[PEN-L:11180] Re: interimperialist rivalries (IV)

["James Michael Craven" <CRAVJM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Louis P:
> >> What does this mean other than there is a large Maoist contingent in India?
> >> Rakesh raised the question of Soviet "exploitation" of India over on the
> >> Spoons list in a "state capitalism" thread, but could provide no numbers
> >> only a reference to a book that did. Does anybody believe that the Soviet
> >> Union had the same kind of bloodsucking relationship to India that England
> >> did? England owned tea plantations. What did the USSR own?
>
> Look Proyect, the reference has the numbers. I don't have a scanner, nor
> the time to read and summarize complex analyses in unrelated fields (I am
> no genius).  You had simply dismissed as outlandish that the USSR practiced
> any form of imperialism in the third world, you suggested that it would be
> impossible to provide statistical proof of such an absurdity (even going to
> the extent of suggesting that Russia was exploited by its Eastern European
> satellites).
>
> I suggested to you, ridiculously thinking you may be interested in a
> counter-opinion, a substantial critique of Soviet-Indian *trade* as
> unequal.
>
>   You obviously have no interest in tracking it down, and analyzing it. You
> won't even mention the title here. By the way, the author is London School
> of Econmics Ph.D., and full professor at the Indian Institute of Management
> in Calcutta. He also reads Russian, which I thought you may find
> interesting.
>
> By the way, it would surprise me if he wrote this as propaganda for the
> Maoist Indian parties as you seem to insinuate by the way you have
> juxtaposed sentences; in the collection he seems to be most sympathetic to
> Trotsky-inspired Marxism of Mandel (offering several criticisms of Samir
> Amin and Arrighi Emmanuel). So what was probably your ad hominem dismissal
> of this work as petty bourgeois Maoism won't wash either. I wouldn't be
> surprised if you were attempting to insinuate that I was a Maoist as well.
> There is something deeply disturbing about the way you argue and insinuate.
> Really, you give me the creeps.
>
>
> Check it out.
>
> Nirmal Kumar Chandra, "USSR and Third World: Unequal Distribution of Gains"
> in The Retarded Economies: Foreign Domination and Class Relations in India
> and other Emerging Nations. (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1988). The
> analysis was written in 1977.
>
> Rakesh
>
I would like to add my two cents here.

During "Emergency Measures" under Indira Gandhi, some of the most
vicious repression was practiced--and sanctioned by the "Socialst"
USSR and so-called "Socialists/Communists" of the CPI. Teachers were
given quotas to produce names of students for forced sterilization
before they could receive their paychecks. Fourth-year medical
students (some friends of mine) were told they would either
participate in giving vascetomies or face dismissal from medical
school. Villages all had "village informers" who were given pay and
jobs for informing. All sorts of private feuds spilled over with
people being accused of being "Naxalites" as a form of revenge. And
all of this was openly sanctioned by the Governments of the USSR and
members of the so-called CPI.

The India-USSR relations contained a slicker veneer than those
between India and UK or America, but just look and the period and
what exactly did the USSR leave in India if one does not want to look
at what was taken out. Many Indians understood this and it had
nothing to do with Maoism or whatever--they simply heard the rhetoric
and then looked at what exactly was being left/built by the USSR and
what policies of the Indian government were being supported by the
USSR and their puppets in the CPI.

On the issue of "Maoists" and other self-declared "Socialists and
Communists"in India, I know something about the different parties in
Kerala and how they were perceived. Members of the CPI were generally
perceived as being puppets and mimickers of the USSR and advocates of
wholesale transplantation of USSR policies/ideologies even when they
were clearly not appropriate. CP-M (which includes some "Maoists")was
in control of State Government in Kerala several times because they
were known as the most honest, they had deep roots in the villages,
they had callouses on their hands--not just their asses and tongues--
from hard work at very basic levels. Naxalites operated deep
underground in Kerala and were very active in Andra Pradesh as well
as in the North. The few Trotskyites were urban-based and known for
"armchair-quarterbacking" revolution everywhere, faction fighting and
wrecking and making revolution nowhere--especially where they actually
were. Most of the Indian Socialists and Communists I met were more
interested in concrete work in concrete contexts rather than quote
mongering, erudite/esoteric renditions, debating footnotes from the
works of Marx et al or even faction fighting and ultra-sectarianism.

                                  Jim Craven

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