Shawgi DON'T Tell

[LeoCasey@xxxxxxx]

What Shawgi doesn't tell...

I went back searching through the archives for the exacting
postings (at the end of December 1995) because the precise
wording is very revealing. I began the exchange with the
following post...

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I am to understand from Shawgi's forwarding of the text of CPC-ML
that this organization supplies the grounding for his politics?
It certainly would explain a lot of things. I have never been
entirely convinced by the suggestion that his sympathies lay with
the PLP, although there are certain similarities between the PLP
and CPC-ML.

For those who don't know, CPC-ML is a peculiarly Canadian
institution. Largely based among south Asian immigrants to
Canadian and related in a strange way to the hot house of
Communist politics in India and Bengla Desh in the 1970s, CPC-ML
started out as your garden variety Maoist organization in the
late 1960s in British Columbia, and then broke with the Chinese.
(The strongest Maoist organizations in Canada, such as En Lutte,
were based in Quebec; CPC-ML never had any significant roots
there.) For a period of time, it became a cheerleader for Albania
(Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse Tung-Enver Hoxha thought), but then
evolved into a PLP like free-lance Stalinism. Its ideological
ossification has allowed it, like the PLP, to survive the
disillusionment of Maoism and carry on in myopic bliss.

CPC-ML was unique in two respects. First, it trained its cadres
in the martial arts, and it thought nothing of using physical
violence against others on the left. In the late 1970s, it, like
its mindless Chinese overseers, threw in its lot with the
political chameleon and opportunist Jonah Savimbi and UNITA (and,
implicitly, its South African allies) in their ethnic based civil
war against the MPLA in Angola. Those of us involved in Southern
Africa support work in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada were
supportive of MPLA, of course, and we paid the price with several
violent attacks from the CPC-ML. (I remember this well, having
been one of the targets.) Second, it was interesting to see how
thoroughly the CPC-ML picked up the 'cult of personality' culture
of some Stalinist CPs. Their newspaper was completely fixated on
their leader Hardial Banes (known more colloquially to the
Canadian Left as 'Hardly Any Brains') in the same ways the
Koreans would fixate on Kim Il Sung, the Albanians on Enver
Hoxha, etc. Sociologically speaking, it was a completely
'cultish' organization.

Buffalo has always been the staging grounds of American leftists
trying to colonize Canada for their little sects, such as the
Sparts; it would be a moment of great political irony if it was
now the base for a Canadian colonization attempt in the US.

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Shawgi responded:
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No, you are not to understand from my forwarding of the text of
CPC-ML that this organization supplies the grounding for my
politics. Recently, some on this list has been engaging in
business-as-usual diversionary discussions of bourgeoisie terms
such as "Stalinism." They have been implicitly supporting the
bourgeoisie's sustained attack against dialectical materialism
and the Soviet people, particularly their thoughts and actions
during the pre-kruchchev-revisionist, anti-imperialist,
anti-fascist years.

They have been falling into the hands of bourgeois slandering and
falsifying. Instead of asking questions like the one in TML, they
operate according to reactionary and fanatically hostile
premises. They try to make everyone who is interested in the
historical record, especially as it pertains to Stalin, look like
an imperialist chieftain or repressive fascist. Anything positive
uttered about Stalin only "proves" to them the deluded outlook of
the inquirer.

As for your account of CPC-ML's background, I don't know how
fabricated this may be. I base my political grounding in any
progressive working class, pro-social, pro-people movements. I
oppose all forms of anti-Communism.

I subscribe to a dozen lists or so and own one (MULT-CUL). I also
receive various periodicals via the internet. Only a fraction of
my info. comes from these sources. I can say that from what I
have seen and read from CPC-ML, none of it corresponds with what
you say. I could be wrong, however.

Who/what is PLP?

Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
V600A8E6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Now since that date Shawgi has regaled us with the multi-part
series on the "Young, Liberal Fascist," apparently -- Chris B.
told us and Shawgi never denied -- first published in the CPC-ML
newspaper. It includes an extensive defense of the CPC-ML
politics and leader, Hardial Baines. And more lately we have yet
another signpost of those bizarre CPC-ML politics, an apology for
the dearly departed Enver Hoxha.

So, is Shawgi going to continue to deny any connection to the
CPC-ML? Or will he get permission from Comrade Baines to tell the
truth, for once? And if he feels the need to mislead the list on
his politics, just exactly when do we know he is telling the
truth?



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