The Nepali Maoist’s revolutionary struggle towards Capitalism….Wait, what?

[The Vegan Marxist]

The Nepali Maoist’s revolutionary struggle towards Capitalism….Wait, what?
January 1, 2011

That’s right, you heard me. Not only are the Unified Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist (UCPN-M) waging a revolutionary battle against the Nepali State, it is being waged in order to implement capitalism!

Now, I’m sure there’s a line of questions that’ll be asked due to such statements; such as “But don’t you support the Maoists?”, “I thought Socialists opposed capitalism?”, “How can fighting for capitalism be revolutionary?”, and “Does the Maoists support capitalism or socialism?”. These are, of course, the most obvious questions that I feel will be asked. In which, I then feel obligated to answer in order, for those interested in the Maoist struggle in Nepal, to get a better understanding of what all’s going on.

So allow me to begin by answering the first question: “But don’t you support the Maoists?” Why, yes, I do. I’ve supported them since the day that I came to learn about their revolutionary struggle. Though, I’ll admit that I knew very little then than I do now. Which is why I feel the need of updating everyone on what, exactly, is taking place in Nepal and for what purpose.

To be able to answer the other two questions it’s necessary to split them into two different categories of information. One being of how the Maoists are fighting towards capitalism, and the other being of why it is still a revolutionary event.

Capitalism

What better way of pointing out the fact that the Maoists are, in fact, fighting towards capitalism than by quoting the Chairman of the UCPN (Maoist), Pushpa Kamal Dahal:


“”We are not fighting for socialism,” he said [...] We are just fighting against feudalism. We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists.”1

I’m sure if one was to use this quote by itself without even recognizing the important reasons behind such actions, one would develop the idea that the Maoists are traitors to the proletarian struggle. Though, as Socialists, this line of thought shouldn’t be proceeded and we must develop a better understanding on why we should support this move by the Maoists.

But, “I thought Socialists opposed capitalism?” We do oppose capitalism to a certain extent. Though, when we compare feudalism with that of capitalism, we realize the necessary process of supporting the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Even to that of both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, they saw the transition as a progressive event:


“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

[...]

“The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarcely one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?”2

And so, we then start noticing a glimpse of why such a transition is revolutionary. But, “how can fighting for capitalism be revolutionary?”

Revolutionary

We must always recognize the struggle towards Socialism as a revolutionary event of actions. Whatever step taken that leads to Socialism is revolutionary, in itself. But I thought the Maoists are fighting for capitalism, not Socialism? This is actually not the case whatsoever. They’re fighting towards capitalism, but for socialism. To understand this better, we must realize that without capitalism there is no socialism. We cannot simply transition feudalism towards Socialism and not come about a series of detrimental contradictions.

It was Friedrich Engels who stated:


“Only the immense increase of the productive forces attained by modern industry has made it possible to distribute labour among all members of society without exception, and thereby to limit the labour time of each individual member to such an extent that all have enough free time left to take part in the general – both theoretical and practical – affairs of society. It is only now, therefore, that every ruling and exploiting class has become superfluous and indeed a hindrance to social development, and it is only now, too, that it will be inexorably abolished, however much it may be in possession of ‘direct force’.”3

The revolutionary struggle towards Communism is simply a struggle of gradual steps needing to be taken. Where there is feudalism, the revolutionary struggle for Socialism must call for the transition to capitalism. From there, we then transition towards Socialism, so on and so forth.

New Democracy

So, “does the Maoists support capitalism or socialism?” Although the quoted statement by Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal that I provided earlier gives a clue to where the current struggle lies, it is no longer a relevant stage partaken by the Maoists. Rather stating that “his party wants to over throw the two hundred years old feudal political and economic superstructure and build a [...] new democracy with social justice and inclusion.”4

This is where, when we go into discussion of what particular stage the Maoists are waging, we should always recognize the stage of “New Democracy”, as laid out by Mao Zedong:


“The new historical characteristic of the Chinese revolution is its division into two stages, the first being the new-democratic revolution.

[...]

“Being a bourgeoisie in a colonial and semi-colonial country and oppressed by imperialism, the Chinese national bourgeoisie retains a certain revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree–even in the era of imperialism–in its opposition to the foreign imperialists and the domestic governments of bureaucrats and warlords [...] and it may ally itself with the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie against such enemies as it is ready to oppose.”5

Though, during this periodic stage of “New Democracy”, there lies a political line between two class contradictions – those who support Socialism and those who don’t break away from bourgeoisie relations:


“At the same time, however, being a bourgeois class in a colonial and semi-colonial country and so being extremely flabby economically and politically, the Chinese national bourgeoisie also has another quality, namely, a proneness to conciliation with the enemies of the revolution. Even when it takes part in the revolution, it is unwilling to break with imperialism completely and, moreover, it is closely associated with the exploitation of the rural areas through land rent; thus it is neither willing nor able to overthrow imperialism, and much less the feudal forces, in a thorough way.

[...]

“Possible participation in the revolution on the one hand and proneness to conciliation with the enemies of the revolution on the other– such is the dual character of the Chinese bourgeoisie, it faces both ways. Even the bourgeoisie in European and American history had shared this dual character. When confronted by a formidable enemy, they united with the workers and peasants against him, but when the workers and peasants awakened, they turned round to unite with the enemy against the workers and peasants. This is a general rule applicable to the bourgeoisie everywhere in the world.”6

To better understand what is to come to Nepal under this “New Democracy”, we must understand the components of “New Democracy”, itself. In which is a transitional period under capitalist rule, not to remain static through capitalist rule, but to eventually transition from capitalism to Socialism:


“This new-democratic republic will be different from the old European-American form of capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship, which is the old democratic form and already out of date. On the other hand, it will also be different from the socialist republic of the Soviet type under the dictatorship of the proletariat which is already flourishing in the U.S.S.R., and which, moreover, will be established in all the capitalist countries and will undoubtedly become the dominant form of state and governmental structure in all the industrially advanced countries. However, for a certain historical period, this form is not suitable for the revolutions in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. During this period, therefore, a third form of state must be adopted in the revolutions of all colonial and semi-colonial countries, namely, the new-democratic republic. This form suits a certain historical period and is therefore transitional; nevertheless, it is a form which is necessary and cannot be dispensed with.

[...]

“The state system, a joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes and the system of government, democratic centralism–these constitute the politics of New Democracy, the republic of New Democracy.

[...]

“Without a doubt, the present revolution is the first step, which will develop into the second step, that of socialism, at a later date… The [...] revolution cannot avoid taking the two steps, first of New Democracy and then of socialism. Moreover, the first step will need quite a long time and cannot be accomplished overnight. We are not utopians and cannot divorce ourselves from the actual conditions confronting us.”7

So for all those who oppose the Maoists when they state they’re fighting towards Capitalism, we must then recognize that they are the real traitors of the proletarian struggle, not the Maoists. Socialism will not come to Nepal for many years, but the revolutionary struggle towards Socialism will live on. With the Maoists calling for the agreement of the newly designed constitution, which would place the Maoists as the largest ruling party over the Bourgeois State, under the interest of the Nepali working class and peasantry, those of the current ruling leadership must accept by May 28, or a People’s Revolt will be waged, as stated by Maoist Vice-Chairman Dr. Baburam Bhattarai:


“What will be the role of the president in post May-28 Nepal?

“He doesn’t have any role. If he takes one, that will be unconstitutional. If the constitutional process breaks down, it will lead to a situation “might is right” situation.”8

So whatever may happen, whether the current ruling leadership accepts the new constitution and steps down or the Maoists wage a People’s Revolt and makes them step down, we must support this ongoing revolutionary struggle.

Red Love & Salutes!

1. Thomas Bell, “Nepal’s ‘fierce one’ spurns Chairman Mao and claims centre ground in peace talks”, The Telegraph, October 31, 2006.

2. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, “Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians”, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1849, pp. 38-9.

3. Engels, Friedrich, Anti-Dühring, 1894, p. 251.

4. “We want to build a new capitalist and industrial democracy: Prachanda”, Nepal Biz News, December 23, 2006.

5. Zedong, Mao, On New Democracy, 1940.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. “I am not a revisionist: Dr Bhattarai”, My Republica, December 13, 2010.

http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/the-nepali-maoists-revolutionary-struggle-towards-capitalism-wait-what/

[Lunatic Concept]

I assume this is a joke?:confused:

[The Vegan Marxist]

Why would you think it's a joke? Do you deny that the transitional phase from feudalism to capitalism is necessary in order to implement socialism?

[Crimson Commissar]

Oh piss off. There's not a single part of the modern world that hasn't at some point been under capitalist rule. This "capitalist stage" is complete and utter bullshit. It always was bullshit. Why should the people fight for a revolution when it's just going to put them under capitalist oppression? There is literally no point. Any so-called "socialist" who fights to implement capitalism is a traitor to the working class and has no place in our movement.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Oh piss off. There's not a single part of the modern world that hasn't at some point been under capitalist rule. This "capitalist stage" is complete and utter bullshit. It always was bullshit. Why should the people fight for a revolution when it's just going to put them under capitalist oppression? There is literally no point. Any so-called "socialist" who fights to implement capitalism is a traitor to the working class and has no place in our movement.

You're completely disregarding the fact that feudalism has yet to be completely transitioned away from towards complete capitalist rule. Just because your idealist objectives state that if signs of capitalism is present then it must be complete capitalism, doesn't mean you know what the hell you're talking about. The only thing that's bullshit is what you're spewing now.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

quoting the Chairman of the UCPN (Maoist), Pushpa Kamal Dahal:
“. We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists.”1

Oh lol

[BIG BROTHER]

You're completely disregarding the fact that feudalism has yet to be completely transitioned away from towards complete capitalist rule. Just because your idealist objectives state that if signs of capitalism is present then it must be complete capitalism, doesn't mean you know what the hell you're talking about. The only thing that's bullshit is what you're spewing now.

This Stalinist "stageist" aproach to a revolution in a feudal or semi-feudal country is what made the Nicaraguan Revolution go down the drain.

[crazyirish93]

yes because going from feudal society to socialism will work out perfectly :rolleyes:

[BIG BROTHER]

yes because going from feudal society to socialism will work out perfectly :rolleyes:

Yes because implementing capitalism will work out perfectly :rolleyes: I mean is not like the Nicaraguan Revolution was lost or anything like that.

That's why the task of the Nepali if they want Socialism is to expand the revolution by any means necessary to India and the whole region so that they can secure the material means to develop socialism.

[The Vegan Marxist]

This Stalinist "stageist" aproach to a revolution in a feudal or semi-feudal country is what made the Nicaraguan Revolution go down the drain.

:laugh:

So your argument that the Nicaraguan revolution failed because of "Stalinism" and the necessary transition from feudalism to capitalism? :lol: That's the most black 'n white bullshit I've ever heard!

[The Vegan Marxist]

Yes because implementing capitalism will work out perfectly :rolleyes: I mean is not like the Nicaraguan Revolution was lost or anything like that.

That's why the task of the Nepali if they want Socialism is to expand the revolution by any means necessary to India and the whole region so that they can secure the material means to develop socialism.

lmfao! You first state that the Nicaraguan Revolution failed because of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, in itself. Yet then call for a transition from feudalism to socialism, completely skipping capitalism altogether, when, in fact, your plan has never worked whatsoever! Jesus fucking christ Cambodia would've loved you!

[BIG BROTHER]

Both Castro and the Soviet Union advised the Sandinista leadership to withhold the workers and the peasants in their take for power, to reverse their gains and focuz on building capitalism and THEN Socialism.

Indeed the the Revolutionary leadership across time and the world has failed otherwise we would be living under communism right now....

Pol-Pot didn't try to build Socialism, were do you get your info from? Liberal media?

And I guess if we are gong to resort to name calling if I was a capitalist and I would be loving you and the Nepali Leadershp:thumbup:

[BIG BROTHER]

Good thing the people in Russia who had your ideas did not succeed, we wouldn't even have had a worker's state(that degenerated later)

[The Vegan Marxist]

Both Castro and the Soviet Union advised the Sandinista leadership to withhold the workers and the peasants in their take for power, to reverse their gains and focuz on building capitalism and THEN Socialism.

Indeed the the Revolutionary leadership across time and the world has failed otherwise we would be living under communism right now....

Pol-Pot didn't try to build Socialism, were do you get your info from? Liberal media?

And I guess if we are gong to resort to name calling if I was a capitalist and I would be loving you and the Nepali Leadershp:thumbup:

You actually think that we'd be living in a Communist world if Castro and the Soviet Union didn't advise to take necessary, gradual steps towards Socialism? lol Boy, when you're right, you're right. :rolleyes:

[crazyirish93]

Yes because implementing capitalism will work out perfectly :rolleyes: I mean is not like the Nicaraguan Revolution was lost or anything like that.

That's why the task of the Nepali if they want Socialism is to expand the revolution by any means necessary to India and the whole region so that they can secure the material means to develop socialism.

unfortunately Nepal or India are not ready for socialism yet so to implement socialism would be fool hardy

[Widerstand]

Yes because implementing capitalism will work out perfectly :rolleyes:

Actually implementing capitalism has worked out quite perfectly for the anti-feudalist bourgeois all over the world, I'm sure it will quite perfectly work out for the Maoists, too.

Implementing socialism however, now that is a different thing.

[BIG BROTHER]

That is why the Revolution should expand internationally. India however would provide at least a lot more infrastructure and has more developed means of production than Nepal.

And seriosly Vegan is it funny to you that successful revolutions are screwed over and over again due to this "stageist" approach?

[The Vegan Marxist]

That is why the Revolution should expand internationally. India however would provide at least a lot more infrastructure and has more developed means of production than Nepal.

And seriosly Vegan is it funny to you that successful revolutions are screwed over and over again due to this "stageist" approach?

China failed due to the stageist approach? :confused: lol If I remember correctly, socialism was achieved in China. And since "New Democracy" was termed by Mao, himself, and was achieved successfully through Maoist China, I don't see how your arguments are even remotely correct whatsoever.

[BIG BROTHER]

So China was socialist...wow....so..Socialism leads to Capitalism according to your logic? wow I am not even going to debate this anymore. I think any honest militant looking to create a stateless, classless society will know whose side is right.

[The Vegan Marxist]

So China was socialist...wow....so..Socialism leads to Capitalism according to your logic? wow I am not even going to debate this anymore. I think any honest militant looking to create a stateless, classless society will know whose side is right.

Disregarding any debate on China in particular, are you stating that transitional advancements is static and could never change to transitional backwardness, due to certain conditions and contradictions being play out? If so, then your utopian idealism is getting the best of you.

[DaringMehring]

TVM, I appreciate that you are trying to use theory to come to grips with revolutionary problems, but, respectfully, you've come to the wrong conclusions.

You take one of the worst possible results of the Nepali revolution --- that the CPNM guides the Nepali workers & peasants into the hands of the bourgeoisie and creates some variety of state capitalism --- and then assert that, actually, it would be a good result.

In that, you underestimate both the potential of the Nepalis and the necessity and possibility of socialism.

The Marxist theory you base your conclusion on, is of the Menshevik variety, and has been disproved by history. Alliance with the bourgeoisie has been a non-starter for socialism. It's like starting a race, running the wrong way. The whole idea of Marxism is that workers take the power themselves --- no Gods, Kings, or Saviors. As one would expect, that cannot be achieved, with the first step being alliance with the class enemy. In every single country both 3rd world & 1st world where this idea has been tried, it has been a failure.

Small steps & compromise are the weapons of the bourgeoisie. Look in the USA or other industrialized countries: whenever people build momentum for radical change, the bourgeoisie tries to buy them out with the promise of cooperation in achieving reforms. They find the reformist elements, ally with them against the radicals, and kill all radical prospects. Their class power preserved, later, when the tide has shifted, they move to undo the reforms.

What you are saying, is that a Marxist in Nepal has to be like the first world sell-outs, from the get-go.

We can't fall for their tactics in either the first or third world!

It has to be like in Russia, and in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat seized the state power, for there even to be a chance for an attempt at socialism in the classical Marxist sense.

For a socialist Nepal and south Asia! No to stagism, popular frontism, and all the other sell-out theories of class collaboration!

[Spawn of Stalin]

Hey kids, life is better under capitalism, of course it is nowhere near as good as socialism but it is easily second best when you consider the alternatives on offer in Nepal right now. I understand why you might feel uneasy about this sort of thing, I used to be the same and still am to a degree, but you know, when capitalism was first established it was a really revolutionary thing and was hailed by all progressive people as a step towards egalite. In reality it was actually more of a great leap towards egalite because I don't know how many of you have visited places where capitalism has not had the chance to develop but they ain't pretty. I don't know why you all expect every other country to keep up with us in imperialist countries, we may be ready to establish socialism at a minute's notice, but others are not. I hate seeing views like this on revleft because they're almost racist, Eurocentric, and frankly characteristic of most "revolutionaries" in imperialist countries.

[RED DAVE]

One being of how the Maoists are fighting towards capitalism, and the other being of why it is still a revolutionary event.Congatulations. You have just liquidated 150+ years of Marxism; exactly what Maoists have been accused of.

And happy new year.

RED DAVE

[BIG BROTHER]

Hey kids, life is better under capitalism, of course it is nowhere near as good as socialism but it is easily second best when you consider the alternatives on offer in Nepal right now. I understand why you might feel uneasy about this sort of thing, I used to be the same and still am to a degree, but you know, when capitalism was first established it was a really revolutionary thing and was hailed by all progressive people as a step towards egalite. In reality it was actually more of a great leap towards egalite because I don't know how many of you have visited places where capitalism has not had the chance to develop but they ain't pretty. I don't know why you all expect every other country to keep up with us in imperialist countries, we may be ready to establish socialism at a minute's notice, but others are not. I hate seeing views like this on revleft because they're almost racist, Eurocentric, and frankly characteristic of most "revolutionaries" in imperialist countries.

You do understand that imperialism won't allow any development of capitalism under neo-colonial countries unless they attract investments by beating China and India in their race to to provide the most exploitative conditions for Capital right?

[Widerstand]

You do understand that imperialism won't allow any development of capitalism under neo-colonial countries unless they attract investments by beating China and India in their race to to provide the most exploitative conditions for Capital right?

So, considering that the quote in question is from 2006, will you explain how exactly imperialism has stifled development in Nepal since then?

And will anyone tell me how the Maoists in Nepal are currently, that is, five years after this quote, fighting for capitalism, since that is what we all assume this article tells us?

[BIG BROTHER]

So, considering that the quote in question is from 2006, will you explain how exactly imperialism has stifled development in Nepal?

Huh? I'm not sure I understand your question.

[Palingenisis]

They seem to have misunderstood the meaning of New Democracy...This is worrying.

[Widerstand]

Huh? I'm not sure I understand your question.

Didn't you say that imperialism will not allow Nepal to move past feudalism?

[Kléber]

Imperialism retards the development of Nepalese capitalism because the capitalists of Nepal can not compete with the super-profits of multinational corporations. The bourgeoisie of a country like Nepal, taking power after capitalism has already swept the earth, can not colonize other countries to bring in its own super-profits like the first capitalist countries did. The bourgeois government of Nepal represents a thin and vulnerable petty-bourgeois layer which barely even qualifies as a "bourgeoisie," it is beholden to international finance capital and relies on international capitalism for protection; it is compelled by the forces of the international market to play the role of a middleman (or more accurately, a pimp), repressing the workers and farmers to maintain the slave-wage conditions attractive to foreign capital investment. When a Stalinist "workers' and farmers' capitalist government" or "New Democratic" regime assumes the bourgeois role, as in Vietnam or Cuba, of course they use distorted pseudo-Marxist rhetoric about "developing the productive forces" without talking of how they are to be democratically administered, and they speak of workers' power as if it means a military dictatorship with a red flag, to justify the repression that accompanies enrichment of exploiters. That is why there can be no talk of enriching capitalists in Nepal. Only the workers can accomplish the tasks of national development, not by putting money in their bosses' pockets but by seizing the means of production, expropriating the capitalists and fighting to spread the revolution internationally.

[RED DAVE]

They seem to have misunderstood the meaning of New Democracy...This is worrying.Actually, the UCPN(M) understands New Democracy perfectly. New Democracy is a left-wing cover for state capitalism and private capitalism. This is what it was in China and Vietnam. This is what Stalinism was in the USSR and the so-called Peoples Democracies were in Eastern Europe. This is what it is in Cuba and North Vietnam. And this is what is proposed in Nepal.

The Maoists now stand exposed for what they really are: the handmaidens of capitalism. Enemies of the working class. It is to the credit of the UCPN(M) that they are more honest about their betrayal than any Maoist group yet.

RED DAVE

[Lunatic Concept]

I just meant the article seemed to be written in a very tongue-in-cheek way.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Actually, the UCPN(M) understands New Democracy perfectly. New Democracy is a left-wing cover for state capitalism and private capitalism. This is what it was in China and Vietnam. This is what Stalinism was in the USSR and the so-called Peoples Democracies were in Eastern Europe. This is what it is in Cuba and North Vietnam. And this is what is proposed in Nepal.

The Maoists now stand exposed for what they really are: the handmaidens of capitalism. Enemies of the working class. It is to the credit of the UCPN(M) that they are more honest about their betrayal than any Maoist group yet.

RED DAVE

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

God damn, you're such a fucking joke. They're not covering anything you moron! They specifically state that under "New Democracy" there'll be capitalism. They've never denied this! Only in your mind they have! Maybe you need to go back and educate yourself again, because your long years on earth are making you quite the dumb ass (unless you've always been one, though who knows). To get to socialism while still under feudalist conditions, you need to first transition towards capitalism! In which is what's being done in Nepal through "New Democracy". If you can't understand that, then I suggest you stop posting on the sub-forum for Nepal.

[RED DAVE]

God damn, you're such a fucking joke.No, you Maoists and Stalinists are the joke, except the joke is on anyone who follows your pro-capitalism ideology.


They're not covering anything you moron!Like I said, honest pro-capitalists.


They specifically state that under "New Democracy" there'll be capitalism.In other words, they're liberals or social democrats, not Marxist revolutionaries.


They've never denied this!Tjhen why are you following them. They're not in favor of socialism of any kind?


Only in your mind they have!Yeah, I fantasized that maybe Maoists had learned something from China. They have. They're learned how to build state capitalism and private capitalism even faster than in China or Vietnam or Cuba.


Maybe you need to go back and educate yourself again, because your long years on earth are making you quite the dumb ass (unless you've always been one, though who knows).Maybe you need to educate yourself as to what Marxism is.


To get to socialism while still under feudalist conditions, you need to first transition towards capitalism!Funny, that's not what Lenin nand the Bolsheviks believed. They believed that the historic tasks of true political and economic development could only be established under a working class regime. So you Maoists aren't even wqhat you call revisionists anymore. You're out-and-out capitalists.


In which is what's being done in Nepal through "New Democracy". If you can't understand that, then I suggest you stop posting on the sub-forum for Nepal.I suggest that you start posting under the "Other ideologies" forum as you are a pro-capitalist.

I love it when jtms like you get indignant when, in fact, you are betraying the working class.

RED DAVE

[The Vegan Marxist]

In other words, they're liberals or social democrats, not Marxist revolutionaries.

Tjhen why are you following them. They're not in favor of socialism of any kind?

Yeah, because those who support New Democracy doesn't want to see socialism, right? WRONG!



“This new-democratic republic will be different from the old European-American form of capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship, which is the old democratic form and already out of date. On the other hand, it will also be different from the socialist republic of the Soviet type under the dictatorship of the proletariat which is already flourishing in the U.S.S.R., and which, moreover, will be established in all the capitalist countries and will undoubtedly become the dominant form of state and governmental structure in all the industrially advanced countries. However, for a certain historical period, this form is not suitable for the revolutions in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. During this period, therefore, a third form of state must be adopted in the revolutions of all colonial and semi-colonial countries, namely, the new-democratic republic. This form suits a certain historical period and is therefore transitional; nevertheless, it is a form which is necessary and cannot be dispensed with.

[...]

“The state system, a joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes and the system of government, democratic centralism–these constitute the politics of New Democracy, the republic of New Democracy.

[...]

“Without a doubt, the present revolution is the first step, which will develop into the second step, that of socialism, at a later date… The [...] revolution cannot avoid taking the two steps, first of New Democracy and then of socialism. Moreover, the first step will need quite a long time and cannot be accomplished overnight. We are not utopians and cannot divorce ourselves from the actual conditions confronting us.”


(Zedong, Mao, On New Democracy, 1940.)


Funny, that's not what Lenin nand the Bolsheviks believed. They believed that the historic tasks of true political and economic development could only be established under a working class regime. So you Maoists aren't even wqhat you call revisionists anymore. You're out-and-out capitalists.

Not a Maoist. I'm a Marxist-Leninist, but I understand the position the Maoists are in and why they're fighting under their ideal. Maoism is strictly for that of feudalist conditions IMHO.

And when the Maoists come to power, this isn't the working class and peasants coming to power? You know, since the entire Maoist party is of the WORKING CLASS AND PEASANTRY! This would essentially be a working class regime, building up from the private mode of production and gradually transitioning it back to the public's hands - hence socialism; hence what took place from the '20s - '50s in the Soviet Union.

[RED DAVE]

Yeah, because those who support New Democracy doesn't want to see socialism, right? WRONG!You can quote Mao all you want, but the fact is that the Maoists in China prepared the way for the largest capitalism country in history. Nothing to do with socialism anymore than the US capitalists Rockefeller and Morgan had to do with socialism.

So-called New Democracy is revealed historically, more and more clearly, as Old Capitalism.


Not a Maoist. I'm a Marxist-Leninist, but I understand the position the Maoists are in and why they're fighting under their ideal. Maoism is strictly for that of feudalist conditions IMHO.Funny that Lenin and the Bolsheviks, under these conditions, came to the exact opposite conclusion: that the modernization of the country was the responsibility of the working class.


And when the Maoists come to power, this isn't the working class and peasants coming to power?No it isn't as is clearly shown in China, Vietnam, etc. History has shown exactly what a Maoist victory is: victory over the working class and peasants by the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie.


You know, since the entire Maoist party is of the WORKING CLASS AND PEASANTRY!Which its leadership will hand over into the arms of the capitalists or make into bureaucrats.


This would essentially be a working class regime, building up from the private mode of production and gradually transitioning it back to the public's hands - hence socialism; hence what took place from the '20s - '50s in the Soviet Union.You called it, Comrade. What took place in the USSR, 20s-90s, was the building of state capitalism preperatory to private capitalism. I believe that what the Nepalese Maoists will superintend is a much more direct, rapid, introduction of capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Widerstand]

And when the Maoists come to power, this isn't the working class and peasants coming to power? You know, since the entire Maoist party is of the WORKING CLASS AND PEASANTRY! This would essentially be a working class regime, building up from the private mode of production and gradually transitioning it back to the public's hands - hence socialism; hence what took place from the '20s - '50s in the Soviet Union.

Since when is there a working class under feudalism? Since when does the Maoist block of classes exclude the bourgeois and petty bourgeois?

[Apoi_Viitor]

In all honesty, I think The Vegan Marxist is 100% correct. Every historical attempt to go from feudalism to socialism has been an enormous disaster. When collectivization was brought upon the Tibetans, it resulted in enormous casualties. Under Khmer Rouge, attempted collectivization resulted in an even bigger disaster. Besides, here is what Marx and Lenin had to say about the prospects of a transition from a feudalistic phase to a capitalist one.

“..It is an historical impossibility that a lower stage of economic development should solve the enigmas and conflicts which did not arise, and could not arise, until a far higher stage. All forms of gentile community which arose before commodity production and individual exchange have one thing in common with the future socialist society: that certain things, means of production, are subject to the common ownership and the common use of certain groups. This one shared feature does not, however, enable the lower form of society to engender out of itself the future socialist society, this final and most intrinsic product of capitalism. Any given economic formation has its own problems to solve, problems arising out of itself; to seek to solve those of another, utterly alien formation would be absolutely absurd.”

What the Nepali Maoists are trying to do, is re-enact what the Soviet Union did under Lenin (who in various speeches and writings said that his goal was to implement state capitalism). Of course, Stalin got tired of waiting and tried to rush into collectivization, which resulted in massive losses of life. Besides, TVM is completely right, the transition from feudalism to socialism is a revolutionary event, and we should be celebrating for the Maoists in Nepal, rather than criticizing them...

[RED DAVE]

Since when is there a working class under feudalism?Never. Nepal, of course, was not feudal.


Since when does the Maoist block of classes exclude the bourgeois and petty bourgeois?It doesn't. Betrayal of the working class is built into Maoism. We saw it in China. We are seeing it again in Nepal.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

In all honesty, I think The Vegan Marxist is 100% correct. Every historical attempt to go from feudalism to socialism has been an enormous disaster. When collectivization was brought upon the Tibetans, it resulted in enormous casualties. Under Khmer Rouge, attempted collectivization resulted in an even bigger disaster. Besides, here is what Marx and Lenin had to say about the prospects of a transition from a feudalistic phase to a capitalist one.

“..It is an historical impossibility that a lower stage of economic development should solve the enigmas and conflicts which did not arise, and could not arise, until a far higher stage. All forms of gentile community which arose before commodity production and individual exchange have one thing in common with the future socialist society: that certain things, means of production, are subject to the common ownership and the common use of certain groups. This one shared feature does not, however, enable the lower form of society to engender out of itself the future socialist society, this final and most intrinsic product of capitalism. Any given economic formation has its own problems to solve, problems arising out of itself; to seek to solve those of another, utterly alien formation would be absolutely absurd.”I guess Lenin forgot to read this.

One more time: under current imperialist conditions, the bourgeoisie is incapable of carrying out the tasks of modernization. This role is for the working class in an alliance with the peasantry.


What the Nepali Maoists are trying to do, is re-enact what the Soviet Union did under Lenin (who in various speeches and writings said that his goal was to implement state capitalism).They are doing precisely what Lenin did not do: make an alliance with the capitalist class.


Of course, Stalin got tired of waiting and tried to rush into collectivization, which resulted in massive losses of life. Besides, TVM is completely right, the transition from feudalism to socialism is a revolutionary event, and we should be celebrating for the Maoists in Nepal, rather than criticizing them...The transition from feudalism to socialism is a revolutionary event. The transition from capitalism to capitalism is not.

One more time: Nepal is capitalist. It was capitalist 20 years ago. It is capitalist now. It will be capitalist when the Maoist and their bourgeois allies take power.

It will become socialist when the woirking class overthrows capitalism, not when an alliance of petit-bourgeois radicals like the Maoists and bourgeois democrats, institutes capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Crimson Commissar]

May I just ask how long this "new democratic" crap would have to last for before western communists consider the third world to be "ready" for socialism? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? How fucking long are they going to have to suffer under capitalism? Though, the real question I should be asking, is why do you WANT them to have to suffer?

[Palingenisis]

Funny that Lenin and the Bolsheviks, under these conditions, came to the exact opposite conclusion: that the modernization of the country was the responsibility of the working class.


Funny also that industrialization in Russia was a much greater level than Tibet, that Russia was also immensely vaster and had much more natural resources...Also funny that the early USSR faced an Imperialism exhausted by the World War I rather than the much more grave situation that the Nepalese face.

All is not clear also...There have been continuing expropriations as well as line struggles and debate with the UCPN-M...Last year our Indian comrades were extremely critical of them almost coming to the point of labelling them Imperialists and yet now they are taking a much more supportive stance...Maybe they know things that we dont?

What do you think that they should do Red Dave? Baring in mind the utter of failure of the attempt of at maxium self-reliance and rapid industrialization in Democratic Kampuchea?

[chegitz guevara]

If this isn't a brilliant troll I'm very disappointed in FRSO-FB.

[BIG BROTHER]

TVM and Nepali Maoists are Revisionists-Capitalist roaders!!! >_<:laugh::laugh::laugh:

[The Vegan Marxist]

Never. Nepal, of course, was not feudal.

Nepal is neither completely feudal, nor capitalist. The first blow against feudalism and step towards capitalism was when they got rid of the monarchy and embraced democratic elections - the Maoists (still) being the largest supported party in Nepal. You don't just go from feudalism to capitalism overnight. It's a gradual motion of events and conditions. If you can't understand that past your idealist structure of thought, then there's really no hope for you.


It doesn't. Betrayal of the working class is built into Maoism. We saw it in China. We are seeing it again in Nepal.

RED DAVE

Your distortion of Chinese history was somewhat amusing at one time. Now it's just getting irritating.

[bricolage]

The first blow against feudalism and step towards capitalism was when they got rid of the monarchy and embraced democratic elections
This seems to assume economic systems are somehow determined by political structures. Capitalism originated under monarchies similar to the one that fell in Nepal, monarchies still persist around the world in other capitalist states. Obviously there is a link between the two and the growth of liberal/representative democracy has gone alongside the growth of capitalism but I'm not sure the two are as dependent on each other as you argue.

[Blackscare]

So, IIRC, for the past forever you have been denying RED DAVE's argument that the Nepalese Maoists are, either explicitly or implicitly, fighting for capitalism. Now you're on the bandwagon, but simply because there's an article about it saying the same thing, in a pro-Maoist light.


Interesting.

[The Vegan Marxist]

So, IIRC, for the past forever you have been denying RED DAVE's argument that the Nepalese Maoists are, either explicitly or implicitly, fighting for capitalism. Now you're on the bandwagon, but simply because there's an article about it saying the same thing, in a pro-Maoist light.


Interesting.

They're fighting against feudalist conditions, which is essentially a fight towards capitalism. In the long run, their fight is directly for socialism. They've stated this over and over again. You, along with the likes of Red Dave and others, refuse to recognize this fact.

[Thirsty Crow]

Absolute nonsense.
I cannot believe how one can eat the crap served on a silver revolutionary platter.
To empower the owners of capital is the road towards socialism?
Fucking idiots.

And may I ask, what are these feudal conditions?
Is the Nepalese economy organize according to the intrrelationship between the serf and the landowner or does exchange and production for profit exist?

[The Vegan Marxist]

Absolute nonsense.
I cannot believe how one can eat the crap served on a silver revolutionary platter.
To empower the owners of capital is the road towards socialism?
Fucking idiots.

And may I ask, what are these feudal conditions?
Is the Nepalese economy organize according to the intrrelationship between the serf and the landowner or does exchange and production for profit exist?

Those living within rural Nepal still suffer from these feudal conditions. Urban Nepal is what's advancing towards capitalism. This is why the working class is only present in urban Nepal, and not rural Nepal.

[Widerstand]

Never. Nepal, of course, was not feudal.

I'm too uninformed about Nepal to really make a statement to that claim.



It doesn't. Betrayal of the working class is built into Maoism. We saw it in China. We are seeing it again in Nepal.

So, then it is demonstrable that in the past four years Nepal has seen major pro-capitalist action by Maoists?


[...]

That's not the kind of Marxism I know, to be blunt. In my understanding Capitalism is only necessary as a stage before Communism because of it's massive, unprecedented potential to expand the productive forces. So while we could indeed agree that, limited to Nepal, the productive forces are so that it makes sense for the Maoists to fight for Capitalism because a transition to Communism can only then be achieved, it makes absolutely no sense to say that Capitalism is needed to "produce the contradictions" that Communism can then "fix", as if Communism wouldn't "fix" the "contradictions" of any class society (including feudalism).


May I just ask how long this "new democratic" crap would have to last for before western communists consider the third world to be "ready" for socialism? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? How fucking long are they going to have to suffer under capitalism? Though, the real question I should be asking, is why do you WANT them to have to suffer?

I'm thoroughly confused. You realize that we are talking about Maoists in the Third World claiming to a) not live under capitalism, to b) fight for socialism, and to c) not be ready for socialism? Besides I don't see why anyone in the Third World should even care about whether or not "Western communists" think they are or are not ready to do anything.

The real question is of course, do you just want to spew some sectarian bullshit on "Westerners?"

[gorillafuck]

Hey kids, life is better under capitalism, of course it is nowhere near as good as socialism but it is easily second best when you consider the alternatives on offer in Nepal right now. I understand why you might feel uneasy about this sort of thing, I used to be the same and still am to a degree, but you know, when capitalism was first established it was a really revolutionary thing and was hailed by all progressive people as a step towards egalite. In reality it was actually more of a great leap towards egalite because I don't know how many of you have visited places where capitalism has not had the chance to develop but they ain't pretty.
As opposed to the capitalist third world where half of everybody lives under a dollar a day.


I don't know why you all expect every other country to keep up with us in imperialist countries, we may be ready to establish socialism at a minute's notice, but others are not. I hate seeing views like this on revleft because they're almost racist, Eurocentric, and frankly characteristic of most "revolutionaries" in imperialist countries.Yeah because the third worldies can't want to end capitalism, right?

Why do you think that Nepalese peasants and workers can't fight for socialism?

[RED DAVE]

Just as some notes about this New Democracy bullshit, remember the following:

(1) There is no precedent for anything like New Democracy in any Marxist writings prior to Mao, except maybe for Stalin.

(2) New Democracy theory confuses the period of capital development in he 19th Century and the present.

(3) During the 19th Century, Marxists fought aainst the hegemony of capitalism. In the 21st Centuy, Maoists support the hegemny of capitalism.

(4) What is the answer that a Maoist will give to workers trying to escape the exploitation of capitalism in, say, Nepal? Build capitalism!

(5) Nepal and similar countries are not feudal. The term "feudalism" is used by the Maoists as a cover for the fact that they are pro-capitalist.

(6) What is the Maoist answer to a US company that wants to build sweatshops in Nepal? Come on in!

(7) New Democracy in China led to rampant capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Kléber]

(1) There is no precedent for anything like New Democracy in any Marxist writings prior to Mao, except maybe for Stalin.
Actually, there is: Bernsteinist revisionism and its cousin, Menshevism.


(5) Nepal and similar countries are not feudal. The term "feudalism" is used by the Maoists as a cover for the fact that they are pro-capitalist.Nepal is still semi-feudal but so was Russia in 1917.

[Thirsty Crow]

Those living within rural Nepal still suffer from these feudal conditions. Urban Nepal is what's advancing towards capitalism. This is why the working class is only present in urban Nepal, and not rural Nepal.

Nice evasion there. Are all proponents of stageist idiocy good at evading a direct answer when confronted with a very simple question?
To reiterate: what exactly are these "feudal" conditions in Nepalese countryside?

[RED DAVE]

(1) There is no precedent for anything like New Democracy in any Marxist writings prior to Mao, except maybe for Stalin.
Actually, there is: Bernsteinist revisionism and its cousin, Menshevism.Please elaborate on this.


(5) Nepal and similar countries are not feudal. The term "feudalism" is used by the Maoists as a cover for the fact that they are pro-capitalist.Nepal is still semi-feudal but so was Russia in 1917[/QUOTE]I think you will have a very difficult time proving this about Nepal if you proceed from the predominant mode of production, which is small-scale capitalist agriculture and small-scale industry.

Feudalism defines certain relationships, mainly those of legal "obligation" between classes: nobility and royalty and nobility and peasantry. The predominant purpose of production is for substance and display, not for sale. This is not the case in Nepal.

RED DAVE

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

So China was socialist...wow....so..Socialism leads to Capitalism according to your logic? wow I am not even going to debate this anymore. I think any honest militant looking to create a stateless, classless society will know whose side is right.

I'm wondering if you've even read Marx or Engels. It's clear that you just... don't understand... please explain to me how he is POSSIBLY arguing that socialism leads to Capitalism? What he's arguing (just like Marx and Engels) is that the primitive accumulation of wealth under the capitalist stage is necessary. The WEALTH necessary for socialism must be accumulated before socialism can occur.

I don't know if this is the case in Nepal but... it's an essential step towards achieving socialism in ANY system that hopes to survive.

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

Just as some notes about this New Democracy bullshit, remember the following:

(1) There is no precedent for anything like New Democracy in any Marxist writings prior to Mao, except maybe for Stalin.

(2) New Democracy theory confuses the period of capital development in he 19th Century and the present.

(3) During the 19th Century, Marxists fought aainst the hegemony of capitalism. In the 21st Centuy, Maoists support the hegemny of capitalism.

(4) What is the answer that a Maoist will give to workers trying to escape the exploitation of capitalism in, say, Nepal? Build capitalism!

(5) Nepal and similar countries are not feudal. The term "feudalism" is used by the Maoists as a cover for the fact that they are pro-capitalist.

(6) What is the Maoist answer to a US company that wants to build sweatshops in Nepal? Come on in!

(7) New Democracy in China led to rampant capitalism.

RED DAVE

Not that I'm Maoist, but I'd like to point out that Mao's theory of Third Worldism said that the industrialized (first world) couldn't revolutionize because the benefits of capitalism rub off on EVERYONE in those societies. On the other hand, he says that the third world has it bad enough to revolutionize but ONLY if exploitation gets bad enough.

Some crazy Maoists... with logic that makes sense and doesn't make sense at the same time... hope to make capitalism as prevailant as possible to help exacerbate a third world revolution.

[Palingenisis]

Just as some notes about this New Democracy bullshit, remember the following:


There is a lot that concerns me (as well as inspires hope in me....I think the reason some of you gravitate to Trotsky is that you are basically quite happy with capitalism and only want to appear intelligent and "different"...but maybe Im wrong) about whats happening in Nepal....But I ask you again Red Dave (and this question is for Kleber as well) what should they be doing given the real life situation they are in with lack of resources, grave underdevelopment and surrounded by powerful enemies?

[RED DAVE]

There is a lot that concerns me (as well as inspires hope in me....We all need to be concerned and hold out hope in these shitty times.


I think the reason some of you gravitate to Trotsky is that you are basically quite happy with capitalism and only want to appear intelligent and "different"...but maybe Im wrong)You're wrong. Nothing would please me more than to see a genuine, Marxist revolutionary movement, anywhere, with some real strength, but it ain't happened yet.


about whats happening in Nepal....Nepal is going to be a blow that, like China and Vietnam, is going to take the workers movement a long time to recover from.


But I ask you again Red Dave (and this question is for Kleber as well) what should they be doing given the real life situation they are in with lack of resources, grave underdevelopment and surrounded by powerful enemies?What they can do is base their srength on the working class and the peasantry and fuck the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is the class enemy of the workers. To ally with this class enemy, in the name of building socialism, is a historic mistake of epic proportions.

The issues of underdevelopment and foreign enemies is not going to go away with a bourgeois alliance. In fact, it's going to get worse.

RED DAVE

[Palingenisis]

What they can do is base their srength on the working class and the peasantry and fuck the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is the class enemy of the workers. To ally with this class enemy, in the name of building socialism, is a historic mistake of epic proportions.

The issues of underdevelopment and foreign enemies is not going to go away with a bourgeois alliance. In fact, it's going to get worse.



Okay they expropriate capitalists completely and socialize the entire means of production and exchange in the country....They immediate (much worse) sanctions and probable invasions from vastly technologically superior armies and its a glorious defeat that Trotskyites will find really cool....Meanwhile in the real world expropriations and collectivizations as well as genuine popular decision making (not to mention things like women's liberation and uprooting of racism) are happening....But they have to things carefully and think tactically.

Democratic Kampuchea did what you suggested over night and look how that ended up in similarish circumstances.

That said personally I do believe that there are revisionists within the UCPN-M.

[S.Artesian]

Okay they expropriate capitalists completely and socialize the entire means of production and exchange in the country....They immediate (much worse) sanctions and probable invasions from vastly technologically superior armies and its a glorious defeat that Trotskyites will find really cool....Meanwhile in the real world expropriations and collectivizations as well as genuine popular decision making (not to mention things like women's liberation and uprooting of racism) are happening....But they have to things carefully and think tactically.
.


Yes-- and where has this careful deliberate tactic not involved extending years of imperialist/capitalist domination? Vietnam? Let's see...nope extended imperial rule there by at least 30 years, probably more like 40 given the strike wave in 1937.

But wait, what's going on in Vietnam? Why, it's the penetration of foreign capital being used as the instrument for the restoration of capitalism. Which can only mean that the "socialist stage" of the revolution was never achieved as economic development, the supposed necessary precondition for proletarian rule, and the reason why such a revolution could not occur, was not capable of competing with capitalism when it came to.... the productivity of labor.

How about China? Yeah sure, you got a new democracy into the 1960s according to some and then... 1972 the opening to the west and 1979 4 reforms and... we're back on the road to FDI, SEZ's and imperialist development of the economy. So that means that new democracy didn't do what it was supposed to do-- develop the economy also.

Oh... wait, it's all the fault of the "revisionists." Come off it. Revisionists of an ideology are manifestations of economic forces at work. The problems of agriculture, agricultural productivity, relations between city and countryside determine what course a bureaucracy will seek, not the straying from orthodoxy of a clique. If the revisionists didn't exist, Maoists would have to make them up. As a matter of fact, Maoists do make them up, since all the "revisionists" are doing is carrying the garbage about "feudalism" "new democracy" "two step development" to its logical conclusion.

I mean if you can support an alliance with the "national bourgeoisie" in order to industrialize the economy, and it turns out that in fact no such industrialization occurs, well hell, why not collaborate with the international bourgeoisie, who know a bargain when they see one-- those bargain low wage rates, tax breaks, SEZs etc, and at least know how to industrialize a country or two?


Hmmh... so where oh where can such a program of collaborating with the bourgeoisie actually lead to economic development beyond the constraints of "feudalism"?

Nowhere, because feudalism doesn't exist, and "semi-feudalism" is just a bullshit term for capitalist production of exchange value, of surplus as value that builds upon the pre-existing relations of landed labor rather than converting them.

The limitations to development are in fact the limitations of the international market system of capital; of advanced capitalism; of capital's self-contradictions and its need to preserve private property no matter how much that reinforces the limitations on capital itself. That is precisely wht capital does-- it's another iteration of Marx's comment that the real barrier to capitalist accumulation is capital itself.

I recommend those who think a "feudal" economy exists in Nepal look at Nepal's economy in relation to India's, in its connection with India's, and that they then read up a bit on uneven and combined development which is certainly a more accurate analysis of the linkage between underdeveloped and advanced capitalism than this feudalism nonsense.

[DaringMehring]

Okay they expropriate capitalists completely and socialize the entire means of production and exchange in the country....They immediate (much worse) sanctions and probable invasions from vastly technologically superior armies and its a glorious defeat that Trotskyites will find really cool....Meanwhile in the real world expropriations and collectivizations as well as genuine popular decision making (not to mention things like women's liberation and uprooting of racism) are happening....But they have to things carefully and think tactically.

Democratic Kampuchea did what you suggested over night and look how that ended up in similarish circumstances.

That said personally I do believe that there are revisionists within the UCPN-M.

You seem to be saying, that socialist revolutionaries need to submit to capitalists, to make themselves presentable, so that the capitalists won't smash them. They can make a revolution, but they can carry it only about as far as US social movements went in the 1960s.

I would say, first, we can't be that afraid of capitalists. Like Mao said, they're paper tigers. The main source of their strength is that people work for them, people respect them, and people fear them. If the masses would just say to hell with them, then they wouldn't seem invincible at all. We can't go in that direction, if we're constantly in fear of their power.

Nepalis can win... if they stand up to the bourgeoisie, and if they organize in the region and others join them --- Burma for instance is a country with a Marxist revolution waiting to happen, if only they actually had a Marxist organizing presence. It is a long, dangerous, road, but better than giving up on socialism in the first instance.

History rewards people who fight. Even if they appear to lose, in the long run, it always seems to turn out that the best way to achieve an ideal is to fight for it. Compare say the CPUSA in the 20s (successful, and devoted to revolution almost to an unreasonable degree) and the CPUSA today (pathetic, constantly watering down what is meant by socialism & adding all sorts of immediate steps).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Nepal doesn't need a "national bourgeoisie" or comprador petit-bourgeoisie at all. It needs a Caesarean movement at the helm.

[Palingenisis]

Nepal doesn't need a "national bourgeoisie" or comprador petit-bourgeoisie at all. It needs a Caesarean movement at the helm.

No its the Vanguard Party at the helm....There is collectivization, expropriation and popular rule happening over most of the countryside...Its the question of industry, industrial development and foreign invasion that are the big ones.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Vanguard party of which class? If it's the working class, then it's too soon and it's contempt for the peasantry as well. If it's the peasantry and then said party claims to represent the working class, that's fraudulent. If it's the peasantry and said party doesn't make such claims, then that's another case. Let the "goons, clowns, and thugs" (S.Artesian) feel free to repress the bourgeoisie and/or liberal opposition, though.

The commanding heights should belong to the state. Industrial development should be planned as much as possible, within reasonable market limits due to Nepal's conditions (yet said market limits can accommodate things like capital controls). Outside the commanding heights, the private hiring of labour for profit should be scrapped in favour of state-aided cooperatives.

[Blackscare]

They're fighting against feudalist conditions, which is essentially a fight towards capitalism. In the long run, their fight is directly for socialism. They've stated this over and over again. You, along with the likes of Red Dave and others, refuse to recognize this fact.


I fail to see how fighting for capitalism, to eventually in a round-about way set the stages for socialism, is somehow "directly" fighting for socialism.


If anything, it's indirectly fighting for socialism, which is highly debatable in and of itself.


[Edit]

I'd also like to mention how dubious a strategy it is to have a so-called Communist/Maoist party lead the transition to capitalism, then somehow expect, years/decades down the road, that said party would not have degenerated due to it's own inherent link with the capitalist class of its country and the fact that, over the years, new party members will flood the ranks (many of which, under such conditions, would surely have joined simply as a method of "fast tracking" themselves to power/wealth through alignment with the ruling group). Such a party would surely degenerate, while at the same time attempting to solidify it's own power to put the notion of secondary or even tertiary revolutionary movements taking power when economic/social conditions are supposedly better firmly outside the realm of possibility. Need I mention China?

Oh wait, they're still socialist. lol

[RED DAVE]

I'd also like to mention how dubious a strategy it is to have a so-called Communist/Maoist party lead the transition to capitalism, then somehow expect, years/decades down the road, that said party would not have degenerated due to it's own inherent link with the capitalist class of its country and the fact that, over the years, new party members will flood the ranks (many of which, under such conditions, would surely have joined simply as a method of "fast tracking" themselves to power/wealth through alignment with the ruling group). Such a party would surely degenerate, while at the same time attempting to solidify it's own power to put the notion of secondary or even tertiary revolutionary movements taking power when economic/social conditions are supposedly better firmly outside the realm of possibility. Need I mention China?

Oh wait, they're still socialist. lolThis is exactly what happened in China, assuming, of course, that half the party leadership wasn't basically capitalist from the beginning. The fact that the UCPN(M) has had to rein in the lifestyles of its leadership tells you something already.

RED DAVE

[Palingenisis]

Vanguard party of which class? If it's the working class, then it's too soon and it's contempt for the peasantry as well. If it's the peasantry and then said party claims to represent the working class, that's fraudulent. If it's the peasantry and said party doesn't make such claims, then that's another case. Let the "goons, clowns, and thugs" (S.Artesian) feel free to repress the bourgeoisie and/or liberal opposition, though.

The commanding heights should belong to the state. Industrial development should be planned as much as possible, within reasonable market limits due to Nepal's conditions (yet said market limits can accommodate things like capital controls). Outside the commanding heights, the private hiring of labour for profit should be scrapped in favour of cooperatives.

I thanked your post because its living in the real world...I will get someone else more up on the situation who can explain better to reply.

[Palingenisis]

The fact that the UCPN(M) has had to rein in the lifestyles of its leadership tells you something already.


Yeah it tells us something about human nature...The fact that they did rein them in though tells us something political. Do you have any experience of armed struggle Red Dave or know anyone who has had? This more revolutionary than thou attitude from someone who has probably never been on the run, never been tortured or risked it, never buried murdered comrades, etc is getting a bit boring.

[RED DAVE]

Yeah it tells us something about human nature...The fact that they did rein them in though tells us something political. Do you have any experience of armed struggle Red Dave or know anyone who has had? This more revolutionary than thou attitude from someone who has probably never been on the run, never been tortured or risked it, never buried murdered comrades, etc is getting a bit boring.Yeah, and don't forget that I'm a Western white male. Why don't you deal with the substance of what I'm saying instead of cheerleading? Did anyone have to rein in Lenin's lifestyle, or Marx's or even Mao's or Ho's?

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

The commanding heights should belong to the state. Industrial development should be planned as much as possible, within reasonable market limits due to Nepal's conditions (yet said market limits can accommodate things like capital controls). Outside the commanding heights, the private hiring of labour for profit should be scrapped in favour of cooperatives.Practically a letter-perfect description of state capitalism, which is the best we can expect from DNZ.

RED DAVE

[Palingenisis]

Yeah, and don't forget that I'm a Western white male. Why don't you deal with the substance of what I'm saying instead of cheerleading? Did anyone have to rein in Lenin's lifestyle, or Marx's or even Mao's or Ho's?


Dont worry I would never forget :wub:

Mao's lifestyle was far from being as Spartan as Stalin's or even Lenin's and Ho (who's lifestyle I know nothing about) sold out his country to Soviet revisionism. Human nature unfortunately isnt as pure as we would always like it to be...The fact that they have reigned people in says more I repeat than people needing to be reigned in.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The commanding heights should belong to the state. Industrial development should be planned as much as possible, within reasonable market limits due to Nepal's conditions (yet said market limits can accommodate things like capital controls). Outside the commanding heights, the private hiring of labour for profit should be scrapped in favour of [state-aided] cooperatives.

Practically a letter-perfect description of state capitalism, which is the best we can expect from DNZ.

RED DAVE

It's just carrying over from the State/Private Capitalism thread. :p

Note to Palingenisis: Better have that "someone else more up on the situation who can explain better" read my commentary on managed democracy before replying, because I don't think Maoism has a counter to my notion that a Caesarean order puts any collaboration with the "national bourgeoisie" and comprador petit-bourgeoisie to shame.

[S.Artesian]

I thanked your post because its living in the real world...I will get someone else more up on the situation who can explain better to reply.

You thanked his post because "it's living in the real world" but you need to get someone else "more up on the situation" to explain and reply?

You think DNZ with his junk-plebianism of "Caesarism" is living in the real world? This pure fantasy construction that has absolutely nothing to do with the real economic forces, class relations that drive social conflict, that can't account for the actual path of a single struggle, is "living in the real world"?

He knows nothing about the actual history of class conflict in places like Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, South Africa, Vietnam and yet he feels entitled to tell the workers that led and bled in those conflicts that they need a "Caesar"?

I know the human mind can reconcile incredible inconsistencies, but this really pushes the envelope.

This guy DNZ is not living in the real world. He's living in a pastiche world made up of little fantasy parts of Bismarck, Caesar, Putin, Chavez, Peron, but mostly of his own ego.

[Palingenisis]

You thanked his post because "it's living in the real world" but you need to get someone else "more up on the situation" to explain and reply?

He knows nothing about the actual history of class conflict in places like Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, South Africa, Vietnam and yet he feels entitled to tell the workers that led and bled in those conflicts that they need a "Caesar"?

I know the human mind can reconcile incredible inconsistencies, but this really pushes the envelope.


Nepal is far from being any of the countries that you mentioned all of which have had a sizable industrial base for quite some time....I am far from being as knowledgable about the situation as RedCat or Soarsa both of whom arent posting here anymore at least for the moment but in terms of what is practical at the moment he gave at least a somewhat grounded reply as opposed to the utopian cries of Communism now! Lets all go and get slaughtered and utterly defeated cos its what the Trots in their safe Imperialist citadels would be happy with.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You thanked his post because "it's living in the real world" but you need to get someone else "more up on the situation" to explain and reply?

You think DNZ with his junk-plebianism of "Caesarism" is living in the real world? This pure fantasy construction that has absolutely nothing to do with the real economic forces, class relations that drive social conflict, that can't account for the actual path of a single struggle, is "living in the real world"?

He knows nothing about the actual history of class conflict in places like Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, South Africa, Vietnam and yet he feels entitled to tell the workers that led and bled in those conflicts that they need a "Caesar"?

I know the human mind can reconcile incredible inconsistencies, but this really pushes the envelope.

This guy DNZ is not living in the real world. He's living in a pastiche world made up of little fantasy parts of Bismarck, Caesar, Putin, Chavez, Peron, but mostly of his own ego.

Stooping lower and lower everyday, are you? By your logic, way before 1917 proponents of both the RDDOTPP and Permanent Revolution had "pure fantasy constructions." I do know about the places you mentioned, but precisely because of the shortcomings I suggested Caesarism.

And that's Julius Caesar, Proudhon, Lassalle, Bismarck, Putin, Chavez, and Lukashenko, to correct your People's History mis-listing. :rolleyes:

[Devrim]

Yeah it tells us something about human nature...The fact that they did rein them in though tells us something political. Do you have any experience of armed struggle Red Dave or know anyone who has had? This more revolutionary than thou attitude from someone who has probably never been on the run, never been tortured or risked it, never buried murdered comrades, etc is getting a bit boring.

I really hate this attitude. I have experience of living in places where there was 'armed struggle', and I know many people who are ex-militants of these sort of political groups. I have never been on the run, but I have been tortured in prison, and although it is 15 years ago, I still bear the physical scars from it. Unfortunately I have had to bury people.

And do you know what? None of it makes my politics correct.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

The same could be said about much of left "activism" without programmatic enlightenment.

[Devrim]

He knows nothing about the actual history of class conflict in places like Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, South Africa, Vietnam and yet he feels entitled to tell the workers that led and bled in those conflicts that they need a "Caesar"?Nepal is far from being any of the countries that you mentioned all of which have had a sizable industrial base for quite some time....I am far from being as knowledgable about the situation as RedCat or Soarsa both of whom arent posting here anymore at least for the moment but in terms of what is practical at the moment he gave at least a somewhat grounded reply as opposed to the utopian cries of Communism now! Lets all go and get slaughtered and utterly defeated cos its what the Trots in their safe Imperialist citadels would be happy with.

I doubt he knows much about class struggle in his own country, let alone anywhere else. I think it say quite a lot about Revleft that there are some people on here who even take him vaguely seriously.

If there were communists in Nepal today, their task would not be not to call for revolution now, but to call for the defence of working class interests.

Devrim

[S.Artesian]

Nepal is far from being any of the countries that you mentioned all of which have had a sizable industrial base for quite some time....I am far from being as knowledgable about the situation as RedCat or Soarsa both of whom arent posting here anymore at least for the moment but in terms of what is practical at the moment he gave at least a somewhat grounded reply as opposed to the utopian cries of Communism now! Lets all go and get slaughtered and utterly defeated cos its what the Trots in their safe Imperialist citadels would be happy with.

But the path being advocate has led to precisely those slaughters-- it has extended the rule of imperialism; it has pave the way for the restoration of capitalism.

I was involved in a discussion similar to this with Red Cat and when I challenged him to produce a description of "feudal practices" in agriculture, he came up with a description of indigo agricultural labor and land relations that were patently capitalist- plantation capitalist like that practiced on the haciendas in Mexico, on the fincas, on the sugar cane plantations in the Philippines but capitalist nonetheless.

And that's the key-- it's the economic relations that will determine which class has to take the lead if the revolution is to be successful and what the program of that class must become.

Collaborating with the bourgeoisie has gotten us exactly where we are today-- with revolutions undone, destroyed, turned back. It's gotten us to nowhere.

"Caesarism" is an economic impossibility. The class relations will not support it. You can get a Mussolini [probably]; a Peron [Chavez]; a Pinochet [definitely, the bourgeoisie never run out of Pinochets]; but you are not going to get a coalition of dispossessed classes, supporting some lft hero taking power in isolation from an international struggle, and somehow imposing what sounds like a rerun of the NEP. You will get that left-hero leading the struggle into disaster [that by the way is where Chavez and Morales are leading].

I don't know of anyone crying "communism now!" for Nepal. Again the economic conditions don't support it. And usually, more than usually, it's the Maoists et al who are so eager to proclaim socialism has been achieved when the ability of the economy to provide for expanding human needs and welfare is so thoroughly inadequate.

All that is being said is that the uneven nature of capitalist development is the nature of capitalist development; that the backwardness is combined, linked through markets with the advanced sectors and facets of capitalism; that breaking the continuum of "underdevelopment" means that whenever and wherever a social struggle breaks out, the most important thing is to break with the notion of "collaborating" with a bourgeoisie. The most important thing is to stress that the economic development that can eliminate scarcity, impoverishment, and the most backward conditions of landed labor relations, requires the most modern solution-- which is overthrow of private property in the means of production initially on a local scale but necessarily being global. Doesn't mean it happens all at once. Does mean it will never happen if this ideology of class collaboration, persists.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I doubt he knows much about class struggle in his own country, let alone anywhere else. I think it say quite a lot about Revleft that there are some people on here who even take him vaguely seriously.

If there were communists in Nepal today, there task would not be not to call for revolution now, but to call for the defence of working class interests.

Devrim

I am "alienated" and "abstracted" only from *mere* *labour* struggles, which is what you're calling for ("defence of working class interests").

Then again, most *labour* struggles per se are not political and can never be political, so how much more can they be class struggles?


"Caesarism" is an economic impossibility. The class relations will not support it. You can get a Mussolini [probably]; a Peron [Chavez]; a Pinochet [definitely, the bourgeoisie never run out of Pinochets]; but you are not going to get a coalition of dispossessed classes, supporting some left hero taking power in isolation from an international struggle, and somehow imposing what sounds like a rerun of the NEP. You will get that left hero leading the struggle into disaster [that by the way is where Chavez and Morales are leading].

I said "Third World countries" for a reason. It need not be an isolated Third World country. It need not be the entire Third World, either (i.e., a petit-bourgeois version of "Permanent Revolution").

[BIG BROTHER]

I'm wondering if you've even read Marx or Engels. It's clear that you just... don't understand... please explain to me how he is POSSIBLY arguing that socialism leads to Capitalism? What he's arguing (just like Marx and Engels) is that the primitive accumulation of wealth under the capitalist stage is necessary. The WEALTH necessary for socialism must be accumulated before socialism can occur.

I don't know if this is the case in Nepal but... it's an essential step towards achieving socialism in ANY system that hopes to survive.


I'm just wondering if you have ever read Lenin at all? Under Imperialism is up to the working class to complete the tasks that the bourgeoisie have failed to do. Industry will only develop in Nepal as a I previously stated, if they beat China, India or any other country in their race to the bottom and offer capitalists the most exploitative conditions. Which would explain why at some point the Maoists even considered Banning strikes!!!

In order for Nepal to survive under a worker's and peasants regime it must spread to other countries which do have the conditions to build socialism.

[Bilan]

This is nothing but filthy, spineless, apologist bullshit. You've learnt nothing.

[Widerstand]

Which would explain why at some point the Maoists even considered Banning strikes!!!

source etc.

[The Vegan Marxist]

source etc.

This is actually true. It was put under consideration. Though, what BIG BROTHER clearly wants to disregard is giving any reason at all why such was put under consideration in the first place. Though, just so you know, the strikes were never banned, and instead promoted by the Maoists.

http://comradealastair.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/did-the-maobadi-ban-strikes/

[Devrim]

source etc.

http://libcom.org/library/myths-realities-nepalese-maoists-their-strike-ban-legislations

Devrim

[Widerstand]

http://libcom.org/library/myths-realities-nepalese-maoists-their-strike-ban-legislations

Devrim

They are actually pro SEZ? fuck them.

[Thirsty Crow]

This is actually true. It was put under consideration. Though, what BIG BROTHER clearly wants to disregard is giving any reason at all why such was put under consideration in the first place. Though, just so you know, the strikes were never banned, and instead promoted by the Maoists.

http://comradealastair.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/did-the-maobadi-ban-strikes/

And here's kids, what constitutes authoritarianism: a specific group (proletarian in background or not, it does not matter) positing itself outside the whole of the class it aims to represent and by doing so, positing itself as the sole authority which may judge and practically influence actions of the class itself.

[chegitz guevara]

The fact that Marx wrote something doesn't make it true.

The fact that Marx didn't write about something doesn't make it false.

Argument from authority is a logical fallacy and should be avoided.

[S.Artesian]

The fact that Marx wrote something doesn't make it true.

The fact that Marx didn't write about something doesn't make it false.

Argument from authority is a logical fallacy and should be avoided.

Right. Nobody is saying because a guy named Marx wrote it, it's right. What Marx writes is right because it explains how value is produced, and reproduced.

Now if somebody wants to argue that Marx is wrong in his analysis of modes of accumulation-- if somebody wants to say that Marx's analysis of capitalism doesn't apply to Nepal or China etc because of [pick one or more]-- imperialism, feudalism, semi-feudalism, etc. etc. -- then that person needs to do what Marx did and take apart the organization of the economy, not in its isolated manifestation, but in its interrelations to the world markets.

So have at it, new democrats, Maoists whatever-- show us how capitalism is the necessary product of a social revolution in Nepal.

[S.Artesian]

Nepal is far from being any of the countries that you mentioned all of which have had a sizable industrial base for quite some time....I am far from being as knowledgable about the situation as RedCat or Soarsa both of whom arent posting here anymore at least for the moment but in terms of what is practical at the moment he gave at least a somewhat grounded reply as opposed to the utopian cries of Communism now! Lets all go and get slaughtered and utterly defeated cos its what the Trots in their safe Imperialist citadels would be happy with.

Granted. So let me ask you, why did we hear the same baloney, the same junk about collaborating with the national bourgeoisie, about installing "progressive" capitalism in those countries then, from the same organizations and individuals who are still flogging that dead horse for Nepal now?

[Delenda Carthago]

Welcome to "Who wants to be a revolutionary"

In which party's programm you can find the paragraph:


28. All kinds of monopolies such as syndicates, cartelings etc. currently being practiced in the private sector and which discourage or control the competitive nature of trade and industry will be eliminated so as to protect the interest of the consumers.


A.Hitler's NSDAP
B.Μussolini's Fascist Party
C. Thatcher's Conservative Party
D. Prachada's UCPN(M)

[S.Artesian]

My guess is B-- Mussolini.

[Delenda Carthago]

My guess is B-- Mussolini.
*****es and gentleman,we have a loser!
:thumbup:

The right answer is D!

http://www.opmcm.gov.np/files/govt_pol_prog-2008.doc

[S.Artesian]

bad link

[Palingenisis]

bad link

http://www.opmcm.gov.np/

Its to the goverment of Nepal and not the Maoists.

[Delenda Carthago]

http://www.opmcm.gov.np/

Its to the goverment of Nepal and not the Maoists.
Yes.In which Maoists were the biggest party in 2008(when the programm was declared).

[S.Artesian]

Yes.In which Maoists were the biggest party in 2008(when the programm was declared).

Yes, but you said party program. I'm no fan of the Maoists, but you did say party program.

[Burn A Flag]

All of you who are against the Nepali Maoists on this, consider, even Marx did not advocate the immediate abolition of private property. Yes, capitalism is bad. But, they did not just say: hand it over to the capitalists. From the passage it sounds like they basically want to economically grow with capitalism (their GDP per capita is like $500 btw so it's completely relevant) They did mention that they wanted the creation of a social state. You can still have a social state in capitalism. Honestly as long as revolutionaries are in charge and can attract capital to their country to build their productive forces, that is a good thing. They're not saying greed is good. They're saying the necessity to build Nepal's productive forces is greatest. Do you honestly think Nepal could provide for all of its citizens well with the current economy? How are they going to support anything with their current lack of productive forces? There is nothing wrong with allying yourself with the bourgeoisie when they are revolutionary bourgeoise.

Edit: Listen, I don't believe in them waiting for certain stages to be fufilled necessarily, but they have to improve their productive forces somehow and how are they going to do that without capitalism or Stalinism? Has that ever been acheived? Seriously I would love to hear how they can expand their productive capabilities without some capitalism.

[S.Artesian]

All of you who are against the Nepali Maoists on this, consider, even Marx did not advocate the immediate abolition of private property. Yes, capitalism is bad. But, they did not just say: hand it over to the capitalists. From the passage it sounds like they basically want to economically grow with capitalism (their GDP per capita is like $500 btw so it's completely relevant) They did mention that they wanted the creation of a social state. You can still have a social state in capitalism. Honestly as long as revolutionaries are in charge and can attract capital to their country to build their productive forces, that is a good thing. They're not saying greed is good. They're saying the necessity to build Nepal's productive forces is greatest. Do you honestly think Nepal could provide for all of its citizens well with the current economy? How are they going to support anything with their current lack of productive forces? There is nothing wrong with allying yourself with the bourgeoisie when they are revolutionary bourgeoise.

That is not, or rather those are not the issues. Marx didnt propose the immediate abolition of private property, but he did analyze the necessity for the proletariat to overthrow private property, to abolish wage-labor, to eliminate the conflict between the means and relations of production.

Of course you can have a social state in capitalism. That's what the bourgeois state is, the social state of capitalism. It's the bourgeoisie's mechanism for "collectivizing" its class interest and enforcing it throughout society.

The contradiction you, or those who support Maoists face is this-- supposedly the basis for the "new democracy" or the peoples' revolution is that it is necessary to collaborate with the "national bourgeoisie" to grow the productive forces, which growth has been strangled by the foreign capitalists and the comprador bourgeoisie.

But the fact of the matter is that the conflicts and limits in the economic organization makes this "national bourgeoisie" and this "national capitalism" so weak, are the same conflicts and limitations that will prevent "growing of the productive forces" to any great degree absent the support of international capital.

That's the lesson China itself. And Vietnam.

So you want to establish a "national revolution" in Nepal, to develop national productive forces, and to do that you want an alliance with the national bourgeoisie? Then why is their an immediate revival of proposals to establish SEZs in Nepal?

The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a "national revolution," and there hasn't been since say, 1871 when the Paris proletariat but the truth to the lie that is called "national defense."

Certainly since 1872 and the unwinding of radical Reconstruction in the US, we can't speak of a "national revolution" that does not re-establish the archaic forms of accumulation under the guise of "developing the productive forces." In fact that's the meaning of the Spanish-American War-- re-establishing those relations of expropriation and accumulation under the intensifed conditions of a "modern" capitalism as opposed to the archaic "semi-feudal" capitalism of a Spain.

There is class struggle, manifesting itself locally or nationally, but connected through the world markets globally. No revolution in Nepal can survive on its own-- the only question is will a revolution find its international support in the workers of all countries, or in the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries.

Allying yourself with the bourgeoisie under the pretext of "growing the productive forces" doesn't get to that growing of the productive forces. Worse, it abstracts that category-- "productive forces" from the social relations that spawn the category. It makes a fetish of "productive forces," endowing the "productive forces" with a power over human beings as if those forces exist without reproducing the very terms of exploitation that hamper the growth of the real productive force-- consciously directed social labor.

There is everything wrong in allying with the bourgeoisie, and we only have to look at the wreckage, debris, rubble of all those who have made such alliances to see that.

[gorillafuck]

Nepal doesn't need a "national bourgeoisie" or comprador petit-bourgeoisie at all. It needs a Caesarean movement at the helm.
Alright, what the hell is this now?

[Homo Songun]

The article from which The Vegan Marxist got the Prachanda quote is here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1532891/Nepals-fierce-one-spurns-Chairman-Mao-and-claims-centre-ground-in-peace-talks.html). Personally I did not get the same impression out of Prachanda's remark that The Vegan Marxist and the Telegraph reporter did. When he says "We are just fighting against feudalism. We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists", that does not necessarily mean that the Nepalese economy is static or that Prachanda is fighting for Capitalism.

[S.Artesian]

The article from which The Vegan Marxist got the Prachanda quote is here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1532891/Nepals-fierce-one-spurns-Chairman-Mao-and-claims-centre-ground-in-peace-talks.html). Personally I did not get the same impression out of Prachanda's remark that The Vegan Marxist and the Telegraph reporter did. When he says "We are just fighting against feudalism. We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists", that does not necessarily mean that the Nepalese economy is static or that Prachanda is fighting for Capitalism.

Huh? Here, dear readers, you make the call:


"Even under the dictatorship of the proletariat, multi-party competition is necessary to have a vibrant and dynamic society."

He blamed the monarchy for Nepal's status as one of Asia's poorest countries, with a per capita annual income of around £140.


"We are not fighting for socialism," he said, claiming that his party had drifted to the centre.


"We are just fighting against feudalism. We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists."




Right it doesn't mean what he says it means. So it must mean something else.


Because things that one says don't necessarily mean what the sayer says. Because of course, the sayer could be lying. Or he could be speaking in code.



So we need to break the code. Hmmh... let's continue reading and see if we can find some key to the encryption:






The Daily Telegraph met Prachanda after a taxi ride to a discreet Kathmandu hotel, accompanied by Maoists.


Along the route, the guide signalled our progress to plain-clothed spotters standing amid the crowds on the bustling pavements.


Prachanda, a former school teacher and erstwhile employee of the American development agency USAID, believes that he is just a step away from joining mainstream

Wait a minute.... former USAID employee? You mean the same USAID that brought us the strategic hamlet plan in Vietnam? The USAID that is an arm of the State Dept. and the CIA?

Now I understand... He's speaking in code to his former employers and their spymaster employers... telling them, "I really am a proletarian revolutionary, just as you are a truly proletarian revolutionary organization in deep cover, using your position in the US government to strike deeply at the enemies of socialism by doing the things that appear to b directly supportive of the enemies of socialism."

How f**king stupid do you think people are?

[Homo Songun]

On your logic then, they are actually Trotskyist, since their Vice-chairman once said:

Today, the globalization of imperialist capitalism has increased manifold as compared to the period of the October Revolution. The development of information technology has converted the world into a global village. However, due to the unequal and extreme development inherent in capitalist imperialism this has created inequality between different nations. In this context, there is still (some) possibility of revolution in a single country similar to the October revolution; however, in order to sustain the revolution, we definitely need a global or at least a regional wave of revolution in a couple of countries. In this context, Marxist revolutionaries should recognize the fact that in the current context, Trotskyism has become more relevant than Stalinism to advance the cause of the proletariat.Hey! Presto! The Maoist are really ***triple*** agents, playing both the wicked Stalinists and the Capitalists against each other, then like A-Team their plan for worldwide Permanent Revolution will come together!

Or we could go by the Maoists' actual practice, rather than selective quotes from the media. But, I don't expect you know much about that.

[S.Artesian]

My logic is that if it walks like a duck, and it wants to walk arm in arm with the capitalists; if it quacks like a duck, and quacks how it's fighting for profits; if it flies like a duck, and flies from "liberated territory" to SEZ, then it is a duck.

My logic is that if the guy is trying to mislead some people, the people he is most mis-leading is the urban and rural poor of Nepal with this snake-oil hucksterism about "capitalist development."

I know a bit about Maoist practice-- the brilliance of which is on display throughout history-- the brilliance of aligning with the US and apartheid South Africa in supporting Savimbi; of bestowing favorable trade terms on Pinochet; of the Guangdong and the SEZs. How could any not know about the real results of Maoist practice?

[RED DAVE]

When [Prachanda] says "We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists", that does not necessarily mean that the Nepalese economy is static or that Prachanda is fighting for Capitalism.Then what the fuck does it mean?

RED DAVE

[Homo Songun]

I know a bit about Maoist practice-- the brilliance of which is on display throughout history-- the brilliance of aligning with the US and apartheid South Africa in supporting Savimbi; of bestowing favorable trade terms on Pinochet; of the Guangdong and the SEZs. How could any not know about the real results of Maoist practice?Holding that the aforementioned are illustrative of Maoist practice, for starters.

[RED DAVE]

I know a bit about Maoist practice-- the brilliance of which is on display throughout history-- the brilliance of aligning with the US and apartheid South Africa in supporting Savimbi; of bestowing favorable trade terms on Pinochet; of the Guangdong and the SEZs. How could any not know about the real results of Maoist practice?
Holding that the aforementioned are illustrative of Maoist practice, for starters.Are you saying that they're not illustrative? Did they not happen? Were they accidents? Were they atypical? What?

Let's also not forget The Great Chairman making kissy-nice with Richard Nixon. Or was that just some kind of a random fuck-up?

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Of course it is, just as Prachanda is a Maoist even though he says he has learned so much from past failures, and really isn't a Maoist, because all he wants to do is establish capitalism, unlike Mao who wanted to establish "socialism," but instead opened the door to foreign capital himself.

Sure, he is a Maoist because he says he isn't which is exactly what a Maoist would say when dealing with others who say they are not Maoists. Got that?

See it's all part of the Maoist genius into tricking the capitalists, lulling them into a false sense of security, then WHAMO! It's socialism time.

Of course, shortly after that comes SEZ time, Shenzen time, Guangdong time, and real capitalism so who's getting tricked here? Oh well, not important as long as we have our little red books and our pictures of Mao on our paper money.

So hey, maybe, with your deep knowledge of Maoist practice you can explain, or maybe resolve the contradiction I pointed out earlier:


The contradiction you, or those who support Maoists face is this-- supposedly the basis for the "new democracy" or the peoples' revolution is that it is necessary to collaborate with the "national bourgeoisie" to grow the productive forces, which growth has been strangled by the foreign capitalists and the comprador bourgeoisie.

But the fact of the matter is that the conflicts and limits in the economic organization makes this "national bourgeoisie" and this "national capitalism" so weak, are the same conflicts and limitations that will prevent "growing of the productive forces" to any great degree absent the support of international capital.

That's the lesson of China itself. And Vietnam.

Or maybe it's not even a contradiction. Maybe when I say it's a contradiction, I mean it's really not a contradiction. It means something else. It means just the opposite.

You can play this Alice Through The Looking Glass game as long as you want. Doesn't change the fact that you're down the rabbit hole and taking tea with a Mad Hatter.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

As a comrade in my organization posted on Kassama about a year ago, Nepal is a bourgeoiuse state on its way to becoming.......a bourgoiuse state. Prachanda doesn't want to do anything to offend the World Bank, the IMF, and other organs of global US hegemony.

A major problem of Maoism is that it does not account for the failure....of Maoism. There are specific historical reasons why a primarily peasant based insurgency could succeed in Vietnam, China, and Cuba. We are in a different period now. There is no chance that the Naxalite movement, without linking up with the urban Indian working classes. can seriously contest state power.

The very real gains in Vietnam, China, Cuba and elsewhere have been or are being rolled back.Why is this, Comrade Maoists?

I would say that the above mentioned revolutions were not based on worker's democracy.They were products of peasant based guerilla wars and inherently contained an authoritarian command structure.The Cuban Revolution had a lot of very real heroism. The gains of the Revolution were minimized or subverted by its anti-democratic nature. "Dancing With The Revolution" by the .Mexican journalist is a very moving and sad account of this.

Pranchanda is a wanker.I wouldn't be too surprised if his CV is on file at Goldman Sachs.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

So hey, maybe, with your deep knowledge of Maoist practice you can explain, or maybe resolve the contradiction I pointed out earlier:



Or maybe it's not even a contradiction. Maybe when I say it's a contradiction, I mean it's really not a contradiction. It means something else. It means just the opposite.



Good point there. Didn't Mao have a theory of secobdary and even tertiary contradictions within the dialectic?

In Shanghai right now you wouldn't know there had ever been such a thing as the Shanghai Commune.It has as much significance as Hadrain's Wall.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenina:


Good point there. Didn't Mao have a theory of secondary and even tertiary contradictions within the dialectic?

Indeed, he invented them to rationalise class collaboration with the Guomindang:


"Mao's criterion of truth has the undisguised purpose of revealing the falsity of the 'Left Opportunists' with whom Mao had some disagreement in either 1937 or 1950, or both. The context of this disagreement was the drastic change of CCP policy between the Soviet Period (a period of CCP-led armed insurrections in 1928-29) and the Yenan Period (when the Red Army merged with the army of Chiang Kai-shek). Opponents of the change are, to Mao, 'dogmatists who will not change their position....':


'In a revolutionary period the situation changes very rapidly; if the knowledge of revolutionaries does not change rapidly in accordance with the changed situation, they will be unable to lead the revolution to victory.' [Mao (1937b) On Contradiction, p.306.]

"...This essay gives no real explanation of the relation between practice and knowledge. It boils down to this: Japan has invaded; let's form a United National Front with the Kuomintang against Japan;...but don't listen to the dogmatists who go on about the Kuomintang being murderers and butchers.

"The essay 'On Contradiction' is also directed against the dogmatists....

"[There] the dialectic is a battle between contradictions, one of which wins. The contradictions, instead of comprising each other in a continual state of flux and development, are in Mao's view rigidly defined and separated. In this viewpoint the result of the struggle of opposites is not an eventual transcending of the dialectic and its replacement by a new one -- as is the viewpoint of Lenin -- but simply the victory of one side....

"What is the purpose of this analysis?


'The question is one of different kinds of contradiction.' [Mao.]

"What different kinds? These include, for example, Universality of Contradiction and the Particularity of Contradiction, and the distinction between Primary contradiction and Secondary contradiction.

"Particularity means more than the concrete material content of any particular contradiction. It means that dialectics, as a law of movement and development has no consistent meaning at all. It means in practice that a particular contradiction can be redefined by giving it a different political label....

"As Mao further describes these 'different kinds' of contradictions, we see that he has turbulent recent history to explain:


'...[W]e must not only observe them in their interconnections or their totality, we must also examine the two aspects of each contradiction.

'For instance, consider the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Take one aspect, the Kuomintang. In the period of the first united front, the Kuomintang carried out Sun Yat-sen's Three Great Policies of alliance with Russia, co-operation with the Communist Party, and assistance to the peasants and workers; hence it was revolutionary and vigorous, it was an alliance of various classes for the democratic revolution. After 1927, however, the Kuomintang changed into its opposite and became a reactionary bloc of the landlords and big bourgeoisie. After the Sian Incident in December 1936, it began another change in the direction of ending the civil war and co-operating with the Communist Party for joint opposition to Japanese imperialism.' [Mao.]

"Thus 'each aspect' can freely change and even reverse its nature if Mao requires it. The class content of the Kuomintang is in Mao's view determined by its policy -- particularly by its attitude to the CCP. The Kuomintang, in historical fact, never ceased to be an alliance of landlords and prospective industrialists, resentful of any move by the Chinese peasants and workers that could threaten their methods of exploitation. In Mao's philosophy, however, the criterion is not what the Kuomintang is, but what it says....

"[For Mao] Kuomintang policy is the determinant of its contradictions:


'For instance, in the period of its first cooperation with the Communist Party, the Kuomintang stood in contradiction to foreign imperialism and was therefore anti-imperialist; on the other hand, it stood in contradiction to the great masses of the people within the country -- although in words it promised many benefits to the working people, in fact it gave them little or nothing. In the period when it carried on the anti-Communist war, the Kuomintang collaborated with imperialism and feudalism against the great masses of the people and wiped out all the gains they had won in the revolution, and thereby intensified its contradictions with them.' [Mao.]

"When the other aspect of the contradiction, the CCP, is discussed, the interpretation is entirely idealistic:


'...t [the CCP] [I]courageously led the revolution of 1924-27 but revealed its immaturity in its understanding of the character, the tasks and the methods of the revolution, and consequently it became possible for Chen Tu-hsiuism, which appeared during the latter part of this revolution, to assert itself and bring about the defeat of the revolution. After 1927, the Communist Party courageously led the Agrarian Revolutionary War and created the revolutionary army and revolutionary base areas; however, it committed adventurist errors which brought about very great losses both to the army and to the base areas. Since 1935 the Party has corrected these errors.' [Mao. Emphasis added.]

"Mao's criterion for correctness or error is very appropriate to his own version of events. The CCP's military insurrections after 1927 were dictated by the short-term desire of the Stalin-Bukharin leadership of the Russian Communist Party to cover up for the disaster of the CCP-Kuomintang alliance, [which] were beyond the objective possibilities in China at that time, and were doomed from the start.... Those responsible for the disastrous policies of 1924-1927 are excused. Then the loss of military base areas is dumped upon 'adventurists' instead of upon Chiang's extermination campaigns (the Kuomintang has become 'vigorous'). Moreover, the 'adventurist errors' have been corrected since 1935 when Mao became leader.

"Mao's description of 'the two aspects of a contradiction' allows any subjectivist interpretation of the contradiction to be made because neither aspect is determined by its objective material base. This treatment of contradiction is not a mere vulgarisation of Engels. It is an attempt to justify with philosophical authority the actions of the CCP, and to blame past disasters upon scapegoats (including Chen-Tu-Hsiu who opposed the disastrous strategy of alliance with the Kuomintang) whose ideas...allegedly caused the defeat of the Red Army. [Bold emphasis added -- RL.]

"The division of contradictions into Principal, 'whose existence and development determine or influence other contradictions' and Secondary is...unique to Mao. What criterion...separates contradictions into 'Principal' and 'Secondary'? This is unexplained. However, the practical effect of the distinction is made clear by the example given:


'When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position.' [Mao.]

"Mao having said that contradiction is everywhere, has introduced a distinction that allows him to ignore most of those contradictions (e.g., those between classes); only the Principal (the war against Japan) matters.

"It is however a historical fact that some members of some classes still want to fight the Secondary class war. Chiang Kai-shek for example fought Chinese trade unionists with greater ferocity than he fought Japanese armies. Why does he ignore the Principal contradiction? The causes are subjective not material:


'Chang Kai-shek's betrayal in 1927 is an example of splitting the revolutionary front.' [Mao.]

"This raises more questions that it answers. Who or what distinguishes between Principal and Secondary? How and why does a Principal suddenly revert to a Secondary? Why do some betray? Mao cannot answer this at all, though a historical materialist approach would suggest the explanation that Chiang's class consciousness always told him that 'the main enemy was at home'. Why call anyone a traitor for placing the interests of their class above the alleged interests of a nation that contains antagonistic classes?

"...After discussing various 'types' of contradiction 'On Contradiction' concludes that they can and should be 'resolved'. This idea was a recent invention at the time [this] essay was written. It came into general use in the official Russian philosophy of the late 1920s. (Such an idea was unknown in the dialectics of Hegel and Marx.)." [Eric Petersen (1994) The Poverty of Dialectical Materialism (http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/383178), pp.119-24.]

As Petersen goes on to point out, the only contradictions that matter are those of concern to the CCP, just as he argues that no materialist reason was given by Mao as to why some contradictions are "antagonistic" while others are not.

However, this allowed the CCP (just as it allowed the CPSU -- after 1924/25 in the USSR, and after 1949 in China) to ignore the class tensions (that remained after the revolution) between their position as part of a new ruling-class (post 1928 in the USSR, though) and the working class -- or, rather, to pretend to ignore them -- and simply carry on as before, oppressing and exploiting the working class.

It also allowed those who resisted the CCP to be re-classified as "enemies" (or as "right-" or "left-deviationists"), and for their opposition to be called "antagonistic". In this way, it helped scupper any form of socialist democracy.


"Mao's definition of antagonistic class contradictions in contemporary China, Hungary or Russian is tautological: they are antagonistic because they cannot be ignored and need handling or 'vigilance'" [Ibid., p.127.]

Comrades are encouraged the consult the rest of this chapter in Petersen's book for the political background which made the adoption of dialectical concepts so useful to the CCP.

[Gustav HK]

As the great Enver Hoxha said in http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch6.htm:


Mao Tsetung was never able to understand and explain correctly the close links between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian revolution. Contrary to the Marxist-Leninist theory, which has proved scientifically that there is no Chinese wall between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, that these two revolutions do not have to be divided from each other by a long period of time, Mao Tsetung asserted: "The transformation of our revolution into socialist revolution is a matter of the future... As to when the transition will take place... it may take quite a long time. We should not hold forth about this transition until all the necessary political and economic conditions are present and until it is advantageous and not detrimental to the overwhelming majority of our people". And btw, do the maoists in Nepal lead a struggle against the comprador bourgeoisie and the compromising national bourgeoisie? Because that is needed for a real national-democratic revolution.

[Ret]

Rural feudalism?

A term describing the pre-capitalist social relations emerging in Europe in the Middle Ages, unsurprisingly, has limited application in Nepal today. It appears to be more a clumsy application of standard Leninist phraseology rather than striving for historical and materialist precision in categorisation. So it is somewhat misleading to talk of the 'semi-feudal social relations' of the countryside; land tenure in Nepal is not a static relic of "feudal" times. There have been modern land reform policies since the short-lived democratic governments of the 1950s. These were continued by the monarchy. Land is a valuable and appreciating commodity in Nepal; agricultural fertility, urban development, proximity to tourist locations and transport networks determine value and create a lucrative real estate market. One can talk more accurately of "the persistence of semi-feudal forms of exploitation in an increasingly monetised rural setting" - and the conditions "of the poor peasantry, the semi-proletarians and the landless" (P Chandra). But subsistence farming of peasant smallholdings alongside some larger estates and tenant farming - rather than vassals and serfdom - are the characteristic forms of land tenure. There is also a semi-proletarian character to many of the young villagers; they will often travel to towns for seasonal waged work during quieter farming periods, while others travel abroad to work for sometimes lengthy periods before often returning to farming. The money they return with and send back as "remittance" is changing the economic relations of the rural areas through acquisition of land, housebuilding, youth migration creating farm labour shortages and so higher wages etc. It is these forces - the relations of a mobile working class to global labour markets - that are now changing rural social relations rather than the ideological claims of political parties to be 'abolishing feudalism'.

"The Maoists continue to analyse and represent the Nepali political economy largely as a feudal enterprise. For instance, Baburam Bhattarai recently described Nepal as being within 'precapitalist socioeconomic relations' (Bhattarai 2002a). However, some economists have argued that 'the Nepali state is no longer ruled by feudals: it has long since passed, especially since the 1980s, into the hands of the trading class comprador bourgeoisie' (Gyawali 2002: 37). The Maoists are, in effect, 'trying to overthrow feudalism in a country already ruled by merchants' (ibid.)." (A Himalyan Red Herring? - Saubhagya Shah; Himalayan 'People's War', Ed. Michael Hutt, Hurst & Co., London 2004. http://libcom.org/library/himalayan-red-herring-maoist-revolution-shadow-legacy-raj-saubhagya-shah) Footnote 8, http://libcom.org/library/myths-realities-nepalese-maoists-their-strike-ban-legislations
There are remains of feudal relations in Nepal that have been carried over into a new socio-economic context - as there remain kings, queens and castes in some more advanced economies; but the following explains little;


Those living within rural Nepal still suffer from these feudal conditions. Urban Nepal is what's advancing towards capitalism. This is why the working class is only present in urban Nepal, and not rural Nepal.
This is quite wrong – there are landless rural labourers in Nepal, rural proletarians and semi-proletarians who spend part of the year as seasonal urban workers. There are also hundreds of thousands of rural youth on extended work trips abroad, often for several years. Their ‘remittance’ (money sent back to the family) has greatly altered the socio-economic relations of the countryside and wider society;

It is commonly observed that traditional feudalism still prevails in the Madhesh. But, in reality, it has now been replaced by a labourer dominated society. About two to three decades ago, when labourers from Madhesh started going to Punjab, Haryana and also to Assam for earning their bread and butter for a quarter of a year, they did not have any employment mobility and they had to survive on an empty stomach. Their migration was for a limited period, that is when they had no work for their engagement at home. It was a periodic employment migration. But, for the last two decades, labourers have been going to the Gulf countries for employment. In the beginning, the Muslim community took the lead. But now there is hardly any landless family that doesn’t have one or two members working in those countries. The common people have considered foreign employment as the only means of eradicating their poverty. Interestingly, they go there even after paying exorbitant interests on the money they take as loan for paying the agents towards their services and airfare. With their hard earned money, the old and rippled faces of their family members have really changed greatly.

There is a glaring change in the living conditions of the people. They are mow living in the cemented brick-houses, which are replacing the thatched huts gradually. Cemented roofs or tiled roofed houses can be observed almost everywhere in the village. [...]

The second priority of investment of remittances falls on the procurement of land, which is the prime permanent source of income for the have-nots as it is very much needed to meet the food requirement. The availability of land for sale in abundance is yet another factor facilitating the transfer of ownership of land. The traditional landowners are desperate for selling off their land as there is a dearth of labourers in the villages. The dearth of labourers is attributed to the young workers having left the villages for foreign employment. The cost of cultivation has increased substantially. There is very little irrigation facilities and lack of timely and adequate availability of fertilisers. The ownership of land is gradually getting transferred from the haves to the have-nots, the new class of labourers. It can be safely said that nearly forty to fifty percent of the land ownership have been shifted during the last fifteen years from the traditional owners to the landless class.

Interestingly, the female members of the families are becoming landowners. Since the male members of the families are out of home to earn their livelihood, the female members of the families naturally become the land owners when any new piece of land is bought. For instance, out of four registrations we made, three registrations were in favour of female owners. This is really a milestone of social changes taking place in the remote areas. [...]
July 2010
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Rural+transformation++Changi ng+face+of+rural+Madhesh+&NewsID=249162
Rural feudalism? No.


At Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) [in Kathmandu], scenes of youths like Gaihres forming serpentine lines to board airplanes headed toward major labor destinations, mostly an unchartered territory for most of them, is not uncommon. Their aim is to reach the intended destination, not get duped by manpower agencies, and land on a decently-paying job. The expectation of their families is likewise.

Enter Kathmandu and head toward the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and you will see a much more chaotic scene: Anxious, curious, and confused aspirant migrants waiting to get their passport issued. [...]

Go farther away from the city center and you will see a completely different terrain. New buildings are popping up everywhere and there is an influx of migrants in and around city centers. Some of the villages lack the backbone of local economy i.e. youths. Elderly and kids are the main inhabitants of villages as youths have/are headed either to overseas labor destinations or to major city centers. Daily wages for manual labor have more than doubled. Interestingly, each alternate house either has a ‘cold store’ or a retail store—one wonders from where demand comes from. Perhaps, this is the best way to kill time. The opportunity cost of labor appears zero to them. There is no better way to waste labor than be self-employed—unproductive sales person waiting for customers in a place where pretty much every household owns a retail store!

The influx of money sent by migrants sweating and saving pennies overseas is changing the way we consume and invest. While consumption accounts for over 90 percent of GDP, gross domestic savings is equivalent to a mere 9.7 percent. Banks are becoming big fat kids from slim ones as remittances are constantly pouring in, facilitating instant easy lending to a handful of sectors. Due to political instability, squeezing returns on investment and pressure to maintain comfortable profit margin, banks are eschewing lending to traditional employment-generating sectors. Instead, money is channeled into construction, real estate, and import-consumption sectors. These sectors are referred to as “unproductive” i.e. they do not absorb much labor for employment given the scale of domestic investment.

In the last five years, construction and real estate sectors grew at an average of 4.5 percent and 7 percent annually, respectively. In real estate, credit flow doubled from Rs 7.71 billion to Rs 14.92 billion in the past two fiscal years. Unfortunately, GDP growth rate was around 3 percent and industrial sector growth just over 1 percent. Due to neglect and flawed priority, the contribution of remittances in stimulating the real sectors is minimal. [...]
Aug 2010
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=22313
A feudal economy? Nope, but one increasingly integrated into a global capitalist economy that uses less developed areas to source a cheap mobile surplus labour power. Add to that the socio-economic influence of several decades of international tourism. It may be necessary for Maoists to claim a dominant feudalism still needing to be overthrown - as a convenient excuse to justify their capitalist goals and to try to make those goals appear differently motivated than rival parties. The squabbles over the political management of the state may be a long, still unresolved, process - but, as shown above, meanwhile global capital itself continues to develop the capitalist economy by its intense exploitation of the Nepali poor. And the national management of that exploitation and its relationship with global capital (eg, via those zones of hyper-exploitation - the Maoists’ beloved SEZs) is the real point of contestation for all rival Nepali parties;

There is a fundamental false consciousness at work; while the Maoists believe themselves the masters of historical progress, leading society through the necessary linear stages of economic development prior to communism - they are in fact as much the historical tools of the global expansion of capitalism. http://libcom.org/library/myths-realities-nepalese-maoists-their-strike-ban-legislations

The claims of a society supposedly still dominated by feudal relations can be dumped in the dustbin of history where they belong.

[Gustav HK]

And btw. Stalin wasn´t a menshevik/second international-stagist.

[RED DAVE]

And btw. Stalin wasn´t a menshevik/second international-stagist.No, he was a Stalinist stagist. The entire thrust of his politics, above and beyond the lies about the USSR being socialist, betray a stagist approach. This is a hallmark of Stalinism and Maoism.

RED DAVE

[Ravachol]

I'm sorry but can someone remind me why this kind of crap is even allowed here? :thumbdown:

This kind of 'capitalist development needed for socialism' isn't just class-collaboration, it's firmly on the other side of the class divide, period.

[RED DAVE]

I'm sorry but can someone remind me why this kind of crap is even allowed here? :thumbdown:

This kind of 'capitalist development needed for socialism' isn't just class-collaboration, it's firmly on the other side of the class divide, period.But Comrade, this is the essence of Maoism in theory and practice.

RED DAVE

[kasama-rl]

New Democracy (the immediate goal of the Nepali Maoists) is not a form of capitalism. On the contrary it is a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat (a form marked by a worker peasant alliance and the participation of progressive forces from other anti-feudal classes).

It is the transition to socialism in semifeudal countries -- and focuses first on national independence and the overthrow of semifeudalism. And then (on that basis) moves rapidly to the initiation of the socialist revolution.

There was a brief period (of months) in 2005-6 when the Nepali Maoists were physically moving their operations from India back to Nepal, and where they required the passivity of the Indian state to accomplish the dangerous moves.

It would be strange to try to understand their politics by extracting one sentence quotes (out of context) from that period. They also said (in that same period) openly that no one should judge their goals by what they were saying to the press, but should look to their major congress documents.

These are forces working to establish people's democracy, carry through the anti-feudal revolution, and take their society on the socialist road.

There are (in their party and all revolutionary parties) forces who are ambivolent about their revolutionary goals. But their party has always been defined by its COMMUNIST politics, and its revolutionary goals.

[Rafiq]

China failed due to the stageist approach? :confused: lol If I remember correctly, socialism was achieved in China. And since "New Democracy" was termed by Mao, himself, and was achieved successfully through Maoist China, I don't see how your arguments are even remotely correct whatsoever.

Than you remember incorrectly.

Socialism was never achieved in China.

Let's see,

Working Class control over the means of production? Nope.

Just because it is the state.... Rather than a business man extracting surplus value does not justify the fact that surplus value is being extracted.

[Rafiq]

See, when we make mistakes, we are supposed to learn from them and correct them.

Does anyone remember China? It disgusts me there are people who want to use the same tactics that they did.

And surely, they will share the same ending.

[S.Artesian]

New Democracy (the immediate goal of the Nepali Maoists) is not a form of capitalism. On the contrary it is a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat (a form marked by a worker peasant alliance and the participation of progressive forces from other anti-feudal classes).

It is the transition to socialism in semifeudal countries -- and focuses first on national independence and the overthrow of semifeudalism. And then (on that basis) moves rapidly to the initiation of the socialist revolution.

There was a brief period (of months) in 2005-6 when the Nepali Maoists were physically moving their operations from India back to Nepal, and where they required the passivity of the Indian state to accomplish the dangerous moves.

It would be strange to try to understand their politics by extracting one sentence quotes (out of context) from that period. They also said (in that same period) openly that no one should judge their goals by what they were saying to the press, but should look to their major congress documents.

These are forces working to establish people's democracy, carry through the anti-feudal revolution, and take their society on the socialist road.

There are (in their party and all revolutionary parties) forces who are ambivolent about their revolutionary goals. But their party has always been defined by its COMMUNIST politics, and its revolutionary goals.

So all the questions previously raised are still to be answered: exactly what is semi-feudalism? How does it differ from all other manifestations of "archaic" relations of land and labor that historically advanced capital has leaned upon, absorbed, and turned into units of production for markets ?

How is "new democracy" a form of dictatorship of the proletariat when the organization of a "class-for-itself" exercising power over the conditions of its own labor is non-existent?

How can "new democracy"-- designed to combat "semi-feudalism"-- in an isolated nation-state actually lead to socialism, when new democracy is predicated on an "underdevelopment" of the forces of production?

How can we account for the fact that [I]after the "new democratic revolution" has given way to "socialism," the now "socialist" countries inaugurate, initiate capitalism, turning in particular to foreign capital, the very thing that supposedly created and maintained "semi-feudalism"?

Please note: References or appeals to "dialectic," Mao's "theory" of dialectical materialism, etc. will be regarded as evidence that responder is not serious, and is attempting to substitute an ideological answer for critical, historical analysis.

[RED DAVE]

New Democracy (the immediate goal of the Nepali Maoists) is not a form of capitalism.Then how come is permits the extraction of surplus value from the working class without its consent?


On the contrary it is a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat (a form marked by a worker peasant alliance and the participation of progressive forces from other anti-feudal classes).Sure it is: a dictatorship of the proletariat where the proletariat doesn't exert state power.


It is the transition to socialism in semifeudal countries -- and focuses first on national independence and the overthrow of semifeudalism.There is no such social system as "semifeudalism." Feudalism is the rule of a feudal class of hereditary large landowners connected to a monarchy. It's fundamental mode of production is for consumption and display, not for sale. Semifeudalism describes no such society that exists. It is a Maoist cover for class collaboration.


And then (on that basis) moves rapidly to the initiation of the socialist revolution.Yeah, sure it does. Just like in China, Vietnam, etc.


There was a brief period (of months) in 2005-6 when the Nepali Maoists were physically moving their operations from India back to Nepal, and where they required the passivity of the Indian state to accomplish the dangerous moves.And Lenin "required" the cooperation of the Germans in getting back into Russia.


It would be strange to try to understand their politics by extracting one sentence quotes (out of context) from that period.The article above is not from 2005-06. It's from 2011.


They also said (in that same period) openly that no one should judge their goals by what they were saying to the press, but should look to their major congress documents.Okay, so let's judge them by heir practice: out-and-out class collaboration leading to the establishment of capitalism.


These are forces working to establish people's democracy, carry through the anti-feudal revolution, and take their society on the socialist road.Just like in China.


There are (in their party and all revolutionary parties) forces who are ambivolent about their revolutionary goals. But their party has always been defined by its COMMUNIST politics, and its revolutionary goals.This party is defined by MAOIST politics, which are the politics of class collaboration, state capitalism and private capitalism.

RED DAVE

[kasama-rl]

Thanks for responding, red dave.

If I have a chance to deal with your various claims (in the next day or so) i will return and do so.

But let me just say your comments are largely mistaken -- in ways that help us get into some important matters.

New Democracy is not a mode of production -- it is a stage of a revolutionary process. It is that stage in which the proletariat leads the anti-feudal process (i.e. independence and the overthrow of feudalism) in countries where that is dominant. What it leads to (not surprisingly) is radically changed production and social relations in a society then starting on socialist relations.

In China there were two components (to put it simply) to the new democratic revolution:

1) Agrarian revolution -- the abolition of feudal land relations through revolution. This ended feudalism (to a considerable extent) while producing millions of small peasant landowners (a huge step forward and a highly popular revolutionary programatic demand implemented mainly by the people themselves).

Such revolotion opens two roads in the countryside, and a struggle over which road to take: either the road to rural capitalism or the road to rural socialism. After the agrarian revolution, the socialisf revolution started over which road to take.

2) the creation of the beginnings of socialist industry. In china, the property of reactionary bureaucrat capital and foreign capital were expropriated -- and became property of the socialist state. It amounted to 80 percent of the industrial productive capacity. The property of smaller owners was not expropriated -- especially those who had been in support of the revolution (and especially because no framework existed yet for incorporating lots of tiny industrial/artisan enterprises into a planned economy).

The expropriation of the heart of existing Chinese industry formed the beginnings of the socialist economy -- and was then expanded tremendously over the first ten years followoing the new democratic revolution (i.e. with the creation of new plants, industries etc. through planned socialist development and the creative initiative of the working peple).

It is an interesting question you raise about semi-feudalism. To be scientifically precise: the social formation is "semifeudal, semicolonial" in China before 1949 -- meaning that the productive base (and social formation bullt upon it) was defined by dominance of pre-capitalist relations in agricultural production and colonial relations (imperialist extractive firms, foreign domination of coastal cities finally taking the extreme form of Japanese occupation). Semi-feudal, semicolonial is a form of class society in the imperialist epoch -- a set of production relations and a resultant form of social relations (including government often involving a great deal of bureaucratic capitalism -- i.e. of the Marcos, Mobutu, Suharto form of exploitative and corrupt extraction.)

more later.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible. They therefore demand above all else a reduction in government spending through a restriction of the bureaucracy and the transference of the major tax burden into the large landowners and bourgeoisie. They further demand the removal of the pressure exerted by big capital on small capital through the establishment of public credit institutions and the passing of laws against usury, whereby it would be possible for themselves and the peasants to receive advances on favourable terms from the state instead of from capitalists; also, the introduction of bourgeois property relationships on land through the complete abolition of feudalism. In order to achieve all this they require a democratic form of government, either constitutional or republican, which would give them and their peasant allies the majority; they also require a democratic system of local government to give them direct control over municipal property and over a series of political offices at present in the hands of the bureaucrats.

"The rule of capital and its rapid accumulation is to be further counteracted, partly by a curtailment of the right of inheritance, and partly by the transference of as much employment as possible to the state. As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable." - Marx

[S.Artesian]

1) Agrarian revolution -- the abolition of feudal land relations through revolution. This ended feudalism (to a considerable extent) while producing millions of small peasant landowners (a huge step forward and a highly popular revolutionary programatic demand implemented mainly by the people themselves).


Point of fact. Agriculture in China was conduct on the basis of small, individual, cultivators [who may or may not have owned the land themselves, but were not serfs, and were not themselves considered property] for many years, if not centuries prior to the "new democratic revolution."

See the works of Philip CC Huang: The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988 and The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China.

[RED DAVE]

1) Agrarian revolution -- the abolition of feudal land relations through revolution. This ended feudalism (to a considerable extent) while producing millions of small peasant landowners (a huge step forward and a highly popular revolutionary programatic demand implemented mainly by the people themselves). To call the conditions in China prior to the victory of the Maoists is out-and-out wrong. Read the classic account, Report From a Chinese Village, and you'll find poverty, misery, exploitation. But you will not find feudalism.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Semi-feudal, semicolonial is a form of class society in the imperialist epoch -- a set of production relations and a resultant form of social relations (including government often involving a great deal of bureaucratic capitalism -- i.e. of the Marcos, Mobutu, Suharto form of exploitative and corrupt extraction.)

Point of further fact: None of the government forms, nor the modes of exploitation during the rules of Marcos, Mobutu, Suharto were "semi-feudal."

[kasama-rl]

To S. Artesian:

Actually, the Philippines (marcos) and Indonesia (Suharto) were (in fact) semifeudal, semicolonial countries.

There has been major changes in the degree of feudal agriculture over the last decades, and I would not casually make statements about whether those countries are semifeudal now. But certainly they were in the 1960s and 70s (which is the period of Marcos and Suharto we are mainly discussing)

Rather than just make colliding claims, let me help unravel it like this:

There is a long standing dispute between trotskyism and communism over the class nature of third world agriculture. Many Trotskyist thinkers and analyists have denied the Maoist/communist thesis that there are semi-colonial semi-feudal social formations. They insist that the third world is largely (and simply) capitalist.

On that basis they also oppose the idea of "the proletariat leading the anti-feudal struggle and taking up historically bourgeois democratic tasks in the revolution" -- and so, by contrast to Maoists, Trotskyists have argued that Third World countries can and should go through a single-stage socialist revolution.

In other words, what we are debating is not mere semantics, or a minor issue -- but one of the major ideological and analytic differences between Trotskyism and radical forms of communism.

Artesian raises some interesting issues about "what is feudalism?" which is obviously one of the issues involved.

Sometimes (in what I consider more mechanical forms of Marxism) it is argued that feudalism has to look like what the Europeans had in the Middle Ages. In other words a particular FORM of feudalism (landlords, aristocracy, serfdom, etc.) are assumed to be "classic" and necessary forms. And so when looking at other countries they say "that doesn't look like feudalism to me." And there are even attempts to invent some *other* category of pre-capitalist agriculture (i.e. "Asiatic despotism") to fill that analytic gap.

For Maoists and other communists, feudalism is a more diverse category, where there is often petty production but where the surplus of peasants is expropriated by a feudal ruling class. In Europe this was (sometimes) done through the form of land ownership -- where lords claimed to "own" the land, and therefore demand a cut of the harvest. But in other countries, the expropriation takes other forms -- taxes (this was the form of feudal expropriation dominant in Kampuchea), or usury (the form dominant to day in Nepali feudalism outside the Terai.)

Feudalism has not always rested (in other words) on particular (and supposedly "classic") forms of land ownership -- but takes a diversity of forms... and that diversity rests on many things: unique historical development, degree of poverty in the area, resistance of the peasants etc.

Further: I would like to argue IN GENERAL against the mechanical view of "classical forms." It comes up in another major dispute: Trotskyists (and others) often argue that capitalism has to have the particular FORMS of ownership that arose in Europe (where there is private juridical ownership at the factory level), and argue (by extension) that if capitalism has other FORMS it can't really be capitalism. For example, this is the argument made to insist that state capitalism is not possible as a modern form of capitalism, and that the post 1950s Soviet Union could not BE capitalist (between the mid50s and 1989) because there was not this "classic" form of private juridical ownership. In fact, capitalist ownership existed (in defacto privatized form -- ie the completition of many capitals) within the shell of juridical state ownership and within the framework of a profitized system of "state" planning.

Again: it is mechanical and sterile to associate specific modes of production and particular class societies with the 'CLASSICAL' FORMS that existed in Europe. And there is an element of Euro-centrism in the theoretical trends that find "arguing from Europe" natural and untroubling.

[S.Artesian]

To S. Artesian:

Actually, the Philippines (marcos) and Indonesia (Suharto) were (in fact) semifeudal, semicolonial countries.

No, actually not, no more than the hacienda system in Mexico in the period prior to during, and continuing in modified form after the Mexican Revolution of 1910---1940, more or less was "feudal agriculture. No more than the hacienda system in Bolivia which persisted at least through the MNR government of 1952-1964 was "feudal agriculture."

No more than the sugar plantations of the Philippines, which due to the guaranteed US sugar import quota and the cheapness of near-indentured labor and other forms of debt peonage were feudal agriculture. No more than the end of that quota, which compelled the plantation owners to take on extensive levels of debt to mechanize production and dispossess the their labor from the plantations was feudal agriculture. No more than the collapse of sugar prices, driving the plantation owners into bankruptcy and crisis, driving even more of the rural laborers into the city was feudal agriculture. All three "periods" are facets of the same process of accumulation, and the problems of capitalist accumulation where capital cannot sustain indefinitely accumulation through "archaic" relations of land and labor; through "modernizing" relations of capital and land; or through "retrenching relations" of capital land and labor.


There has been major changes in the degree of feudal agriculture over the last decades, and I would not casually make statements about whether those countries are semifeudal now. But certainly they were in the 1960s and 70s (which is the period of Marcos and Suharto we are mainly discussing)


So in the specific period you are talking about, the 1960s and 1970s, agriculture in the Philippines is most definitely not practiced on a feudal basis, despite the impoverished, immiserated condition of the agricultural laborers, despite their demand for land-- which was a demand coincident and triggered by their very capitalist dispossession.

Would be more than happy to go through the same exercise with Indonesia and Suharto, once I finish my studies on that part of history.

But with the Philippines, as is the case in all of Latin America, feudal agriculture is not the dominant mode of appropriation. What is dominant is the preservation of archaic relations of land and labor in order to preserve the security of private property, and that preservation occurs in the midst of the transformation of the plantation, the hacienda, into units of production for the world markets. That's exactly what took place in Mexico. That is the exact history of the haciendas in Bolivia, which connections to world markets were mediated by their tethering to, production for, the mining industry.



There is a long standing dispute between trotskyism and communism over the class nature of third world agriculture. Many Trotskyist thinkers and analyists have denied the Maoist/communist thesis that there are semi-colonial semi-feudal social formations. They insist that the third world is largely (and simply) capitalist.

No, that dispute is not between trotskyism and communism. It might be between trotskyism and stalinism, but more accurately, it is a dispute between Marxists and "third worldists."


Let's hear what Philip CC Huang says about this little fantasy of feudalism:

Historical studies in Maoist China were dominated by the classical model outlined above. "Feudal economy" was equated with precommercial "natural economy," and capitalist economy with commercialized large-scale production. The distinctive Chinese twist to the model was the notion of "incipient capitalism." On this analysis the "sprouting of capitalism" had begun in China at about the same time as in early modern England and Europe, and but for the disruptive intrusion of Western imperialism, China would have followed the capitalist path of development. In this way, Chinese history was fitted into the Stalinist five-modes-of production formula, by which all societies are bound to move through primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist state. At the same time Western imperialism was condemned for its destructive impact on China. --The Peasant Family and Rural Development in Yangzi Delta 1350-1988.


Huang then goes on to show how Chinese agriculture was really quite different than feudalism; and that it can best be characterized as agricultural involution where in fact extensive labor surpluses could be used to increase agricultural production at the expense of labor productivity, thus tying labor to the land, and resisting the dispossession of the direct producers, which is the signature characteristic and need for capitalism.

This agricultural involution was not based on the demands of a class of "feudal landlords" but rather the ability of the individual small producers to repeatedly distribute smaller pieces of their diminishing plots to family members and through increased labor-intensity, decreased labor productivity, increase output enough to sustain the reproduction of this "hermetic" system.

China's agricultural involution could, at one and the same time support extensive commercial relations, and the growth of the cities, without those commercial relations themselves becoming capitalist relations of land and labor in agriculture.

The agricultural involution in fact was resistant, almost impermeable to capitalist penetration in that the "cottage industries" for textile and clothing production could continue on a home basis, successfully producing goods for commercial exchange on this fragmented platform at costs below those of capitalist production.

Feudal systems are not characterized by such impermeability as the surplus from feudal production, even with labor intensification, cannot support the demands of the lords, of the manors.

Anyway, Huang's books are really great on this and I am sure I'm not doing the thesis justice in my presentation.


On that basis they also oppose the idea of "the proletariat leading the anti-feudal struggle and taking up historically bourgeois democratic tasks in the revolution" -- and so, by contrast to Maoists, Trotskyists have argued that Third World countries can and should go through a single-stage socialist revolution.


This is exactly wrong. Any reading of Trotsky's "Results and Prospects," his analysis of uneven and combined development makes clear that the tasks of undevelopment become the responsibility of the proletarian revolution. The distinguishing characteristic of the Marxist analysis in uneven and combined development as opposed to the Maoist "new democracy" or class collaborationist ideology, is that uneven and combined development recognizes that the weaknesses, archaic relations, "overhangs" of "pre-capitalist" formations have been absorbed into the framework of international capitalism itself; that such weaknesses signify the inability of a "national" bourgeoisie to accomplish those "tasks" usually associated with their revolution; that the inability of capitalism to overturn the archaic relations of production is in fact the inability of capitalism to overturn itself, its own "sacred stone" which is private property and so capitalism and its bourgeoisie adapt to the warlords, the hacendados, the plantation owners.

The overthrow of these latter archaic remnants requires the overthrow of their most modern allies, the bourgeoisie in their "national" and international incarnations.


In other words, what we are debating is not mere semantics, or a minor issue -- but one of the major ideological and analytic differences between Trotskyism and radical forms of communism.


What we are debating here is not the difference between "Trotskyism" and radical forms of communism, since a) no such radical "communism" exists b) what pretends to be "radical communism" is nothing but the same old same old of allying with a "liberal" a "progressive" a "democratic" a "national" bourgeoisie in opposition to a program that identifies the proletariat's revolution as the only force capable of truly revolutionizing the means and the mode of production.

We might be debating the difference between the "five stages" theory of Stalin, a theory used time after time to decapitate the radical struggles of the proletariat, and the peasantry, in Vietnam, in Spain, in Indonesia, etc.



Sometimes (in what I consider more mechanical forms of Marxism) it is argued that feudalism has to look like what the Europeans had in the Middle Ages. In other words a particular FORM of feudalism (landlords, aristocracy, serfdom, etc.) are assumed to be "classic" and necessary forms. And so when looking at other countries they say "that doesn't look like feudalism to me." And there are even attempts to invent some *other* category of pre-capitalist agriculture (i.e. "Asiatic despotism") to fill that analytic gap.

For Maoists and other communists, feudalism is a more diverse category, where there is often petty production but where the surplus of peasants is expropriated by a feudal ruling class. In Europe this was (sometimes) done through the form of land ownership -- where lords claimed to "own" the land, and therefore demand a cut of the harvest. But in other countries, the expropriation takes other forms -- taxes (this was the form of feudal expropriation dominant in Kampuchea), or usury (the form dominant to day in Nepali feudalism outside the Terai.)

Hilarious. See it's mechanical to define a mode of production by the organization of production, the relations of classes, and the method of aggrandizement.

So for Maoist and other non-communists, other Stalinists, anything we want to call feudalism is feudalism. Spain's landowners in 1936-- feudal. Knights of the White Camelia in Louisiana 1867-- feudal. Suharto's overthrow of Sukarno-- feudal. The hemp plantations in 1910 Yucatan, producing all that glorious rope and twine for Cyrus McCormack and co.-- feudal. Argentine owners of massive estancias feudal-- feudal in 1840, feudal in 1888, feudal today with Kirchner of course representing a national bourgeoisie. It, feudalism can be anything we want it to be, which of course is simply saying, Marxism is anything we want it to be, even a "strategy" for subordination the working class to the bourgeoisie.



Further: I would like to argue IN GENERAL against the mechanical view of "classical forms." It comes up in another major dispute: Trotskyists (and others) often argue that capitalism has to have the particular FORMS of ownership that arose in Europe (where there is private juridical ownership at the factory level), and argue (by extension) that if capitalism has other FORMS it can't really be capitalism. For example, this is the argument made to insist that state capitalism is not possible as a modern form of capitalism, and that the post 1950s Soviet Union could not BE capitalist (between the mid50s and 1989) because there was not this "classic" form of private juridical ownership. In fact, capitalist ownership existed (in defacto privatized form -- ie the completition of many capitals) within the shell of juridical state ownership and within the framework of a profitized system of "state" planning.


Except of course-- it is precisely the advocates of this "feudalism is everywhere" theoyr who have adopted and adapted the single most mechanical pathology ever to afflict Marxism-- the "stage theory." The stage theory about modern economies, the stage theory about less developed economies, the stage theory of revolution. That is the apotheosis of mechanical-ism. But the less said about that, the better, right?




Again: it is mechanical and sterile to associate specific modes of production and particular class societies with the 'CLASSICAL' FORMS that existed in Europe. And there is an element of Euro-centrism in the theoretical trends that find "arguing from Europe" natural and untroubling.

Ahh... and now the cherry on the cupcake-- the old race-baiting "Euro-centric" ploy. I knew we'd get to it sooner or later. This-- Euro-centrism--of course is the pseudo-modern equivalent for the old charge of "rootless cosmopolitan" so popular in the good old days. It's another way of saying "It's a black thang, you hunkies don't get it." Or, "Can a white man sing the blues."

This faux-flexibility that our astute Maoists display is simply the sheath covering the most rigid of blades-- that blade being that class collaboration with the "national" bourgeoisie in an anti-feudal alliance is compatible with proletarian revolution.

[kasama-rl]

Thanks for responding, S.Artesian (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=26072), and laying out your views.

I think that people reading our two posts can get a good sense of the controversy -- and how you can look at a revolution emerging in Nepal and not see that it is a revolution.

I think the two different views (and lines) are clearly enough drawn to allow readers to draw their own conclusions.

* * * * * * *

I don't think the criticism of "classical forms" is whitebaiting at all:

There are political currents who see little farther than Europe, who think its forms (of revolution, of class society, of debate, philosophy, whatever) are "classical" and defining forms -- so that other manifestations (of revolution, class society, debate, philosophy, whatever) just seem second rate, impure, inappropriate and oddly different. It is a major problem for them.

It is a problem that infects all kinds of political currents and various forms of European Marxism are no different. But this is not a criticism of you for being white, or an assumption that you are somehow inherently dense *because* you are white. It is a criticsm of a European-centered view of politics, history and analysis.

[S.Artesian]

Thanks for responding, S.Artesian (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=26072), and laying out your views.

I think that people reading our two posts can get a good sense of the controversy -- and how you can look at a revolution emerging in Nepal and not see that it is a revolution.

There you go again-- I never said the struggle in Nepal is not revolutionary. I said that it cannot be successful as a revolution if the organizations supposedly leading the struggle subordinate workers and the rural poor to the establishment of capitalism and increasing profits for the bourgeoisie.

PS. I have absolutely no geographic center to my thinking and analysis. Besides Marx's works, I think I've concentrated most of my studies on Latin America and the good old USA, including the Philippines given its intimate association withe the US-- not for nothing did the US Navy, back in the day, refer to the Philippines as "Our Cuba in the Pacific." But other than my deep affection for radical Reconstruction in the US, I've spent more time with Latin America than with Europe.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Alright, what the hell is this now?

Politically, Third World Caesarism is a Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and "National" Petit-Bourgeoisie having a monopoly on state power on the basis of independent working-class organization, Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism, and Peasant Patrimonialism, with the bloc exercising its "managed democracy" against all bourgeois and liberal opposition.

See Post #65 for the rest:


The commanding heights should belong to the state. Industrial development should be planned as much as possible, within reasonable market limits due to Nepal's conditions (yet said market limits can accommodate things like capital controls). Outside the commanding heights, the private hiring of labour for profit should be scrapped in favour of state-aided cooperatives.

EDIT: For me, "commanding heights" doesn't mean top-such-and-such. The entire financial system, for example, is "commanding" enough. Ditto with land. I should add that, on the basis of economist Michael Hudson's analysis, this would mean the effective socialization of economic rent while the state-aided cooperatives operate in his definition of a "free market": free from private economic rent.

[kasama-rl]

S. Artisian writes:

"I said that it cannot be successful as a revolution if the organizations supposedly leading the struggle subordinate workers and the rural poor to the establishment of capitalism and increasing profits for the bourgeoisie."

The core issue is this:

The UCPN(Maoist) takes as its immediate goal the establishment of New Democracy and its longrange goal as worldwide communism.

New Democracy is not a form of capitalism -- but a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is an antifeudal revolution led by communists -- that opens the door to two different roads (one to capitalism and the other to socialism). This means that what defines New Democracy is the opening of the socialist revolution.

New Democracy is a revolution which carries through major anti-feudal changes that have previously been carried through by the bourgeoisie (a century ago when it was revolutionary). Because the bourgeoisie isn't leading such anti-feudal revolutions anymore, these "bourgeois democratic" demands and transformation can become part of the world proletarian socialist struggle.

Again: New Democracy is not the start of capitalism -- it is the start of socialism.

cheers.

[S.Artesian]

S. Artisian writes:

"I said that it cannot be successful as a revolution if the organizations supposedly leading the struggle subordinate workers and the rural poor to the establishment of capitalism and increasing profits for the bourgeoisie."

The core issue is this:

The UCPN(Maoist) takes as its immediate goal the establishment of New Democracy and its longrange goal as worldwide communism.

New Democracy is not a form of capitalism -- but a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is an antifeudal revolution led by communists -- that opens the door to two different roads (one to capitalism and the other to socialism). This means that what defines New Democracy is the opening of the socialist revolution.

New Democracy is a revolution which carries through major anti-feudal changes that have previously been carried through by the bourgeoisie (a century ago when it was revolutionary). Because the bourgeoisie isn't leading such anti-feudal revolutions anymore, these "bourgeois democratic" demands and transformation can become part of the world proletarian socialist struggle.

Again: New Democracy is not the start of capitalism -- it is the start of socialism.

cheers.

To paraphrase immortal words of Pvt Hudson in Aliens, "Maybe you haven't been keepin' up on current events, but..."

..But the leader of the rebels has announced flat out that the struggle he is involved in is a struggle for capitalism, for increasing the profits if capitalism.

Now maybe you think I'm being naive taking him at his word, especially since his former employer was the USAID, but if he's lying, the only people he's misleading are the workers, the urban and rural poor.

Here's a news flash, saying it's so, doesn't make it so. Saying the new democracy is the start of socialism, is the form of the dictatorship doesn't make it the start of socialism or dictatorship of the proletariat. Actual expropriation of the bourgeoisie, local and international, by the proletariat, through organizations of the proletariat as a class, that makes it a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Saying it's an anti-feudal revolution led by communists and opens the doors to either of two roads, capitalism or socialism, doesn't make it an anti-feudal revolution. Feudalism has ceased to exist as the dominant mode of production and Nepal, or any other "less developed" area, is entangled through trade arrangements, through investment, through the world markets with capitalism in all its uneven and combined development.

The problem here is not that you have some inside track on "radical communism" or unique insight into 3rd world exceptionalism, but that you simply assume what needs to be proven and then take your own assumptions as evidence. That's what we call an ideology, as opposed to historical materialism and critical analysis. That's what should be called a mantra, a meaningless phrase or series of syllables that when chanted by a person empties the mind and brings a feeling of great comfort. Not a good way to actually apprehend class struggle, but it's so much more convenient to simply repeat what you want to be true.

And this:
New Democracy is a revolution which carries through major anti-feudal changes that have previously been carried through by the bourgeoisie (a century ago when it was revolutionary). is just priceless, because a century ago was 1911, year 2 of the Mexican Revolution, 6 years after the Russian Revolution of 1905, a few years after the Spanish-American War, and the US suppression of the Aguinaldo-led rebellion in the Philippines, and almost 40 years after the bourgeoisie had abandoned radical Reconstruction in the Southern US, leaving the freed men and women to the restoration of the plantation class, redemptionist governments, the KKK, the Knights of the White Camelia, and that great northern capitalist, Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad building a network of railways in the South by renting imprisoned black labor. And it's 134 years after Hayes withdrew the Federal troops from the South so that he could unleash them against the railway workers striking in the US, feeding them as that same Tom Scott urged "a diet of lead."

And I'm not even going to bring up the incapability of the bourgeoisie to actually make revolutions in 1848. So along with your class analysis, you've got your history a bit screwed up, in a twist, ass-backwards, and just flat out wrong. The bourgeoisie haven't been revolutionary-- geez in way way way more than 100 years, if the bourgeoisie as a class was itself ever revolutionary-- even in France. See Albert Soboul's works on the sans-culottes in that revolution. But I digress.

Right, right new democracy is the start of socialism, just like Allende's Unidad Popular was the start of socialism; sure just like the five year plans were not just the start, but the realization of socialism in the fSU. Got it.

Clearly that must be the case because look at the results of all that socialism, all those "new starts;" those IPOs of new democratic start ups.

[RED DAVE]

Politically, Third World Caesarism is a Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and "National" Petit-Bourgeoisie having a monopoly on state power on the basis of independent working-class organization, Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism, and Peasant Patrimonialism, with the bloc exercising its "managed democracy" against all bourgeois and liberal opposition.Reads like a Top Chef recipe for Stalinism.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

Repeating the same slander, are we? Stalinism has neither independent working-class organization (/= rule by the working class) nor Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism.

[DaringMehring]

Reads like a Top Chef recipe for Stalinism.

RED DAVE

Reads more like a chimera with no relation to the real world to me.

[red cat]

I doubt he knows much about class struggle in his own country, let alone anywhere else. I think it say quite a lot about Revleft that there are some people on here who even take him vaguely seriously.

If there were communists in Nepal today, their task would not be not to call for revolution now, but to call for the defence of working class interests.

Devrim

So all your theory boils down to not calling for a revolution ?


I was involved in a discussion similar to this with Red Cat and when I challenged him to produce a description of "feudal practices" in agriculture, he came up with a description of indigo agricultural labor and land relations that were patently capitalist- plantation capitalist like that practiced on the haciendas in Mexico, on the fincas, on the sugar cane plantations in the Philippines but capitalist nonetheless.


Who are the proletariat in indigo cultivation ? Is the working class supposed to own land ?

[S.Artesian]

So all your theory boils down to not calling for a revolution ?



Who are the proletariat in indigo cultivation ? Is the working class supposed to own land ?

When you posted that example of "feudalism" I demonstrated how that isnt feudalism at all, but the practice of production for exchange, for the markets based expropriation of surplus value-- as production on haciendas in Mexico was, as production on the sugar plantations of the Philippines was.

"Owning land"-- in reality debt peonage or similar means for controlling the laborers, has been the mechanism for maintaining the agricultural workers as a captured labor sources while reducing the plantation owners' costs as the "tenants," sharecroppers, peons produce their own subsistence, or in most cases, sub subsistence.

Next thing you'll be telling me is how after the Civil War in the US, feudalism was established in the South as the freed men and women were driven into share-cropping, impoverished tenant farming, and debt peonage relationships.

It's not feudalism or semi-feudalism with the indigo growers, it's capitalism in all its uneven combined advanced backwardness.

[red cat]

When you posted that example of "feudalism" I demonstrated how that isnt feudalism at all, but the practice of production for exchange, for the markets based expropriation of surplus value-- as production on haciendas in Mexico was, as production on the sugar plantations of the Philippines was.

"Owning land"-- in reality debt peonage or similar means for controlling the laborers, has been the mechanism for maintaining the agricultural workers as a captured labor sources while reducing the plantation owners' costs as the "tenants," sharecroppers, peons produce their own subsistence, or in most cases, sub subsistence.

But it is ownership nevertheless, as opposed to a proletarian owning no part of the means of production other than his labour power.



Next thing you'll be telling me is how after the Civil War in the US, feudalism was established in the South as the freed men and women were driven into share-cropping, impoverished tenant farming, and debt peonage relationships.
I will have to think about this. Did any qualitative change happen in southern US after that period ?

[RED DAVE]

But it is ownership nevertheless, as opposed to a proletarian owning no part of the means of production other than his labour power.Yes, in rural India and rural Nepal, what we have is small-scale ownership, middle-scale ownership, large-scale-ownership and a rural proletariat that owns no land. This is a feature of capitalism.


I will have to think about this. Did any qualitative change happen in southern US after that period ?Yes, the former slaves either became landless rural proletarians or they entered into sharecropping relationships where they worked land that was not theirs, surrendering a major portion of the crop to the owners. This was, as under slavery itself, production of cash crops, cotton, tobacco, etc., for the market.

RED DAVE

[red cat]

Yes, in rural India and rural Nepal, what we have is small-scale ownership, middle-scale ownership, large-scale-ownership and a rural proletariat that owns no land. This is a feature of capitalism.

How does it make proletarians out of the land-owning peasants though ? And what exactly is a feature of capitalism ? The peasantry ?



Yes, the former slaves either became landless rural proletarians or they entered into sharecropping relationships where they worked land that was not theirs, surrendering a major portion of the crop to the owners. This was, as under slavery itself, production of cash crops, cotton, tobacco, etc., for the market.

RED DAVE

What percentage of the population became landless rural proletarians ?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Reads more like a chimera with no relation to the real world to me.

Who is more likely to take immediate political action (not necessarily "social transformation") in the Third World? The trade union bureaucrats, or the peasant (or urban petit-bourgeois) inclined towards people's war or guerrilla action? :rolleyes:

[RED DAVE]

Who is more likely to take immediate political action (not necessarily "social transformation") in the Third World? The trade union bureaucrats, or the peasant (or urban petit-bourgeois) inclined towards people's war or guerrilla action? :rolleyes:This is not the issue for Marxists. The issue is: which class is to become the leading class of the revolution? The answer for Marxists must always be the working class. Any other answer, is some kind of "Opposing Ideology." The classes which may ally themselves with the working class, the peasantry of portions of the petit-bourgeoisie, are another issue.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

How does [capitalism] make proletarians out of the land-owning peasants though ?By not permitting them to own land.


And what exactly is a feature of capitalism ? The peasantry ?Ownership of land as a commodity, as opposed to land as a nonalienable inheritance, is a feature of capitalism. When we refer to the peasantry as a class of, basically, small farmers, we are talking about a feature of capitalism, yes.


What percentage of the population became landless rural proletarians ?I couldn't tell you the percentage. The crucial point is that after the American Civil War, a class of tenant farmers, who did not own their land but worked it, and a class of landless rural workers, was created. There were very few ex-slave families who actually owned the land they worked.

The social system created in the American South after the Civil War was a capitalist system involving the production of crops for market. The difference between this and the slave system is that a class of black rural laborers was created; a class of black tenant farmers was created; and a very small class of black small farmers was created. None of this had anything to do with feudalism.

Properly speaking, feudalism never existed in North America. (There were a few minor exceptions.)

RED DAVE

[red cat]

By not permitting them to own land.

Ownership of land as a commodity, as opposed to land as a nonalienable inheritance, is a feature of capitalism. When we refer to the peasantry as a class of, basically, small farmers, we are talking about a feature of capitalism, yes.

No. Ownership of something other than labour power that is so crucial to production can in no way be a characteristic of any proletarian.


I couldn't tell you the percentage. The crucial point is that after the American Civil War, a class of tenant farmers, who did not own their land but worked it, and a class of landless rural workers, was created. There were very few ex-slave families who actually owned the land they worked.

The social system created in the American South after the Civil War was a capitalist system involving the production of crops for market. The difference between this and the slave system is that a class of black rural laborers was created; a class of black tenant farmers was created; and a very small class of black small farmers was created. None of this had anything to do with feudalism.

Properly speaking, feudalism never existed in North America. (There were a few minor exceptions.)

RED DAVE

What were these exceptions ?

And were the landless labourers free to choose their employers ?

[S.Artesian]

But it is ownership nevertheless, as opposed to a proletarian owning no part of the means of production other than his labour power.

I will have to think about this. Did any qualitative change happen in southern US after that period ?

Right-- sure it's "ownership." So what. It's how a rural labor force is oppressed, exploited, and maintained within certain forms of capitalism, as in the hacienda systems, the plantation systems.

As for the post-Civil War US south-- what do you mean by qualitative change? Slavery was abolished. As soon as the civil was was over, the "redemptionists," the plantation class, tried to compel, by force, by terror, and by "contract" back to the plantation.

Both of those things are pretty darn qualitative.

At first, when Southern planters sought to "induce" the freedmen through rent, tenant, or share-cropping agreements the terrorist arm of the redemptionist movement-- KKK--etc attacked those Southern landowners for renting, leasing, etc. agreements with the African-Americans.

Then the "tide" turned-- after the attempts of the freed men and women to act as an organized labor force, and not being bound to multi-year contracts to provide labor to the planters, were shattered by the terrorists; after the demands for land were rebuffed by the white Republicans controlling the Reconstruction governments-- then "renting" land, share-cropper and tenant "agreements" were seen as maintaining the African-Americans as a permanent "reserve army" for the required seasonal labor, and tethering them to the land with responsibility for their own subsistence through debt, purchases of materials etc. from the planters.

Sounds qualitative to me.

So does that amount to the replacement of slavery by "feudalism," by "semi-feudalism," or is rather a case of capitalism, since the cotton was produced for the world markets, for exchange, working through, and adapting an "archaic" form to its most modern mode?

You make the call.

[red cat]

Right-- sure it's "ownership." So what. It's how a rural labor force is oppressed, exploited, and maintained within certain forms of capitalism, as in the hacienda systems, the plantation systems.

But if it is ownership then the proletariat does not fit into the traditional Marxist definition.



As for the post-Civil War US south-- what do you mean by qualitative change? Slavery was abolished. As soon as the civil was was over, the "redemptionists," the plantation class, tried to compel, by force, by terror, and by "contract" back to the plantation.

Both of those things are pretty darn qualitative.

At first, when Southern planters sought to "induce" the freedmen through rent, tenant, or share-cropping agreements the terrorist arm of the redemptionist movement-- KKK--etc attacked those Southern landowners for renting, leasing, etc. agreements with the African-Americans.

Then the "tide" turned-- after the attempts of the freed men and women to act as an organized labor force, and not being bound to multi-year contracts to provide labor to the planters, were shattered by the terrorists; after the demands for land were rebuffed by the white Republicans controlling the Reconstruction governments-- then "renting" land, share-cropper and tenant "agreements" were seen as maintaining the African-Americans as a permanent "reserve army" for the required seasonal labor, and tethering them to the land with responsibility for their own subsistence through debt, purchases of materials etc. from the planters.

Sounds qualitative to me.

So does that amount to the replacement of slavery by "feudalism," by "semi-feudalism," or is rather a case of capitalism, since the cotton was produced for the world markets, for exchange, working through, and adapting an "archaic" form to its most modern mode?

You make the call.

Dave says that very few ex-slaves owned land. Can you tell me the percentage of the population that was landless labourers ? And could they choose their employers ?

[S.Artesian]

No. Ownership of something other than labour power that is so crucial to production can in no way be a characteristic of any proletarian.

You are wrong, and on two counts: 1) the issue isn't if ownership of something other than labor power in this case can be characteristic of any proletarian, the issue is whether this "ownership" of land is characteristic of capitalism, as opposed to feudalism and 2) of course ownership of small plots can be characteristic of a rural proletariat-- more than characteristic, it is a characteristic of hacienda, plantation, manor systems producing as units of capitalism.

Look at the history of the sugar plantations in the Philippines, corn production on the haciendas of Mexico. In fact, such rural capitalism, and proletarianization of land-owning labor even takes place with land being owned in common by the rural laborers. Look for example at the "symbiosis" that existed simultaneously with the conflicts between the ejido system imposed on the indigenous pueblos and the hacienda system in Mexico

[RED DAVE]

No. Ownership of something other than labour power that is so crucial to production can in no way be a characteristic of any proletarian.You are being far too rigid. In many rural areas of the world, small farmers must hire themselves out as laborers to supplement their incomes. Likewise, many workers have microbusinesses to supplement their incomes.


What were these exceptions ?There were a few rural areas prior to the American Revolution when a form of feudal entailage was practiced, but it was mainly a historic curiosity and not the main feature of the American system before and after the revolution, which was capitalist in agriculture and early forms of industrial production.


And were the landless labourers free to choose their employers ?Yes and no. Yes, theoretically and legally. But often no because of terrorism practiced by the emploers or because of accumulated debt. But under no circumstances were the conditions feudal. Any laborer could, for example, legally leave an area and resettle. Millions did so.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Dave says that very few ex-slaves owned land. Can you tell me the percentage of the population that was landless labourers ? And could they choose their employers ?

I don't know how many owned land independently of being tenants, or share-croppers. Obtaining land by African-Americans under the Homestead Acts was never an easy, widespread, or very "safe" process in the post-civil war South.

Most of the land occupancy by African-Americans was "contract" based-- as tenants, or share-croppers.

But again so what?

Ownership or non-ownership is not the determination of capitalist vs. feudal vs proletarian agricultural labor. We get variations on these themes, but nothing changes the fact that the dominant mode of production working through these variations is capitalist appropriation of value.

The plantation owners, hacendados are not aggrandizing surplus product as surplus product from the tenants or sharecroppers, they are aggrandizing the product as value, they are aggrandizing surplus labor as value for realization in exchange, in the markets.

During the agricultural revolution in England, 1750-1850, the classic capitalist relationship to the land was embodied in the relationship of the tenants on the landlords' lands. The capitalist tenant-farmers did not own their lands-- they had rights to their lands that were near equivalents to ownership, but they didn't actually own the land.

Yeoman farmers from the 17th century on, did own their own lands, and as commoners are the English equivalent of an actual peasantry. Yeoman farming was not feudal.

Indigenous pueblos in Mexico did own their lands-- their commons, their ejidos-- but the actual relationship to the hacendados was not feudal, as much as the hacendados wanted to act, and did strut about as lords of the manor.

Could the African-American sharecroppers and tenants "choose" their "relationships"? Yeah, sure, like the inverse of what Henry Ford said about Americans having their Model Ts in different colors: "They can have any color they want as long as it's black." Here it was "They can have any employer they want as long as it's white." This meant no choice. The real content of this was the obligation by "contract," debt, privation, and terrorism to remain tethered to the land at subsistence or below subsistence levels to work for the plantation owner as a simultaneous labor army and reserve army of the unemployed.

So the question remains: do you think the imposition of share-cropping, tenant relationships on the freed African-Americans after and even during Reconstruction, relations maintained by extra-economic means-- force, terror, peonage-- represents the establishment of feudalism in the South?

[S.Artesian]

You are being far too rigid. In many rural areas of the world, small farmers must hire themselves out as laborers to supplement their incomes. Likewise, many workers have microbusinesses to supplement their incomes.

Indeed. And not just "underdeveloped" rural areas, most farmers in the US today garner, I think [doing this from memory], more than half their income from non-farm sources.

[S.Artesian]

But if it is ownership then the proletariat does not fit into the traditional Marxist definition.

The issue isn't if the rural producers exemplify the strict, rigid, "definition" of the proletariat, which definition is constantly mediated by the actual historical development of economic relations, the issue is if the relations that do exist represent a feudalism that means capitalism must be developed, or if those relations are the deformed expression of a system that has adapted to the already existing world dominance of capitalism.

In the example you offered of the indigo producers, it is clearly and transparently the latter.

On the one hand, Maoists argue that the "traditional" Marxist analysis and categories are too rigid, not flexible enough, Eurocentric, and don't account for the "feudalism" or the "semi-feudalism" of Asia, 3rd world countries etc.

When it's pointed out how capitalism, unable to revolutionize those pre-existing relations of production completely in its own "ideal image" due to its necessary reliance on private property, works through them, absorbs them into the network of exchange, adapts itself to them [often by forming commercial and family ties with landowners], we get the response "But that's not the traditional definition provided by Marxism."

OK, it isn't the classical definition, but it is the material content of capitalist appropriation. It's what we get with uneven and combined development.

[kasama-rl]

Above it is said:

"he crucial point is that after the American Civil War, a class of tenant farmers, who did not own their land but worked it, and a class of landless rural workers, was created. There were very few ex-slave families who actually owned the land they worked.

The social system created in the American South after the Civil War was a capitalist system involving the production of crops for market. The difference between this and the slave system is that a class of black rural laborers was created; a class of black tenant farmers was created; and a very small class of black small farmers was created. None of this had anything to do with feudalism."

This is mistaken. The sharecropper system in the south was precisely a form of American feudalism. A slavery system (based on the ownership of slaves) was converted to a feudal system (based on ownership of land and sharecropping.)

Many of the traditional markings of feudalism emerged: laws that prevented the free movement of labor, violent feudal gangs led by landowners terrorizing the Black peasant sharecroppers, exploitation in the form of dividing harvest and seizing much of it as rent (and for debts), castelike social relations (white supremacy).

The fact that the commodity (cotton, sugar cane whatever) was often sold on a commodity market (includng a world market) does not change the fact that the production mode is feudal not capitalist. This is not wage labor, not the sale of labor power, not payment in wages, not free movement of proletarians -- it is feudal labor, complete with black codes and payment by seizure of harvests.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is not the issue for Marxists. The issue is: which class is to become the leading class of the revolution? The answer for Marxists must always be the working class. Any other answer, is some kind of "Opposing Ideology." The classes which may ally themselves with the working class, the peasantry of portions of the petit-bourgeoisie, are another issue.

RED DAVE

Au contraire, since every class struggle is political not economic, you've gotta have political consciousness first. Only from there can stem class consciousness. Class consciousness does not stem from labour consciousness. Also, "socialist" consciousness isn't class consciousness, either.

Almost like with “socialist consciousness,” political consciousness generally comes from outside any class movement, but again the question is: How much political consciousness can come from inside the class as a whole, and how much must come from the outside?

[Read: "from the outside the [working] class" in a Third World context very likely means "the peasant (or urban petit-bourgeois) inclined towards people's war or guerrilla action."]

Anyway, have fun trying to put Lenin, Kautsky, and "Late Marx" in an "Opposing Ideology."

[S.Artesian]

Blacks did not own the land. Neither ownership, nor tenancy exclusively defines feudal peasant relations. Both types of relations exist under both feudalism and capitalism.

But this is a remarkable historical moment you are positing-- Northern capitalism, the national bourgeoisie breaks through the restrictions of the slave economy, mounts what many think is the real American revolution in the Civil War, only to create a feudal class and feudal agricultural production-- feudal agricultural production for the world markets.

We have, what appears to be history rewinding itself backwards-- capitalism and in 1873 creating feudalism-- a national bourgeoisie necessary, so we are told, to the destruction of feudalism throughout the world, now creating that archaic class. That's one world-historical back flip that we need to look at.

So then, more than a century ago when the bourgeoisie are revolutionary, we get the revolutionary bourgeoisie establishing feudalism. Now 140 years later, we have a non-revolutionary bourgeoisie necessary to the destruction of feudalism. What a world.

At one and the same time, we get another iteration of feudalism in Asia, and in current Asia, isn't feudalism as Marx knew it because that's Eurocentric and rigid, but feudalism in the post-Reconstruction South is feudalism as Marx knew it because of the exact rigidity dismissed in the case of Asia.

If the production mode is "feudal," which IMO it most definitely is not because what is being aggrandized is not surplus product as product, but surplus product as value, as value yielding, with the wage-- in the form of housing, seed, implements, vittles-- being reduced by the sharecroppers own subsistence production, with that wage being reclaimed through the costs of the seed, implements etc., with that wage being further compressed by debt-- anyway if the production mode is feudal then I presume you would argue that an alliance with the bourgeoisie was necessary to eliminate that feudalism in the South. Is that correct? If not, why not?

Of course we could ask the same thing about the haciendas and plantations in Mexico in the revolution of 1910, or the plantations in the Philippines. I think I will.

[RED DAVE]

The crucial point is that after the American Civil War, a class of tenant farmers, who did not own their land but worked it, and a class of landless rural workers, was created. There were very few ex-slave families who actually owned the land they worked.

The social system created in the American South after the Civil War was a capitalist system involving the production of crops for market. The difference between this and the slave system is that a class of black rural laborers was created; a class of black tenant farmers was created; and a very small class of black small farmers was created. None of this had anything to do with feudalism.
This is mistaken.Oh really?


The sharecropper system in the south was precisely a form of American feudalism. A slavery system (based on the ownership of slaves) was converted to a feudal system (based on ownership of land and sharecropping.)Funny that W.E.B. DuBois, the great Black writer who wrote precisely on this period in his book Black Reconstruction, didn't think so. He details in his book the tremendous struggle of black workers and farmers against the tyranny imposed on them by a capitalist goverment.

Funny that Marx, who wrote a running commentary on the American Civil War, never noticed that aftert the war feudalism was re-established by capitalism. Comrade, you don't know what feudalism is.


Many of the traditional markings of feudalism emerged: laws that prevented the free movement of labor, violent feudal gangs led by landowners terrorizing the Black peasant sharecroppers, exploitation in the form of dividing harvest and seizing much of it as rent (and for debts), castelike social relations (white supremacy).Allk of these are traditional markings of repression. What is completely absent is the feudal mode of production. If you don't understand the difference between the rural South in 1900 and France in 1400, you don't understand history.


The fact that the commodity (cotton, sugar cane whatever) was often sold on a commodity market (includng a world market)No, Comrade, it was always sold. The crops of the South: cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, etc., were always produced and sold as commodities.


does not change the fact that the production mode is feudal not capitalist.It is obvious that you don't know what you are talking about,


This is not wage labor, not the sale of labor power, not payment in wages, not free movement of proletarians -- it is feudal labor, complete with black codes and payment by seizure of harvests.First of all, after the fall of slavery, there was extensive wage labor. This system was supplemented by a subsidiary system of tenant farming. The purpose of this system was production of commodities for a market. This is in direct contradiction to slavery. You are confusing the political forms, which capitalism can to a certain extent borrow from feudalism (including, for instance, kings), with the mode of production, which is completely different.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

To bring all this back to somewhere in the vicinity of the OP, which is Nepal, the substance of the debate is whether or not the Maoists are justified in making an alliance with a portion of the bourgeoisie to bring capitalism to Nepal.

Marxists call this class collaboration and point to China, Vietnam and now Cuba to demonstrate the result of this anti-working class policy: state capitalism leading to private capitalism.

Maoists retort that industrial development is necessary to build up the country and the working class preparatory to socialism. In Nepal, the Maoists openly advocate capitalism.

Marxists point out that this is precisely what Lenin did not do. Maoists say that what Lenin did in Russia is irrelevant.

The basic Maoist justification is that under-developed countries are "semi-feudal" and therefore an alliance with capitalists is necessary to end this feudalism. "Semi-feudal" is their term for such countries where feudal remnants may in fact exist (but they are enlisted by capitalism for the market).

To justify this nonsense, the meaning of feudalism is distorted as where Comrade kasama-rl is forced to claim that after destroying slavery in the South, US capitalism instituted feudalism!

RED DAVE

[Gustav HK]

As I know Albania in 1944 was even more backwards than Nepal is now, but the communists didn´t start a program of building capitalism (private or state), they moved directly to constructing socialism.

Real marxist-leninists in Nepal (if there are anybody) should begin to agitate for a socialist-proletarian revolution, while they make sure, that the national-democratic revolution is made to the end (crushing of the comprador and semi-comprador national bourgeoisie).

They should not build a "Chinese wall" between the two stages.

[Homo Songun]

I find the resistance to the possibility of a semi-feudal mode of production on the part of the state-cappers here fascinating in light of the fact that Tony Cliff himself seemed to have no problem with the concept.

As pointed out by myself and others elsewhere, Maoists describe "semi-feudal, semi-colonial" as a state of affairs in which international finance capital impinges on the normal economic development of periphery countries via the exploitation of pre-existing rural relationships to the means of production. In other words,


There are two basic factors operating in the Egyptian economy: (a) the agrarian Egyptian economy is predominantly feudal; (b) it is a “hinterland” for British industry. Had the Egyptian economy been feudal but not served as “hinterland” for the Lancashire industry, then its crisis would not have been so acute, as the foundations of naturalness [autarky] (self-sufficiency) would have been much more robust and price fluctuations on the world market would not have such a big effect. And had the Egyptian economy been a “hinterland” for the English textile industry but had not been feudal, then too the crisis would not have been so acute, because intensification and mechanization would have improved its position in the world market and it would have maintained a minimum of profitability despite the world crisis; or the Egyptian agrarian economy would have turned very rapidly to other crops. All the manifestations of the agricultural crisis in Egypt are born of the ties between the backward-feudal Egyptian economy on the one hand and the advanced-capitalist English economy on the other. For instance, the high interest rate on loans extended to fellahin arises from two facts: a feudal system of ownership on the one hand (which increases the risk in loans and increases the burden on the fellahin), and the concentration of loan capital (which is a consequence of the developed capitalist English economy) on the other hand.

and


Arab economy is for the most part feudal. Even its capitalist elements are to a considerable extent tied up with the feudal mode of exploitation (usury) or are feudal in origin, functioning both as landlord and capitalist. Alongside of this development has arisen a new stratum, the intellectuals who are connected with the upper classes (free professions, government officials). For the present it is these upper classes that exercise a dominant influence over the Arab masses. It is capitalist development in Palestine as well as English imperialist oppression of the Arab people which created the conditions for the rise of the Arab nationalist movement under the present leadership of the feudal and semi-capitalist system.

and


The industry that developed in Egypt is mainly an import from abroad. Not only were the machines imported, but also the capital, and just as the technique of Egyptian industry is the last word in ultra-modernity, so too is its organisation ultra-modern.

... And this ultra-modernity is based on an agrarian, barbaric economy, from which it draws its strength and weakness alike.

... Foreign capital has a far-reaching influence in all spheres of the economy. In its hands are the key positions of all the branches – transport, electricity, water, industry, agricultural mortgage, etc. It is also the most concentrated capital, and it draws into its orbit local Egyptian capital too. As it takes a great part of the surplus value created by the fellaheen and workers, it retards the accumulation of capital in Egypt, shrinks the purchasing power of the masses, and by these two actions prevents the materialisation of the two basic conditions for any energetic industrialisation – the accumulation of capital and the widening of markets. Being bound up with great landed property, it constitutes an important support of the existing relations of land property, of the feudal system.

... The urgent problem confronting Egyptian industry of extending its markets can therefore not be solved except by raising the power of the masses of agriculturists to buy means of consumption and means of production, which means the emancipation of the fellaheen from their feudal burdens, and the rapid advance of the forces of production in agriculture. The extension of markets for Egyptian industry demands also the abolition of the monopolistic position of foreign capital in the national economy. Thus the widening of internal markets demands a struggle against feudalism and imperialism.

and


The power mainly responsible for communal clashes is British imperialism. It is she, who is responsible for the preservation of feudalism, which is the social background for the influence of religion on the masses. It is she who is responsible for the introduction about a century ago and preservation of the zamindar system, whereby permanent large landowners were put to lord over big estates in place of the former system of tax farmers.


And so on. Note the dates. Cliff was writing well after the definitive rise of the imperialist epoch, generally pegged to be around the close of the 19th century.

So either the state-cappers find themselves disagreeing with Cliff (which would ironically put him in the same camp as the Maoists), or else some profound change in the global capitalist system has happened since he wrote those words, along the lines of the transition from "progressive" capitalism to imperialism at least. Further, if there has been some profound change in the capitalist system, then it falls on Red Dave's gang to explain what they think it is, and moreover why it has uniformly happened all over the world at the same time, in contradistinction to all prior social development in the world thus far.

[kasama-rl]

"But this is a remarkable historical moment you are positing-- Northern capitalism, the national bourgeoisie breaks through the restrictions of the slave economy, mounts what many think is the real American revolution in the Civil War, only to create a feudal class and feudal agricultural production-- feudal agricultural production for the world markets."

Yup, this is exactly what happened.

Only it was not as if the bourgeoisie created feudalism -- they withdrew the federal troops from the Deep South (after the Hayes Tilden agreement) and allowed the plantation owners to reconsolidate political power (and with it a new system of semifeudal agriculture).

And so, there was a bourgeois democratic revolutionary war against slavery -- that ended slavery and emancipated the slaves. Then the slaves were betrayed by the northern bourgeosie (represented by Hayes), and the unity of the ruling classes was restored in the form of an acceptance of the transition from slavery to feudalism.

Tenant farming and sharecropping are the American forms of feudal agriculture -- enforced by the color line and Jim Crow.

There are other controversies:

Red Dave claims that all products were sold as commodities (not just most). But that is simply and obviously wrong. Many farms were raising produce for consumption that never entered commodity exchange (obviously).

More to the point: the fact that products enter commodity exchange does not make the mode of production capitalist. Lots of production was for commodity exchange before capitalism emerged (including in the Roman slave times, and so on...)

The mode of exchange (commodity exchange) does not define the mode of production -- which in the U.S. south was largely dominated by slavery before the civil war, and by semi-feudal agriculture after the betrayal of reconstruction.

One other point: the analysis of WEB Dubois is raised. His book on Reconstruction was very important and a major accomplishment -- but his analysis of classes and modes of production are deeply flawed and incorrect.

[red cat]

Red Dave claims that all products were sold as commodities (not just most). But that is simply and obviously wrong. Many farms were raising produce for consumption that never entered commodity exchange (obviously).


A question on this topic. Other posters have been arguing that if most of the products are sold as commodities even if it might be at the topmost level, then the underlying system should be identified as capitalism. Do you think it is true ?

For example, consider a system where peasants are forced to grow some cash crops on their lands, and forced to give them away at any price a particular buyer offers. The cash crops then might enter the market and follow its laws. I have the following points in mind :

1) In such a system, if the above mentioned mode of production becomes the major one from being a minor one, then that transition is quantitative, not qualitative. So if it is capitalism, then it was capitalism throughout.

2) The products are a part of a multi-layered system, in which they are not commodities at the primary level. Therefore labour power cannot be considered as a commodity. Lenin had defined capitalism as a stage of commodity production where labour power itself becomes a commodity.

In short, I think we cannot identify a system as capitalism if the production at its basic level relies on feudal political and military power instead of the market forces.

[RED DAVE]

But this is a remarkable historical moment you are positing-- Northern capitalism, the national bourgeoisie breaks through the restrictions of the slave economy, mounts what many think is the real American revolution in the Civil War, only to create a feudal class and feudal agricultural production-- feudal agricultural production for the world markets.
Yup, this is exactly what happened.You've got to be kidding. What you are saying is that the bourgeoisie, having destroyed slavery, permitted the creation of feudalism. Have you ever consider a career as a standup comic?


Only it was not as if the bourgeoisie created feudalism -- they withdrew the federal troops from the Deep South (after the Hayes Tilden agreement) and allowed the plantation owners to reconsolidate political power (and with it a new system of semifeudal agriculture).One more time: there is no such social system as "semieudalism." You are distorting history (which is no big stretch for a Maoist).


And so, there was a bourgeois democratic revolutionary war against slavery -- that ended slavery and emancipated the slaves.Correct.


Then the slaves were betrayed by the northern bourgeosie (represented by Hayes), and the unity of the ruling classes was restoredCorrect.


in the form of an acceptance of the transition from slavery to feudalism.Bullshit.


Tenant farming and sharecropping are the American forms of feudal agriculture -- enforced by the color line and Jim Crow.Congratulations! You have invented a new interprettion of the post-Reconstruction South: feudalism. Now, if you'll just find a hereditary aristocarcy, a king would be nice too, entailage, and, most important, what you will have to show is that the primary mode of production was for consumption and display and not for sale.

And, by the way, it would be nice if you found some scholars, especially leftist scholars, who concur with your view.


There are other controversies:Do tell.


Red Dave claims that all products were sold as commodities (not just most). But that is simply and obviously wrong. Many farms were raising produce for consumption that never entered commodity exchange (obviously).Just a plain, ordinary lie. I have constant referred to the predominant mode of production, which was production of agricultural commodities for sale. Obviously, there was a certain amount of subsistence forming, etc.


More to the point: the fact that products enter commodity exchange does not make the mode of production capitalist. Lots of production was for commodity exchange before capitalism emerged (including in the Roman slave times, and so on...)All true. However, we are dealing, as Marxists, with the predominant mode of production, which is the South, post-Reconstruction, was capitalist.


The mode of exchange (commodity exchange) does not define the mode of production -- which in the U.S. south was largely dominated by slavery before the civil war, and by semi-feudal agriculture after the betrayal of reconstruction.(1) The mode of exchange and the mode of production are in dialectical relationship.

(2) In the South before the Civil War, there existed the anamoly of slavery employed in capitalist production.

(3) After the Civil War, the South was typified by plantation farming, tenant farming, small holdings, agricultural labor, even industrial labor.



One other point: the analysis of WEB Dubois is raised. His book on Reconstruction was very important and a major accomplishment -- but his analysis of classes and modes of production are deeply flawed and incorrect.So say you. In any event, please show us that one of the critics of DuBois positied that that the post-Reconstruction South was feudal.

Please remember, everyone, that all this bullshit about semifeudalism, in China, Nepal, and now the American South in the late 19th Century, is for the purpose of justifying the class collaboration being practiced by the Nepali Maoists.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

"But this is a remarkable historical moment you are positing-- Northern capitalism, the national bourgeoisie breaks through the restrictions of the slave economy, mounts what many think is the real American revolution in the Civil War, only to create a feudal class and feudal agricultural production-- feudal agricultural production for the world markets."

Yup, this is exactly what happened.


Nope, that's not what happened and we will see why and how.


Only it was not as if the bourgeoisie created feudalism -- they withdrew the federal troops from the Deep South (after the Hayes Tilden agreement) and allowed the plantation owners to reconsolidate political power (and with it a new system of semifeudal agriculture).


Sorry, we need to look a little bit more closely at the actual history of Reconstruction. And if you do that you see that in the period of "presidential reconstruction" under Andrew Johnson, the former slaveholders are being "reconstituted" by the Johnson and his supporters.

In the next phase, 1867-1872 [app] we have Congressional Reconstruction, the much more radical manifestation, with the reluctance still on the part of the Reconstructionists to expropriate landed property and distribute it to the freed men and women.

More than that, the indefatigable Tom Scott, he of the Pennsylvania RR, he who performed incredibly in moving the divsions of the Army of the Potomac west from the Potomac to Tennessee by rail, in 7 days, to relieve Rosencrans and begin the end to the Confederacy as Sherman and Grant are quick to grasp and use the superior logistical support of the railroads to execute their "meat grinder" strategy, now shifts iron ponies so to speak and starts to cut deals with the Redemptionists, and undercutting the Reconstruction governments in order to build his dreamed of Southern network of railroads. Scott will work in the South, and in Congress to undermine the Reconstruction governments and secure the restoration of "rights" to the secessionists.

Almost as soon as Grant wins reelection in 1872, support for Reconstruction, particularly by Grant's Attorney General disappears.

Capitalism restores the plantation class as part and parcel of itself as payment for services rendered, which is the rendering of black labor to build railroads and bale cotton.

This is way before the withdrawal of the troops in which Scott again plays a key role, being the bagman for the South and Hayes, delivering the final congressional votes that decide the election for Hayes in exchange for.. removal of the troops, sure, and one more thing: US govt bailout of his bankrupt Texas and Pacific RR through the purchase of about $30 million in its bonds by the govt. There is the alliance of North and South, the unity in the expropriation of labor, the integration of planter and industrial capitalism. I love it when history ties things up with a big green bow.

Of course, after that Hayes removes the troops from Klan country and sets the troops against striking railroad workers-- after the ever-present Scott argues that Hayes should respond to the workers complaints of hunger by "giving them a lead diet."


And so, there was a bourgeois democratic revolutionary war against slavery -- that ended slavery and emancipated the slaves. Then the slaves were betrayed by the northern bourgeosie (represented by Hayes), and the unity of the ruling classes was restored in the form of an acceptance of the transition from slavery to feudalism.

Tenant farming and sharecropping are the American forms of feudal agriculture -- enforced by the color line and Jim Crow.


If tenant farming and sharecropping existed in isolation from American capitalism, did not produce for capitalism, you're argument might be correct. But wishes aint horses and ifs can't fly. Because it does exist within capitalism, is supported by, and supports in turn capitalism [as slavery in fact supported capitalism], its products are commodities, and its labor is expressed as value.

Marx has a very striking paragraph in Volume 2 when he identifies this process:


In the circulation section M — C, in the epoch of the already developed and hence prevailing capitalist mode of production, a large portion of the commodities composing MP, the means of production, is itself functioning as the commodity-capital of someone else. From the standpoint of the seller, therefore, C' — M', the transformation of commodity-capital into money-capital, takes place. But this is not an absolute rule. On the contrary. Within its process of circulation, in which industrial capital functions either as money or as commodities, the circuit of industrial capital, whether as money-capital or as commodity-capital, crosses the commodity circulation of the most diverse modes of social production, so far as they produce commodities. No matter whether commodities are the output of production based on slavery, of peasants (Chinese, Indian ryots). of communes (Dutch East Indies), of state enterprise (such as existed in former epochs of Russian history on the basis of serfdom) or of half-savage hunting tribes, etc. — as commodities and money they come face to face with the money and commodities in which the industrial capital presents itself and enter as much into its circuit as into that of the surplus-value borne in the commodity-capital, provided the surplus-value is spent as revenue; hence they enter in both branches of circulation of commodity-capital. The character of the process of production from which they originate is immaterial. They function as commodities in the market, and as commodities they enter into the circuit of industrial capital as well as into the circulation of the surplus-value incorporated in it. It is therefore the universal character of the origin of the commodities, the existence of the market as world-market, which distinguishes the process of circulation of industrial capital. [pdf version from Marxist Internet Archive, p 63]



There are other controversies:

Red Dave claims that all products were sold as commodities (not just most). But that is simply and obviously wrong. Many farms were raising produce for consumption that never entered commodity exchange (obviously).

More to the point: the fact that products enter commodity exchange does not make the mode of production capitalist. Lots of production was for commodity exchange before capitalism emerged (including in the Roman slave times, and so on...)


So as with the products of labor, so too the labor itself. It is integrate, becomes part of the general domination of wage-labor by capital, even at lower, dramatically lower rates of the organic composition of capital.


The mode of exchange (commodity exchange) does not define the mode of production -- which in the U.S. south was largely dominated by slavery before the civil war, and by semi-feudal agriculture after the betrayal of reconstruction.


No, but the mode of production, capitalism, does dominate and define the entire mode of exchange, giving the commodity production in the South the inextricable connection to the reproduction of capital as a whole.

Referring to the South as feudalist is as absurd as referring to the hacendados in 1910 as feudalists. Or Junkers in Bismarck's Prussia as feudalists. Capitalism has established itself as the dominant mode of production. There will no longer be any revolution after 1873 against "feudalism" that will not threaten the bourgeoisie. There will be no revolution against "feudalism" that can be successful by pretending, or believing, it is "emancipating capitalism."

Again, you argue for flexibility, and "variation," when it suits you, and rigidity and orthodoxy it doesn't , without ever integrating all these aspects as the conflicted totality of capitalism.

[S.Artesian]

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a "state capper." But I believe Maoists are, are they not, regarding the fSU?

[fatboy]

Nepali Maoists are going through what is known as the New Democracy stage of Maoism(If you don't know what New Democracy is go look it up). It is great for transitioning from a feudal society into socialism but if not implemented with care you get the capitalistic hell hole that is modern day China.

[RED DAVE]

Nepali Maoists are going through what is known as the New Democracy stage of Maoism(If you don't know what New Democracy is go look it up). It is great for transitioning from a feudal society into socialism but if not implemented with care you get the capitalistic hell hole that is modern day China.This has been discussed over and over. It is the belief of many comrades around here who are not Maoists that, in effect, so-called New Democracy is a sham and is, basically, a cover for state and private capitalism.

The ongoing actions of the Nepali Maoists would seem to demonstrate amply that this is true. They are engaged in coalition politics with bourgeois parties; they have led a bourgeois government and, if my interpretation of the press is accurate, they are dissolving their independent fighting force into the bourgeois army.

RED DAVE

[fatboy]

This has been discussed over and over. It is the belief of many comrades around here who are not Maoists that, in effect, so-called New Democracy is a sham and is, basically, a cover for state and private capitalism.

The ongoing actions of the Nepali Maoists would seem to demonstrate amply that this is true. They are engaged in coalition politics with bourgeois parties; they have led a bourgeois government and, if my interpretation of the press is accurate, they are dissolving their independent fighting force into the bourgeois army.


That is why is said if not done correctly it will in fact lead to a bourgeois private or state capitalist country. Lenin's NEP is a great example of New Democracy being used correctly (Although the term was not coined yet). It a interim measure designed to modernize a backwards country so socialism can actually be implemented. Unfortunately it backfired in China after Mao's death as the right wing in the party implemented full scale capitalism in the country and you see the terrible place it is today.

[S.Artesian]

That is why is said if not done correctly it will in fact lead to a bourgeois private or state capitalist country. Lenin's NEP is a great example of New Democracy being used correctly (Although the term was not coined yet). It a interim measure designed to modernize a backwards country so socialism can actually be implemented. Unfortunately it backfired in China after Mao's death as the right wing in the party implemented full scale capitalism in the country and you see the terrible place it is today.

The NEP neither represented an alliance with a "national bourgeoisie" nor did it precipitate "industrialization" or a "transition from feudalism." The NEP did not modern Russia, and no socialism was implemented. The national bourgeoisie had been expropriated and extinguished where it had not fled.

Have you actually read what the content of the NEP was?

[S.Artesian]

Just a brief return to an old point:


This is mistaken. The sharecropper system in the south was precisely a form of American feudalism. A slavery system (based on the ownership of slaves) was converted to a feudal system (based on ownership of land and sharecropping.)

If you explore the actual relations of black sharecroppers to the landowners, it was often a wage-relationship. In Tennessee, sharecropper were initially classified as agricultural laborers based on the wage-relationship-- but that raised a bit of a fuss with the landowners who were worried about tenant unions spreading into the state to organized the laborers; and labor protections that might be enacted to protect the rights of laborers to wages, redress, etc.

[fatboy]

The NEP neither represented an alliance with a "national bourgeoisie" nor did it precipitate "industrialization" or a "transition from feudalism." The NEP did not modern Russia, and no socialism was implemented. The national bourgeoisie had been expropriated and extinguished where it had not fled.

Have you actually read what the content of the NEP was?
Why yes i have. We can go back and forth but I doubt we will change each others minds.

[S.Artesian]

OK, so can you point to a national bourgeoisie with ownership of the means of production, whether agricultural industrial who are "made secure" in their appropriation of surplus value?

Can you point to where the NEP qualitatively altered the technological and social basis of production in the fSU?

Is there anything equivalent to the yeomanry of England; the tenant farmers; national industrial capitalist engaging in capitalist accumulation?

Where do we see the "modernization" "industrialization" of Russia under the NEP?

[RED DAVE]

This has been discussed over and over. It is the belief of many comrades around here who are not Maoists that, in effect, so-called New Democracy is a sham and is, basically, a cover for state and private capitalism.

The ongoing actions of the Nepali Maoists would seem to demonstrate amply that this is true. They are engaged in coalition politics with bourgeois parties; they have led a bourgeois government and, if my interpretation of the press is accurate, they are dissolving their independent fighting force into the bourgeois army.
That is why is said if not done correctly it will in fact lead to a bourgeois private or state capitalist country. Lenin's NEP is a great example of New Democracy being used correctly (Although the term was not coined yet). It a interim measure designed to modernize a backwards country so socialism can actually be implemented. Unfortunately it backfired in China after Mao's death as the right wing in the party implemented full scale capitalism in the country and you see the terrible place it is today.This has been discussed before.

The Nepali Maoists are aiding and abetting of capitalism. This is obvious, and they admit it. The is completely different from the temporary, short-term restoration of a market in agricultural products by a regime based in the working class.

The Nepali Maoists have already demonstrated that they are willing to (1) assume the prime ministership of a capitalist government; (2) negotiate with bourgeois parties to establish a bourgeois republic; (3) apparently, they are also willing to dissolve their independent armed force into the bourgeois army. None of this has anything to do with what the Bolsheviks did under the NEP.

RED DAVE