From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3-AT-blythe.org>
Subject: MIM Congress: "Proletarian Leadership in 1996"
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 15:27:36 -0400 (EDT)


"On Proletarian Leadership in the Imperialist Countries"

MIM reaffirms its support for its 1995 Congress Resolution called 
"Reject the Outdated Idea of an Emerging International Center." 
Already in the past year, the application of that resolution in struggle 
has proved fruitful in varied and numerous circumstances.

The reorienting of the international communist movement on the 
basis of Maoism and its unification within those parts that already 
uphold Maoism turns on questions of varying degrees of universal 
significance.

Those questions of absolutely universal significance include Deng 
Xiaoping, Hoxhaite, Khruschevite, Brezhnevite, Gorbachevite and Hua 
Guofeng revisionism. Also, the earlier generations of revisionism and 
social-democracy including Trotskyism in the imperialist countries 
remain of absolutely universal significance. Regardless of national or 
local conditions, Maoist party members must be unanimous in their 
opposition to Chinese and ex-Soviet revisionism. MIM refers to this 
as a matter of its first two cardinal questions, one each for the Soviet 
Union historically and the Cultural Revolution in China. We refer to 
these questions as absolutely universal because they do not vary by 
national conditions.

As Mao explained, there is no Marxism-Leninism that is not 
integrated with national conditions. Hence, it will not suffice to be 
fully Maoist by taking the correct stand on questions of universal 
historical significance within the international communist movement. 
The first two cardinal questions are a very important first step to 
make and likewise, those comrades most able to integrate Maoism 
with national conditions are more likely to have the stand on the 
first two cardinals correct.

Restating Mao, the Peruvian Maoists employ the concept of "Guiding 
Thought" as a convenient phrase to refer to the integration of 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with concrete national conditions. While 
comrade Gonzalo was still free, the PCP Central Committee wrote: 
"Thus, each revolution must specify its own Guiding Thought, 
otherwise there is no application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, nor 
development of a revolution."

MIM's third cardinal on the white working class of the imperialist 
countries is an example of "Guiding Thought." At the first level, the 
question of class formation is a universal one. 
All Maoists must use the same definitions of classes. However, in the 
end, the breakdown of classes in a society and what to do with them 
is a question for the formation of a Guiding Thought.

In Volume One of the Selected Works, Mao sets forth definitions of 
the classes he will analyze in Chinese society in the first essay. The 
second essay in Volume one is already the application of those 
definitions in an analysis of Chinese society.

Such questions as the breakdown of society into classes, the existence 
of a class as opposed to scattered elements of a class, the particular 
class content of the national question, whether or not a society is still 
semi-feudal--these are matters of the Guiding Thought and cannot be 
answered by way of quotation from the classic works of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism. As an example where attention to particular detail 
is necessary, we can point to Ancient Rome, where Marx said there 
was a still-born property-less proletariat. Likewise in Ancient China 
of almost 1000 years ago, there was a manufacturing sector and a 
proto-capitalist class. Yet though the definitions of proletariat and 
capitalist might apply to some elements of society in Ancient Rome 
or China, we cannot really say that the proletariat as a class existed, 
especially in the way we understand that term scientifically as a 
class today. That is a matter of integrating Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism with the concrete conditions.

In the imperialist countries, there is not a single organization other 
than MIM that seeks to apply the definitions of proletariat and semi-
proletariat. Hence, there can be no question as yet as to whether any 
but MIM is a Maoist organization in the imperialist countries. There 
is no point over arguing which Guiding Thought is correct for which 
imperialist country when there is no organization other than MIM 
starting from definitions appropriate for the era of imperialism that 
Lenin analyzed and named.

We can name the major obstacles to taking up the universal aspects 
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the imperialist countries. In order 
of declining importance they are bourgeois democratic prejudice, 
post-Modernism, hegemonic dogmatism and populism.

The significance of bourgeois democratic prejudice is that many who 
set out to conduct a scientific analysis of classes in the imperialist 
societies recoil when they learn that the proletariat can only be a 
tiny minority in the imperialist countries. They then turn around and 
alter the definition of proletariat or take-up outright social-
democracy in order to achieve a "majority" as the vehicle for 
progress within imperialist countries, conveniently by omitting the 
question of opening borders to obtain a majority of proletarians or 
former peasants. Social-democracy 
has not vanished as a trend in the 
world today, principally because it is based in an actually existing 
class, the semi-proletariat. Over time, the task of separating from the 
social-democracy of the Second International in the imperialist 
countries has become more urgent and more difficult, not less.

The second major obstacle seen is post-Modernism, which is often 
mushed together with bourgeois democratic prejudice. Where post-
Modernism is not merged together with bourgeois democratic 
prejudice,  it does not seek a majority for its own sake, but it takes 
advantage of Marx's process of defining the proletariat to redefine 
the proletariat to include white-collar workers, "pink-collar" workers 
and other such inventions of the intelligentsia including those related 
to environmentalism, feminism and anti-racism. Such post-Modernist 
attempts to change the definition of proletariat are anti-Leninist in 
that they deny that imperialism is an historical era that we are still 
in and that the definition of proletariat remains unchanged since 
Lenin's day. Post-modernism is also counter to the MLM 
understanding of the world as divided into nations, and the fact that 
today the principal contradiction is between imperialism and the 
oppressed nations--a contradiction of utmost violence and not just a 
matter of language reform or tolerance psychology instruction for 
instance.

Hegemonic dogmatism is the third obstacle to a correct development 
of Maoism in the imperialist countries. Dogmatists take up quotations 
>from the classics of MLM without regard to concrete conditions. They 
quote Mao on the united states and other societies in a way that Mao 
abhorred. They escape an analysis of concrete conditions by 
quotation. Such dogmatism by itself is nothing new, but gains 
dangerous force when backed by the prestige of Maoist revolutions 
not in the imperialist countries. Hegemonic dogmatism is then the 
denial of the need for a study of concrete conditions combined with 
the denial of a need for a Guiding Thought.

Finally, there is populism as a roadblock to development of Maoism 
in the imperialist countries. Often indistinguishable from bourgeois 
democratic prejudice, it becomes distinguishable when those 
comrades who define and apply the definitions of the classes 
correctly, nonetheless never seek to mention them again. Instead, 
such populists always speak of the "people" and their just demands 
via the environment or education, where there might be a 
congruence between the interests of the proletariat and the middle-
classes combined which form the people. In practice, this is a way to 
lead comrades into being swamped by middle-class concerns and 
drag us back to the Second International. The way to separate from 
populism right now is to put the principal emphasis on setting up the 
proletarian pole in the imperialist countries. That entails as its 
corollary the destructive side of attacking revisionism and social-
democracy as principal over allying with the middle-classes--until 
that time we can be sure there are Maoist parties with the four 
cardinals set up in the imperialist countries. This does not mean we 
do not "walk on two legs," but we must be sure to ensure proletarian 
leadership by carrying out the destructive phase of clearing out 
revisionism and social-democracy as a higher priority for us now 
than allying with the middle classes.

Adopted unanimously, 1996 MIM Congress



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