MIM Notes 300! · April 15, 2004 · Page 1
MIM Notes
April 15, 2004, Nº 300!
The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
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TH
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T
he March 30 killings of four
Amerikans in a military convoy
turned into an anti-Amerikan
protest for the Iraqi people in Falluja.
Crowds of Iraqi people burned, mutilated,
and then dragged the Amerikans' bodies
through the streets, providing a violent and
clear declaration of the Iraqi people's
desire for the Amerikan occupation to
end. The Amerikans who were killed,
reported everywhere in Amerikan media
as "civilians," worked for Blackwater
Security Consulting, a mercenary group
hired by the Amerikan military. They were
fully armed and part of a military
convoy.(1)
Iraqi attackers ambushed the SUV
carrying the Amerikans and took off after
killing them. This is when a mob of Iraqi
people, including children, swarmed the
wreckage, burning the bodies and
dragging the corpses through the streets.
This story disproves the Amerikan claim
that it is only a handful of insurgents who
oppose the Amerikan occupation. It is a
lie that the Iraqi people welcome
Amerikan military presence.
March was the second-deadliest month
for Amerikan troops in Iraq since
President Bush proclaimed major combat
operations were over last May. [As we
go to press, initial reports claim at least
ten Amerikan soldiers died in fighting on
the first Sunday in April.] At the same
time, Bush's former anti-terrorism chief,
Richard Clarke, testified to the
commission investigating the September
11 attacks. He provided insider
information about the Bush
administration's fixation on invading Iraq
regardless of the evidence.
It is imperialist militarism that presents
the greatest threat of violence and
destruction to the peoples of the world.
Thin excuses for invasions and military-
backed coups attempt to cover Amerikan
imperialist aggression throughout Latin
America, Asia, Africa and the Middle
East. But the people in these countries
see the Amerikan (or Amerikan-backed)
occupying armies for what they are: the
military might behind national oppression.
Amerikan leaders claim they will return
civilian authority to Iraqis in three months.
If this actually goes down, it will be a
sham handover. Students of Amerikan
history know Amerika will allow only
obedient lackeys to take power; it will
retain neo-colonial control over Iraq, its
people and its resources.
In the face of all the killings of
Amerikan military personnel in Iraq,
Protestors
condemn
ongoing
Iraq war
O
NE
YEAR
AFTER
LATEST
INVASION
,
SIGNS
OPPOSITION
IS
DEEPENING
By MIM and RAIL comrades
San Francisco, March 20--Tens of
thousands of people protested on the
streets of San Francisco today, marking
the one-year anniversary of the Amerikan
invasion and occupation of Iraq. This rally
was the largest since the immediate
aftermath of the invasion. Momentum in
the anti-war movement waned in the
Anti-war protestors in San Francisco and Baghdad.
many months since the militant outrage
of the people shut down the streets of
San Francisco last year. But this large
rally showed that many people are still
paying attention and speaking out against
Amerikan imperialism.
Comrades from the Revolutionary Anti-
Imperialist League (RAIL) joined the pre-
rally march in San Francisco's Mission
district. Groups representing oppressed
nations were there, including the Filipinos
for Global Justice Not War Coalition
(FilsGlobe) and Students for Justice In
MIM TO EX-
YUGOSLAVIA,
EX-SOVIET
BLOC:
IMPERIALISM
HAS NO ANSWER
by International Minister
Violence between ethnic Albanians and
Serbs flared in ex-Yugoslavia on March
17th. Rioters killed 28 Serbians, injured
hundreds, burned hundreds of homes, dug
up graves and destroyed Serbian
churches hundreds of years old. Serbs
burned mosques in Belgrade in retaliation.
Two or three Albanian boys depending
on the report also drowned in the turmoil.
The short-run cause appears to be some
maneuvering leading up to a referendum
or UN considerations in 2005 regarding
Kosova--spelled "Kosovo" in the old
Yugoslavia days and still referred to that
way by Serbs. Others believed that the
short-run cause was that Serbian men
had chased two
Albanian boys
who ended up
drowning in a
river, an event
preceded of
course by
another event in
which Serbians
believed a drive-
by shooting was
done by Albanians. MIM will say bluntly
it is not interested much in this "we said/
they said" detail. By now everyone should
know there are murderous backward
nationalists running about in eastern
Europe and the Caucusus.
Former Finnish prime minister and head
of the United Nations organization in
Kosova Harri Holkeri says that both
Serbia-Montenegro's government and
Albania's government agreed that the
violence should cease.(1) On the 23rd,
the Finns acting for the UN arrested
Shukri Buja, a former commander of the
KLA--an organization using a name not
unlike famous liberation armies of the past.
Shukri Buja is also a leader of the second-
largest party there, the PDK.(2)
Meanwhile, the Foreign Minister of
Serbia-Montenegro accused Germany of
blocking the way in the Security Council
for action on the outrages in Kosova.
Goran Svilanovic said that Germany
favors Kosova's independence from
Kosova violence breaks out
Continued on page 6...
Continued on page 4...
Continued on page 8...
Anti-Amerikan attacks explode in Iraq
MIM Notes 300! · April 15, 2004 · Page 2
What is MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging
Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-
speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.
MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the
vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for
North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the
potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang
of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third
World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to
advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.
"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should
regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of
learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."
- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.
Editor, MC206; Production, MC12
Letters
MIM Notes
The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement
ISSN 1540-8817
MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM
Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.
The paper is free to all prisoners, as long as they write to us every 90 days to confirm
their subsciptions. There are no individual subscriptions for people outside prison.
People who want to receive newspapers should become sponsors and distributors.
Sponsors pay for papers, distributors get them onto the streets, and officers do both
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Mail), $3,840; 900 (8-10 days), $2,200. To become a sponor or distributor, send
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tains thousands of documents, with ordering information for many more.
MIM grants explicit permission to copy all or part of this newspaper for any reason, as
long as we are credited.
For general correspondence, contact:
MIM
P.O. Box 29670
Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670
eMail: <mim@mim.org>
WWW: <http//www.etext.info/Politics/MIM>
What's up with Ho
and Castro?
I'm curious as to what MIM's position
on Ho Chi Mihn and Fidel Castro is, as
there is nothing regarding them in the FAQ
[MIM's Frequently Asked Questions
webpage]. I'd like to see such entries in
the FAQ, if you guys would do so.
Also, I do find your website to be quite
thought-provoking, though I'm not certain
as to whether or not I agree with you or
not. At any rate, I do give my appreciation
for your efforts and will continually re-
evaluate my own positions and become
more thoughtful in my actions. If nothing
else, I thank you for making me think.
--An internet reader
mim@mim.org responds: Probably
the best summary of our views on Ho
Chi Minh can be found in our review of a
recent biography (http://www.etext.info/
Politics/MIM/bookstore/books/asia/
duikerho.html).
On the one hand, Ho Chi Minh was a
relative success in ousting imperialists
from his oppressed nation, without
succumbing to narrow nationalism. On the
other hand, he failed to recognize
Kruschev's revisionism: the danger of
capitalist counterrevolution masquerading
as "Marxism." This caused major
problems internationally.
Ho Chi Minh once told an interviewer
that he left ideological questions to Mao
Zedong. There is both truth and trouble
in this statement. In Lenin's and Stalin's
day, they called people like Ho
"practicals." These are people who are
good at particular tasks but who do not
follow ideological arguments. In many
ways, Ho was just a "practical" like early
Stalin; Ho and Stalin both had talents in
many, many areas. In Stalin's case, those
concerns eventually drove him into
theoretical debates. To the extent that Ho
was still fighting U.$. occupier troops
when he died, it was correct for him to
focus on practical matters regarding the
national question. Yet as a communist, Ho
contributed greatly to confusion in the
international communist movement.
The communist movement suffered a
huge wound when Khruschev spit on
Stalin; yet, the true descent into
eclecticism, Liberalism and eventual post-
modernism took the advent of people like
Ho, Kim and Castro who put geopolitical
calculation first and the universal truths
of communism second. The real unity of
the communist movement can never
come about through Liberalism or treating
all opinions as if they were equal. We
communists are obliged as Marx pointed
out in the "Theses on Feuerbach" to unite
in the "this- sidedness" of reality.
Khruschev was irrelevant in the new
communist upsurge of the 1960s in the
United $tates, but the people fighting for
their lives in Vietnam were heroes. As a
result, Ho Chi Minh's line had more
influence than Khruschev's. No one did
more to divide the fledgling U.$.
communist movement than Ho Chi Minh.
For specifics on Castro, we recommend
MIM Theory 4, which contains a chapter
on Cuba. We reiterate the basics of our
position on Cuba here. 1) The Cuban
Revolution was a blow against U.$.
imperialism, which had a choke-hold on
the Cuban economy. 2) As the Cuban
Revolution developed and brought some
gains for the Cuban masses, especially
relative to other societies oppressed by
U.$. imperialism in Latin America, it
eventually replaced U.$. imperialism with
Soviet social- imperialism. 3) It is
important to note that the Cuban military
strategy of "focoism" has succeeded no
where else and has in particular brought
tremendous losses in Latin America. 4)
Cuba is a state-capitalist country. 5)
Currently, Castro is a lackey without a
master. MIM doubts that he can lead the
transition to independent development. 6)
Such independent development was
possible in Cuba's case. Had it pursued
socialist development, Cuba's revolution
would have been in a better position than
Albania's socialist revolution, which
started from an even weaker economic
position than Cuba did. 7) Like all Third
World countries oppressed by imperialism,
Cuba must be defended against
imperialist attack.
MIM Notes 300! · April 15, 2004 · Page 3
A large portion of Bush supporters are
Republicans who actually think they are
moderate libertarians. However, the Bush
administration continues the accelerated
pace of imprisonment that long ago made
the United $tates the number one prison
state in the world per capita.
Judge Dineen King of the Fifth Circuit
US Court of Appeals has complained
about the Bush pace--not because the
United $tates already locks up too many
people, but because there is not enough
money in the budget to hire enough judges
to handle all the cases. The cause in the
increase in activity: "drug and immigration
prosecutions along the US-Mexican
border and Attorney General John
Ashcroft's order last year that federal
prosecutors should seek the severest
charges and penalties."(Boston Globe, 17
Mar 2004)
Although MIM favors a "dictatorship
of the proletariat," we would not be
imprisoning people for border or visa
violations and we would not be having
people in prison for drugs. With the
incentive to make profit on a black
market gone, the drug problem will dry
up after some stern enforcement on a few
big profit-makers--just as it did in China
under Mao.
MIM is seeking help in spreading the
word about the overall situation. We are
having success but need more outlets,
volunteers to struggle, and even more
money to spread the word.
We have had success with articles
roughly like this one below minus the link
and call to distribute the article. Several
Internet forums have deleted this article
and moved toward banning MIM.
Americasdebate.com's moderator
posted the following message: "question
to debate is vague or missing" before
americasdebate.com deleted the post.
Nonetheless, there were a number of
positive responses to articles similar to
the one below. Here is one: "I have
always laughed and joked with my friends
about how so many people are put in
prisons over the stupidest things here in
the US, but truly, that piece of insight right
there is extremely frightening. And eye
opening."
Another response was simply:
"astonishing." When MIM received the
typical non-response that the article is
"hate America crap," MIM responded
as follows: "I didn't hear you answer the
question. Do you love Amerikkka
because it's the most criminal nation on
earth or because the politicians running
the government say it's the most criminal
on earth?
"If it's possible--and I admit this to be
in the realm of speculation--I believe
this guy hates Amerikkka more than me.
I at least believe Amerikkka can change
after a solid generation of revolution or I
would not be here. I have a feeling this
guy goes for the `crack down on crime'-
build-more-prisons hatred of
Amerikkkans every time. I'd like to
know which politicians this guy does
support."
MIM has found that when we are
allowed to post the facts, the debate goes
our way. The enemy ends up neutralized.
What we need is duplication of this
effort.
The article is reprinted here.
The United $tates leads the world in
imprisonment percentage-wise and even
by total prisoners. So my question is
whether love-it-or-leave-it patriots love
Amerika 1) because it is the most
criminal nation on earth? or 2) because
its government treats the people like the
most criminal on earth or 3) because of
gratitude toward the politicians don't
have the guts to tell patriotic voters the
truth about any of this?
The facts about imprisonment in the
United $tates are that the United $tates
has been the world's leading prison-state
per capita for the last 25 years, with a
brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's
declaration of a state of emergency.(1)
That means that while Reagan was
talking about a Soviet "evil empire" he
was the head of a state that imprisoned
more people per capita. In supposedly
"hard-line" Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc
of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was
less than half that of the United
$tates.(2,3)
To find a comparison with U.$.
imprisonment of Black people, there is
no statistic in any country that compares
including apartheid South Africa of the
era before Mandela was president. The
last situation remotely comparable to the
situation today was under Stalin during
war time.
The majority of prisoners are non-
violent offenders(4) and the U.S.
Government now holds about a half
million more prisoners than China; even
though China is four times our
population.(5)
The rednecks tell MIM that we live
in a "free country." They live in an
Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom
is imprisonment.
Notes:
1. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind
Bars: The International Use of
Incarceration 1993," The Prison
Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite
501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-
0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994
2. Ibid., 1992 report.
3. United Nations Development
Programme, "Human Development
Report 1994,:" Oxford University Press,
p. 186.
4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state
prisoners there for non-violent offenses.
Abstract of the United States 1993, p.
211. In 2000, 1.5% of U.$. male convicts
had rape convictions, the second highest
percentage reported by 30 countries
reporting statistics, http://
www.unece.org/stats/gender/web/
database.htm
5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998.
From: http://www.etext.info/Politics/
MIM/faq/freecoun.html
Study the above link. Distribute this
article far and wide!
Bush keeps prison state number one moving
Question for love-it-or-leave-it types:
Amerikkka most criminal nation on
earth or most misgoverned?
April 1
A film of guards brutally beating two
young men in a California Youth Authority
(CYA) facility was released to the public
today, the evening after activists held a
public meeting to demand the CYA be
shut down. The meeting was well
attended by media, activists, former CYA
inmates and family members of youth in
the CYA.
Senator Romero, chairwomyn of the
Senate committee on prisons, released the
tape in an attempt to force the state to do
something about the ongoing brutality in
the CYA. This tape, which apparently was
made and saved without the knowledge
of the guards, was the only evidence of
this incident. The guards filed false reports
charging the youth with assault, and the
youth were afraid to come forward for
fear of reprisal. If it were not for the tape,
this incident would have been like others
that happen every day in the CYA, where
guards brutalize youth and no one finds
out. In spite of the tape and a 40-page
internal affairs report released in late
March detailing the attack and concluding
that six CYA officials should be
prosecuted for their role in the
brutality,(1) no CYA employees have
been charged with any crimes.
This tape bolsters the reports released
in January from eleven independent
experts, which found that the CYA failed
to meet expected criteria for operation
in 21 out of 22 categories evaluated. The
report came out to the public in February
after two young men were found dead
in their CYA cell. But this information is
not new. For years people have been
fighting the abuses in the CYA and
nothing has changed. MIM applauds
Senator Romero for taking steps to move
beyond committee meetings and
hearings. Information about prisons-
system abuses must be made public so
that the people can become outraged and
force change.
The public meeting condemning the
CYA as "Bad for Youth" was organized
by two local activist organizations: Let's
Get Free and Books not Bars (BNB). A
BNB speaker opened the meeting
proclaiming that the beating captured on
the tape "is an outrage that happens all
the time." Speakers at the event described
the brutality in CYA. CYA facilities force
youth into gangs, both as a classification
formality and for self-defense. They put
youth on drugs to keep them quiet, or drive
them to take drugs to cope with the
torture. Families who visit are strip
searched, and many times are turned away
for ridiculous reasons like having a bobby
pin in the hair or wearing a shirt that is
tight. There is virtually no education or
other programming, and youth are taught
that they will be failures in life and have
no hope of accomplishing anything.
The CYA costs $80,000 per
incarcerated youth per year. The total
CYA budget is $385 million per year. The
BNB speaker declared the goal of their
campaign to shut down the 10 CYA
prisons and force the state to invest that
money into real rehabilitation for youth.
Underscoring the message from all the
speakers that the CYA cannot be
reformed but must be torn down she
declared "this is not an aberration, it is a
systematic problem."
The father of one of the two young men
found dead in their cell, Durrell Feaster,
spoke about his outrage at the system that
killed his son. He explained that Durrell
died because "in order to shut him up they
had to kill him." Mr. Feaster was aware
of the torture his son was undergoing in
CYA. "They were beating him down,
locking him up, macing him, they were
killing him." But in spite of this
information, Mr. Feaster found what
many parents of youth locked in CYA
learn: it is dangerous for their children if
they speak out against the system. "Every
California youth prisons brutality exposed
Activists demand CYA be shut down
Continued on page 7...
MIM Notes 300! · April 15, 2004 · Page 4
MIM TO EX-YUGOSLAVIA, EX-SOVIET
BLOC: IMPERIALISM HAS NO ANSWER
Yugoslavia.(3)
When imperialist troops landed with UN
sanction, they simultaneously told the
Serbs that they would not sanction
independence and they told the Albanians
they would keep the Serbian military
forces away from Kosova. Because the
Serbs had an objectively better military
situation on the ground for this sort of
ethnic cleansing, the NATO intervention
objectively aided the Albanian ethnicity,
but now the Albanians are chafing under
international occupation. Because we
supported the only party of Serbians and
other ex-Yugoslav people opposing
Serbian great nationalism-- the Partija
Rada--we now feel justified in
condemning narrow nationalism among
Albanians.
The National Albanian American
Council issued a press release March
19th saying: "Nothing justifies acts of
retribution or burning of churches and
mosques."(4) At the same time, even this
positive statement asking for "maturity"
said that the Serbs' political statements
were worse than the violence.
The violence in March, 2004--five
years after the last war--led the
imperialists to dispatch another 2000
Italian, German and other troops to the
scene.(5) These same imperialists
denounce Stalin for the hard line he took
on the small nationalities between
Germany and the Soviet Union and north
of Iraq, but now they also face the same
need to send troops for a crackdown to
keep ethnic bloodletting from happening.
The difference between the UN/
imperialist crackdown and Stalin's is this:
the economy is going nowhere as these
small nationalities fight. That adds to the
bitterness. The United $tates is Serbia's
biggest foreign investor and the U.$.
economy is going nowhere. Under Stalin,
the whole Soviet Union and its allied
countries moved forward economically.
Furthermore, under Stalin, even if people
had to migrate thanks to Stalin's iron hand,
they still all belonged to the same country
and had the same citizenship rights to visit
Moscow and so on. In the worst
circumstance, internally deported people
cooperated with each other at a distance.
Now in Kosova today, we have all the
same violence and problems that Stalin
also encountered in similar regions he
controlled, but the repressive violence by
supposed peacekeepers ends up in
another round of ethnic cleansing!
Imperialism does not have any other
answer. Now Kosova has had 80% of its
Serbs kicked out and it is more ethnically
pure than even the rest of Europe with
its restrictive immigration policies. In both
Stalin's case and NATO's case, there was
terrible repressive violence, but only in
Stalin's case was there any hope of
advance from that.
If no internationalist authority cracks
down in this whole Balkan region and ex-
Soviet bloc territory extending down into
Baku and further, the ethnicities trade
ethnic-cleansing actions. Today,
Albanians attack minority Serbs in
Kosova. The next day Serbs retaliate
against mosques in Belgrade or
somewhere else and so on down the line,
because no geographic areas are
ethnically "pure," as if there could be such
a thing anyway. The same thing happened
between Azerbaijan and Armenia when
hotheads in one province called Karabakh
leading the break up of the Soviet Union
evicted Azeris only to face retaliation by
Azeris against Armenians in the rest of
Azerbaijan. The actions of some
nationalists ended up creating millions of
refugees on both sides.
Yugoslavia and its leader Tito were the
darlings of all mushy "socialists" opposed
to Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union after
World War II. Tito brought "market
socialism," subsequently adopted by the
revisionists in China and the Soviet Union.
In Tito's version of "market socialism"
there was also "local control;" thus he
gained the support of various half-baked
"anarchists" as well.
Today, all the petty-bourgeois advocates
of the Yugoslavian model are nowhere to
be found, except in total stupor in younger
generations. There are no mea culpas
coming forward from any of the people
who found Tito preferable to Stalin. In
the sense that potential advocates of
"local control" are so lacking in
seriousness that they do not know
Yugoslavia was a model of what they
wanted, there is even another generation
of unconscious Titoites arising.
Now we see clearly where "local
control" of the economy leads. Each
ethnicity retained its own economic
interests and never learned what
centralized cooperation should be.
Workers of each ethnicity never
understood concretely how they were
damaging each others' interests, if at all.
In fact, in Yugoslavia's case, the lack of
centralized contact bred suspicions and
illusions of damage from other ethnicities
when it was really imperialism robbing
Yugoslavia with Tito's blessings. Hence,
without centrally coordinated economic
contact among workers, real damages
and illusions of damages may accrue in
relations among nations. Not surprisingly
as a result, when Western Liberalism
swept eastern Europe, Yugoslavia had the
biggest explosion of ugly ethnic violence,
right out of Hitler's game plan from World
War II. Even in the words of one
nationalist supporter of the ethnic
Albanians, "there were no good guys" in
the conflict: it was that ugly. The recent
term "ethnic cleansing" started with ex-
Yugoslavia.
Stalin's legacy
Greece and Albania are two places
where Stalin has had a stronger influence
than in other countries, because of the
negative example of Tito staring those
countries in the face. Nowhere is the
influence of Stalin greater outside of
Georgia and Russia than Albania, but even
there we see that Stalin has been tossed
aside. As ex-Yugoslavia nicely
encapsulates all the problems of our
current international communist
movement, and because Stalin is such an
influence still, we hope our readers will
pardon us as we go into the details.
After Mao died and Albania's leader
Enver Hoxha broke with China, Hoxha
took to preparing Albanian nationalism.
While he was alive he had think tanks
doing nationalist research on Albania and
he prepared the ground for what we see
today--people claiming to be communist
and yet favoring ethnic cleansing in
Kosova for "democratic" reasons--
tryanny of the majority no different from
that in Iran's theocracy today.
Nonetheless, while Hoxha was alive, he
did not implement the kind of things we
see today. We can only guess that Hoxha
was still calculating that a Stalin figure
might arise in Russia or China that he
might be able to get along with. When
Hoxha died, the Albanians including his
right-hand in the party, did not wait
anymore. They went for capitalism
outright.
This was a big blow to the part of the
"communist" movement that opposed
Mao and upheld Enver Hoxha. It
happened just as Mao said, by the hands
of a bourgeoisie right in the party.
Hoxha's hand-picked successor restored
open free market capitalism.
Most of the Hoxha-supporters quit their
parties and degenerated politically, some
even going for Gorbachev before totally
abandoning politics. Nonetheless, the
influence of Stalin and Hoxha in Albania
did not completely disappear.
As a result, Albanian nationalists have
now appropriated Stalin as favoring a
liberation struggle in Kosova; even though
there is no basis in Stalin's writings for
that notion. One writer on the Internet
going by the name of "Tovarish Spetsnaz"
has written thousands of articles in one
forum alone while purporting to defend
Stalin. According to "Tovarish Spetsnaz,"
(TS) which is a phrase meaning
something like "Comrade Special Forces,"
Serbia is a "mini-imperialism."(7)
MIM responded to this charge that
Serbian chauvinism is "imperialism," as
if imperialism were a cultural practice and
not an economic system. "Where are the
Fortune 500 banks in Serbia that make
Serbia an exporter of capital and hence
an imperialism?
"For us scientists in the legacy of Lenin,
`imperialism' is a scientific term, not a
slur we throw whenever we need some
opportunist camouflage."
TS had issued this charge of "mini-
imperialism" in response to a quote from
Stalin on nationalism: "This does not mean,
of course, that the proletariat must support
every national movement, everywhere
and always, in every individual concrete
case. It means that support must be given
to such national movements as tend to
weaken, to overthrow imperialism, and
not to strengthen and preserve it. Cases
occur when the national movements in
certain oppressed countries come into
conflict with the interests of the
development of the proletarian movement.
In such cases support is, of course,
entirely out of the question."(8) Needless
to say, "Comrade Special Forces" denied
that fighting imperialism is first priority
unless Yugoslavia is counted as
imperialism.
Not all defenders of Stalin in the world
take the line that Stalin somehow endorsed
the kind of conflict we see today which
cleared the way for outright imperialist
occupation in ex-Yugoslavia. Nonetheless,
there are other organizations claiming to
defend Stalin hideously fanning the fire.
The central quote in all this comes from
Continued from page 1...
For us scientists in
the legacy of Lenin,
`imperialism' is a
scientific term, not
a slur we throw
whenever we need
some opportunist
camouflage.
MIM Notes 300! · April 15, 2004 · Page 5
some writing of Hoxha's about his
meeting with Stalin that says the people
of Kosova have self-determination.
Hoxha published the rather bland quote
on self-determination after Stalin died and
could not rebut Hoxha. The Hoxhaites
now say that Stalin favored letting the
Kosova people decide their future and use
that as justification for inter-ethnic
violence. In the exact same document by
Hoxha, Stalin also said this: "The Yugoslav
communists and the Yugoslav people must
attend to that matter; it is up to them to
solve the problems of the present and the
future of their country. It is in this context,
also, that I see the problem of Kosova
and the Albanian population living in other
parts of Yugoslavia. We must not leave
any way for the Titoite enemy to accuse
us later of allegedly waging our fight to
break up the Yugoslav Federation. This
is a delicate moment and needs very
careful handling, because by saying, `See,
they want to break up Yugoslavia,' Tito
not only gathers reaction around him, but
also tries to win the patriotic elements
over to his side."(9) In other words, Stalin
knew that if Kosova left Yugoslavia,
Serbian "patriots" might take it the wrong
way and rally to revisionism.
With NATO troops on the ground, MIM
would say Stalin's warning is still relevant.
Stoking narrow nationalism was the
wrong way to try to get independence
and can do nothing good for Balkan
relations.
The late Bill Bland then residing in
England published by the "Communist
Party Alliance" said that imperialists will
not grant freedom. His conclusion was
that Kosova people should seize their
nation with arms--in the midst of
imperialist intervention. He supported the
Kosova Liberation Army.(10) Yet Bill
Bland's article also contains no relevant
quotes from Stalin. His article is a call
for inter-ethnic violence, a slaughter
among proletarians and farmers.
One pro-KLA "Marxist-Leninist"
wrote in favor of imperialist intervention
for the Kosova people. He said after all
that Stalin called for the intervention of
France and England against
Germany!(11) This utter confusion of an
imperialist country like Nazi Germany
with ordinary non-imperialist countries like
Serbia is typical of much eastern
European false consciousness and most
Hoxhaism as it exists today. MIM repeats:
the only countries east of Germany and
west of Russia that should be considered
imperialist are Sweden, Norway &
arguably Finland--not Iraq, not
Yugoslavia, not Armenia, not Azerbaijan,
not Georgia and not even Turkey.
Others in the confused Hoxha camp
referred to Serbia as a colonial power:
"During the Tito years the region has
always been exploited in a colonial way,
being a producer of raw materials, by the
bourgeoisie of the Federation richer
regions." (12) Most of Hoxhaism died
with the open capitalist restoration in
Albania, but 90% of the remnant of
Hoxhaism would be no where without this
sort of Albanian nationalism which finds
no home anywhere else in the
international communist movement. There
is no home for it, because it is not Leninist
in regarding Serbia as an imperialist
power.
It goes without saying if the
"communists" are coming up with lunacy
regarding Serbian "imperialism," then the
Albanian nationalists are just straight-up
lynching Serbs. The sad truth is that we
could change the names of the ethnicities
and our statement would still be true in
much of the rest of the same region. A
few years from now, these same junk
nationalists will be clamoring to join the
European Union and crossing each
others' borders at will in search of the
perfect Gucci handbag--or so they
dream. MIM is not sure that imperialism
is going to be able to extract enough from
the Third World to integrate all the eastern
European peoples successfully, but 2
million people in Kosova should be no
problem, less than the size of one U.$.
county. If Kosova does manage to join
the European Union plunder-machine on
equal terms, the inter-ethnic violence of
today is still going to look backward.
Russian revisionism
Russian revisionism plays a scandalous
role in ex-Yugoslavia. It was Khruschev
who abandoned Stalin and a principled
position on the national question. It was
also Khruschev who looked to nothing
more than the size and economic strength
of Yugoslavia as a reason to abandon
principled relations with Albania and cosy
up to Tito.
When we see extreme actions of ethnic
cleansing or rioting, as in ex-Yugoslavia,
we can be sure that small nations are
writhing in pain from the punishment of
bigger nations. Once Khruschev
abandoned Stalin on the national question
and allowed for corruption to enter the
party in the name of opposing dictatorship
of the proletariat, all the nations smaller
than Russia knew that bourgeois self-
interest was the new watchword of the
day. Instead of viewing imperialism as the
source of economic problems, ex-Soviet
people since Khruschev have
increasingly looked at their neighbors as
the source of economic problems.
Imperialist country revisionism<