Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 18:08:55 +0100 (MET)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: 2/2 Re: Mariátegui and Inca Empire


2/2 Re: Mari=E1tegui and Inca Empire
[Posted. 10.01.98]

[Continued from part 1/2]


THE SECOND PART OF YOUR POSTING, WHERE YOU
CONTRADICT YOURSELF AND STRANGELY DEFEND
MARI=C1TEGUI'S ERROR AND EVEN OLAECHEA's
"POST OFFICE" ABSURDITY

In your very next paragraph, Juan, after you've just pointed
out, quite correctly of course, that "Clearly, this in no way
describes a communist society..." you despite this continue:

>Mariategui knew this and when he spoke of the Inca's as a com-
>munist society he was referring not to the way the empire was
>managed, but to the way that the economy was managed from a
>local level.  He saw in the communal traditions, and recipro-
>city-based economy of the native Quechua population a factor
>which would facilitate the acceptance of a socialist order in
>the Andes, and a model on which that order may be organized in
>Peru and surrounding countries based on local conditions, tra-
>ditions, and consciousness. 

What do you mean by this? Do you mean to say that when Mari=E1te-
gui wrote about the Inca Empire, calling it a "communist" so-
ciety, which as you've pointed out it was *not*, then he wasn't
talking of the Incas at all, he'd plain forgotten that this
autocratic ruling class or caste was there at all? An "Inca Em-
pire" with no Incas, was that what he described, you say??

That would mean calling Mari=E1tegui an utter idiot. You cannot
have intended to do that. What it seems to me that you're doing
is simply avoiding the question of that Incan *dictatorship*, as
if this factor wasn't there.

Yes, Mari=E1tegui (whom I haven't read; I'm just going by what Dr
Sendepause wrote, and believe he wouldn't have tried to falsify
the facts on this) did write about "the communal traditions, and
reciprocity-based economy of the native Quechua population",
and considered this a factor that would favour socialist ideas
in modern times. I agree that he was correct, at least in part,
in this too. But Mari=E1tegui of course didn't forget the auto-
cratic rule of the Incas. As I quoted in my 06.01 repost of an
earlier debate posting (subject 'From July debate on "NE" criti-
cism of Mari=E1tegui...'):

(Dr Sendepause:)
>"It is very clear, Mariategui called the Incan state an early
>communist order on a higher level, an autocratic reign and
>communism at the same time. And all I read was a very positive
>description of this early society."

(And Olaechea, in reply to this:)
>"And I do too, and fully agree with him, Mr. Sender!" [!!]

And then in my posting I pointed out how utterly absurd this
was, and how very clearly it showed what it is that Olaechea
and people like him today really mean by "communism", which in
their mouths is only a camouflage term for that *fascist* *dic-
tatorship of the bourgeoisie* which they're striving for. Mao
Zedong long ago pointed out this concerning the Brezhnev etc
gangs in the Soviet Union. Dr Sendepause, back in those days
when he was still the Marxist Klaus Sender, pointed it out not
only concerning the Deng Xiaoping clique but also, quite ex-
plicitly, concerning the 4-gang, in China. (See an 1977 article
by him reproduced in translation in my "UNITE! Info #40en",
13.07.97.)

Your defence of this error of Mari=E1tegui is quite wrong, Juan,
and of course very weak. How can you pretend - even to yourself
perhaps? - that Mari=E1tegui "did not" mean the Incan system *as
a whole* but "was only writing about how things were at a lower
level in it", when he called it "communist"?

It also should be pointed out that even if a system on its lower
levels, in the villages etc, in this case in those units that
were called "ayllus", *is* based on a kind of collective owner-
ship of the land etc, the character of those lower units too,
including the consciousness of the people living in those vil-
lages etc, cannot remain unaffected by the fact that, superim-
posed on it all, there is such a dictatorship, such an autocra-
cy, as was that of the Incas.

In the even older system of collective ownership that existed
everywhere on earth, the one of "original communism" (limited
to existing only among small groups of people of course, who
considered all other groups not only as strangers but in prac-
tice as animals), the tribe or village community of course was
free to do anything it collectively decided on. It didn't have
that awesome distant authority of another group of people over
itself, which the tribe or village either had to accept or else
rise against in rebellion.

You wrote, Juan, that the Incas did provide a system that en-
sured that people in the ayllus didn't starve etc, a kind of
"ancient welfare system" then, but of course the fact that the
people on these lower levels had no say in it all - you also
pointed out that they were indoctrinated to obey the rule of
their overlords - must also affect their consciousness, in a
manner that had and has nothing to do with socialism and in fact
is quite contrary to it.

Socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is based on the
people's overhelming majority taking an active part in the run-
ning of the state It can never exist under conditions of the
masses' just passively accepting what, for reasons they know
nothing about, a small ruling elite see fit to provide them
with.


DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM VERSUS "INCA EMPIRE"
WAYS OF ACTING AND THINKING

I'd like to add a comment on a matter which you didn't write
about, Juan, but which I think is related to the others.

Just as socialism in based on "ordinary" people's really enga-
ging in the running of the state, so a really proletarian,
Marxist-Leninist party must be based on its "common" members'
understanding well the party's line and on their supervising
the party's leadership, so that the line remains proletarian,
i.e. one that favours the overwhelming majority of all people,
and doesn't become bourgeois, revisionist, favouring this or
that small group of exploiters and oppressors.

This was stressed, quite correctly, very much by the Chinese
communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong, in particular
after the experience of the revisionist overthrow of socialism
in the Soviet Union. The Constitution of the CPC, as revised by
its 10th Congress of that party in 1973 (see my Infos #13en and
#44en), for instance contained the provisions, in its Article 5:

	"Leading bodies of the Party at all levels shall regu-
	larly report on their work to congresses or general
	membership meetings, constantly listen to the opinions
	of the masses both inside and outside the Part and ac-
	cept their supervision. Party members have the right to
	criticize organizations and leading members of the
	Party at all levels and make proposals to them."

The documents of that congress stressed that "Going against the
tide is a Marxist-Leninst principle" and stated, concerning all
members of the CPC:

	"When confronted with issues that concern the line and
	the overall situation, a true Communist must act without
	any selfish considerations and dare to go against the
	tide, fearing neither removal from his post, expulsion
	from the Party, imprisonment, divorce nor guillotine."

This of course was directed precisely against that idea that
existed and still exists in certain parties calling themselves
"communist": "The bosses decide on the line, the job of ordinary
members is to carry it out." As Jay Miles, Detroit, once repor-
ted to this list, he was actually told so quite explicitly by
someone in that completly rotten party the "RCP"-USA, of which
he was earlier a member and which tries to make people believe
it "adheres to Mao Zedong's line" but is actually a CIA muppet.

The PCP in Peru in my judgement is basically a genuinely revolu-
tionary party, but it, as far as I've seen, never stresses the
importance of its members' supervising the party's leadership
and line. And many adherents of it with whom I've been in con-
tact seem in practice to embrace that rotten idea too, that
"the leading comrades must know best, and for us others it's
only a matter of following their directives". Thus, from the
principle of democratic centralism, one of the two vital compo-
nent parts, inner-party democracy, is practice gets lost, and
only the other one, that of centralism, joint disciplined ac-
tion, remains. This style of acting and of thinking, though of
course not a "Peruvian patent" either, tallies with that of the
ancient Inca Empire, some very bad cultural influence from which
seems to remain today and of course needs to be combated.


"A DAY AT THE POST OFFICE"

As far as I know, there never was a film by those silent movie
comedians, the Marx Brothers, with this title. But reading the
last part of your posting, Juan, one has to wonder whether you
weren't trying to write the manuscript of one. You too, like
Olaechea, seem to think that one may reasonably draw a parallell
between the post office system, on the one hand, and the Inca
Empire, or what Mari=E1tegui wrote about it, on the other!

After that paragraph of yours, which I quote again here:

>Mariategui knew this and when he spoke of the Inca's as a com-
>munist society he was referring not to the way the empire was
>managed, but to the way that the economy was managed from a
>local level.  He saw in the communal traditions, and recipro-
>city-based economy of the native Quechua population a factor
>which would facilitate the acceptance of a socialist order in
>the Andes, and a model on which that order may be organized in
>Peru and surrounding countries based on local conditions, tra-
>ditions, and consciousness.

....you continued:

>In that sense it isn't, in fact, different from what Lenin
>spoke of in reference to the post office....[!!]

I don't know exactly what you meant by your saying "in that
sense" here, but this hardly matters, I think, since clearly,
there would be no point in your telling people, for instance,
that in *one* respect, the post office system *does* have a pa-
rallell to the Inca Empire, namely, in that they both are/were
highly centralized.

This everybody knows, and nobody has disputed it. The utter ab-
surdity, which I pointed out, in Olaechea's "parallell" between
the Inca Empire *as a whole* and the post office system, lies of
course in his "abstracting from", looking away from, the fact
that the Inca Empire contained a *dictatorship* over people,
which the post office system does not. Or is perhaps the city
and/or the state where you live, Juan, "run by the Post Office"?
Describing such a situation, that might produce a Marx Brothers'
kind of movie, "A Day at the Post Office". I don't think it
would have any counterpart in reality anywhere - even if in
Belgium, as I wrote too, there had been an attempt at forcing
the postmen to do some snooping and snitching duties on behalf
of the bourgeois state apparatus.

Weren't you trying to defend that "parallell" of Olaechea's,
and isn't this really quite absurd?

The only explanation I can think of for this "reasoning" of
yours would be some kind of - very misdirected - "Latin Ameri-
can patriotism". Olaechea is Peruvian by birth, so was Mari=E1te-
gui too and your name seems to indicate that you have a Latin
American origin at some level (or to some part) or another.

In your very first lines too, you tried to explain - or perhaps
"excuse"? - some things that Mari=E1tegui wrote, by his trying to
find or create a sort of "indigenous counterweight" against the
then social order which was largely implanted from abroad.

But of course, as you no doubt agree, when doing so one must
differentiate between what's good in that indigenous system or
culture and what's bad, what's perhaps even worse than the im-
planted things. It obviously would be a very harmful principle
for me to defend bad things or traditions in Sweden (or Norway,
where I was born) just because they're Swedish (Norwegian), or
for you to do the same concerning such things in Latin America
or in any one country there.

The imperialists, on their part, today precisely among other
things are specialists in beating the drum, in various coun-
tries, for the very most negative cultural and other phenomena
which they can find there, and peddling them off to the respec-
tive peoples as "antidotes" against "cultural imperialism".
Just one example of this is the Neo-Islam in Iran and some
other countries in the Middle East. The Iranian ayathollas pre-
cisely were implanted, from their exiles in the West, to pre-
vent modern ideologies, including not least Marxism, from
gaining a foothold in Iran when the Shah regime was tottering.

An example in the other direction, in the positive one, was the
4th May movement in China in 1919, whose watchword was: "Down
with Confucius' shop!". That movement wanted modern ideas, from
abroad, to enter China. It precisely fought the old and bad in-
digenous ones. Some experts have said that it was an even more
important development in China than the much later Cultural Re-
volution.

Peruvians and other Latin Americans today in my judgement might
well have some use for a criticism movement "Down with Inca-
think!" or something like that, in which there would also be in-
cluded a critical appraisal of Mari=E1tegui. I don't mean to say
of course that the *achievements* of the ancient Inca culture
should be negated. (The growing and use of potatoes, just to
mention one thing, which began here in Sweden as late as in the
18th century and which today practically no Swede can do with-
out, was an "export" originally from Peru, if I'm correctly in-
formed.)

I cannot think of any "corresponding" ideologues here in Sweden
which it would be necessary for people here to criticize - well,
the openly revisionist (social-democratic) Hjalmar Branting,
Per-Albin Hansson etc perhaps, but their "socialism" was phony
even in the main and is not really difficult to see through.

What do you say, Juan, shouldn't you instead of defending Mari-
=E1tegui on that point under discussion instead criticize him on
it? And if you might be interested in translating that article
by (the admittedly today bourgeois) Dr Sendepause into Spanish,
or know someone who would, that would be of not unimportant as-
sistance to the Latin American revolutionaries, I'm certain.

Rolf M.



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