Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 04:14:39 GMT
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (hariette spierings)
Subject: MORE ON THE QUESTION OF THE MAIN ARENA


I have read Robert Mallicks objections to our points of view.  It is hardly
necessary to debunk them since they are basically hamfisted attempts to
caricaturise our assertions, and do not involve any reasons other than
personal prejudices.

I will only mention that, in referring to the Third World (or semi-colonial
world) we said MAIN ARENA and not SOLE ARENA of Proletarian politics as he
seems to have concluded.  Therefore, we do not deny the importance that the
struggles of the proletariat against bourgeois rule have inside the
metropolitan areas of the world, but we are just putting this factor in its
correct perspective.  

Mallick's charge of ignoring the developed world proletariat does not match
the facts, since Maoism is precisely struggling in this list today,
substantially for extendind the influence of revolutionary politics to this
section of the class at the international level.

Moreover, another caricature interpretation of Mallick has been to argue
that we are advocating that the workers of advanced countries should rush to
the Third World to raise peasant armies.  With his admiration for Trotsky,
is hardly surprising that Robert himself has "rushed to this conclusion".
That does not follow at all from what we say.  Only a person who has
ingrained in the back of his mind the misconception that to be a proletarian
you must be a western industrial worker, can have drawn such an unwarranted
conclussion.  

The proletrariat is an international class.  Today the MAYORITY of the class
actually lives and works outside the handful of privileged capitalist
countries, the imperialist world.  A hefty percentage of the class lives
today in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Materially speaking - as personnel
in the ground - it is this section of the proletariat(its left wing in world
terms) who, by means of its vanguard parties, the Communist Parties,
principally today the Maoist Parties, notably the Peruvian and Philipino
parties (but NOT only those two), is currently implementing the
organisation, arming and leadership of such peasant armies. This is
moreover, something that the proletarian parties have been doing widely for
some time this century, under the inspiration of Lenin and Stalin, and the
masterly leadership of Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

In each country, and each nation, the proletariat of that country and nation
has specific tasks according to the conditions in each concrete reality.
That is why, it is true that the revolutionary tasks are always at hand for
the class, and revolutionary tasks are not only those who involve violence
and even less the use of guns.  Each country's proletariat must make its own
revolution and each revolution is in certain ways unique.  Mariategui, in
referring to the Peruvian revolution, expressed that it would not be a copy
or a drawing by numbers, "but a heroic creation". 

But the Proletariat is not only an international class, it is also an
internationalist class. Meaning that its outlook in politics is of an
internationalist character.  The Proletariat knows itself to be such an
international class and applies this knowledge in his internationalists
politics. 

What does this mean in relation to the World Level and the tasks of the class?
It means conceiving of the revolution as a World People's War in order to be
able to play a universal role in the class struggle at the world level.

Therefore, while the day to day struggles of each particular proletariat
are, as Lenin says, "obligatory at all times", and in conjunction with this,
and without neglecting such tasks, the class has its eyes firmly put in the
political struggles at the national level.  In the same manner, the
proletariat must also - and moreover today, when the enemy class is, even
more than yesterday, taking international decissions affecting the interests
of the proletariat of multiple countries, both in the political-economic,
and military arenas - strive for an overall view and a correct understanding
of its own role in the international class struggle and its strategic and
political implications.  Otherwise, each proletariat will be unable to
coordinate its struggle in such a way as to ensure the maximum possible
breadth to its revolutionary contribution at the world level.  This is so,
because, just like in Peru, the center of gravity of the revolution is bound
to pass in a particular moment of the development of the Universal People's
War from the "countryside into the cities".  And of course the definition of
the class contest cannot be counted as crowned until the revolution triumphs
in the whole world.  In that circunstance, having the proletariat succeded
in wresting the "countryside of the world" from imperialism,  depriving the
bourgeosie of the means to bribe any substantial sections of, and forcefully
subject the proletariat - enourmously increased by the process of wars and
revolutions, the possiblities of insurrection in "the cities of the world"
come then into a new perspective of success. Not in the least, because then,
the very logic of the world economy would compel such a dennoument. 

THE ROLE OF THE BASE AREAS OF WORLD REVOLUTION

In order to be able to confront the bourgeosie, the proletariat, the
oppressed class in society must be to establish firm bases upon which to
mount its challenge for power.  In the era of the capitalism of free
competition such bases were to be found in the mills and factories, in the
shipyards and working peoples quarters of the industrial countries.  But in
the era of the capitalism of monopolies and trusts, of imperialism, such
base areas are not sufficient under normal conditions in the imperialist
countries for a determined assault for power.  We see how the power of
capital has managed to bribe a sufficient section of the class to make any
kind of direct insurrection inside the metropolitan areas of the world
practically unthinkable under present conditions.

That is not to say that the class is unable to confront the state by mass
action and violent mass action at that.  That is not to negate the
importance that this type of action has in weakening and undermining
bourgeois rule over the long run, and moreover, in preserving the fighting
spirit of the class and the popular masses.  

The poll tax riots in England are a clear example of that.  The French
workers mass actions also confirm our appreciation.  Many will look for
justification and start looking for scapegoats and "sniffing traitors".  We
know perfectly well that they are traitors and "sold outs", we do not deny
their role.  But why is it that traitors and sold outs are consistently able
to divert this struggles, no matter how deep and thoroughgoing on to the
road of compromise?  Is this fact unconnected with imperialism?  No. Of
course it is connected with imperialism and the relative position of the
different countries in the world economic system.

THE CHAIN ALWAYS BREAKS BY ITS WEAKEST LINK.

The Paris Commune broke out in a big city and it was the first proletarian
revolution. But in that particular world situation, as the result of
imperialist war, the abandoment of the National government of Paris to the
foreign invader, Paris was in fact the weakest link at the time in the
nascent chain of imperialism.  

The concrete conditions were such as to present the opportunity for a
relatively premature uprising of the working class.  It was indeed
premature, and therein lies the reason of Marx's warning not to set up the
Commune.  He perceived the balance of forces as rather unfavourable.  

However the demand of the French bourgeosie in the direction of disarming
the workers drove them to break the chain and fight to the death in defence
of that nascent World Republic (That is what the Communards called the new
state that arose from the Commune).  And Marx and the International made
then every effort to  support that glorious First Attempt in which, against
overwhelming odds, the class demonstrated its gigantic class spirit,
super-human courage and determination to inscribe one of the most glorious
pages of the people in history.

But among other things, the Commune was strategically weak vis-a-vis the
bourgeosie for lack of a proper base area to fight the counter-revolution at
the national level.  

REMOTE PLACES

However, the historical evidence of revolutions confirms the strategic
conception of the WEAK LINK.

In the English Revolution, Edward Burrough in his pamphlet "To the Camp of
the Lord in England" (1665) writes:

"O thou North of England, who are counted as desolate and barren, and
reckoned the least of the nations, yet out of thee did the branch spring and
the star arise which gives light unto all regions of the world".

And his comment is interesting because indeed it was in the North of England
where the blooms of the political activity of the most revolutionary forces
in that era were first manifested, despite its remoteness - or maybe,
because of its remoteness - from the centers of power of the realm.
Burroughs description of the "barren North" could well even apply to the
Chinkiang Mountains, Yenan, or "Darkest Peru". And, it is no accident, that
within the context of Peru, Ayacucho (the cradle of the People's War) too,
could also be "reckoned the least of nations". 

We shall continue developing this theme.  As far as Robert commenting it any
further in the manner he did the one before, we shall no longer bother to
answer him until the whole thing is finished.  I think in the first lines of
this mailer we have shown the uselessness of his caricaturist approach.


Adolfo Olaechea




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