PCP Idealisation of violence

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

With regard to Barkley's comments about m2, (and thanks Barkley BTW for
the valuable data about China), each l'st has its advantages, but
m1 is a space where we can show that there is a marxist answer both
to the Brian Carnell's and the Adolfo Olachaea's at the same time,
although not in the same letter and the same moment.

One of the hardest questions that keeps on coming round on m1 is the
question of violence. Although post-marxist Leo Casey has departed to m2,
it remains important and resurfaces in new forms.

Luis Quispe:

<<
Basing himself on Chaiman Mao's thesis which generalized revolutionary
violence as the universal law for the conquest of Power and which
established that the principal form of struggle is the armed struggle and
the principal form of organzation is the armed forces. >>



I would like to challenge this as idealist and dogmatic.

I know that Luis regards Simon Strong as an anti-revolutionary gossipy
journalist but he quotes the conclusion of Abimael Guzman's early
thesis "On the Kantian Theory of Space" as arguing, "The space-time
continuum does not constitute a reference system on the base of which
one can build unvarying natural laws."

Strong may have taken this quote out of context, but as Guzman's tutor
was an admirer of Kant, and Guzman went in a different direction, the
above quote would be consistent with a more dialectical marxist view
opposed to *unvarying" natural laws.

Politically I would challenge your claim that Mao idealised war to
the extent your quote implies. One of the reasons Fujimori can
cause trouble in the PCP solidarity  movement, and of course is trying to
do so, is because negotiations at times, at the right time, and hopefully
>from a position of strength, are definitely part of the Maoist tradition.

It is not whether but *when* the PCP will negotiate, and *how* it will deal
with Fujimori's hypocritical calls for negotiation. I have not read a
single line from those Peruvians coming from a Maoist tradition who
disagree with the present line of the leadership of the PCP but I am not
surprised they exist.

Of course a party has to try to react in a united way, and reactionaries
try to cause splits by proposals about negotiations, but PCP supporters I
suggest do not help the situation by implying that war is the
only way forward. The PCP needs a peace strategy too.

Even when Mao was criticising the bourgeois pacifism of the "revisionist"
western Marxists he was careful to avoid using a formula of an idealising
type you quote above.

At the third plenum of the 8th Central Committee October 9th 1957, there is
a passage in his speech on the disagreements with Khrushchev about
peaceful transition, (English Edition of Selected Works, Vol 5 page 495).


In this Mao puts it dialectically, even while arguing against his opponents:

"Generally speaking the political parties of the proletariat had better be
prepared for two possibilities: one, a gentleman uses his tongue, not his
fists, but, two, if a bastard uses his fists, I'll use mine. Putting
the matter this way takes care of both possibilities and leaves no
loophole."

People may wish to look at the whole passage, which is quite funny,
for its dig at the British Communist Party.

I quote Mao here, not because I dogmatically think he was always right,
though I think he is almost always interesting, but because I hope it will
help you and other committed supporters of the resistance and revolutionary
struggle in Peru to respond to this challenge about the role of violence in
revolutionary struggle.

But if it also helps to be politically specific:

what is the PCP's policy on negotiations?

Chris B, London.




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