Originally posted by Monty
[email protected] 21 2005, 03:58 AM
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism does not involve a bourgeois revolution
i was never talking about stated aims I was talking about what Leninists and Maoists actually achieve.
I’ll explain a bit further according to Lenin revolutions would take place in underdeveloped countries and spread into advanced capitalists countries that didn’t happen the social-democrats betrayed the German revolution thus destroying any hope of the Russian revolution bring around anything other then a bureaucratic centralists state. This new-bureaucratic class amounts to littlie more then quasi-capitalists class, because the capital is concentrated into the hands of the bureaucratic centralists state development economically is possible (one of the capitalists arguments for concentration of capital into few hands is it allows the owner to undertake bigger projects and thus further develop the countries infrastructure). But once development starts kicking off the bureaucratic ruling class starts to reform the system into a traditional capitalist’s state where they can more easily take the benefits of the proles labour-power. Back in 1936 Trotsky said the USSR would either under go a political revolution from the bottom or a capitalists reformation led by the bureaucracy. Just as the Russian revolution was doomed to fail so was Mao’s revolution because there not developed enough to achieve the first phase of communism and it’s a top heavy engagement, it amounts to a bourgeois revolution.
I wasn't talking strictly about the stated aims of MLM either. I was talking about the objective gains that MLM revolution has won - it is not a bourgeois revolution.
Okay, so proletarian revolution didn't spread into advanced imperialist countries. Therefore (you say) the Russian revolution could not bring anything but a bureaucratic centralist state. This is what people who study logic would call a non sequitur, the fallacy of stating something as a conclusion that does not directly follow from the premise. Is the dictatorship of the proletariat not possible in one country? If you argue yes, then you are effectively saying that revolutions should not happen because they are too premature, and that everyone needs to wait for every country in the world to be in the stage of advanced capitalism to acheive them. Of course, this is impossible in the age of imperialism - imperialist countries keep the oppressed nations in a semi-colonial status, stunting their growth and preventing them from becoming imperialist states in their own right. To answer redstar's arguments that the Maoist revolutions in the oppressed nations are bourgeois in character, I disagree for this same reason: the bourgeoisie cannot ever acheive national liberation in the oppressed nations because it is so bound up with the interests of the foreign imperialists, so it is up to the proletariat and the communist party to lead the masses (peasantry, intellectuals, national bourgeoisie) in a united front first for a new-democratic revolution to overthrow imperialist control, then directly segue to a socialist revolution.
Recall that the "dead and irrelevant" people that you dismiss actually lived and worked in the "west" and thus might have something useful to say about revolutionary struggle where you live.
Maybe in terms of learning from where they were wrong. They could always have pieces of the truth in their writings.
The only "westerner" on your "list" is you-know-who -- who has "not yet inspired the masses", to put it charitably.
And while he may be highly regarded by Maoists in other countries as a theoretician, that is certainly not the case in the U.S. or in the "west" generally.
Can you name a communist who has yet "inspired the masses" in the US? I do think that Maoists in the US and the west generally do regard Avakian as an important theoretician.
Having a leader is not the antithesis of communism.
I'm afraid it is. The general rule seems to be "the bigger the leader, the smaller his followers".
No one will dare take initiative or even think about possible initiatives until the leader "has spoken".
In such an atmosphere, communism as even a theoretical possibility withers and dies.
So Marx wasn't a leader? I thought you claimed to be a Marxist. He seems to be a pretty big leader, and I don't think his followers are small. Do no Marxists take initiative? If we regard Marx as a leader, does communism as a theoretical possibility wither and die?
I think it's great that we have leaders like Avakian, Gonzalo, Prachanda, and Sison today. We should be learning from them, not pretending that by listening to what they have to say, communism will "die."