[Marxism] Petras' criticism of Fidel

[Jscotlive@xxxxxxx]

Mike:
 
It invalidates their struggle 1) in the eyes of the ones who need to  be
the protagonists of that struggle. At best it is what we would  call
"substitutionist." 
 
Reply:
 
And who do you think fill the ranks of the FARC, 15,000 specially  parachuted 
in militants? Come on, every revolutionary struggle proceeds  according to 
the objective material conditions from which it springs. Marx gave  us method 
not conclusion. Those we arrive at by ourselves using his method.  Lenin and 
the 
Bolsheviks turned much of Marx's theory of practice on its head.  The same 
accusation of substitutionism, following this line of argument, could  have 
been 
made and was made by many against the Cuban  revolutionaries, the IRA, ANC, 
Hezbollah, and Hamas, even though it is  obvious that no revolutionary movement 
can survive without at least the tacit  support of the people among whom it 
exists.  
 
Mike:
 
it leads to a question: if they have
substituted a military strategy for  a mass mobilizing strategy (i.e.,
substituting military for politics with no  effort to exercise leadership
in popular struggles), and they merely seek to  pressure the government
with no aim to take power (as do reformists and the  Zapatistas), and they
resort to actions that are or are popularly seen as  kidnapping and
extortion, and, finally, at the very least their tactics are  condemned by
those who should be their base and allies, then are they a  revolutionary
organization?
 
Reply:
 
You seem to think that the FARC are in a position to direct the struggle.  
That they control huge tracts of the country, that they have been able to set 
up 
 and administer a state within a state for over 30 years, despite the massive 
 resources arrayed against them, is testament to their strategy. Your 
analysis  completely underestimates the repression unleashed against the 
Colombian 
people  by the oligarchy. The assassination of Colombian trade unionists, 
socialist  and leftists is unparalleled in any other country. 
 
You call it kidnapping. What do you call the arrest and imprisonment of  FARC 
supporters and members by the Colombian government? The FARC consider  
themselves as existing in a liberated mini-state. The logic which  flows from 
this 
starting point is that anyone coming into this liberated  territory is under 
their control. US agents, bourgeois politicians, members  of the Colombian 
security forces - are we now saying that they are off  limits in a struggle in 
which the Colombian state, either overtly or  covertly with its collusion with 
right wing death squads, has proved time  and time again that it is willing to 
plumb the depths of brutality and  murder? 
 
Finally, the Bolsheviks were lambasted throughout Europe by the left,  
especially over the issue of expropriations. In fact, Lenin was reduced  to 
pariah 
status over it. Would you have had the same analysis of  them and their 
actions?   
 
As Trotsky once said: 
 
'Who aims at the end, cannot reject the means." "If human life is sacred or  
inviolable," he declared, "we must deny ourselves not only the use of terror,  
not only war but revolution itself." 



   
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