Maoist Internationalist Movement

New websites interested in Maoism

August 19 2008

Since 2006, some new websites interested in Maoism in the imperialist countries have appeared. They claim to be apart from the "Revolutionary Communist Party."

There is no doubt that there are now others able to generate websites closer to MIM thinking than in the past. Some show a remarkable ability to predict MIM's thought and behavior, a bad sign for future counter-counter-insurgency efforts. We know of no website for sure that is genuine. In other words, these other websites may in fact be created just to spy on users and debaters.

Without referring to specifics on the web, we would like to address three things that came up.

I.

It is clear that some of the websites do come from "RCP" circles, not MIM circles, because MIM can identify the stilted language that builds up in a persyn over years of time. The purpose of such websites may be to use something like MIM line to suck people in and then spy on or recruit the victims.

One example of old-style "RCP" opportunism that we saw was again yoking the proletariat to the bourgeoisie--the juggling act by which that party supposedly takes people with both the MIM line on class structure and the exploiter line, this despite the fact that every Marxist writer since Marx has emphasized separating the interests of exploiter and exploited. So there is no such thing as a MIMist who joins the "RCP" or its circles. Even if the alleged MIMist says that the U.$. majority is exploiter, obviously they are not putting that truth into practice by amalgamating with the exploiters' representatives in one organization. Such "elasticity" would only be appropriate where a capitalist revolution was still necessary. Mushing the exploiter and exploited outlooks serves no purpose except the status quo's in an imperialist country where the next revolution will be socialist, not capitalist. Ironically, the "RCP" has done much to criticize the slightest bourgeois deviations in parties still needing capitalist revolutions while preaching for tolerance of the bourgeoisie in the united $tates, where such tolerance has the least possibility of progressive value.

A concrete example of how this question manifests itself is the attitude toward sojourners. MIM has made it clear that the Chinese sojourners educated in the West alone have made greater communist contributions than the entire so-called labor movement of the West since World War II. There is no comparison of the value of Zhou Enlai, Zhu Deh and Kwame Nkrumah on the one hand, and the so-called communist movement of the West on the other hand. The other parties want to fudge this question and not answer it, but a general truth like that does have to be addressed and cannot be avoided. Zhou Enlai at least had the sense to follow Mao for long periods of time and he made major contributions to the Chinese Revolution.

One of the new websites says that there is a way to deliver the MIM-like line to the sojourners and not the labor aristocracy. The implication is that we should tell the truth to the sojourners and continue to use labor aristocracy opportunism for the majority. That is simply false. When one puts up a poster in the united $tates, there is no way to know later whether a future Zhou Enlai read it or just 100% Archie Bunkers. The same is true of newspapers.

What we can say for sure is that Archie Bunkers outnumber revolutionaries in the united $tates. At the same time, we can say for sure that the value of revolutionary sojourners' reading MIM is greater than the value of any domestic movement. Contrary to the philistines, one cannot tell just by looking at a persyn either. So there is the question of anonymous readers such as for posters and newspapers. There is also the question of casual conversation involving people where we should not be asking all kinds of pig questions. One cannot know in advance so the opportunism is based on a tactical impossibility in any case.

The party should not put out two lines at the same time, one bourgeois and one proletarian. The party should put out the proletarian line and accept where the impact will be best. Those saying there is a practical way to separate the labor aristocracy from the sojourners in public opinion work are deluded or lying. Weak-minded people need the approval of the majority, even if it is bourgeois. Proletarians side with the international majority.

II.

One website says that MIM screwed up when it took up Catharine MacKinnon. The reference was individualist. No policy ever works 100% of the time and even if it did, other policies would occasionally come into conflict. So for example, the monogamy policy can conflict with the policy opposing spies. Both policies could be right; yet, the two policies could conflict when it comes time to kick out a spy. It is a serious Anglo-Amerikan problem that if something is generally factually true more often than not, people still toss that truth for inconveniencing one persyn. Those who watch "Star Trek" know that Spock never wins against Captain Kirk and McCoy even in the U.$. so-called communist movement.

The willingness to drop policy-making and truth in general because of an individual instance is called pragmatist-empiricism. People who cannot get beyond pragmatist-empiricist method can never produce science.

When an individual instance goes wrong, the response is not to give up on science, but to remember those instances when the policy produced fruitful results. Only if overall the policy did not produce fruitful results should it be dropped, not because of just one instance of fact.

III.

This is a warning to Maoists in India. The study of MIM is making it easier for intelligence agents to mimic MIM and penetrate the Indian communist movement. We see them afoot from here.

It's not to say that reading websites is a bad idea. A CIA agent can even hand out newspapers of some value. So there is a difficult trade-off to be aware of.