Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 20:18:07 -0500
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (Hariette Spierings)
Subject: M-I: Re: LL08150 Lou Proyect Armed Revisionism in Latin America - EDI Number  40



MORE MEMORY REFRESHMENT FOR REVISIONISTS AND OPPORTUNISTS:

Another interesting piece of the "heated debate" regarding the political
character of the Cuban regime and Castroite "socialism" that took place in
the old LeninList. The following may be of interested to subscribers to
Marxism-International and other lists who were not subscribers of the LeninList.

We shall begin with the article on El Diario Internacional which sparked the
"Boyars Plot" that eventually led the revisionist torpedoes to expose
themselves as Bonapartist "Little Caesars", gangsters and prevaricating
"left wing" charlatans bereft of a single communist principle:

The following is another article in the English translation of El Diario
International Number 40.  

Committee Sol Peru - London
Press Commission

Revisionist guerillas: Revolution or counterrevolution?.

Armed revisionism is not a phenomena occurring only in Peru.  This is an
issue having deep roots in the countries of Latin America. Its origins,
development and decay have ideological-political connotations. It relates to
the contention between revolution and counter-revolution and manifests the
struggle between Marxism and the various bourgeois ideas that develop within
the ranks of the people. 

In this brief article we attempt an introduction - with the MRTA as an
example - to the phenomena of the armed struggles led by revisionists and
bogus Marxists. We consider that we should delve deeper into this subject in
the future and thoroughly elucidate the various elements that paved the road
for the trickery played on millions of oppressed by bogus armed struggles. 

We shall never cease to underline that for a person or political group to be
regarded as revolutionary it is not sufficient to be involved in armed
struggle. 
As we have said in several opportunities, a "phenomena of armed struggle may
be regarded as revolutionary, progressive, nationalist, pro-imperialist,
fascist and counterrevolutionary, depending on its class stand and its
strategic objectives". 

We insist again that in order to "determine the genuine character and
political content of any armed struggle it is necessary to analyze
rigorously three fundamental questions: 1) What is the ideological basis of
the organization leading the process; 2) What are its political objectives
and; 3) What class does it serve and represent?".  

The clarity and understanding we may have regarding these 3 elements would
determine the correctness of the analysis of a process of armed struggle.
Contrariwise, lack of clarity on these three issues, would lead to serious
errors and a false identification of any armed phenomena. 

Moreover, we should stress that Marxist theory and praxis teaches that the
struggle for power demands that the proletariat be equipped with its own
vanguard organization, i.e., its communist party. In his time Lenin said:
"The proletariat in its struggle for power has no other weapon but
organization". We must emphasizes that any armed movement, without a genuine
party to serve it as an advanced detachment, is condemned to failure. 

In Latin America we have many examples of armed struggles led by multi-class
fronts that have led the working class and the rest of the oppressed into
serious defeats. 

Latin America is a good laboratory to test diverse guerilla organizations
who hiding behind a high-sounding phraseology pretend to disguise their
revisionist and counter-revolutionary nature. One of these is the so called
Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA) that proclaims itself as
"marxist-leninist".  
However, its military and political practice has shown it to be an
organization that is closely linked to the most objectionable political
forces in Peru. 

The true face of the MRTA can be seen in its repeated demands for "peace
dialogues". In its conciliating with the various regimes of the day, the
MRTA entered into an arrangement with Alan Garcia in 1985, and later offered
"peace" to Fujimori in 1990.  

We can see the real face of the MRTA in its calls for unity with the
"healthy and democratic sectors" of the armed forces, the police, the right
wing parties, and the church. In their close links with the legal left in
Peru, their equivocal position regarding the electoral processes, and above
all, in their active participation in organizing para-military bands to
fight against the Maoist guerillas led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). 

No one would ever be able to find in the MRTA any genuine marxist-leninist
ideological basis. This organism is nothing but a grotesque caricature of a
Marxist organization. And what can be said of its political objectives?. 

Facts show that its main aims can be summarized in seeking negotiations with
the Peruvian regime.  A negotiation that would mean the last sketch in a
travesty aimed at a complete and direct capitulation before the regime and
US imperialism. In Peru - or anywhere else in the world -  negotiating away
the armed struggle ("peace dialogues") can only serve to consolidate the
regimes of repression, and to sustain the states of oppression. 

The MRTA is not an isolated case in Latin America.  Armed struggles led by
bogus Marxists are a phenomena linked to basic ideological and political
problems, both national as well as international. 

On the theme of the international aspects we shall mention the fact that
various armed movements in Latin America arise linked to the strategic plans
of modern revisionism in power in the former Soviet Union from 1953.  In the
sixties, the Soviet Union led by Nikita S. Khrushchev began to promote and
support a number of armed movements, not with the aim of overthrowing states
and systems of oppression, but in order to improve its own position and
score points in its contention vis-a-vis other imperialists powers,
principally the USA. 

In the internal aspect, armed revisionism in our region relates directly to
the petty bourgeois essence of the Latin American intelligentsia. It
likewise relates to the late development of the working class and its delay
in being capable of equiping itself with its own communist party. 

In connection with these two aspects, non-Marxist positions develop
entailing a high degree of danger and causing great harm to the future of
the struggle for socialism. One of these thesis is that deniying the need
for the proletarian Party as the key element in initiating any victorious
process of armed struggle. A part of this same phenomena is the so called
thesis of the "foco of insurrection", a thesis that shows a clearly petty
bourgeois and anti-Marxist content. 

The phenomena of bogus armed struggles is a problem connected with the forms
that revisionism assumes in order to continue to parasite and deceive the
oppressed masses.  In Latin American countries it is common to find
typically revisionist organisms that parade themselves under the label of
"marxist-leninism" and that partake in armed movements, while at the same
time seeking to involve themselves in the electoral processes of reaction. 

It is also common to see armed groups dissolve themselves in order to become
an "integral" part of official politics and to present their candidates for
election. 

Latin America is plagued by examples of the road that armed revisionism
follows from its beginnings to its capitulation.  One such is the Colombian
M-19 that surrendered its weapons to the government in March 1990 and became
"integrated" into the political (electoral) life of Colombia. 

The MRTA, the M-19 and Ecuador's "Alfaro Vive" linked by the same umbilical
cord of revisionism, once set-up the "America Battalion" with which they
tried to make a clumsy parody of the liberation army led by Simon Bolivar
last century. 

Another example of revisionist, capitulationist, and counter-revolutionary
guerillas is that provided by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) in El Salvador, that in January 1992 signed-up for a "peace
agreement" with the pro-imperialist regime in that country. The FMLN
capitulated and the first thing they did was to present candidates for El
Salvador's presidential elections. 

Another example is the Revolutionary National Union of Guatemala (UNRG) that
on December 29, 1996 signed up for a "peace agreement" and surrendered its
weapons. Now the former-guerilla fighters of the UNRG serve as decoration
for the official political set-up of Guatemala. 

Going back somewhat in time, we should also mention the Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN), whose armed struggle ended up in an open betrayal
of the Nicaraguan people. After the victory against the Somoza dictatorship,
the FSLN gave birth to the National Reconstruction Government of Nicaragua,
which served merely to deliver the country to the representatives of US
imperialism. 

During the last 17 years the armed movements that have betrayed and
surrendered their weapons to the enemies of the people are not few. From the
Sandinistas to the Guatemalan guerillas (these being the last in
capitulating) there is a short jump showing that the capitulationist process
of revisionism has accelerated and that its disappearance is something
inevitable. 

This capitulation begins irreversibly with dialogues and "peace agreements"
that - as we all know - correspond with the US plans for "pacifying" the
region. 

An example of this phenomena is provided by the behavior of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). This group has been carrying
out armed actions for the last 33 years while never tiring of proclaiming
their search for a peace agreement with the Colombian regime. If they have
not capitulated yet, the reason is - as one of their leaders admits -
because the regime has not shown sufficient willingness. 

Recently, one of their commanders, Raul Reyes, has pointed out quite
directly that FARC "is an ideological guerilla, and thus permanently
presents proposals leading to the search for peace, seeking solutions other
than war.  However, the political class in Colombia does not have an
inclination to find any kind of understanding, any kind of formula, except
that of war". (Interview published by Resumen Latinoamericano, July-August,
1997). 

But the proposal for capitulation is not merely coming from FARC. The same
proposals for peace agreements "other than war" are also put forward by the
leaders of other guerilla movements. In Colombia itself, the commander of
the National Liberation Army (ELN), the priest Manuel Perez, has declared:
"That an arrangement may be arrived at would depend solely of the
consciousness of people in setting in motion transformative processes in the
political, economical and social regime". (Resumen Latinoamericano,
July-August, 1997). 

On this same theme, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in Mexico,
who initiated their activities amidst spectacular publicity, has ended up by
transforming this movement into a circus serving exclusively to provide copy
for the big bourgeois media. 

The EZNL, by means of their dialogues for "peace and reconciliation" and
their demands for "inaugurating a democratic, plural and multi-ethnical
Mexico", demonstrates that this group is nearer to a definitive capitulation
than to a true revolutionary enterprise. 

										
-------- AND NOW THE FIRST SHOTS ARE FIRED:


>
>When all of these socialist projects are being abandoned, the only
>explanation they have is that the comrades in charge are not good comrades.
>Good comrades would fight to the finish and never compromise. This is an
>idealistic approach to politics.
>
>Marxism has a much better approach to these problems. It starts from the
>premise that there has been a sustained counter-revolutionary offensive for
>the past quarter-century or so that has combined military attacks with
>economic pressure. The conditions of life for the societies facing such an
>attack has worsened. Consumer goods became unavailable and the future
>seemed dim. So the imperialist blackmailers tell these socialist movements
>and societies to accomodate to capitalism and everything will be better.
>The Berlin Wall collapses and next everything else begins to collapse. This
>is a period of Metternichian reaction. Thermidor reigns supreme everywhere.
>The key to understanding this is not in people's hearts but in the combined
>weight of guns, bombs, tariffs and debt.
>
>Louis Proyect
>


Lou Proyect does not believe in Stalinism, Maoism or Totskysm.  He believes
in "Lou-Proyectism", but in his modesty, calls that egregious doctrine
"marxism".

However, "Lou-Proyectism" actually bears an uncanny and more than passing
ressemblance to "Gorbachevism" - and thus to all its antecesessors,
fundamentally, Trotsky, Kautsky, Bernstein, and indeed to the pre-Marxian
utopian socialist currents.

We can start this analysis from the fact that for Lou Proyect the question
of socialism in a country is defined by the ownership of the means of
production.  If the state owns the means of production, the country is
socialist.  If it does not not.  It is not.  Thus Cuba is socialist despite
the fact that the Cuban regime stands squarely in the side of Fujimorist
reaction and against today's Soviet Movement, the People's War in Peru.

However, as we have already seen, Lenin's point of view (and Lenin was a
consistent Marxian and thus did not in anyway contributed to mix Webberian
and Fabian socialist concepts into the proletarian doctrine) regarding the
question of the ownership of means of production:

"The important thing will not be even the confiscation of the capitalists'
property, but country-wide, all-embracing workers control over the
capitalists and their possible supporters.  Confiscation alone LEADS
NOWHERE, as it does not contain the element of organisation, of accounting
for proper distribution. Instead of confiscation, we could easily impose a
FAIR tax (even on the Shingarayov scale, for instance), taking care, of
course, to preclude the possibility of anyone evading assessment, concealing
the truth, evading the law. And this possibility can be ELIMINATED ONLY by
the workers' control of the WORKERS' state".  V.I. Lenin -  "Can the
Bolsheviks Retain State Power?" October 1, 1917, Collected Works, Vol 26,
pp. 87-136 

I have always been a partisan of Lou Proyect taking part in our discussions
because Lou is a talented writer and at the same time he can clearly and
concisely synthesise the ideas of his current of thought.  I find that very
useful, and also very instructive for comrades who, while loyal to the
fundamental principles of bolshevik communism, of Lenin's, Stalin's and
Chairman Mao's views, sometimes unwittingly assume as verities a number of
ideas that have nothing in common with the actual points of views of these
leaders.

We saw that when comrade Mark (who is currently absent from the list) was
quite indignant with my expositions regarding the fact that the economic
mechanisms for socialism are in fact embodied in the developments of
capitalist monopoly.

Lenin's real views in this regard - which had grown dim, been obscured or
forgotten by some comrades - had then a chance to get a good airing.  And
that could not be but something good.

Now Lou Proyect encapsulates with literary flourish the very factors which
genuine Marxists must repudiate in order to play a proper revolutionary role
under the present circunstances.  He says: 

"The Berlin Wall collapses and next everything else begins to collapse. This
is a period of Metternichian reaction. Thermidor reigns supreme everywhere.
The key to understanding this is not in people's hearts but in the combined
weight of guns, bombs, tariffs and debt".

However, facts - and the historical evidence - speak to the contrary.  There
was nothing innevitable in the "combined weight of guns, bombs, tariffs, and
debt" bringing down the East European regimes or the Soviet Union.

First let us dispose of the question of "guns and bombs".  Was the collapse
of the Berlin wall due to the overwhelming weight of imperialist "bombs and
guns"? Not at all. In fact hardly a gun was fired (and I would remember
since I happened to have been then in both East and West Berlin in the
preceding and following weeks to that event), and its immediate causes had
to do more with a rush to shopping centers and porno stores in West Berlin
than to the compulsion of guns and bombs, tariffs and debt included.

In fact imperialist and reactionary guns and bombs are no match for the true
bastion of iron of the revolutionary masses.  Lou Proyect is here denying
the basic premise of Marxism:  That the revolution is all powerful when its
internal factors are in fact strong.  This was expressed by Engels very cleary:

"There are but two powers upon this earth.  The armed and organised force of
the counter-revolution and the force of the disorganised and disarmed
masses".  The question, of course for genuine revolutionaries, lays in
organising the power of the many, and arming their minds and hands for the
struggle.  Marxists are advocates of the invencibility of revolutionary
violence!  Not of the invencibility of imperialist "guns and bombs", like
Gorbachev and Lou Proyect.

The Marxist position is that when the revolutionary camp is solid it is
invincible.  However, admirer as he is of the pro-Cuban line, Sandinismo,
etc., Proyect even denies the very words of the very songs that sustain many
of the electoral circuses of the bogus left in latin America (of course (but
this is something besides the point for this discussion) these lyrics, if
understood in an "electoral" and non-revolutionary way as these gentlemen
tend to do, are also of little use beyond being mere tinsel to beffuddle the
critical faculties of the backward masses and push them in the direction of
the ballot box): 

"El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido".  -  The people united can never be
defeated -  Even this bit of "marxism" - with all its lyrical limitations -
falls foul from Mr. Proyect's lethal and unchalleangle combination of
"Metternichian reaction" and "Supremely reigning Thermidor" embodied in his
terrifying "combined weight of guns, bombs, tariffs, and debt".  

Everybody with the least respect for the facts and with a clear idea of the
developments leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern
European entities know that apart from where there were some elements of
"stalinism" (understood by at least a certain willingness to resist the
Western imperialist take-over, such as in Romania or in the Soviet Union
itself) no resistance at all but in fact the utmost willingness was shown by
the renegade leaders of such states.  It was not lack of weapons or means of
production and finance.  Therefore "tariffs and debt" were not responsible
for the "fall of  revisionist "socialism" either.  

The real "overwhelming weight" that bought that "house" down was actually
lack of revolutionary principles and the degeneration into servants of
imperialism of the leadership. That was in fact the principal internal cause
of the "fall of socialism".  It was in fact the crisis and fall of revisionism. 

This internal cause cannot be denied as principal in effecting this
"transformation" since the external factors confronting the Soveit Union and
the countries of Eastern Europe were in no way different in weight (in any
event these could be said to have been even less weighty in real terms) than
those ALREADY faced down and beaten to dust by the Soviet people under
Stalin's MARXIST and REVOLUTIONARY leadership!.

Therefore, let us reaffirm what we have said a hundred times:  The question
of revolutionary optimism vs the theory of the invencibility of the
counter-revolution is not an idle question. It matters if "the cat is black
or white" and it is not simply a matter of indifirence that it may call
itself a "socialist cat" when in essence being a "restoration of capitalism"
sort of cat. This is not an idle question just as it is not an idle question
whether the Soviet Union was led by a Stalin or by a Gorbachev!

Internal causes are principal and that is a Marxist fact.  It is easy to
dispute that and show lack of "conviction" in that regard.  Such lack of
conviction in turn has its internal causes in the "bourgeoisie within the
mind", and it is a well know question that before certain arguments and
doctoral dissertaions, before certain ifs and buts, Marxism has no other
answer - in the last analysis - but the Leninist shrug of the shoulders and
encouragement to all comrades to think things through FROM A CLASS
PERSPECTIVE and bearing all the the consequences of the Thesis XI on Ludwig
Fuerbach which in itself embodies the raison d' etre of Marxism and sets it
apart from any "absolute truths" in the bourgeois philosophical sense.

After all, if as Marxists we hold that the "only criterion for truth is
practice" the truth of falsehood of Chairman Mao's assertion regarding the
non-chiken producing stone, can only be ascertained by sitting on one long
enought to be convinced beyond doubt.  And this should not be taken as
merely a facetious question, since it is unfortunately quite usual for
communists comrades to need such Saint Thomas style experiences:

Has it not been - and still is, for example - quite widespread in Britain
for some comrades to "sit akimbo" the Labour Party hoping for a
"revolutionary chicken" to come out of that flint stone?  Can we not see
that the AFLCIO in the USA is at times the depository of similar hopes on
the part of the likes of our Louis Proyect? Can we not learn the meaning of
partisanship and a thorough class position from such long periods of
"hopeless incubation"?  I think we can.  

Of course not everything is due to internal causes.  That is true.  It is
also true that external causes can at times and specific moments be
decissive, and moreover, Marxism holds that external causes act indeed by
transforming themselves into internal forces (been assimilated into the
movement) and thus in finding the causes (some of these completely
innevitable historical factors IN HINDSIGHT) of the "Metternichian reaction"
and "supremely reigning Thermidor".  Such Thermidor and such reaction are
not the main forces in today's world and least of all, as Proyect alleges
"everywhere".  Today, certainly not in Peru.

Even less were these "bombs and guns" in any evidence in Somalia, or in Vietnam.
Chiang Kai-shek and Hitler too found that out to their own cost and before
them the Czar of Russia.  

At the end of the day, and for all his praise of the revolutionary in
Chairman Mao, people like Proyect suffer from a lack of optimism vis a vis
the revolution and an excess of worship and awe for the imperialist paper tiger.

Finally, the point here is to recognise that in standing as a knight is
Shining Armour to belittle the justice of the criticism of the old
revolutions and the bankrupt lines that history has already exposed, Lou
Proyect can not help but play a good role in accentuating the JUSTICE and
overall correctness of a well earned attack upon organisations and ideas
that have already had their day.

The revolutionary movement after all, advances by continuosly criticising
itself, and that today in Latin America, armed revisionism must be
thoroughly criticised - even if the occassional barb is not perfectly all
rounded nor philosophical enough - is the main point.

In that, the article of EL Diario Internacional says things that needed to
be said from a position of revolutionary authority.  In oppossing it and
jumping up and down to defend the indefensible,  Lou Proyect helps the
revolutionaries by underlining how for so many years the praises of the dead
revolutionaries are sued to mask the Darth Vader message of imperialism:
Resistance, combat and revolutionary objectices are futile, and communism is
impossible.  Take the bowl of porridge and go home!


Adolfo Olaechea 

  
  



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