File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-05-24.181, message 54


Date: 03 May 96 19:37:26 EDT
Subject:  Communist Marxism vs.  Det. CVO maoist menshevism



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From:	"J.S.Daborn", INTERNET:J.S.Daborn-AT-sheffield.ac.uk
TO:	"Dave B.", 102644,3557
	Barb, INTERNET:UBRANES-AT-UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU
	"Ben (RSSG)", 74471,2416
	"Ms. Evelyn", INTERNET:SMDMS-AT-CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
	Val & Frank, 76275,1621
	"Steve G.", INTERNET:GILBERTS-AT-IX.NETCOM.COM
	Gary, 73764,204
	"D. Henwood", INTERNET:DHENWOOD-AT-PANIX.COM
	June & Hodie, 74471,1464
	"J.S.Daborn", INTERNET:J.S.DABORN-AT-SHEFFIELD.AC.UK
	Sarah and Jack, 73613,516
	Jake, 73623,137
	Joseph, 73532,1325
	"Misc. left list", INTERNET:MARXISM-AT-JEFFERSON.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU
	Mauro, INTERNET:MAURO.JR-AT-IOL.IT
	Neil, 74742,1651
	Pete, 73174,2070
	Phil, 73633,2655
	Curtis Price, INTERNET:CANSV-AT-IGC.APC.ORG
	"Vince (NY)", 74461,3603
	Richard Broza, 73532,1325
CC:	(unknown), INTERNET:SAIFI-AT-KHALKHAL.DEMON.CO.UK
DATE:	5/3/96 8:51 AM

RE:	Re: reply to JS Daborn

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From: "J.S.Daborn" <J.S.Daborn-AT-sheffield.ac.uk>
To: "Dave B." <102644.3557-AT-compuserve.com>, Barb <ubranes-AT-uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>,
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        "J.S.Daborn" <J.S.Daborn-AT-sheffield.ac.uk>,
        Sarah and Jack <73613.516-AT-compuserve.com>,
        Jake <73623.137-AT-compuserve.com>, Joseph <73532.1325-AT-compuserve.com>,
        "Misc. left list" <marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>,
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        Curtis Price <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>,
        "Vince (NY)" <74461.3603-AT-compuserve.com>,
        Richard Broza <73532.1325-AT-compuserve.com>
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Subject: Re: reply to JS Daborn
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Reply-To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU

To Richard Broza

A Slow Response from an Internationalist

I am sorry that I was unabvle to at this sation for a few weeks 
inorder to reply to the attempt by "Mark" to defend the reactionary 
ideas of Joseph Green which I criticised in "A Hasty Response from an 
Internationalist".  In fact we seem to have rattled a few <aoist 
cages here so that the response is the usual mixture of distortion, 
diversion and plain old-fashioned lies.

However Mark's reply does at least have the merit of laying bare the 
class distinctions.  This is not a debate within marxism but between 
the proletariat and the petty (very petty!) bourgeoisie.  Maoism has 
never stood on the terrain of the proletariat but has always based 
itself on the peasantry.  It grew as a movement out of the very defeat 
of the working class in the 1920s both globally and in particular in 
China.  After the massacres of Canton and Shanghai (which, note this 
well Mark,  were the sorry  results of the degenerated Comintern's attempt 
to support the nationalist Kuomintang of Chiang Kai Shek) the 
leadership of the Chinese CP eventually fell to Mao and his peasant 
tendency.  Their victory in October 1949 was therefore not a workers 
victory but one of an all class nationalist alliance (the bloc of 4 
classes).  It was only after the pretensions of Mao in 1954 that the 
CCP even claimed to be leading a proletarian revolution.  

It is little wonder then that Mark should twist the subject of our 
discussion from the working class to the confusionist one, typical of 
the petty bourgeoisie of "toilers".  It is entirely logical for the 
Communist Voice crew to defend the peasantry (or even the black 
bourgeoisie of the ANC in South Africa) because they do not stand on 
a proletarian position.  This is why they have never responded to 
the promptings of Neil and the LAWV comrades to explain their past 
(and, who knows, present?) support for such anti-working class 
regimes as Enver Hoxha, Pol Pot etc.  today they hide behinda 
caricature of Marxism in order to disguise their anti-proletarian 
positions.  

All this means that debate with them is useless but there are others 
>from the Maoist debacle who may now understand the stupidity and 
untenability of the whole Maoist project.  We urge them to read and 
study the positions of the Communist Left which does not need to 
revise or recant its postions.  More and more the events that unfold 
confirm to the long and, at times, heroic struggle our predecessors 
have fought against the degneration of revolutionary organisation and 
theory over the last seven decades.  First we had to fight against 
the degenration of the Comintern towards Stalinism, then we had to 
criticise the still-born attempt of Trotsky to voluntaristically 
create a Fourth International largely based on reiterating Social 
Democratic politics from before World War One and today we are still 
fighting against these tendencies attempt to patch up their outworn 
theories (largely by pinching bits of our analysis). 

 However there is no such attempt being made by Mark since he fails 
to recognise that anything new has happened in the world in this 
century and thus constantly takes us back to the old worn-out slogans 
of the past.  We don't propose to respond to all Mark's assertions 
but we do need to be clear about some of the phrases he has seized 
upon.  We do not say that only the movment which immediuatley begins 
as a struggle for socialism can be supported.  Every revolutionary 
movment of the past has begun inside the bourgeois political 
framework and it would be a species of idealism for us to take up a 
stance which ignored that fact.  Howver this a debate about what is 
the communist programme and we must first recognise what that is in 
this epoch.  This is why we find that the CVO is on the other side of 
the class barrier.  WE can no longer find any progressive national 
movment anywhere on the planet.  the local bourgeoisie are tied in to 
global capital and imperialism.  Compare the awdry ANC with the 
Talian liberation movment of the last century.  The proletariat could 
support the latter because it expanded the capitalist framwork and 
therefore the growth of their own class.  Today imperialism is not 
expanding in the same way (yes there is till economic growth but the 
point is that this growth is only achieved at the increased barbarism 
of war and famine i.e. we now live in the era when capitalism's own 
laws are a fetter on a real growth in the productive forces.  It's 
social costs are no longer acceptable and only socialism can break 
this mould and create a society which liberates the forces of 
production once again).  This once understood we can see that the 
so-called liberation movements are simply tools of imperialism (the 
ANC could have struggled for ever more if it had not been for 
Anglo-American) who cannot deliver anything to the working class.  
This is why the working class in fighting oppression has to retain 
its own INDEPENDENT organaisation and programme today.  To argue that 
the workers should put themselves under the banner of the local 
bourgeoisie and then when they ahve helped them to victory they 
should start struggling for their own liberation is both pie in 
the sky (a never never world if ever there was one) and a betrayal of the
 tasks of communists.

Communism will not be achieved quickly (and in historical time it has 
come a long way in a short time - we now know as a class that we 
cannot reform the bourgeoisie out of existence, we now know that 
natiomalisation is not anti-capitalism but actually helps support 
state capitalism, and above all we now know that only the proletariat 
through its own political organisations, especially its political 
party can only make the revolution).  All the Maoist crap about the 
"toilers", about the continued dominance of "feudal relations" in 
large parts of the world (where? everywhere but the tiniest enclaves  
ares subject to the laws of the global market) are reactionary and intended 
to prevent the 
formation of an independent working class communist consciousness.

The final defence of aour decadent Maoists for their reactionary 
support for the bourgeoisie is to claim that Neil and the Communist 
Left are "social imperialists".  This is an amusing smokescreen which 
fools no-one (except perhaps their supporters).  The Communist Left 
supports onlythe independence of the working class in every struggl;e 
and this means wwe reject any support for any local imperialism.  We 
did not support Galtieri in the Malvinas issue (although we 
campaigned vigorously in factories for the British working class to strike against 
the British war machine), we did not support Saddam Hussein in the 
Gulf although we denounced the NATO genocide. To do anything else is 
to make the working class a hostage to imperialist interests.  There 
are are big bourgeoisies and little bourgeoisies who fight over the 
spoils of imperialism.  We do not support any of them  but fight for the unity 
of the proletariat everywhere.  At the moment this happens only in 
pockets but gradually the bourgeoisie is running out of reasons for 
marching us off to war.  Only the Left of capital with its talk about 
fighting on the side of oppressed nations (as Thatcher and Major also 
did 
about Kuwait!) provide the new rationale for imeprialist war.  The 
leftists are the real social-imperialists!

Thew first task today is to be clear about what is the communist 
programme.  This means being clear about where we are in history.  
Until the left have a clear analysis of imperialism (which is not 
just Amerika) they cannot even begin that task.  The negative tone of 
the CVO responses show that they have nothing to offer the working 
clas today.  We urge all serious communist to take up the theoretical 
acquisitions of the communist left and untiing organisationally 
around them.  
Jock




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