Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 08:35:12 +0200 (MET DST)
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re:Nicaragua..


Hi,

Basically what Jim Miller writes is correct in his polemic against Louis. 
There are a couple of points however i would like to take up.

What does Jim mean when he says communism didn,t collapse, it was Stalinism. 
In fact many of the revolutions that came after the consolidation of the 
Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet union meant that real material aid in 
countries in the third world did come from the Soviet Union. The problem was 
that this aid had its political price.  

And another point is the leadership question. The problem in Nicaragua was 
not the revolutionary fever and potential of the masses. It was that there 
was not a leadership which was prepared to takle the neccessary steps needed 
to continue and lead the struggle forward. Most of the defeated revolutions 
in our history did not fail because the masses didn,t want to make a 
revolution, but the leadership wanted to make a deal! 

The marxist slogan of "you have nothing to lose but your chains" means just 
that.
Defeat in battle is honerable. Being betrayed by your leaders is a disgrace..

In the coming revolutionary uppsurges the whole question of revolutionary 
leadership is once again focused on just that. No longer can the dilitants 
turn to "communists"
with state power for "help". The only way forward is a courageous leadership 
and the revolutionary energy of the proletariat.

The slogan of the future should be "better to fight the battle and lose, 
then stab the revolutionary workers in the back". 

The biggest crime of the "Stalinists" was just beheading the proletariat of 
its revolutionary role and with its "aid" stopping the revolutionary 
process.One of the few things i have to give the Cuban leadership a rose for 
was their aid. But it was never enough and it was also linked to their own 
dependence on Moscow...

Now revolutionaries are forced once again to depend on spreading the 
revolution to whole areas and continents if one expects to be successful. 

Everytime someone tries to find a progressive part of their own bougeoisie 
to cozy up too it is a betrayal of the proletariat. It is also a betrayal of 
revolutionary internationalism. 

Stalinism is dead! Good.

Bye the way. I thing that the PCP leadership should begin to realise this. 
Much better then making deals with the local Bougeoisie against 
imperialism...Read your own docuements again. You are constantly telling the 
workers that a pact with their class enemies can be a good thing. Since when?

In fact, the maoist theroy is nothing other then a reformist social 
democratic theroy applied to the third world. In Europe the social democrats 
betrayed the principles of marxism at the beginning of the first world war. 
This by blocking with their own bourgeoisie in voting for the war credits in 
the individual countries. Maoism is a continuation of that policy, the only 
difference being that they want to make a block before the war has even started!

If i were leading a party in lets say Peru. I would not be making any deals 
with the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie against imperialism. I would turn 
to the workers in the imperialist countries and say. Help us in making our 
revolution!

But then again i am not a Peruvian Menshevik with a maoist cover.

malecki in exile...  




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