Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 09:43:09 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Che and other things


Jim Hillier:
>To Lou Proyect: Very recently you expressed your regret that the great
>Marxist-Leninist theorist Adolfo Oleachea was not on marxism-
>international with you. Well, your wish just came true. It seems to me
>as though absence made your heart grow fonder. 
>

Look, if Lou Godena and Adolfo Olaechea want to write attacks on
social-fascism, let them. These are obviously solipsistic rants that do not
invite a response. If these ideas were widespread on the left, then it
would be important to struggle with them. As it turns out, they are deader
than a doornail.

Furthermore, the Communist Party of Peru is an important component of the
revolutionary movement. It is useful to have somebody express that point of
view in a public forum like this. Now if I were a partisan of the PCP, I
would be using every ounce of intellectual energy to make their case rather
than attacking Castro et al, but I suppose that goes with the territory. If
Adolfo does not understand this, then nobody can teach it to him at this
point in his life.

The worse thing that can happen to this mailing-list is to treat these
ideas as some kind of bacteria that have to be wiped out or quarantined.
This actually was a mistake on the Leninlist, looking back in retrospect.
The Maoist current internationally has to be engaged with, even if it is
politically flawed. Maoism is rooted in a very real phenomenon, which is
the uneven development of the revolution in the 20th century. It was at one
time a very significant movement and included the Monthly Review and much
of the American and European student movement in its orbit. The fact that
the movement has evolved past this stage is no excuse to ignore the
comrades in our midst who act as if nothing has changed in the past 30 years.

In any case, I have no intention of conducting any sort of ideological
struggle with Lou Godena or Adolfo Olaechea. If I have 3 posts a day on
M-I, I want to use them to clarify my own ideas and not argue with people
whose heterodoxy makes debate fruitless.

Louis Proyect



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