"The past epoch is gone, never to return. Therefore, we must integrate ourselves with the new masses without any hesitation." Mao-Tsetung (Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, Section 5.)
The criticisms of The New Flag to MIM and the RCP (Co-RIM) are correct. By reading once again Chairman Gonzalo's interview of 1988, and the criticism of the RIM declaration of 1984, I was convinced of the correct line of the PCP regarding the science of today's Marxism: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM). In my modest opinion, RCP and MIM are engaged in diversionary tactics to take our eyes off the objective and tactics to be used in today's struggle.
The word "Diversion" in Spanish means enjoyment, play, and that's what these Revisionists are doing. Thanks to your Web page (http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp), I analyzed the ideological and military documents of the PCP, which most of them (not all) perfectly apply to the struggle in any imperialist country. Hence, they apply to the United States.
For your consideration and analysis, I propose the following specific issues found in Chairman Gonzalo's theses:
- 1. Vigorous defense of Maoism from the beginning when everyone else has failed. It is right to rebel! but a militarized MLM Party is needed as a condition to lead the armed struggle.
- 2. Development of Mass Line to apply to industrial and rural proletariat in Shantytowns, which exist in the U.S. along the border where Mexican proletarians live, and even in the slums of big cities where millions of oppressed nationalities live. Their miserable living conditions of these masses are comparable to people living in the young towns of Peru.
- 3. Heightening of the question of People's War within the beast, which is the development and further evolution of the definition of a "proletarian movement".
- 4. Answers to Lenin's question, "What Is to Be Done?" in concrete practical terms today, not in some future.
- 5. Places practice first, which is the extension of Maoism.
- 6. The original documents of the PCP are written in Spanish, the language of the advanced proletarians throughout the "Americas".
- 7. Shows us that especially in the U.S. the existence of a multinational proletariat is internationalism.
- 8. Places in the proper place of importance the struggle against Revisionism, and shows how this struggle is indispensable to the education of the masses in the theory and practice of MLM.
- 9. Has laid the foundation for Mao's thesis that a small nation can defeat a big nation - for future reference.
- 10. Is a clarion call to comrades in the Americas, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, etc., and also answers the revisionists and opportunists in the U.S. who have formed phony support groups.
- 11. Shows us that the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries is intimately connected and conditioned by the movement in the Third World.
The United States is not one nation but an entity of many nations, divided into oppressor and oppressed nations. There is no equality between the workers of these nations, nor can be as long as imperialism exists. Lenin addresses this question in "Imperialist Economism, A Caricature of Marxism." He shows that there is a qualitative difference between the workers of oppressing nations and oppressed nations economically, politically and ideologically. He said: "ALL ALONG THE LINE there are differences in objective reality.....the International is composed of workers DIVIDED into oppressing and oppressed nations. If its action is to be MONISTIC, its propaganda must NOT be the same for both." This refutes the Yankee revisionists who babble about a "multinational U.S. working class," "African-American self determination," etc. The trouble with the concept of multi-national working class is that it leads to the concept of a "nation within a nation," or aspire to what the Chinese revisionists' capitalist-charade "one nation, two systems." Look at it this way, is Ireland a nation within a nation? Is India? No.
This position does not overlook the race factor. It is there because today the privileges afforded to the white workers have rendered them not only useless, but generally reactionary. On the other hand, framing the national question only in terms of the African-American Struggle, for example, automatically downplays all other national struggles. The national struggles are necessary to combat effectively imperialism, and here the role of advanced white workers, intellectuals and other anti-imperialist activists is important. Some revisionists propose a United Front Against Fascism (UFAF). Although fascism already exists, mainly directed against non-whites as a whole, and in particular against immigrant workers, we should learn from the failure of past struggles. The original UFAF, in 1935, was an attempt to unite with the Social Democratic parties, particularly through negotiations with their leaders. The social democrats time and time sabotaged the united front until its destruction. Is it possible to work again with the social democrats today, which in the U.S. constitute approximately 90 percent of the tiny "left"? In any case, the practical, organizational form that will develop in the U.S. will be the People's Committees, just like those done in Peru under the leadership of the PCP. These People's Committees are the continuation of the Soviets first formed in Tsarist Russia. Likewise, they are fundamentally as the People's Soviets in China, organized by Mao and the CCP from the mid 30's on.
FOUR POINTS TO COMBAT REVISIONISM AND THE VALIDITY OF GONZALO THOUGHT 1. What is Revisionism? Revisionism is the distortion of the teachings and experience of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Gonzalo. At the present time, the theory of Revolutionary Marxism is properly known as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. Gonzalo Thought, which is the application of MLM to the conditions of Peru, nowadays is the link between the proletarian masses throughout the world and Maoism. Plus, Gonzalo Thought has the distinct advantage of being written first in Spanish. The proletarians who speak Spanish from Alaska to Chile will one day start reading MLM, GT and put it into practice. The purpose of the Revisionists is to prevent Maoism from getting into the hands of the masses. The chief Revisionists in the U.S. now are groups like CoRIM, the MIM, Workers World, CPUSA, etc.
2. What is Revolutionary Marxism or MLM, GT? First of all, the basic theories of MLM, GT can be found in the following texts:
- a. Marx: Wage Labor and Capital, Value Price and Profit, Capital, volume 1, Critique of the Gotha Programme and the Communist Manifesto.
- b. Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Anti-Duhring, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, The Dialectics of Nature, and The Communist Manifesto.
- c. Lenin: What Is To Be Done, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile disorder, The State and Revolution, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.
- d. Stalin: The Foundations of Leninism, The problems of Leninism, The National Question (after 1913), On The Opposition (collection of articles against Revisionists).
- e. Mao: Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, On New Democracy, the documents against the Soviet revisionists contained in the "Polemic", various articles in Peking Review during the Cultural Revolution.
- f. Gonzalo: 1988 Interview, Documents from the First Congress, The Mass Line, Military Line, International Line, Speech from the Cage; Elections No, People's War Yes, and other documents from the PCP.
- g. Other works: Mariatequi on the Seven Essays, Women's Emancipation, etc.
Obviously, the above list can be expanded or lengthened, but these texts contain the theory of Marxism from its inception to the present day conditions.
The Revisionists think that they are great Marxist theoreticians, but they howl like stuck pigs when their bare asses are exposed, and resort to name calling and demagoguery in place of polemics or political struggle.
3. Some tricks the Revisionists use to distort MLM, GT
a. The revisionists constantly blur the distinction between the free competition capitalism in Marx and Engel's time and the monopoly capitalism or imperialism which began in 1900. The fundamental reason for the revisionist blurring is to compare the workers in imperialist countries or advanced capitalist countries with proletarians in the Third World, particularly those who migrate to the imperialist countries to become the Vanguard of the Proletariat. Right now the principal task of Maoists is to get the theory into the hands of the proletarians within the Imperialist countries.
b. The Revisionist constantly avoid the task of a class analysis of the United States, which is the first task as outlined by Mao in Selected Readings.
c. Misquotes are the favorite tool of the revisionists. Any quote taken out of context can be used for any purpose in the world, as we all know. The Revisionists like to misuse Lenin and compare Tsarist Russia of 1905 to the US, 1998. In Tsarist Russia, in 1905, the masses did not have the right to vote and were extremely poor and brutalized. The bourgeois democratic revolution was a necessary step. In the US, the majority of people have had the right to vote for most of this century, and they are rich compared to other people in the world. The only people who work and live like the workers and peasants of Russia are the urban and rural proletarians. Why don't the revisionist struggle for the democratic rights of Latin American workers?
d. The Revisionists main purpose in life is to prevent the masses from getting organized, and to prevent Maoists from getting the theory into their hands.
e. Some Revisionists talk a great deal about Dimitrov's United Front Against Fascism, but do not do anything at all about getting one started.
4. The Principal Tasks in the Imperialist Countries, particularly the USA: Our main job is to get the theory of MLM, GT into the hands of the proletarians within the US, especially the Third World proletariat. On the practical side, that means distributing newspapers and magazines along the lines of Lenin's Iskra which is discussed in detail in What Is To Be Done? It also means finding ways by which the masses can begin to organize themselves into People's Committees.
An integral part of our job is to explain to the masses the ongoing struggle in Peru led by the PCP. This is being done by The New Flag.
The Revisionists do none of the above, but actually sabotage these efforts. Take the CSRP and the CoRIM. Why aren't they organizing an anti-war movement against US intervention in Peru and in support of the PCP?
Why aren't they organizing the Third World Proletariat here in the belly of the beast into Revolutionary Unions (the former name of the RCP). Why is there no criticism of the Right Opportunist Line in the groups inside the US, all of which tail after the Sandinistas, the FMLN of El Salvador, Che Guevara (after Castro's capitulation he is becoming a big folk hero again), and the Zapatistas, who are bankrupted. Why isn't there a thorough criticism of the Zapatistas? Look! The entire US Left is splintered and dismembered into hundreds of sectarian groups who cannot do anything at all. So, why can't the revisionists do something about it? They can't because revisionism necessarily leads to a lot of talk but no action.
In conclusion, I must relate a personal story. Once a month or so I waste ten dollars or so buying Left material at a bookstore. Lately, a lot of magazines have articles about the situation in Perú. One group is working to free Lori Berenson, and praises Peruvian revisionists (e.g., MRTA). Not a word about the PCP in their literature. If the CSRP and the CoRIM were serious, first of all they would have their own monthly magazine combating these opportunists so people like me could put them in bookstores. I will personally volunteer to at least put such a magazine in at least ten bookstores a month.
Bombard the Yankee Revisionists!
Long Live Maoism, Down with Revisionism!
Victory to the People's War in Perú!
