Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 20:40:12 +0200 (MET DST)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: 1/2 Ol' Adolfo's funny farm 


1/2 Ol' Adolfo's funny farm
[Posted: 08.07.97]

This is part of a debate on the Marxism-General mailing list
(M-G) managed by the Spoon Collective (see http://jefferson.
village.Virginia.EDU/~spoons/), and is also sent to newsgroups.


Generals,

So, here we go again. Those of us who've been in the debates for
some time already know the phenomenon quite well: Another writer
who wants to send some people to the funny farm. Or to the nut-
house, the looneybin. He's "invoking the Sanity Clause". ("There
ain'ta no Sanity Clause" - Chico Marx; a truth we learned about
on the old "M1" list.) In Russia and in Europe at least, the
disease since long is also kown as "the Andropov Syndrome"
(isn't that right, Klaus?), after the former KGB boss Yuri And-
ropov.

This time the writer is one who formerly at least enjoyed a cer-
tain prestige: Adolfo Olaechea, of the Sol Peru Committee, Lon-
don, UK, long-time (unofficial) "ambassador" of the PCP in Peru.

He last Sunday, 06.07, replied to a 3-part posting of mine of
the same day, "UNITE! Info #38en: 'NE', Mari=E1tegui & 'RIMitz'",
with one having the subject line: "TEUTONIC KNIGHTS AND NUCLEAR
VIKINGS TO THE FUNNY FARM!", and with corresponding text con-
tents too.

As probably most people will agree, it's clear that a person who
finds himself forced to "argue" by such "suggestions" doesn't
have much to say for himself politically any more. He's at his
wits' end, politically bankrupt.

What's it all about this time? Who're those people the writer in
question is putting up as candidates for that funny farm of his,
to begin with?

Well, "nuclear Vikings", that's easily recognizable, in the
light of some earlier discussions. This obviously refers to me.

And btw, in the text that follows, Olaechea also for the first
time rather openly states his support for the ultra-reactionary
anti-nuclear-energy campaign of the (main) US imperialist and
other bourgeois forces. This is significant too.

So that really rather flattering designation of me as being a
"nuclear" person quite (new-)clearly can be seen to be meant
precisely the other way around, not least since in the text that
follows I'm also referred to as "a little verminous individual".

Vicious blackening attempts of this type do in fact make up the
bulk of the "argumentation" in this posting. This expression
here indicates of course - you don't need to be an expert on
diplomacy to see it - that the writer is quite displeased with
something or other that I've had to say. My Info #38en must in
fact have hit him in a politically very sensitive spot indeed,
since actually, even the day before, he still at least was cal-
ling me "comrade".

>From this point on, his posting of 06.07.97, the conflict under-
lying the debate beteween me and that writer - or, the lack of
a debate, since during a long time he above all has been running
away from certain important truths that I've tried to convince
him of - clearly has become an antagonistic one. Since last Sun-
day, Adolfo Olaechea is openly siding with counter-revolution.
What political issues our conflict has been and is about I shall
soon (once more) explain.

By the designation "TEUTONIC KNIGHTS", implying that those so
designated are a nasty bunch of oppressors and exploiters of
foreign peoples since that's what the medieval German Knight
Orders were, Olaechea is referring to that small political group
in Germany, Dr Sendepause & the Klasberries, which constitutes
the actually bourgeois-degenerated remnants of the once quite
important proletarian revolutionary party KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT)
led by Klaus Sender. (On this, see for instance my Info #38en.)


A STRUGGLE ON SOME VITAL POLITICAL ISSUES

What is this conflict all about? What is it that has caused
these railings, wailings and ailings by which Ol' Adolfo effec-
tively exposes himself as a bourgeois political swindler?

He by the way made another posting on the same theme later on
06.07 too, commenting on a reply by the Trotskyite Bob Malecki,
and again demonstrating the same thing. Below I shall also com-
ment briefly on that posting.

The conflict between me, on the one hand, and Olaechea, on the
other, has concerned the question of that correct and necessary
ideological and political weapon for the proletariat, the line
of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong. I'm advocating and defending that
line, as can be seen from my postings since I've been on the Net
(from late 1995 on).

Olaechea says that he's the one who's doing so. That doesn't fit
in with the facts, as can be seen from *his* postings. His "fun-
ny farm" one doesn't precisely advertise him as a Marxist, does
it? And this isn't the question of a single instance either.

As I wrote (again) in Info #38en, the Marxist-Leninist movement
in the world since 1984 has been confronted with a big evil, the
"RIM", whose "Declaration" pretends to give guidance to the
struggle of the entire intrnational proletariat and to uphold
Mao Zedong's correct line but which is doing exactly the oppo-
site. Olaechea's party, the PCP, all along has made the serious
mistake of supporting that "Declaration". I've exposed the fact
that this document is reactionary and has strived to explain it
to everybody, not least to Olaechea, so that he could help his
party correct its serious error.

But he has refused to listen to this, for months has been run-
ning away from all discussion of the question and eventually,
in March of this year, even started massive attacks on me be-
cause of that correct criticism of mine, attacks thus in flag-
rant defence of the anti-Mao "RIM Declaration". It's this con-
flict that has now, with his "funny farm" posting, become anta-
gonistic.

In particular, I in Info #38en supported the correct criticism
by the of course today bourgeois writer Dr Sendepause, of the
serious weaknesses in the ideology of the founder of the PCP,
Mari=E1tegui, weaknesses that help explain *why* that party could
later be tricked into supporting the "RIM Declaration".

Today I'm also posting the 5-part "UNITE! Info #39en: Exposure
of the 'RIM' (cutouts)", with cutouts from earlier postings. It
shows in detail what political questions the present conflict
is about.


WHAT DOES OLAECHEA SAY THAT THIS STRUGGLE IS
ALL ABOUT?

Above all, he tries to obscure what are the real issues.

His "argumentation" mainly consists of name-calling, and in
addition he brings some "arguments" that are both slanderous
and also openly reactionary, anti-Marxist, in themselves.

He writes that I'm "raising [my] hand against" the leaders of
the revolutionary proletariat, "engaging in a campaign" against
"giants of thought such as Jose Carlos Mariategui and Chairman
Gonzalo".

That's a piece of slander, as all who've read my postings can
see.

I've supported a correct criticism of the by no means unimpor-
tant weaknesses of Mari=E1tegui. I've criticized certain quite
serious errors made by comrade Gonzalo. That means *helping*
the just struggle of the PCP and its chairman too, and by no
means is this "raising one's hand against" them.

Olaechea writes that I'm "collaborating", "overtly" even, with
"the Zubatovs and Trotskyism" "against...the living revolution".

All who've read my postings can see that this is vile slander
too. The people's war in Peru, for instance, which is probably
what's referred to here and which the Trotskyites etc oppose,
I consistently have *supported*.

Olaechea writes that I'm "caricaturising Chairman Mao Tse-tung"
and "aiming...spears at genuine Maoism".

That's really a ridiculous piece of slander, an attempt to turn
things upside-down completely.

*I*'m the one who's been exposing and attacking the vile anti-
Mao Zedong "RIM Declaration". Olaechea is the one who's *defen-
ding* it, quite fanatically even.

Not only this. Together with some openly-revisionist elements
he's created a "discussion forum", the SiberiaSwamp ("Lenin-
List"), where the actual advocacy of Mao Zedong's line is *pro-
hibited* and whose very homepage starts out with a piece of
clearly anti-Mao, pro-revisionism symbolism. (See Info #37en;
see http.//www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6380/leninlis.htm)

He even has repeated (one more time quite recently, 04.07), and
tried to make people believe, some perfectly ridiculous slander
directed against me by one very primitive and extreme propagan-
dist of social-imperialism here in Sweden, Ola Eriksson, refer-
ring to that counter-revolutionary as "comrade".


TRYING TO CREATE A SPLIT BETWEEN THE PROLETARIAT
IN THE IMPERIALIST COUNTRIES, ON THE ONE HAND,
AND THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES, ON THE OTHER

In my Info #38en, I i.a. pointed at Olaechea's repeatedly "argu-
ing" with that same flagrant *bourgeois nationalism*, against Dr
Sendepause's in itself quite correct criticism of Mari=E1tegui,
that is also evident in his "funny farm" subject line.

To this, he replies in the text that this was (is) to "remind"
the Klasberries (the former NE) ans also me that we're citizens
of oppressor countries, and that (thus) we are "shamed for the
crimes of [our] IMPERIALIST countries"[!].

Indeed, he adds, the correct criticism of the weaknesses and
errors of Mari=E1tegui and comrade Gonzalo means "replicating"
these crimes!

A vile slander again. And the particular reactionary line that
lies behind this I shall make a couple of comments on too. It's
noteworthy that Olaechea now openly supports that line.

I'm *not* responsible for the crimes of that imperialist (2nd-
world) country in which I live. I've long been *actively op-
posing* them. The KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) in Germany *most resolu-
tely*, during the time when it was a revolutionary party - and
one that represented a *genuine* internationalism, not such a
phony one as is Olaechea's - *combated* the crimes of that impe-
rialist state in which it was active.

In the leaflets of the series "INFORMATIONSBLAD" which I've been
publishing, mainly in Swedish, since 1975, the basic slogan has
always been that call raised by Lenin: "Proletarians in all
countries and oppressed peoples, unite!". I can cite a number of
facts to show that I've been carrying out that line in practice
too.

"Against" the NE in Germany, whose revolutionary past and ac-
tually very considerable achievements Olaechea knows *nothing*
about - mainly because he *hasn't wanted* to know anything
about them - he brings forward some quotations from Marx,
about how necessary it would be for a revolutionary Germany to
disown the whole of its (oppressor) past etc - which naturally
is quite true. But that's precisely what the NE did too.

What Olaechea actually is "arguing", by his calling some people
now for the second time "TEUTONIC KNIGHTS" etc, simply because
they're Germans and he knows nothing more about them except the
fact that they're criticizing "his" Peruvian Mari=E1tegui, is that
"no" Germans, Swedes etc can be revolutionary, "since they're
citizens of oppressor countries", while "for all of us Peruvians
etc", the situation of course is "quite different".

While one must recognize also the existence of a very pervasive
system of parasitism, of imperialist bribery, in countries such
as Germany and Sweden, this "line of reasoning" of Olaechea's of
course is quite wrong, in essence is a bourgeois-nationalist one
too and is one that's rejected even by the "RIM".

The line that Olaechea supports in his "funny farm" posting is
one that has long been among the peculiar characteristics of
another phony "International", the "MIM", which says that "only
the peoples of the third world are revolutionary, not the pro-
letariat in the more highly-industrialized, imperialist coun-
tries".

Propaganda for such a line was also made by the phony"left"
4-gang in China, another arch-reactionary group which Avakian,
"Quispe" and Olaechea all are joining hands in trying to make
people believe were "the real revolutionaries" in China.

>From the 1977 book "Comrade Chiang Ching" by US historian Roxane
Witke (see also Info #39en, part 3/5), whose informations of
course need to be checked on but which do seem possible to cor-
roborate on this point, I quote from a speech which Jiang Qing,
the leader of the 4-gang, is said to have held in March 1975
(according to a purportedly verbatim quote in "China News Ana-
lysis 1004", Hong Kong, 20.06.1975, reproduced by Witke p. 467):

"Our foreign policy must concentrate on black friends, small
friends, poor friends. They will be grateful to us. We may have
no white friends[!], great friends, rich friends, but we are not
isolated.....".

That wasn't Mao Zedong's line at all but something quite dif-
ferent! As for some facts concerning "white friends" at that
time, I in my very first posting to M-G, in Oct 1996, brought
a table of figures (on how the number of members of the Swedish-
Chinese Friendship Association developed) showing how interest
in China and support for that country skyrocketed in Sweden in
1969-76 and then fell like a stone in 1978-82. This was the same
in many similar countries too.

The proletariat in the relatively highly-developed, imperialist
countries, on the one hand, and the oppressed peoples and na-
tions, on the other, must unite and can unite too. Olaechea's
line, on the contrary, is one that goes in for *splitting them
up*, putting the one against the other, and thus helping ultra-
reaction.

Will that "ambassador's" activities, such as demonstrated by
his "funny farm" posting, help mobilise support in, say, Europe,
for the Peruvian revolution? Quite on the contrary, they can
only help discourage it. The PCP comrades need to distance
themselves from that person, Adolfo Olaechea.

[Continued in part 2/2]



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