VALUABLE ADMISSIONS OF PROFESSOR MILIBAND (part 7 of 7)

[hariette@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (hariette spierings)]

TEN YEARS AFTER

At this point our manuscript of 1986 ends.  Other more pressing subjects and
issues demanded our attention.  Since then, profuse obituary notices in the
local media informed us of Ralph Miliband having peacefully passed away
(this year) and with him went his socialist pet project - presumably, and
since in
the last eight years we did not hear another peep from the Professor - still
un-advanced, and certainly unrealized.

The Peruvian revolution has now won a good deal of world wide recognition,
and Maoism, is today the only Marxism that can give a coherent view of
up-to-date historical development, as even the reactionary bourgeois
intellectuals are forced to concede.

Moreover, far from merely giving an understanding of the world, Maoism is in
the very forefront of the revolutionary process of changing it in a number
of other Third World countries. Despite the current ostrich policy of the
reactionary and bourgeois media, news of these developments always filter
and are beginning to reignite an optimistic attitude on the part of the
advanced elements of the world proletariat.

A QUESTION OF DRAGONS

So, you may rightly ask, why do we bother continuing with what we then left
unfinished?.

Is any one out there really interested in a tale of the woeful frustration
of some innocents abroad wandering into the parlour of a Marxist White
Rabbit, foolishly seeking revolutionary understanding in his looking glass
world?

Our readers would certainly be right in chiding us: "And you call yourselves
disciples of Chairman Mao!. Are you not aware of his story about the great
Chinese Lord who so much loved dragons that his palace was crammed with
statues, pictures and books about dragons?.  Did you forget that when a real
dragon heard of his intense passion and decided to pay him a visit, the Lord
froze with terror at the first sight of the beast?.

Is that not the case also with Marxist Professors who draw princely salaries
>from bourgeois Universities?.  Does not their love for Marxism and
revolution only extend to dead statues, lifeless portraits and dusty books?.
How did you fail to realize they fear live Marxism and real revolutions like
they fear the very sight of pestilence?

And we would certainly have to plead guilty on all counts. However, in our
discharge, we may also plead the teachings of the Chairman about not
"looking at flowers from horseback" and having to dismount to "smell" them
in order to know if they are fragrant or not.

POSITIVE OUT OF NEGATIVE

Besides, "failure is the mother of success", and so it is also in this case.
What we would want now is to attempt to use this negative experience to
positive ends.  Much of our written report of this visit to Professor
Miliband serves to argue the case for a Marxist interpretation of the
revolutionary events of Third World societies, concretely in the case of the
Peruvian revolution, in a language familiar to many progressive people in
countries such as Britain.

In arguing with Miliband's own "learned" presentations, we succeed in
"translating" such concepts as "bureaucratic bourgeoisie", "imperialist
development", "semi-feudal and semi-colonial" condition, and some others.

THE TWAIN MEETS IN AN UNEXPECTED MANNER

The economic developments in Third World countries have continued the
deepening of the process of bureaucratic capitalism, and the "reforms" now
being undertaken by the bureaucratic bourgeoisie under the signboard of
"privatisations" have gone beyond the landed states.  They have now, like
the Fujimori regime is doing in Peru, undertaken to close the circle with
the very industrial and service state monopolies they formerly had
nationalised.  They are now selling it back to finance monopoly capital, to
imperialism, at
knock down prices, milking the state cow once again on that account, while
further developing imperialist monopolies.

Far from having turned themselves into a genuine national bourgeoisie, the
bureaucratic bourgeoisie of Third World countries, such as Peru, is
increasingly merging with the world monopolist bourgeoisie and becoming part
of a cosmopolitan world bourgeoisie.  In fact, the corrupting spirit of
bureaucratic capitalism Third World style, is now firmly entrenched
in the very Metropolitan countries and is developing the same kind of
fascist robber baron capitalism inside economies that were once relatively
free from such practices.  In this way imperialism is harvesting a crop of
corruption
and gangsterism formerly associated with the concept of the "banana republic".
There is no doubt that Miliband's contribution to the elucidation and
exposure of this process of bureaucratic capitalism is very valuable. We are
certain
that in the future it could be even more so.

We feel it is no exaggeration to say that this is a scientific concept of
paramount importance in grasping the concrete situation that exists in Third
World countries, and therefore in correctly understanding their
revolutionary politics.  Besides, this is a concept that no Marxist we know
in this country, including us, has ever being sufficiently apt and skilled
in putting across in such a vivid fashion as to be easily understandable to
people who have no
direct experience to go by in grasping these phenomena.

This alone is worth all the embarrassment we underwent in that occasion. Thus,
unwittingly perhaps, Professor Miliband handed over to us a powerful weapon
that strikes at the heart of the hypocritical condemnations of the Peruvian
revolution bandied about by a large section of the self-proclaimed "Marxist
Left".

WITH A RING TO BIND THEM ALL, WITH A SWORD TO SMITE THEM ALL

Particularly, a mortal weapon against the bogus "left", liberals,
revisionists, and Trotskyists, who infest the intellectual milieus and the
fringes of the working class movement of countries such as Britain and other
imperialist states.  Miliband demonstrates in the most direct fashion how
their Marxism, their love of the proletariat, of the revolution, of the
oppressed, is nothing more than an infatuation with cardboard dragons.

It shows that the "revolutionary parties", "socialist countries", "trade
unionists", "revolutionary leaders" and "comrades from oppressed countries"
- the gentry and organizations whom they publicise in their press and uphold
before the working class of this country as "true and real Marxist
revolutionaries" - that those "parliamentary socialists", "communists", and
"Trotskyists" with whom they practice what they call "proletarian
internationalism", are nothing but "empty bureaucratic shells", political
"eunuchs", swindlers and robbers of the people of the worst kind.

Miliband himself exposes the "left wing" bureaucratic shells such as they
exist in Britain, as the very mirror image of those bogus politicians in
countries like Peru whom they acknowledge as their true soul-mates and
counter-parts: the "Peruvian left-wing government", the Peruvian
"trade-unionists", the Peruvian "communist parliamentary representatives",
the Peruvian "communists" and "workers parties", etc.

All of them, Third World and British "Leftist" shams alike, are shown to be
solid pillars of the establishment, defenders of the sacrosanct imperialist
order and guardian angels of the wealthy in their own respective countries.

In any case, Miliband's own unintended contributions to understanding the
Peruvian revolution serves as a posthumous endorsement from someone who,
when alive, did not have the time of day for real revolutions. Moreover, his
condition as the "foremost Marxist" in Britain, also goes to prove, better
than any thing we could possibly say, that those "lesser socialist
theoreticians" who concoct the kind of "Marxism" that even today bad
mouths the Peruvian revolution and Maoism, are drones laboriously eking a
meagre shilling from the class enemy. Far less prestigious, and therefore,
far less well rewarded by their masters than a first rate act such as
Miliband's own.

THIS GLASS IS ONLY HALF FULL

Moreover, there is another important weapon that Miliband himself handed
over that we may use in turning this sorry affair to good account: The
question of the road forward for the working class and the people in
imperialist countries, particularly here in Britain.

Also, Miliband hands over the key that reveals the secret of what, or who,
is the main stumbling block on that road.

We are of course referring to the question of the United Front, the question
that first brought him to our attention.

The question of: ".....a separate organisation from the Labour party" that
"is needed in the labour movement".  The organization that may "bring
together a lot of different people, with many different concerns and
passions, men and women, young and old, black and white, blue collar
workers, white collar workers, and many others, who would be working in an
organisation that was open, democratic and no doubt disputatious, totally
committed to the struggle against capitalism, sexism, and racism, and to the
struggle against the global counter-revolutionary crusade conducted by the
US and its allies".

The political movement that would be sensitive to "the immense
technological, economic and social changes which occur in the
world"....."without surrendering any of its fundamental principles, and
would state these principles and its application in a language that was
fresh and accessible". That would not be "absorbed into electoralism and
parliamentarianism and it would, of course, be deeply involved in the class
struggle on the shop floor and also beyond it"..... That "....would have
respect for the demands of women, blacks, peace activists, ecologists and
others in progressive movements". That would ".... work with them
......without ever trying to colonise or use them".

The organisation that must be "very conscious of one paramount fact: Whereas
there are millions and millions of people who want a better deal under
capitalism, there are not enough of us who want to go beyond
capitalism.....", and that the task of socialists is "to increase their
number by word and by struggle".

OR IS IT JUST HALF EMPTY?

Of course, this is a fundamental issue.  It was a fundamental issue when
Miliband broached it in 1985, and remains even more so, and more urgent
today.  It is, and remains, absolutely true what Professor Miliband said
then: "What must sustain socialists, apart from the justness of their cause,
is not that socialist change is imminent, but that it is possible and that
it is inscribed in the actual, concrete circumstances of late capitalism".

Nevertheless, it is also true that the problems of "late capitalism" are now
mounting up with every passing day.  In other words, we are living through a
deep crisis.  The question of putting an end to the imperialist system, is
no longer urgent for Third World countries alone. It is now becoming an
urgent issue of class survival in the very Metropolitan countries. An ever
growing number of people can see the impending dichotomy on the horizon:
Fascism or Communism.  Either the most terrorist imperialist and fascist
reaction
triumphs or proletarian government does.  There is no middle way.
Therefore, we must increase the tempo.  We must seize the day, we must seize
the hour.

A QUEST TO BE CONTINUED

To study what all this means, and why it has never come to fruition in
Britain, it would be important to spare another thought for Professor Ralph
Miliband and his ideas.  That should be the task of a further article. We
have indeed managed to exhume from his written remains an involuntary, but
valuable and living concrete contribution.  For now, we shall therefore, let
him truly rest in peace!.

London 13/10/94



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