Re: marxism & (under)development

[Bradley Mayer <concrete@xxxxxxxxx>]

>
> I am increasingly forced to side with Adolfo, and against my friends, on
> this issue of the PCP. I'm sure that makes Adolfo smile, as it is part of
> Mao's strategy of confrontation in certain ripe environments. Smile away.
> But I cannot sit by idly while people trash the PCP as some sort of backward
> organization of "dumb illiterates."
>
> What I don't understand about the few people in here who like to slag the
> PCP is: What is your point? Your intent? Is it just coz Adolfo peed on your
> shoes? Or are you trying to extrapolate some "universal" series of
> organizational principles from this particular application of Mao? I'm
> serious, if you could explain the root of your hostility to the civil war in
> Peru, I'd be appreciative because I still haven't heard a cogent
> counterargument. Instead, I regularly read Gary M.'s interweaving of the
> personality of Adolfo with the entire movement. That movement existed long
> before he appeared on the list.
>
> >The exchanges with the PCP crowd, and about Peru, Maoism, and sex, should
> >lead to some serious discussion about the relation of Marxism to the level
> >of economic and social development.
>
> I agree.
>
> But what do you think "Marxism" is, Doug? Specifically, is it revolutionary
> or evolutionary? If you think it's evolutionary, then there is no comparing
> Peru et al with western Marxism.
>
> Assuming, for the sake of argument, you agree that Marxism is revolutionary,
> then the next question is what kind of "discipline" you favor in the pursuit
> of success in revolution (otherwise why bother, better to just shoot
> yourself in the head and save some innocent lives). Some form of unity is
> essential.
>
> "Western Marxism," when divorced from the intellectual pot-banging and
> preening, is a sorry chronology of splits and defeats and defeats and
> splits. It's bankrupt in terms of _doing_ something. It has no unity about
> absolutely anything. Small wonder it has adopted an "evolutionary" theory,
> wherein all we have to do is wait for the "inevitable" fall of capitalism.
>
> That theory is a product of the atomization of the proletariat, which often
> prefers to kid itself it is the sons and daughters of "rugged
> individualists." They refuse combinations like unions, forget anything
> militant or revolutionary. This is exceptionally so in the US, where I think
> union membership in the workforce has plummetted to something like 16 per
> cent (Doug undoubtedly has far better figures on this than I).
>
> How can any degree of lateral unity be attained via any western strain of
> Marxism? You sure don't see it from the Trotskyists who split faster than
> fruit flies multiply -- as Lou P. recently noted.
>
> Without some situation-specific form of unity, can there be any success
> against a much more materially powerful enemy? In peasant cultures, this
> takes the form of community activity and support bases, actually helping
> people, and often exacting brutal justice against brutal oppressors.
>
> I understand if you don't like those tactics in a First World context. They
> aren't intended to be used there. But, what form do you imagine this "unity"
> could take in developed countries? Is there even one at all?
>
> >Maybe all the attempts to revise
> >Marxism to apply to semi-literate, semi-industrialized agrarian-rural
> >societies - and the enthusiasm of First World radical intellectuals for
> >such a project - have been mistakes after all.
>
> "Mistakes?"
>
> I think that, say, what the Vietnamese people accomplished was historic and
> should never be thought of as a "mistake," nor the millions who died
> forgotten. KM himself commented at least twice that he was "no Marxist" --
> and today he might recognize even less the many forms of theory attributed
> to his name. But one thing I do know: he would have supported the actual
> attempts of the oppressed to liberate themselves -- as he did the Paris
> Commune, despite warning against it, and despite it being full of various
> "ideological enemies."
>
> >Educated aristocrats like AO
> >nominate themselves as the vanguard of a people with an understanding of
> >their own misery, but not much more, which makes it easy for the leadership
> >to hijack the revolution in their own interests - they become a kind of
> >hothouse bourgeoisie who (would) promote a distorted and undemocratic
> >development that is unable to cope, except through repression, with the
> >strains coming from within their own societies and from imperial
> >hostilities from without.
>
> This is a good point. But it assumes Adolfo seriously thinks he can apply
> the specific tactics of Peru to New York City. Does he? Maybe he does. I
> don't know. Adolpho is far less clear-cut on those questions about the First
> World proles, like Boddhi is posing currently.
>
> But even granting (again for the sake of argument) that he is trying to
> apply peasant tactics to a proletarian environment, I don't think he (or
> anyone else trying to do that) are in anyway "hijacking" the Peruvian
> revolution... I ain't pretending to be an expert on Peru. With that caveat,
> let me state that I think the leadership of the PCP is completely homegrown
> -- and _extremely_ progressive when compared to the environment out of which
> it grew. I also believe the PCP is popular because it simply does more good
> than harm. It helps make the lives of most people better (and gives them
> actual hope, of course, it will get better still). I also believe that PCP
> is as lateral as you can get and as deeply rooted in the populous as
> possible. The only way to surgically remove the PCP from the populous would
> be to genocidally exterminate that populous. Rather like the USA tried
> against the Viet Cong...
>
> Would that all western socialist "movements" were so lateral, thereby
> preventing their collapse with a police raid or two... or the activities of
> whatever intellectuals think they can "hijack" the revolution.
>
> Ken.
>
>
>
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>

It should be clear from the length of this and all too many other reposts
that, when it comes to "_doing_" something, Maoists and their
"rrrrevolutionary" sympathizers have plenty of free time to "act" out their
anti-intellectual prejudices by sabotage of any thought created beyond
their narrow grasp.

Anti-intellectualism was and is one of the key counterrevolutionary
traits of Stalinism (granted, what Stalinism is today needs further
elaboration and updating), and Maoism.  This is their motive on this or
any other such l*st.

Our Western Maoists, in particular, are almost always themselves
intellectuals suffering from a severe dose of self-hatred (vide
Althusser, who, as will be recalled, was a semi-Maoist sympathizer). If
they do not utterly destroy themselves a la the RCP, they eventually
emerge from this psychosis to become the most rank reformists.  This was
the fate of the '60's Maoists, a local Bay Area example of which was
Revolutionary Unity.

                        -Brad Mayer


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