re: The Maoist Wars

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

Robert 5th May:
---------------

This is exactly what the maoists do. It is the tailend of what once was a
rather large tendency that came out of the traditional cps around the
Vietnam war. They jumped on the "peoples war" train-actually thinking it was
better then the peaceful coexistence line of the traditionals cps of the time.

However this is the final desperate struggle to find a straw or a "peoples
war" that they once again can be like it was in the good old days.

However that time is gone forever.



Robert 6th May:
---------------

From: malecki@xxxxxxxxxx (Robert Malecki)
Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 08:43:34 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Re: The Maoist Wars 2/2

>
>I am going to grasp the nettle: under what conditions would the
>PCP agree to talk to the Fujimori government? Why doesn't it name
>them, as high as it likes, having adjusted its initial ideas to get the
>maximum amount of credibility from the many progressive sections of the
>population.
>
>
>Chris B, London.
>
In reality, Chris,s long two letter "What is happening to the Maoists on
this list" is nothing other then a slick cover of in fact the same maoist
ideology. The above is the whole question. Chris,s advice is basically make
the deal. Build a popular front with the  "progressive" sections of the
population is in fact a deal with the liberal bourgeoisie.



Chris comments:
---------------

Robert may feel he is as pithy as I am "slick", but I do not think I can
be accused of sliding an important point in under cover, when I talk about
grasping a nettle.

The first quote I give from Robert on 5th May above, points out the time
dimension of this. I too have wondered if the Peru revolutionary struggle
was a throw back to the people's wars days of the early neo-colonial period.
I now think enough has been published to show that the terrain in Peru
is possible for peoples war. What has changed is 1) the scale of urbanisation
2) the neo-classical economic agenda. This agenda is part accident,
part conspiracy by the hegemonic capitalist forces in the world. Fujimori
is its champion.

In the second passage I quote from Robert he makes a criticism of what
he sees as Maoism. Maoism and its critics alike have a problem that
it presents itself with two quite contradictory aspects which appear
logically in opposition to each other:-

A) An anti-revisionist criticism of peaceful coexistence and accommodation
with reformism, bolstered by late Maoist voluntarist rhetoric in favour
of the masses and peoples struggle in all countries. This gets caricatured
as mad blood-thirsty Maoists.

B) a readiness to make tactical compromises including, above all, with a
section of the national bourgeoisie, or when in state power, with a series
of governments internationally of an unsavoury domestic nature, in the
interests of an international 3 Worlds Analysis.

Whether this is a dialectical contradiction or a logical contradiction would
take endless argument.

As for Malecki's charge about my post on the Maoist wars...

When I described the
nettle I said should be grasped, I realised that to critics this might look
like an invitation to reformism. From my knowledge of the struggle in
South Africa, I would have to agree that there would be a great danger of
reformism, in the PCP issuing a peace call even if it was very much on its
own terms. But the danger of reformism is not *absolutely* inevitable.

I believe Robert has said he comes from the Trotskyist tradition. I had
assumed there was not a major difference between Trotsky and Lenin on
the arguments in Lenin's work "Left Wing Communism". Is that so?

If Robert has the book, I would urge him to look at the chapter "No 
compromises?".
Even if the national bourgeoisie is very small nowadays in the conditions of
neo-liberalism, there are still many other strata in society. A peace call
that does not compromise principle with the government could according to
Lenin's arguments here be legitimate as a way of winning over the support
of strata who would otherwise give some credence to Fujimori as someone
who has ostensibly called for peace, and the PCP as persisting with
war.

The nettle I suggested had to be grasped would be a difficult one for the PCP:
but not impossible -

to continue with Peoples War, but to hold out the possibility that if
the government were *genuinely* prepared to discuss alternative arrangements
for political struggle, of a reliable kind, talks would not be ruled out.
Although difficult, this policy seizes the initiative rather than allowing
the government to promote dissension among party members in prison, who
are in a very difficult position to make an accurate estimate of the
balance of power, and to promote dissension among supporters overseas who
also have difficulty in making such an estimate.

I suspect this is the choice that Avakian has been making play of, for
his own perspectives.


Chris,

London.


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