From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3-AT-blythe.org>
Subject: Re: Racism & Construction Trades/MIM reply to AO
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 14:19:03 -0400 (EDT)


>From owner-marxism  Fri Aug 30 04:04:44 1996
X-Sender: hariette-AT-mail.easynet.co.uk
Subject: RE: Labor & Racism: Construction Trades

>
>To recognize this ugly fact is already a big step forward. 
>But isn't this section of American workers constitutes a minority
> of US labor force?  The very viciousness of their efforts
> to protect their turf seems to suggest how insecure they feel
> in the midst of the laboring masses who become more impoverished
> and more willing to challenge their privileges.  IMO, to portray these
> workers as representing the US proletariat as a whole towering above the 
>billions of exploited toilers of the rest of the world may be very 
>dangerous for both sides.  This would only play in the hands
> of metropolitan and national bourgeoisies. Instead, the privilidged
>layers of the working class in the North should be politically neutralized
> wherever their cooperation with the rest of the workers is presently
>out of question.  The problem is how to mobilize the masses without
>antagonizing the "aristocracy" and pushing it into the hands of reaction.
>
>Vladimir


[AO says]
In seeking to link their theory of the "white working class" with the
question of the aristocracy of labour, MIM fails to understand the question
in Marxist terms, and Bilenkin is also failing to see that the aristocracy
of labour, far from being "semi-proletarians" as MIM holds, are in fact
CLASS ENEMY, bourgeoisie!   A substantial chunk of the so called white
working class - i.e. the "respectable" working class (that imbued of

MIM replies: Notice how AO still mocks the phrase "white working class"
when we just proved to him that the CP-USA of 1931 UNDER STALIN's
EXPLICIT DIRECTIONS started using the phrase "white workers." This
comes from a man who claims to belong to a Stalin Society, not a Mao
Society. You can see the difficulties we have here these days
reclaiming the ORIGINAL principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,
when the Stalin society feverishly attacks Stalin's words and
stands up for oppressor nation rights, and does so arrogantly
without knowledge of the national conditions he is speaking of
and without a consistent theory for his own intervention, namely
that there is no Amerikan proletariat and hence the outside proletariat
better intervene!
********************************************************

[AO says]
bourgeois prejudices, the "bourgeoisified workers, in Marx's words) may
follow the aristocracy of labour and in fact does so in the USA.  But these
masses are NOT the aristocracy of labour but their victims and dupes.

MIM replies: It's almost a translation problem, but AO reads
Lenin as to equate labor bureaucrats with labor aristocrats.
I would like to check to make sure that AO understands the difference
between "bureaucrats" and "aristocrats."

The quote about the masses as victims and dupes is how we know that AO is 
seeking to protect the 
Amerikan majority from the truth of its own existence--and for what?--
for social-democratic assumptions about needing a majority. If
one reads AO translating "labor aristocrat" to "labor bureaucracy,"
his views become no different than the Trotskyists'. Of course
his views have no standing in Marx or Engels, where
bourgeoisified workers are not just a handful. If he claims
to be faithful to Marx and Engels, then he is in the position
of saying attack the majority and its interests and break it up.
However, as we can see below, that's not what he has in mind
or he'd already be in closer unity with MIM.

What's your line sir? Are they a majority bourgeois or not?
And guess who thought they were a majority bourgeois even
before the 19-fold growth of the financial share of the
economy's employment! You 
want to squirm around this like Proyect, but maybe it would
be better just to take a stand and the lumps that come with
one or stay out of it completely!
**********************************************************


[AO says]
When you consider the aristocracy of labour as "semi-proletarians" or
"bourgeosified workers" as both - from different angles - Bilenkin and MIM
do, it is evident that, contrary to the proletarian policy, you would have
to arrive at proposals not to "antagonise" them.  

MIM replies: Here we thank AO for finally just letting the
social-democratic cat out of the bag. He says we "have to arrive
at proposals not to 'antgonise' them" if they are the majority,
as in the case of the MIM line he refers to.
He forgets we don't HAVE to fear antagonizing anyone in the
imperialist countries, because the imperialist countries are
the minority. Like Lenin said the "whole country" is a parasite
as I showed in my post of Victor Perlo quoting Lenin. Even Victor
Perlo knows what Lenin really said. Does AO? Does AO know
of Mao's "strategic confidence" and from what masses that flows?
Does "strategic confidence" come from expecting revolution
>from the majority of the oppressor nation? Of course not.
Such a teaching makes a mockery of self-reliance.

AO differs from MIM, because he can't stand MIM's
approach to breaking up the parasitic classes and their
attack on the oppressed nations. He wants to retain some
room for social-democracy and oppressor nation rights.
He doesn't understand that democracy exists only for groups.
There is proletarian democracy and there is democracy
for oppressed nations on the one hand. There is bourgeois
democracy and rights for oppressor nations on the other hand.
There is no middle ground no matter how many hairs AO
may try to split between "semi-proletariat" and "labor aristocracy."
**************************************************
 
[AO says]
Only consistent Marxism stands for an antagonistic struggle against the
aristocracy of labour, the social-chauvinists and imperialist "Labour"
bourgeosie of the imperialist countries:  The Labour Party in Britain for
example, and the "left Democrats and Union bureacrats" in the USA, for
example, while supporting the masses of the working class irrespective of
national origen or colour under the immortal slogan of the Communist movement:

"Proletarians of all countries unite"!


Adolfo Olaechea   

MIM replies: We are going to have go around a few times on this,
because AO sounds very similar to MIM, but if you look closely,
there is still a world of difference. 

Whether semi-proletariat or labor aristocracy, AO is NOT
going to find words from Mao saying to rely on the Japanese
labor aristocracy or semi-proletariat and avoid antagonizing them!
No, he is talking mostly throughout his work how to rid China
of the Japanese and he is not bothering with these hair-splitting
distinctions that AO is making on behalf of the oppressor nations!
When Mao does make hair-splitting distinctions, it's to split his 
enemy, lackeys of imperialism for instance. That's
when you need fine distinctions about the enemy classes.

Nor does Mao ever excuse anyone for a lack of concrete
investigation, because there is no Marxism-Leninism not integrated with
concrete conditions. If AO is now admitting that the
majority of the united states and England is semi-proletariat, he should
do so publicly.

And one last thing, if this is not all because of the
desire to obtain a labor bureaucrat's bribe from imperialism,
then AO should stop with the sentimental internationalism toward
the oppressor nation just because most of us here are
>from the oppressor nations. The struggle cannot afford
anything less than the naked truth.




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