File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9804, message 1


From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 04:04:34 +0000
Subject: Re: M-G: Rolf's Muddle



Vladimir Bilenkin:
>Vladimir: Mao was himself a revisionist of the first order.  Or 
>perhaps this is a misnomer.  He was a great peasant revolutionary, 
>not a Marxist leader of a revolutionary proletariat. 

And what is Vladimir Bilenkin? An internet Marxist of the Trotskyist 
school who wants to go back to the 'pure' Marx (and Lenin perhaps), 
away from all this 'bastardized vocabulary" of anti-Marxist Maoist 
gibberish. Is he a revisionist too for living the good life like the 
rest of us while spouting 'Marxist" rhetoric? Does he know what was 
the percentage of the proletariat in China before 1949? Has he done a 
serious study of the Chinese Revolution (1920-1976)? As some one 
said, "no social investigation, no right to speak". This denigration 
of Chairman Mao by academic 'western marxism' is nothing new. It has 
become a habit and some of its roots lie in the contempt of 
European towards non-European peoples. 

>Nationalist element in Maoism was even stronger than in Stalinism

China was a colony of the western powers and Japan (imperialism). 
Internally, for thousands of years, it had a henious feudal system. 
The external imperialism propped up internal feudalism. The first 
task therefore was to get rid of imperialism through national 
liberation struggle which would at the same time remove one of the 
bases of imperialism. Only after this task was finished, could the 
tasks of an attack on the internal semi-feudal relations and 
construction of socialism could be taken up. To confuse a national 
liberation struggle of an oppressed people  with (bourgeois) 
nationalism is a typical and superficial Trotskyist fallacy.  

And if Vladimir Bilenkin is so much against 'Nationalism' (and thus 
by Western Aristotelian logic 'pro-internationalism') why does his 
posts to this forum have mostly to do with Russia? 

>Mao's pact with the "Great Satan" in 1972 was the most dramatic 
>confirmation of this fact.

This pact should be examined taking into account the concrete 
conditions during that time. It appears that (correct me if I 
am wrong) that the SU under the revisionist Khruschev leadership was 
threatening a nuclear attack on China. In those circumstances, even I 
would strike a pact with the Devil. So did Lenin (against Trotsky's 
vehement objections) at Brest-Litovsk.

> It's been further confirmed by the newly sanctioned cult of Mao
> by the Chinese bourgeoisie and bureaucracy.This would be
> unthinkable for a leader of the 
>international proletariat and a revolutionary Marxist (imagine 
>Yeltsin sanctioning a cult of Lenin!). But it is only the logical 
>postmortem recognition of the betrayer of the proletariat and the 
>great nationalist leader.

You seem to imply a continuity between Mao and Deng (leader of 
Chinese bourgeoise). Nothing could be farther than truth. Read 
William Hinton's books (e.g., The Great Reversal). Under the banner 
of 'socialism' and the picture of Chairman Mao (who is respected by 
the masses in China to this day), the Chinese bourgeoise (where did 
they come from if not from thin air?) in league  with international 
capital have/are dismantling prior socialist relations and 
instituting capitalist ones. Symbols and icons of the proletariat are 
being continuously co-opted by the bourgeoise - nothing new in this. 
The 150th edition of Manifesto (by Verso?) will be marketed to the 
financial managers. As Malcolm X has become an icon, so too will 
Marx. If I was in Yetlsin's shoes, I would immediately start a Lenin 
cult. And once again the slanderous ignorant accusation "But it is 
only the logical postmortem recognition of the betrayer of the 
proletariat and the great nationalist leader." 

>The Cultural Revolution in China and 1937 in the SU were similar in 
>a number of ways.  In both cases a Bonapartist leader used the 
>pent-up discontent of the masses--the result of his voluntarism and 
>criminal adventurism in economic and social fields--against his  
>real or potential adversaries from the bureaucratic strata.  Hence: 
>the dual nature of the Terror.  It is both the manifestations of the 
>democratic aspirations of the masses to take the state  in their 
>hands and of their inability to achieve this, due to the 
>backwardness of their society. Instead, they succeed only in further 
>strengthening of the bureaucracy by making it more conscious of its 
>corporate interests and of the precariousness of their power if not 
>propped up by the relations of private property in economy and the 
>attendant social structure of the bourgeois society.

Terrible ignorance shown by the above lines ('which weigh like a 
nightmare on the brain of the living') about the GPCR and use of 
mind-numbing Trotskyist words like "Bonapartist", "bureaucracy", etc. 
What do these religious words explain? Nothing. The GPCR was a 
gigantic onslaught against all forms of bourgeois ideology (which 
does not vanish just because the revolutionary party seizes power). 
It also revealed the fierce nature of the class struggle (which does 
not go away after power is attained) right inside the party. If 
Chairman Mao was a "Bonapartist", he could have resorted to a 
military coup which would have been much simpler. Instead, he went to 
the masses and got them involved in the struggle - hundreds of 
millions of them. Not a joke by any means. It was a life and death 
struggle between the two lines. Which one of them won is clear today. 
A supreme Trotskyist inability (incomprehension of dialectics) to 
comprehend a revolution as a continuous PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT.

 
>Let me also make an observation on Maoist language.  "Bad," "good,"
>"very bad", "30% bad, 70% good", etc. is a good example of the
>bureaucratic jargon,  enriched with the local color of the 
>traditional Chinese bureacracy.  Nothing can be more alien to the 
>spirit and letter of Marxism than  this language.  In fact, it marks 
>a return to more archaic, pre-bourgeois modes of thought.  It would 
>not be exaggeration to say that this language is itself an ideology. 
>Remarkable, for instance, is the 'folksiness' of the Chinese 
>bureaucratese.  It relies on the so-called ancient "wisdoms", mostly 
>of Confucian origin, easily fitted to the psychology and social 
>imagination of Chinese peasantry. This language is then itself a 
>tool of false consciousness and its sedimented expression.  This 
>language is the opposite of the only one which raises the class 
>consciousness of the proletariat--the language of critical thought.  
>Another prominent feature of this language is that  between naming 
>and denouncing it does not leave any space for analysis.  In this 
>sense it is exact copy of the Stalinist language. It is nothing else 
>but an instrument of self-defense and repression in the politics of 
>bureuacratic cliques.  

Yes, Bilenkin wants to go back to the sophisticated language of Marx, 
Lenin, Trotsky. He shows the supreme arrogance of a educated Marxist 
revolutionary. But he has once again, in true Trotskyist fashion 
(vague generalizations, never specifics), has forgotten the context.. 
China was a peasant and predominantly illiterate country. In a 
country like that, how to inculcate Marxism among the masses? This 
stupendous task was achieved by the Chinese taking guidance from 
Chairman Mao. There in lie the roots of Chinese 'folksiness'- simple 
language, stories and anecdotes from their own history and culture 
which ordinary people could relate to. Without this strategy, there 
would be no revolution in China. Or, any where else for that matter 
including by Bilenkin's pompous, convoluted and sophisticated 
revolutionary phraselogy in this forum.

>Vladimir: If so then Rolf is even more counter-revolutionary than
>those "trotskyists"since the post-Stalin  SU preserved all the
>essential characteristics which ledTrotsky to his conclusion  shared
>by Rolf.  But then trotskyists never called for the "overthrow" of 
>the Soviet state, but for its defense. They were Marxists enough to 
>know the difference between the state and the regime.  In contrast, 
>people like Rolf worked hand in glove with the NATO against the 
>Soviet Union as such, i.e. against the Soviet workers and peasants.  
>In Maoism, both homegrown and in its Western off-shoots, imperialism 
>has found an invalueable ally who not only helped it immensely in 
>the destruction of the SU but also succeded in  further splitting 
>the international proletariat ideologically and politically.

One wonders what Bilenkin and the Trotskyist Marxists think of the 
actual counter-revolutionary role played by social imperialist SU in 
third -world countries. For example, the support of SU for tyrants 
like Indira Gandhi (training of Indian Army, supply of weapons, 
economic 'aid') who massacred hundreds of thousands of leftist and 
political opponents. Or the Durg mass murderers in Ethiopia - trained 
by SU. Or in Afghanistan. Did the SU leadership from Khruschev on (in 
their contention with western imperialism) and their new-found 
Trotskyist supporters  play a most counter-revolutionary role against 
the international proletariat and peasantry by these actions? Also, 
it is a terrible sight to see a party with red flags held aloft 
breaking up a strike along with cops in a big city. Once you see it, 
you will never forget it -  the face of revisionism.

There is a theoretical and sophisticated expose of Trotskyism by 
Kostas Mavrakis in his book "On Trotskyism - Problems of Theory and 
History". Since this book is rare, if time permits, I may post some 
brief extracts from it for it exposes the essential theoretical 
weaknesses of what goes by the name of 'Trotskyism'.

S. Chatterjee





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