US
> imperialists, to make use of bourgeois feminism as a CENTRAL TOOL of their
> FOREIGN policy.

If only it were true!
 

> I did not intend to bring this issue here to LeninList, but to keep it as a
> separate task of mine using other lists as bulletin boards, particularly
> malecki's in order to annoy him some more!.

This is what's called "comic relief" or "bathos" in the art of drama.


> 
> However I think this is a very serious issue which needs to be debated among
> communists, precisely because it is the US imperialist chieftans themselves
> who are proclaiming to the world that with that sword they are coming after
> the proletariat and the people from now on!.

Vigilance, vigilance!  Didn't Comrade Stalin teach us that credulous,
naive "communists" become accomplices to the most reactionary forces, such
as trotskyite-fascists, by taking their words at face value? Wasn't he 
absolutely
correct to consider such "communists" themselves the worst enemies of the
proletariat since they work glove in glove with its OPEN enemies, and 
therefore are 
even more dangerous, more pernicious than they?  Didn't Comrade Stalin treat
such "communists" with the proletarian "Yezhov's glove" and deservedly so? 
One should ask: In whose interests is it that the international proletariat
at this very grave moment of its historical strugle should believe that from
now on the CENTRAL TOOL of the imperialist bourgeoisie is going to be 
bourgeois feminism?! Even trotskyite-bukharinite gangsters did not fall that
low! Mr. Oleachea tries to convince Eurasian workers that their worst enemy
is not the NATO soldiery with its ideology of "peace-keeping", not the 
international plutocracy with its ideology of "free market," not the Pope,
"civil society," "family,"  and "universal human values" but --"bourgeois 
feminism!!
Can one imagine a better service to the political-ideological agents of 
imperialism, like Albright, in their conspiracy to desorient the international 
proletariat and rank-and-file communists as to the STRATEGIC direction of their 
struggle than the service provided by Mr. Oleachea?!

We'd like to believe that the few class-conscious members of "Lenin List"
have not yet lost their bolshevik vigilance and ability to unmask an enemy
REGARDLESS of how clever and artful he may be, REGARDLESS of how he decks
himself out, and to make necessary political AND organizational conclusions
from this new ploy against revolutionary proletariat.
 
> PS:  I'll send this answer to you.  And a copy to the counter-revolutionary
> door-mat's list. I'll bet the foaming and the growling of the roachy hounds
> is bound to reach epic proportions! Holy Cows! But I do not give a damn
> since I do not have to hear it!

I.e., "I'm dying to be heard. Anything is better than being irrelevant. Curse,
ridicule, tear me apart, JUST DON'T IGNORE ME, PLEASE, DAMN YOU!"

Vladimir
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Hariette Spierings wrote:
>> 
>> To LeninList:
>> 
>> Comrades:
>> 
>> The anti-communist provocations resulting in the formation of this list of
>> combat for the proletarian cause have bought out a very important factor to
>> our attention - the plans of the imperialist bourgeosie, principally the US
>> imperialists, to make use of bourgeois feminism as a CENTRAL TOOL of their
>> FOREIGN policy.
>

Just recently it was Quispe and the "milkmaid" from Detroit who were the 
main enemy for Aldolfo! Now it is the "bougeois feminists" who are leading 
the Trotskyite 
imperialist counter-revolutionary thrust against Aldolfo and the newly 
formed "Lenin" list.

Good-bye Aldolfo! You have signed your own political death warrant. And I am 
quite surprised that Mark and other can actually be sucked into your 
political suicide. I mean honestly Mark do you really buy this shit?

Aldolfo, your using M-G and M-news as a bulletin board by the way is just 
great. With that tactic you have convinced just about everybody who 
suscribes here to a real treat! Stalinism at its best going off the deep end..

I bet the subscribtions to the "Lenin" list will attract just about every 
wacko old Stalinist out their and you can all go marching off into the grave 
as you foam at the mouth about a bougeois feminist, Trotskyist, imperialist, 
agent of Fujimora conspiracy!

Naturally if you let me subscribe to the "Lenin list" I will do my best to 
convince anybody stupid enough to be their about some *real* revolutionary 
politics and not the namecalling, slanderous, idiotacy of an aging "third 
period" Stalinist who has gone of the deep end.

I hope Quispe and the "Detroit milkmaid" are watching this! It must be a 
treat for them allso. Then again probably not because they appear to be for 
more serious about organising support for the PCP fighters on the ground in 
Peru and Peruvians in exile and your antics of late have dragged even the 
any kind of real solidarity work for Peru and  the PCP through the mud.

Can anybody really believe that Aldolfo is a representative of the interests 
of anything after the last round? Other then foaming from the mouth Aldolfo 
has not one political message worth taking seriously. Aldolfo you are a real 
smuck and I hope that all Peruvians and not in the least serious political 
people are watching your antics.

So when it all comes down to the cookie jar. Our former leader of the "first 
soviet" in a Peruvian university is just a tired old hardline Stalinists who 
when politically cornered turns to impudent name calling and bans and death 
threats of political opponents. And a Stalinist with this kind of trajectory 
who does not have a state power and secret police to back him up comes off 
in this case as a big fucking joke.

At one time Aldolfo I actually thought despite your rotten Stalinist line 
you were serious about politics and especially politics in Peru. However 
time has proven that the only thing your interested in are Internet manuvres 
like the deadborn WMC and now the "Lenin" list to gather your shrinking 
little group of supporters in a corner of cyberspace and pray perhaps for 
god Gonzalo to come and rescue you from encirclement of the women on M-I, 
the Trotskyists, Godena and Proyect, and the professors of the ivory tower.. 
By the way i doubt even that the PCP would want to have anything to do with 
you after the latest round. Not even the PCP is that stupid i hope..

In fact your activities are almost becoming as bizarr as the recent 
discovery of the sect who actually thought by killing themselves they would 
be connected to a comet flying by in order to carry them to a new world. 

Good Bye Aldolfo. The political suicide of the old leftovers of the hardline 
Stalinists 
like yourself has been of late and interesting spectacle. Now we have to 
deal with the more serious neo-Stalinists and centrists who actually take 
politics a bit more seriously and honestly then you. 

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
---------------------------------------------------------
Revolutionary regroupment or centrist alchemy?

The imperialist triumphalism over the counterrevolutionary 
destruction of the bureaucratically deformed workers states
in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has impacted
widely on those who claimed to adhere to the programme and
principles of revolutionary Marxism. As the world's ruling
classes pronounce the "death of communism", much of the left
is rapidly repudiating even any pretence of Leninism as they 
seek "regroupment" in larger reformist organisations together
with social democrats, ex-Stalinists,Greens, other so-called
"progressives" and even capitalist forces.

Cliff Slaughter's Workers Revolutionary Party, one of the 
degeneration products of Gerry Healy's organisation of the
same name, has liquidated itself. The Slaughterites are now
seeking to form a broad church encompassing "envionmental
and justice campaigning organisations, all socialist grpoups, 
the Labour Party and the trade unions". Militant Labour has
recently decided that its name was far too "radical" and has
opted for the more "palatable" name of the Socialist Party. The
"United Secretariat of the Fourth International" (USec), which 
for years falsely laid claim to being the continuation of
Trotsky's revolutionary Fourth International, is in a state of 
near-terminal collapse.

In France, the former "star" section of the USec is casting 
about for an electoral alliance with the French Communist
Party, and the petty-bougeois Greens. In Italy, Usec members 
have joined all manner of other groups in liquidating into Ri-
fondazione Comunista (RC). An offshoot of the old Italian
Communist Party, RC serves as a left prop for the Italian
popular-front government that is enforcing vicious capitalist
austerity and racist attacks on immigrants.

Posturing as an alternative to this wholesale liquidation 
is the Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency (LTT), who are hosting a
conference on "revolutionary regroupment" aimed at picking
up disaffected groups from the disintegrating USec. The
particular cosumation of this intention is to be a fusion with
the ex-Usec members now in the Committee for Revolutionary 
Regroupment as well as with elements of the Liason Committee
of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International
(LCMRCI), a split from Workers Power's "international"
tendency of roughly the same name  with a few less initials.

A joint statement issued by the LTT and LCMRI declares
"the two tendencies agreed that it is neccessary to attempt a
discussion and regroupment process with all forces that are in
favour of a Leninist-Trotskyist international opposed to
centrism" (Workers News no 58, October/November 1996).
Yet the coming together of these tendencies has nothing to do 
with "revolutionary regroupment". Rather, this fusion is a 
rotten bloc predicated on papering over political differences.
At the same time, it is a genuine right-centrist "regroupment"
based on a shared record of championing the forces of anti-
Soviet reaction in the pivotal events leading to the counterrev-
olutionary destruction of the bureaucratically deformed
workers states in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The 
variouis opportunist appetites of the different components find
recouncilation in a common perspective of tailing Labourite
/Third world nationalist forces.

Revolutionary regroupment-the fight for a Leninist party..

Revolutionary regroupment-the struggle to win subjec-
tively revolutionary elements from reformist and centrist
organisations to the programme and party of Leninism-is
indeed vital and driven home with renewed urgency today as
the question of forging a genuinely revolutionary international-
ist leadership of of the world's working class is starkly posed. In
the aftermath of the destruction of the Soviet Union, the ruling
classes are waging a ruthless offensive against the working
class, ripping up any and all social programmes while fanning
the flames of racist reaction to make immigrants the scapegoat
for increased unemployment and misery. As they seek to 
increase their competitive edge against their imperialist rivals,
the international bougeoisies are bringing the world closer to
obliteration in interimperialist World war III.

Across Western europe, the working class has fought back 
in some of the largest and most militant battles in years; yet,
for the first time since the Paris Commune, the masses of 
workers in struggle do not identify their immediate felt needs
with the ideals of socialism or the programme of proletarian
revolution. As we of the International Communist League 
wrote in our international "perspectives and tasks memoran-
dum" in January 1996.

 "The ICL exists today in a period in world history, one
 conditioned by the collossal defeats for the proletariat with
 capitalist counterrevolution in the former Soviet Union and
 across East europe, and the potential for simular defeats looming
 in Cuba,China, Vietnam, and North Korea. As Trotskyist
 internationalists, we fight against capitalist counterrevolution.
 Lacking historical precedents as a guide, Marxist programmatic
 clarity is essential as a compass. As revlutionary Trotskyists we 
 are, still the party of the Russian Revlution. This defines not
 only or mainly our unique Soviet defensism, which today has
 few points of application, but charts our fight for genuine
 communism today: to pursue the class struggle to workers'
 victory with their power implanted in workers councils across
the world-the necessary condition to begin the elimination of 
the economic exploitation and social oppression within the
human species and the transition to a stateless, socialist so-
ciety....Struggle with contending parties and currents within
the class is essential for the ascendancy of a clear, defined and
organised revolutionary vanguard party."

Since our inception we have understood that revolutionary
regroupment is a crucial element to forging a Leninist  interna-
tional party, requiring both patient and intransigent polemical
struggle and work such as united-front actions in which the
political viewpoints and strategies of different organisations
are tested in action. The purpose of such a struggle is to split
subjectively revolutionary elements from reformist and centrist 
organisations and lay the basis for fusion into a common,
principled organisation based on the programme of revolutionary 
Marxism.

This was the method of the Communist International of 
Lenin and Trotsky, which established "21 Conditions" for
admission, based on sharp programmatic points designed to
draw a clear distinction between revolutionaries and centrists
or reformists. This was carried forward by Trotsky in his
struggle to found and build the Fourth International through
merciless battle against the Stalinists, the Social Democrats 
and also against centrist pretenders to revolutionary politics,
whom he described as "revolutionary in words, reformist in 
deeds".

Our international tendency was built through a process of
revolutionary regroupment, largely with cadre from the United
Secretariat in the 1970s. The programmatic basis for regroup-
ment with such leftward-moving elements was outlined in the
following draft declaration written by these former USec cadre
in the late 1970s:

. "No political or electoral support to popular fronts;for
  conditional opposition to workers parties in open or implicit
  class-collaborationist coalitions;

. Uphold the Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution; for
  proletarian leadership of the national/social struggle;

. For military support to petty-bougeois nationalist forces
  fighting imperialism, but absolutely no political support to
  such forces; for Trotskyist parties in every country.

. For unconditional defense of all the deformed/degenerated
  workers states against imperialism; for political revolution
  against the bureaucracies; no political support to competing
  Stalinist cliques and factions;

. Against violence within the workers movement.

. For Communist fractions in the unions, based on the Tran-
  sitional Program;

. For the Communist tactic of the united front from above; for
  the tactic of regroupment to unite subjective revolutionists
  in the vanguard party; for intransigent exposure of centrism;
  
. Rejection of the claims of ostensibly Trotskyist Internation-
  als to speak for the Fourth International, destroyed by
  Pabloism in 1951-1953.

. For the reforginging of a democratic-centralist Fourth Interna-
  tional which will stop at nothing short of the dictatorship of 
  the proleatariat."
  
  -Spartacist (English edition) no 27-28, Winter 1979-80 

This declaration was printed in the document for the first
international conference of our tendency which was held in
1979, on the eve of the full-fledged outbreak of imperialist
anti-Soviet Cold War II. As we noted there: "The trotskyist
position of unconditional defense of the gains of the October
Revolution will have the same cutting edge as our opposition
to the popular front in West Europe and Chile had in the
previous period."

We fought intransigently for the defense of the Soviet 
Union and the other deformed workers states against imperial-
ist attack and internal counterrevolution. As Trotskyists, we
understood that the fight for workers to seize power from the
anti-revolutionary Stalinists usupers of the Russian Revolution
was the only real defense of the gains of the revolution as part
of a struggle for world socialist revolution. Meanwhile, every
variety of self-described Leninist groups and "internationals",
including the LTT conference's "regroupers", fought neither 
for defense of the deformed workers states nor for political
revolution. Rather they took up the cause of imperialist-
inspred counterrevolutionary forces.

Of course, today there are few leftists around who don't
bewill the consequences of the counterrevolutions they helped
forment together with the pro-imperialist social democrats and
their bourgeois masters. Capitalist counterrevolution has led 
to the drastic impoverishment of the Soviet/Eastern European 
masses and brutal "ethinic cleansing". This comes alongside
the imperialist "New World Order" with its reactionary
triunphalism and brutal anti-working-class attacks and the 
desperate situation of the "Third World" in a "unipolar" post-
Soviet world. In an issue of its theoretical journal In defense 
of Marxism (no 3, June 1995) titled "The Marxist Theory of 
the State and the Collapse of Stalinism", the LTT writes;

 "The collapse of Stalinism thoughout eastern Europe and the
 ex-Soviet Union between 1989-91 is the most important
 development in world politics in the past half century. It has 
 resulted a major shift in the nternational balance of power,
 and unleashed in its wake wars, economic crisis and upheaval
 throughout the region."

Easy to say now. But let's look at where the LTT, the 
LCMRCI and their "regroupment" partners stood at every
crucial juncture when the defense of the Soviet Union was
urgently posed.

End of Part 1--(to be continued)
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