THE KEY TO AVAKIAN'S BOGUS MAOISM 3

[hariette@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (hariette spierings)]

                    MAOISM AND THE TWO LINE STRUGGLE
                        WITHIN THE REVOLUTIONARY
                    INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT  (RIM)

                                PART 3 OF 5

                              Document from
                       Committee Sol Peru - London
                              October 1994

                A Red Star Information Bureau Publication

THE ROLE OF THE 'INDIVIDUAL IN SWEDEN' AND ATTEMPTS AT RESTORATION

"The Rightists are liars, they are dishonest and do bad things behind our
backs. Who would have thought Chang Po-chun would do so many bad things?.  I
think the higher the office these types hold, the greater their treachery".
Chairman Mao Tse-tung - Have firm Faith in the Majority of the People, October
17, 1957.

A few months later, these 'officials' linked to the RIM bureaucracy,
attempted to make a comeback. To this end, they organised a lavish
Conference about the People's War in Peru for February 15, 1985 in London.
The guest star of this event was, again speaking in 'representation of the
Peruvian revolutionaries',  our 'friend' the 'individual in Sweden',  who,
at that time was already
misusing the trust of the PCP as his 'party' card.

As the local defenders of the proletarian revolutionary line we decided to
mobilise ourselves in support of this Conference. We regarded the Speaker as
a voice of the PCP.  However, at the same time, we decided to present firmly
and clearly our points of view directly to the masses.  Below are some
extracts from the document that we published and distributed on that
occasion in the name
of the Supporters Committee of the RIM in London:

"'My attitude, since my incorporation in this vanguard, has been one of a
firm believer, of a fervent propagandist of the United Front', Mariategui
wrote on the First of May, 1924...'" (Chairman Gonzalo - Let's Retake
Mariategui Road and Reconstitute his Party).

Acting upon the spirit of unity reflected in the above quotation, the London
Supporters Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
(Maoists), calls upon the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, the democratic and
progressive forces in this city, principally the proletariat, Peruvian and
Latin-American residents in London, to show their fervent support for the
People's War in Peru and
attend and participate enthusiastically in the Conference of February 15.

There are principled differences between us and the organisers of this
Conference. This we cannot and do not want to conceal.  But we are also
convinced that the visiting Speaker, being a Peruvian supporter of the PCP,
will reflect on the day the authentic line of Chairman Gonzalo. We are
therefore convinced that he will reject the liquidationist theses that the
gang of 'official organisers' spread during the other 364 days of the year.

These comrades who describe themselves as followers of Robert Avakian and of
the line of the RCP-USA, after their ideological trouncing in the public
debate of last November 30 in London on the question of the United Front - a
debate that clearly established the semi-trotskyist character of their
theses on the 7th Congress of the Communist International - are day dreaming
by using this
Conference of Support for the People's War in Peru to underpin their own
line.  In our opinion, they will only raise a stone to let it drop it on
their own feet.


Our Committee proposes that Marxist-Leninist-Maoists should listen
attentively and respectfully to the words of the Peruvian Speaker, and that
at the end of his speech, we shall ask him questions serving to clarify the
important issues that are being debated about the road forward within the
International Communist Movement.  We propose to ask the following questions:

How does the PCP consider Marx and Lenin? Were they or were they not
consistent Marxists?

In the opinion of the PCP, did Chairman Mao and V.I. Lenin have or not have
the same point of view regarding proletarian internationalism?

Does the PCP believe that the policy of comrade Stalin, should be considered
as a 'criminal policy'?

Does the PCP regard comrade Georgi Dimitrov as a 'great traitor' and the
policy of the United Front he upheld as 'sheer revisionism'?

Which one is the Marxist policy? - The united front of the revolution
advocated by Chairman Mao or the liquidationist line of Zinoviev, Li Li-san
and others, the line of 'close doors' that today is being promoted by some
self-proclaimed official representatives of Maoism and the line of the PCP?

Were the followers of Kautsky, the II International revisionists, right in
claiming, as do today some self-anointed defenders of Maoism, that 'Lenin
was not accused of being an agent of the Kaiser for absolutely no reason'?

It is important to ask these questions.  Unity cannot be achieved at the
cost of principles, especially when there are people who are already engaged
in attacking the proletarian line and its leaders........ As Mariategui
said, and Chairman Gonzalo has repeated, 'we live in an era of intense
ideological belligerence'.

On the occasion of February 15, the central question is to lend our support
to the People's War in Peru.  To that end we shall practice and will always
continue to respectfully practice unity.  But the year is composed of 365
days, and during all the other 364, these 'official' comrades who today
want to benefit of the 'political capital' of the PCP by means of this
Conference, continue to develop a line that can only result in a split and
in harming the cause they themselves claim to be defending. And what is
worse, they carry out this line taking the name of the PCP in vain, in order
to buttress their absurd theses.  Therefore, let us shed some light upon the
true state of these affairs".

AVOIDING DEBATE

In the course of this Conference,  the 'individual in Sweden', confronted
with direct quotations of Chairman Gonzalo, could not elude the truth about
the position of the PCP in relation to the United Front - therefore showing,
very much to his discomfort, that the theses advocated by those who follow
the line of the RCP-USA had nothing whatsoever in common with reality.

However, then this gentleman, with the pretext of preserving unity, refused
to answer all other questions, closed the debate and ran off, together with
the 'official leaders', leaving the public in total perplexity. For many
comrades at that time this may have seemed surprising behaviour but today we
evidently have an explanation.

To grasp the precedents of these polemics, we need to refer to a document
published then (October 1984) by the Red Star Information Bureau in London.
This document rejected the positions of Robert Avakian and the RCP USA
(which in essence are the same that were being put forward in London by the
'official leaders' and by the 'individual in Sweden' in the name of the RIM):


ABOUT THE 'NEW IDEAS' OF BOB AVAKIAN

The President of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA, Robert
Avakian, likes to parade himself as the standard bearer of Maoism in our
era.  Mr. Avakian is a self-proclaimed defender and propagandist of 'new
ideas' which, he alleges, arise from the 'immortal contributions of Chairman
Mao'. What is there of truth in all of this?

The problem with the prolific articles and books of this author, published
by the party that he chairs and of which he is undisputed leader and guide,
has nothing to do with the contributions of Chairman Mao.  However, it has
everything to do with the dense fabric of speculations he weaves
around them, using artificial arguments to peddle ideological counterfeits.

These, far from being new, are essentially the very same key ideas that
modern revisionism used and continues to use in opposing Marxism,
Marxism-Leninism and therefore true Maoism.  As we shall see, the only 'new'
thing here is the ingenious method to re-package revisionism with which Mr.
Avakian wants to befuddle us: "IF for example THE SOCIALIST CAMP HAD really
BEEN CONSOLIDATED AND STRENHGTENED and developed as a socialist camp IN THE
1950's and after I think analysis would show that it was very likely that
THE IMPERIALISTS WOULD HAVE LAUNCHED A WORLD WAR against that socialist camp
sometime probably in the 1960s. THEY WOUD HAVE very likely had THE NECESSITY
TO DO THAT". - Robert Avakian, Advancing the World revolutionary Movement:
Questions of Strategic
Orientation - Revolution (RCP USA Theoretical Journal), Spring 1984. (The
underlining is ours).

Please pay serious attention to what is being said here. It is necessary to
lift the dense curtain of adjectives, and conditionals used by the author
and reveal clearly the essence of his thesis: THAT THE CONSOLIDATION AND
STRENGTHENING OF THE SOCIALIST CAMP WOULD HAVE FORCED IMPERIALISM TO LAUNCH
A WORLD WAR.

Is this a 'new idea'?.  Not at all.  Today all Marxists are well aware that
this, and no other, was the basic stand formulated by Khrushchev and modern
revisionism.

Lenin said: 'He who does not adhere to principle, generates a split'.  All
Marxists know that it was Khrushchev who hastened the split in the socialist
camp, that the counter-revolutionary actions of Soviet revisionism were the
root cause of the lack of consolidation of the socialist camp, compelling
the Marxist-Leninists to fight against the social-imperialist direction that
revisionist treason impressed on the Soviet Union and the Eastern European
countries.

According to Robert Avakian, this action of Khrushchev and his gang was an
altruistic act that spared us the horrors of a Third World War. On that
basis, one should indeed conclude that Khrushchev did act correctly in
removing the 'necessity' of imperialism in unleashing such a war 'some time
during the sixties'. In other words: Long live Nikita Sergeyevich
Khrushchev, saviour
of humanity and world peace!.  Maybe Mr Avakian only meant to say: 'Probably
and most likely' saviour of humanity!.

Whichever way you look at Avakian's point of view, the inescapable
conclusion is that it absolutely opposes the view of Chairman Mao, in whom
he claims to base his 'new ideas'.

Let us see. In his own contemporary evaluation on this issue - in the decade
of the fifties - Chairman Mao expressed a totally different point of view:

"On the whole, the international situation is fine.  There are a few
imperialist powers, but what of it?.  Nothing terrifying even if there were
a few dozen more." -  Chairman Mao, Speech at the Second Session of the
Eight Central Committee, 1956.

In his Talks at the Conference of Party Committees Secretaries of 1957,
Chairman Mao developed this evaluation even further:

"The contradiction between the imperialist countries and the socialist
countries is certainly most acute.  But the imperialist countries are now
contending with each other for the control of different areas in the name of
opposing communism.  What areas are they contending for?. Areas in Asia and
Africa....".

The Chairman added: ".....their embroilment is to our advantage. We the
socialist countries, should pursue a policy of consolidating ourselves and
not yielding a single inch of our land.  We will struggle against anyone who
tries to make us do so.  This is where we draw the line beyond which they
can be left to quarrel among themselves".

Concluding: "In short, our assessment of the international situation is
still that the embroilment of the imperialist countries contending for
colonies is the greater contradiction.  They try to cover up the
contradictions among themselves by playing up their contradiction with us".

This point of view of Chairman Mao is put across consistently in all his
writings and speeches of that era, as well as in all later pronouncements.

One of the fundamental errors that led Khrushchev to take up revisionist
positions, is precisely this incorrect evaluation of the question of the
'danger of war'.  Essentially, modern revisionism irrupts on the scene
waving the banner of 'protecting world peace'.  Under the pretext of
protecting the peace, they abandon Marxism because they perceive the
'militant policy' of communism as a
provocation that forces upon the imperialists the 'necessity of unleashing a
war' in order to suppress the imminent revolution.  In synthesis, the
revisionist error is grounded in confusing the appearance (the playing up on
the part of imperialism of their contradictions with the socialist camp,
with communism) with the essence of imperialist policy (their mutual
competition for markets, colonies and spheres of influence).

Evidently, Mr Avakian shares the basic evaluation of Khrushchev. For
Avakian, Chairman Mao was wrong and Khrushchev was right.  For our US-Maoist
ideologue, the victory of the Marxist policy within the socialist camp (its
consolidation and strengthening) would have generated war.

According to Chairman Mao and Marxism, a revolutionary policy prevents,
delays, and eventually, by means of revolutionary civil war, can eliminate
or stop imperialist war.  That is why Marxism teaches that, "in the last
analysis, only revolution can prevent imperialist war".

MORE PEARLS OF 'AVAKIAN THOUGHT'

We continue quoting from the same document:

Mr Avakian does indeed burn abundant incense at the altar of Chairman Mao.
How much of this is really sincere?. How much of this is even Marxist?.

Let us look at some other pearls of wisdom in Mr. Avakian's own 'immortal
contributions'. In referring to what he describes as 'a struggle or a
disagreement (however it should be described)'between V.I. Lenin and the
Irish revolutionary James Connolly, Avakian insists that Chairman Mao's
outlook was the same as Connolly's and different from Lenin's in this
respect: "To continue to be provocative I would say that this (Connolly's)
was more or less the viewpoint of Mao: while he fought for proletarian
internationalism and overall you would have to certainly say that he was a
proletarian internationalist, his view point on what proletarian
internationalism is, the viewpoint that
comes through in his writings and speeches is the viewpoint that we
represent the Chinese nation
and on that basis we are for unity with the proletariat and all the other
oppressed peoples
throughout the world.  This differs from the view point that Lenin fought
for - that whether in an
oppressed nation or in an oppressor nation from an ideological stand
communists do not represent
nations". - Robert Avakian, ibid. (the underlining is ours).

In other words, according to Mr Avakian - and extracting the essence of his
thesis from such a
farrago of words: Chairman Mao was a petty bourgeois revolutionist.  Isn't
that what is really meant
by saying that Chairman Mao differs from Lenin on proletarian
internationalism?.  Is this not
precisely what Khrushchev alleged against Chairman Mao?.  Did Khrushchev not
charge Chairman
Mao and the Maoists with pushing the world towards nuclear war and splitting
the socialist camp
in order to defend 'narrow Chinese national interests'?. Did not Khrushchev
and his successors
argue that Chairman Mao was guilty of pitting his 'Chinese nationalism'
against the 'Leninism' of
the Great Soviet Union?.  No wonder these 'new ideas' of Avakian sound so
familiar.

Besides, what Avakian says about Lenin's viewpoint is also false.  The
'contradiction' that Avakian
'establishes' is nothing but a three card trick that our 'ideologist'
achieves by cutting out most of
a quotation from Lenin. In his work 'Marx and Engels', Lenin says:

"Nations are an inevitable product, an inevitable form, in the bourgeois
epoch of social
development.  And the working class cannot grow strong, become mature and
take shape if it does
not 'constitute itself the nation', if it is not 'national' ('though not in
the bourgeois sense of the
word').....".

Of this part of the quotation Mr. Avakian says nothing.  However, let us
continue with the same
paragraph of Lenin: "....but the development of capitalism more and more
breaks down national
barriers, destroys national seclusion, substitutes class antagonisms for
national antagonisms.  It is,
therefore, perfectly true that in the developed capitalist countries 'the
working men have no
country' and that 'united action' by the workers of the civilized countries
at least, 'is one of the first
conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat' (quotes ('') are from
the Communist Manifesto
by Marx and Engels)".

In order to establish his 'contradiction' between 'Mao the petty bourgeois
nationalist' and 'Lenin
the proletarian internationalist', Mr Avakian notices only that 'the working
men have no country',
forgetting everything else.  As we already pointed out, a cheap trick for
substituting his own
cosmopolitan outlook for real proletarian internationalism, at the same time
that he smears Chairman
Mao and dresses Lenin up in the garb of a Trotskyist clown.

After all of this, can anyone be surprised when Mr. Avakian says that 'Lenin
himself wasn't called
a German agent for absolutely no reason'?.  Can anyone be surprised if this
'new - and novel -
communist' who repeatedly exhorts us to 'break with old ideas', ends up
embracing a position that
resumes and synthesises the typical slander hurled against Lenin by the
Mencheviks and the Left
liquidators in 1918 at the time of the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations?.
Did not the 'grandparents'
of this ultra-revolutionary gentleman then charge Lenin with betraying the
proletarian revolution to
German imperialism?.

The truth is that the 'old ideas' that Mr Avakian wants us to cast off are
the ideas, traditions and
principles of the International Communist Movement, Marxism, its Classics,
and concretely, the
ideas of Chairman Mao whom he unduly claims as his inspiration.  Evidently,
these ideas, traditions
and principles, in his opinion, should be substituted with his 'new ideas',
which, as we have seen,
are nothing but the old 'original principles' of the petty bourgeois
revolutionists who since 1918,
and even long before, have been spreading their absurd slanders and carrying
out their provocations
against the proletarian leaders and the teachings of Bolshevik communism. In
synthesis, against the
red line of Chairman Mao.

We have seen how in one short pamphlet, Mr. Avakian has achieved a veritable
record of anti-
communist provocation that makes Trotsky look rather tame:  Dimitrov, a
revisionist and a traitor,
Stalin, a criminal politician, Chairman Mao, a petty bourgeois and a
chauvinist, Lenin, an agent of
the Kaiser. In the process, this gentleman also subtly manages to send up
three cheers for old Nikita
Khrushchev!.

Thus Spoke Robert Avakian and the RCP USA in 1984!

THIS DOCUMENT CONTINUES IN PART 4
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