Re: Iraqi Communists 'welcome US assault on Saddam'

[MARIPOWER716@xxxxxxx]

>"Marxism will triumph in the end," he smiled.
 . . . .Communist Party leaders welcome the U.S.-led assault on Saddam and
his army, but oppose any role for Washington in Iraq if he is toppled.

This kind of ideological flexibility runs through Kurdish communists'
thinking. "We have all studied Marxism and Leninism, and take inspiration
from them," said Abdul Rahman Faris, another politburo member in Kalar.

"But we are not trying to create a proletarian labor state, as this was
one of the weaknesses of the old Soviet Union. I personally do not
believe in the atheist ideology and members are free to choose to be a
Muslim or not."

The rhetoric is not of revolution, power to the proletariat and the
evils of capitalism but of "social justice and democracy."
"What happened to communist ideology is not the fault of the ideology
itself but in the way it was practiced," Faris added.<


Comment

Life would be really simple and the class struggle clarified if only all the
member of the working class could line up on one side of the street, the
bourgeoisie on the other side with the armed forces in the middle. It would
be relatively easy to convince the armed forces - which are in fact our
children, that a handful of capitalist have no God given right to run the
country on their behalf.

It is not that "Marxism will triumph in the end," as it is the universal
triumph of Marx and Engels materialist conception of history and theory of
the class struggle. The approach to society development and evolution
pioneered by Marx and popularized by Frederick Engels has fundamentally
triumphed in all centers of higher learning on earth.

I of course did not support or welcome - along with most members of this
list, the military assault on Iraq, the dropping of over 15,000 bombs, the
using of depleted uranium shell in civilian areas, the death of perhaps one
million people since "Gulp 1," the current rising death toil, the terrible
destruction of property and infrastructure, the apparent execution of news
reporters and consequently did not "support our troops."

If this article is accurate and not a propaganda stunt, it is deeply
revealing in its underlying theoretical grid. What is called a "proletarian
labor state," is related to ideology divorced from any state or stage of
development of the productive forces. Although, no Marxist worth his salt
would argue ones religious belief, in America the word "labor" is related to
human laboring in connection with a given state of development of the
material power of production.

What actually happened to communist ideology is that it did not have
sufficient legs to stand on. The banner hoisted by none other than Karl Marx
himself, has inscribed on it, "From each according to their ability, to each
according to their need."

"To each according to their need," presupposes a development in the material
power of the productive forces and a corresponding infrastructure evolution
to make such a feat possible in the first place. No industrial society can
leap to communism as such, no matter how noble, revolutionary or democratic
its government and political superstructure.

A development must take place that revolutionizes the productive forces;
unravels and accelerated the decay of the old classes organized around the
old means of production; calls for the creation of new classes and strata to
engage the new productive forces and compels society to leap to a new
political basis in order for the new system of production to be universally
implemented.

Right now today, America has enough distribution centers - stores, to make
"to each according to their need," possible. The development of the Internet
makes ordering virtually any product from ones home possible. If there was a
genuine desire by the executors of our modern capitalist state to hear the
voice of the American people we would have a system that allowed every
citizen that chooses to vote from their home. It stands to reason if commerce
can be conducted over the Internet with a degree of security, surely ones
vote could be safeguarded and accurately counted.

The communist idea as articulated by Marx, is not against money or profit as
such, but the mechanism that allows that allows the individual to own
socially necessary means of production.

This of course is the ideology of communism - no more no less.



Melvin P.