Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 20:16:13 +0100
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (hariette spierings)
Subject: Re: marxism-digest V2 #958


>Boddhisatva wrote; hypothetically-
>
>        Let's say the people's war (of some sort) is successful.  Peru
>>tries to industrialize.  The capitalist nations embargo, the currency is
>>made worthless externally and the people's factories cannot produce for
>>export.  The government of Peru then pegs the currency to the US dollar,
>>accepts US currency, and legalizes the production of concentrated coca
>>(implicitly for export), under controlled conditions.  Clearly the U.S. goes
>>nuts, but could the western capitalists resist the temptation of the legal
>>flow of all that drug money, as the coca cartels send their dollars in to
>>buy goods legally?
>
>(snip)
>>        I am absolutely not implying anything about the PCP, but I'm sure
>>they will have something to say on this.  Does our new Turkish subscriber
>>have anything to put in?
>
>I won't argue the case, because the method of thinking is wrong. You are
>assuming a Peruvian Revolution, while the rest of the world stays just as
>is. This method works for chemistry experiments or debugging computer
>programs, when one varies one variable at a time, keeping everything else
>constant.
>
>A more likely case would be; there is a revolution in Peru, which
>undoubtedly influences neighboring countries' working class and peasants,
>helps liven the revolutionaries world-wide. The revolution is partly
>possible, because it could not be crushed militarily by the imperialist
>powers, beset by their own economical/ political problems (think Vietnam).
>The Peruvians fight back, as people who believe they are right always do,
>better than any professional army, better than any million dollar military
>machine. (If there is unrest in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Bulgaria, Greece would
>immediately be affected, there are Turks living in those countries, Kurds in
>Turkey, Iran, Iraq, linked by language, kinship, very often economically as
>well). Revolutionaries all over the world would be affected (shipments of
>arms to be used against the 1917 Russian Revolution were effectively dumped
>to the sea by the workers in many cases).
>
>Do we deal in drugs? I hope not. Why must we? Who would fight and die to
>replace the current state of the affairs with the same, differing in name?
>
>You think of the US as a singular power, in terms of the US government only.
>What about the US working class, or the German, Mexican, Turkish, Kurdish
>working class. Governments are not entitites floating on air, perpetual in
>their status quo. Bourgeois historians makes statements as such, "then the
>US did this, then Germany did that". 
>
>I think Lenin's oft repeated arguments about the "weakest chain of the link"
>should enter the here. I won't repeat, but the world is not simply an
>interaction of governments, opaque to each other's internal class structure. 
>
>Say the US embargoes, but the customs offials and shippers don't. 
>
>One local note, there is no effective embargo of Iraq from Turkey, goods are
>regularly smuggled and exchanged on both sides of the border, petroleum from
>Iraq, food and other stuff from Turkey move in large quantities. Kurds North
>of the border organise sometimes under the organisations as the Kurds South
>of the Border. How do you think Iraq has been managing in spite of all these
>years of "embargo". Do you think the Lebanese enforce the embargo against Iraq?
>
>I'll accept that any revolution may be defeated by the imperialists, at any
>case. Internationalism may not take roots enough and the revolution may be
>isolated. But even at worst, it won't be as straight forward as you make it
>sound like.
>
>Sorry, but your analysis sounds like the Financial Times.
>
>Regards,
>Zeynep 
>
>


Your analysis, Zeynep, shows a grasp of proletarian internationalism which
other members of this list, particularly those who think that Marxism is the
exclusive prerrogative of Western bred cloth cap workers with a pedigree
going back several generations and who look down at third world
revolutionaries as "deformed Marxists" ought to note and learn from.

Marxism is the science of liberation of the oppresed and exploited masses.
Marxism is continuing to develop and cannot stand still, otherwise it
becomes brittle and ceases to have any value.  Marxism develops in the
struggle and not in the "intellectual pond".  That is why, since in the
oppressed nations of the world there is more struggle, more often and
sharper, that Marxism find its clearer and most advanced manifestations in
such countries of the world. 

The main arena of revolution continues to be in the oppressed countries of
the world.

Adolfo Olaechea

 



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