MIM endorses Osama

[jacobin1949]

Maoist Internationalist Movement
On converting to Islam: the invisible schism in the international communist movement

October 23 2007

41 years ago on October 15 the Black Panther Party founded itself, an important date for MIM's ideology. In a video statement in September,(1) Osama Bin Laden has asked Amerikans to convert to Islam. Recently, Limonov in Russia converted and newspapers report that Al Qaeda linked people are talking about Malcolm X.(2) Malcolm X was the local spiritual inspiration for the Black Panthers, while Mao was the ideological and scientific inspiration. In this essay we will try to place our thoughts about converting to Islam in an accountable way.

The current writer only started studying Islam relatively recently. We have found that we reached Muslim Sultan- Galiyev's conclusions independently from him, mostly from an in-depth examination of the labor theory of value. Sultan-Galiyev was a leader from Lenin's and Stalin's circles.

Stalin and Sultan-Galiyev agreed on the "uneven development" thesis, and over the long haul of history, that has turned out to be more important than the points they disagreed on. Because Stalin eventually repressed Sultan-Galiyev, the sector of the communist movement inspired by Sultan-Galiyev remains unrecognized, unseen by Western eyes. This is especially sad, because recognition of Trotsky's descendants cannot be avoided in the imperialist countries.

The main blame for the split of Stalin and Sultan-Galiyev rested with Stalin, because Stalin did not see the next 75 years and he felt too much pressure from Trotsky--the concentrated expression of an incipient Russian labor aristocracy and already existing Russian settlers moving into Muslim territories. Even if Sultan-Galiyev were guilty of bourgeois nationalist excesses as charged including conspiring with rulers of non-imperialist states, it is always going to be a question of which is worse, errors to the Third World bourgeois side or errors toward the Western labor aristocracy bourgeois side. We hope to have neither error, but that is impossible except in the individual minds of ideologues. Communist movements will always be impure. Like us, Sultan-Galiyev belonged in the "uneven development" camp stressing parasitism.

Now we know that German revolution did not happen and more importantly, the Third World did not become equalized and homogenized as if it were 10 or 20 years behind Germany in economic development. When we speak of dialectics and Stalin now, we refer to "uneven development." Some academic expressions of the same idea have arisen with the idea of "underdevelopment" or "core" and "periphery" concepts. Samir Amin has written most extensively along these lines. Excluding the Russian Revolution, the drive for revolution has existed almost solely in the "periphery" or what Stalin and Sultan-Galiyev referred to as the colonies.

The labor theory of value is the only real explanation for uneven development--imperialist exploitation. With the labor theory of value, we have an explanation of capital accumulation and hence change. Other explanations are usually self-congratulating ahistorical ideologies of Western superiority, including Trotskyism. Entire countries find themselves relegated to the "reserve army of unemployed," such that some countries find it better to be super-exploited than unemployed. Wealth and wealth- producing politics end up sucked out of the Third World by imperialism; thus, "uneven development" happens. The Trotskyist theory was that imperialist global expansion would bring advance to the Third World, until the West and colonies became "level" with each other. The dynamic element in Trotskyism is the advance of the Western working class in organization and technical skill with growth of the productive forces. In contrast, with MIM and Sultan- Galiyev, the dynamic element is that capital accumulation in the West extends to the so-called workers to bourgeoisify them.

The original split in the international communist movement sent non- internationalist social-democrats to their isolated-to-imperialism future. Although Trotskyists would claim to be internationalist, the same thing as happened with the social-democrats happened to Trotskyism, which is just a particularly coherent and articulate version of Menshevism. What has happened in the West is a dialogue between Stalin and Trotsky followers within communism, and MIM has always been known as quite unhappy with that, as that particular historical split ends up giving Trotsky much more scientific due than deserved. Trotsky manages a simultaneously Liberal, dissident and revolutionary image among the deluded. On the other hand, followers of Sultan-Galiyev have become outside the stream of scientific communism, and one can only suspect that this has meant an improper relationship of intellectuals to the exploited.

Sultan-Galiyev has to be given his scientific due to correct the relationship of intellectuals to the exploited. Those who have been reading MIM already know Sultan-Galiyev's main economic development theses; even though, MIM arrived at the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations before knowing of Sultan-Galiyev. When we look at MIM and then credit Sultan-Galiyev's followers invisible to Western-chauvinists-posing-as-communists, Trotsky's demerits will stand out more clearly.

The typical impression we receive from the imperialists and their pseudo-Marxist defenders is that Muslim nationalists are hopelessly irrational. In the current international situation, the hopelessly inaccurate perception of the oppressor population regarding Islam has positive and negative points.

On the plus side, the frivolous concern with style questions(3) among the oppressors renders them more subject to attack. As is often the case, it is perhaps better that the labor aristocracy and gender aristocracy stay true to their natures. On the downside, one cannot help remembering that delusional belief in Hitler meant years of strife in World War II involving millions of unnecessary deaths for the simple reason that the Germans would not give it up. After Maoist revolution in Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia, there will come a point where we hope U.$. imperialism will give it up. It is probably unrealistic to expect that the Amerikans will give it up before then; though, MIM will certainly try to persuade the other imperialists to make an acceptable two-state offer to the Palestinians and get out of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to long-time CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, Osama Bin Laden is very practical, not inclined to irrationality. In fact, he says that Osama Bin Laden is more realistic than his own political leaders, and this is among other reasons that numerous CIA analysts had to resign from Mideast duties: "I fear, al Qaeda sees the world clearer than we."(4) Michael Scheuer says the united $tates is either going to have to fight a more intense and realistic war(5) or give in.

Given the poor quality of our media, the topic of Al Qaeda is one we can be sure we do not know much about. If Scheuer is correct in his historical depiction of Al Qaeda, then Al Qaeda is the most significant anti-imperialist organization in the world. It operates armed struggles in Africa, the Mideast and Asia. Meanwhile, in the West, we have the books but not any connection to armed struggle or masses of exploited and oppressed people. Recently, armed struggle has put Al Qaeda in contention for ruling Pakistan, as Bhutto's entourage learned.(6)

Instead of facing continuous chauvinist pressure from Trotskyism and other kinds of Menshevism, the international communist movement should see what Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda are doing. We have put the question this way: there is more reality to "Allah is coming" than "the Western worker is coming." The people of Islam are already on the move as oppressed and exploited people. The Taliban member on average is less utopian than the average phony communist globally pretending that Euro-Amerikan workers are exploited and still about to rise up at any minute. The Taliban knows about war against imperialism concretely, while the Western so-called "working class" knows about the couch. Liberation fighters in Afghanistan have known the joy of defeating Soviet social- imperialism and now some of the same people are fighting U.$. imperialism. Unfortunately, the Trotskyists in contrast, are able to spout the same worthless tripe for more than 80 years running without a single revolution to their credit since Lenin's death. So things became upside down: the Trotskyists claimed to be scientists though completely unconnected from reality and the Taliban claimed to be religious though composed of fighters of considerable practical experience against imperialist troops. That is the dialectical sort of twist Marx prepared us for but did not expect. In his day, it looked like Europe would be the center of struggle's advance. Stalin expressed this best when he said that Marx was wrong and revolution would happen in the "weakest link." Afghanistan and Somalia are proof of Stalin's thesis.

There is a wing of Islam that needs to receive 1000 times more weight in our global understanding as communists than Trotskyism does. Islam by itself was always internationalist and anti-racist, as stated right in the holy book, the Koran. Anti-crusader Saladin brought us the concept of bourgeois social revolution called defensive jihad. Although the Bible also has some glimmerings of communism, Saladin's anti-Crusade struggle and its legend is a firm Islamic historical basis for social revolution useful to this day.

Along came Sultan-Galiyev. He added the need for a vanguard party, the theory of economic development, criticism of settler political economy--all of the main MIM theses in outline form. Contrary to popular belief, he was also for equality of wimmin--the pioneer of feminism in Islam as a matter of fact.

We are hoping that new cells espousing Sultan-Galiyev will arise in the imperialist countries. The most difficult part of our struggle with the MIM line in the West and Islam will be the womyn question for the simple reason that it is most difficult to put it into meaningful form for 12, 13- and 14-year-olds apt to study colonialism and imperialism. As yet, only MIM is really attempting to develop a gender theory appropriate for the imperialist countries. If we get to youth early with the MIM line including a version of the gender line digestible enough, we can hope for new durable cells.

Following from Sultan-Galiyev were various organizations, some more loyal to his work, others less. We can find ourselves in the midst of Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda if we trace back their intellectual ancestors, and so the imperialist jibe about "Islammunism" has a grain of truth. Western intellectuals do not know this for the simple reason that rumor says Stalin executed Sultan-Galiyev and then Sultan- Galiyev's works never received translation into English or any European language other than Russian. People who know Russian and Turkish know more about Sultan-Galiyev.

The Koran is centered on the origins of the Arabic language. So Islam has a great national significance to the Arabic people, not just a religious significance. One author claims that the Koran was intended as concrete manifestation of monotheism for the Arabic people and in fact many to this day do not approve of translating the Koran out of Arabic.(7) This again is similar to Mao's idea that there is "no Marxism that is not concrete." Juche has some similar concerns about the leap to the universal. In the case of the Koran, the fear is that the devil would infiltrate the translation process.

With this understanding of Islam as a national cultural expression, we can see why MIM's line has not been in the least sectarian. The organization-focussed labor-aristocracy-obsessed parties could not see how we broke with the RIM. Then we broke with the ICMLPO and even tossed our own Russian comrades of the Russian Maoist Party. Each split MIM ran through involved class, concern for millions and billions of people. We had not the slightest concern about individuals or organizations we lost along the way. Nonetheless, MIM's influence at the moment is at its historical height.

The other organizations told us again and again to make questions one of voting and picking leaders. They said we were arrogant. Yet, when it came to the millions and billions of people, there either is a Western labor aristocracy as MIM says or there is not. There either is labor aristocracy collusion with the attacks on Islam as MIM said or there is not. It is not a persynality conflict. The fact that there are only a few allied people occupying MIM's political space is not proof that MIM is wrong. People who think that way have to be tossed from scientific organizations. They'll never be able to focus on substance in a fashion independent of imperialism.

The correct way to go about line production is to break with pragmatism, sectarianism and sizeism. The class and national structure comes first, the strategy and tactics second and third respectively. People who cannot get that much straight have to be tossed from vanguard parties as hopeless opportunists. The reason rational knowledge has to play the role it does will either be understood or not and we in the imperialist countries cannot afford those who are going to do whatever it takes to rally at least 50%+1 as what is needed as line. That and any species of thinking like that is inherently back-asswards opportunism.

MIM has followed a scientific method of line production. Now we are in position to be able to expose the invisible schism in the international communist movement and point to a potential cure for the separation of the body from the head. According to Osama Bin Laden, the reformers and revolutionaries among Islamic scholars end up in prison. "In normal circumstances, he says, Muslim scholars, jurists and clerics 'should be at the head of the ranks [of jihad], lead the action, and direct the march.'"(8) The other intellectuals end up bought to spout the line of the Arab monarchies. This further exacerbates the separation of the body from the head. In the West, this separation has existed so long that the head no longer recognizes its own body.

The international result can be summed up as follows:

To MIM's right are those labeling exploiters proletarians. MIM has spent decades now arguing with people incapable of ever specifying where in the world the 10% enemy lives. The reason is that in practice there is only 0.1% of the world as enemy or maybe 0% for these people attracted to Liberalism, anarchism and New Age ideas masquerading as Marxists. In practice, these chauvinists also believe that the Islamic countries are enemies while Euro-Amerikan females are paragons of virtue to be copied. MIM has now pitched all those with any connection to such trash.

Concentrated in the imperialist countries and among weak Third World organizations following them, those to our right include the traditional social- democrats and Mensheviks. Most organizations in the world calling themselves followers of Mao have confusion to MIM's right as well. We wish these organizations would abandon Marxism entirely and take up either social-democratic internationalism or outright Jacobin internationalism in solidarity with those countries still carrying out revolution against semi-feudalism.

There are almost no organizations with MIM who can identify even 10% of the world's people as enemy concretely speaking. There is almost no one in MIM's political space. Because the various white trash parties cannot really identify enemies correctly, the ultra-left casts a pox on all self-identified "Marxist" houses.

To MIM's nominal left are those saying that some nations' proletarians are exploiters and that some nations' minor exploiters are imperialists. According to Scheuer, the Islamists sometimes use the word "imperialist" and "missionary" interchangeably. To the ultra-left is where we find the body, and to the right is where we find contemplative materialism. There is some small hope that we will win over some individuals and organizations to our right, but not much hope as we have seen in 20+ years of struggle with people, many of whom have ended up as counter- intelligence trying to disrupt MIM's work. The main danger is the head, contemplative materialism, right opportunism: it is impossible for the imperialists to buy off the body, but they have already bought off the entirety of the organizations to MIM's right in the imperialist countries without much difficulty. MIM's lack of knowledge of Islam is typical of MIM's potential for rightist errors or deviations. MIM has spoken with dogshit rightists and only dogshit rightists for so long, there has to be a sinking suspicion that MIM can only be a degree less decadent than the morass it emerged from.

In criticism of the ultra-left, MIM would say that anti-militarist strategies among the proletariat only appear sometimes ineffective. We have to stick to these strategies even when opposing ethnicities seem quite chauvinist, if the countries involved are not imperialist. There are many problems among nationalities that cannot be solved without the centripetal force of a genuinely communist Soviet or caliphate. We should try to put the conflicts among proletarian nations on hold till the time a larger Soviet system can form and make people forget their old concerns and hatreds. The right to travel or seek business or a profession within a large nation makes irrelevant much of the world's intra-proletarian fighting. Pre-revolution fighting among ethnicities that hate each other will slow down the advance of revolution once it does occur.

The attractions of Trotskyism and Liberalism are the same among intellectuals of the Third World Islamic countries. For that matter, there are some supposed Maoists indistinguishable from CIA Liberals. These problems stem from the incorrect relationship between intellectuals and the exploited that has arisen along a fault line that few have identified. Perhaps only MIM has identified the true fault line. The international split in the working class that Lenin identified has taken cultural form, because intellectuals have allowed it to. Passive reflective types have claimed so-called science, what Marx derided as contemplative materialism, now best exemplified by Trotskyism. These contemplative materialists also exert dominating influence among those calling themselves followers of Stalin and Mao. As a result, the body, the exploited have taken up culturally Islamic forms of armed struggle and they are unaware of and sometimes even hostile to true Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In the Mideast in particular, the body has a higher degree of scientific knowledge than the Trotskyist head of the Western so-called communist movement. The Taliban is much more scientific than the Spartacist League. We in the West are good at coming up with internally consistent ideologies that can keep our dreams afloat, but not so good in doing that and keeping an attachment to reality as good as the Taliban's. This is a sad state of affairs, again generated by uneven development and the resulting split in the international working class Lenin spoke of.

George Bush has transformed Iraq into a conventional battlefield for Islamic revolutionaries. As such, the Iraqi insurgents now have more experience battling imperialism than any people calling themselves "Maoist" except some aging veterans in Korea, Vietnam and China. We cannot dismiss this issue as "terrorism" anymore under conventional Maoist military doctrine. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the question is well beyond "terrorism," as strictly defined in military terms. Only arch-criminals pose the question this way in order to prevent the oppressed from taking up Mao as their own scientific military experience. Mao is much more the property of the oppressed Islamic people than the Western critics throwing around the term "terrorism." We say to the Islamic people, that Mao is theirs, not the property of their oppressors. At one point after 9/11, we had a report that Al Qaeda was down to 180 fighters.(9) In 2007 we heard the U.$. military saying it was killing 1500 Al Qaeda fighters a month in Iraq.(10)

The current writer understands neither the Bible nor the Koran yet. It takes work. Nonetheless, we call on the so-called "Maoists"--all of whom became "Maoist" after MIM--to recognize the real form that the split in the international working class is taking and that they and their organizations are in fact representatives of the philistine stream, the labor aristocracy stream. The absolute chaos created by the split in the working class between the real proletariat and the Western labor aristocracy has created an incorrect relationship between the body and the head--the whole reason for this essay. Not only did intellectuals end up disproportionately in the rich countries as one would expect, but when they ventured out of the ivory tower, they chose only to interact with the petty-bourgeoisie misidentified as a proletariat. Therefore, Western intellectuals had dual barriers to a grip on reality less deluded than the Taliban's--the ivory tower itself and the labor aristocracy of the "outside world."

The split in the international working class Lenin spoke of is not between small organizations in the West with no exploited masses to lead and other small organizations in the West in the tradition of Trotsky or Brezhnev or the Third World parties that ally with such. That is a white lie. The location of the split in the international working class is showing up most clearly in the question of why Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah formed instead of Maoist parties. When we see that the vast majority of organizations now calling themselves "Maoist" cannot tell exploitation when they see it, it's not hard to see how we ended up in the political situation we are now. "Marxism" is becoming another word for Liberalism and exploitation in the minds of the oppressed and exploited. The stench of the labor aristocracy is strong. Osama Bin Laden has said the following:

"The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government, yet time and again, polls show the American people support the policies of the elected Government. . . . This is why the American people are not innocent. The American people are active members in all these crimes."(11)

In a September 2007 video, Osama Bin Laden mentioned two of the "pillars" of Islam. The most important one is monotheism, the "witness to faith." Bin Laden adds the usual point that Judaism and Christianity are monotheisms included within Islam, that the God in each of these religions is the same God. Then he mentions zakat, the requirement to give donations of at least 2.5%, but he also talked about usury. The interpretation of zakat is not clear in Islam where there are mortgages and other forms of usury. Usually zakat has to be at least 2.5% of income calculated in a certain manner. According to Andrew Rippin, some radical Islamists insist only on the monotheism pillar.(12)

The implication of radical Islam with a focus on monotheism is the development of mental faculties to conceive of an overarching, all- powerful God--what we would call the power of abstraction and universality. The concept comes at the expense of polytheists of Hinduism and perhaps Buddhism and various other pre-monotheistic worships. One might think Hinduism is more easily built to support Liberalism, with its tolerance and the orderly roles of various gods, not to mention mixing of religious practices we see in India today. By comparison, Islam might be much simpler, with no priesthood in Islam's origins. All this is by way of what Sultan-Galiyev was dealing with when working as a Muslim.

One might be inclined to think that Sultan-Galiyevists would be more inclined to delusion than other communists, because Sultan-Galiyevists permit of God. This is something that has to be observed in practice. MIM has observed a great deal of idealism of the non-religious kind among Western intellectuals and alleged communists. In practice, dialectical materialism does not go over well with either secular or religious people. One needs to consider whether it is possible that the Sultan-Galiyevist wing of the communist movement is actually less idealist than the supposedly atheist wing. A reason why Sultan- Galiyevism might be less inclined to idealist errors is that it finds its practice among more combustible people, with a better, more healthy relationship between theory and practice, a better praxis. It's a question of geographic chance.

Maybe, maybe by focusing on monotheism, the "witness to faith" and "defensive jihad," which all Muslims are borderline as including as a sixth pillar of Islam, maybe Islam has more revolutionary potential than the various Trotskyist, neo-Trotskyist and crypto-Trotskyist doctrines combined. This is how we would suggest our comrades internationally approach this problem.

Perhaps in all comrades there is idealism, as defined in the Marxist philosophical sense, and that leads to errors. However, we need to look at the cost of not allowing of some idealism. First, in Arabic, there is no way to take up the national question as conceived by Stalin without the Koran. That's just how the language was put together historically, not to mention that the leading business on the Arabian peninsula for many years before oil was the religious pilgrim business. Secondly, we can try to import Mao on dialectics. Yet that will take time and the Islamic people already have the idea of external conditions and social revolution from their Saladin legend. It seems that the proper approach is to use Mao to reinforce what the Islamic people already know from their own culture and to raise up the "defensive jihad" to its universal level internationally. Again, the point is that there is no Marxism that is not concrete. It's one thing to teach Mao strictly from Mao's books and then it is another thing to guarantee comprehension. As MIM said, even among the Cultural Revolution-trained people of China, the comprehension of Das Kapital is on a questionable level. It is always a matter of what concepts are already present among people, what reference points of understanding. For whatever reason, Mao did not publish "Peking Review" in Arabic and if Mao could not do it, we have to suspect that we at MIM have our reasons for supporting Sultan-Galiyevism.

Of course there are Christian and Jewish Arabic peoples. To reach a large portion of masses though it is really analogous to a question of language. Today, there is the additional reinforcement that Russian settlers come from an imperialist country and the Chinese appear as Amerikkkan lackeys. Hence, transit points of discussion of universal principles come under suspicion as racist or national chauvinist, something that Islam has always disallowed. Not the West, not I$rael, not Russia and not China--so in our times the entry point of discussion has to be Sultan-Galiyev or Osama Bin Laden himself.

With disgust, we must point to the Western professoriat that knows nothing of Marxism except as a precursor to middle-class integrationist schemes of political correctness. Most of these professors are wildly more utopian than the average Taliban member.

Just to name one dogma obscuring Western intellectual vision, we should point to pseudo-feminist white nationalism. One has not pierced the white supremacist veil if one has not encountered resistance from pseudo-feminism. Once one really starts to shake the labor aristocracy in the West, the female oppressor--the ***** is already starting to think, "uh, oh, my turn is coming, what am I going to do? Agree on the labor aristocracy but not on gender? Or maybe neither? Or just listen to my Ipod?"

We actually have one organization that supposedly agrees with MIM that the principal contradiction globally is between oppressed nations and imperialism. Yet when it came time for March 8 2006, we found this organization and its criminal hangers-on basically saying the principal contradiction is the principal contradiction, except when it is necessary to give up fantasies about oppressor females. If requiring Iran's wimmin to be more like oppressor females is not part of the picture, these so-called communists get off the boat and abandon the principal contradiction. Thus, pseudo-feminism becomes an excuse to give up the principal contradiction, in direct opposition to the very definition of "principal contradiction." So often times we find that the labor aristocracy is at the front lines, and once we puncture that front line, the true last line of defense is the gender aristocracy prop of white nationalism. Here we will find white wimmin, Iranian-Amerikans and their admirers demand more gender privilege in Liberal forms, because the oppressor always prefers Liberalism. The point of Liberalism is distinction among individuals.

The form of white nationalism that Liberal pseudo-feminism takes is that criticism of the labor aristocracy is OK, but struggle against females is not allowed. Females are allowed to be petty-bourgeois, have things both ways, just because they are females. And so this becomes the last line of defense of white nationalism, and especially the petty-bourgeoisie inclined to vacillation. People afraid of the words "ho" and "*****" need to be tossed out of the way.(13) Instead, try to raise such a struggle and one will find the utopian professoriat tossing you. Wearing a white sheet is only a quaint form of white nationalism: it is not the main kind and has not been for a couple generations. Ours is a philosophy of both struggle and feminism. That means wimmin can struggle and can be enemies--and they generally are enemies in the imperialist countries.

There is so little rebellion of any sort away from white nationalism in the Western imperialist countries, but if it arises in even the vaguest way from drunken or otherwise high lumpen in gangsta rap, we can be sure that the white nationalists will whip up a campaign against it. Their real agenda is political correctness--a strategy to integrate the oppressed and exploited with the imperialists. That is just the most recent way of uniting the oppressed to the oppressor or in other words, making the oppressed forget their oppression.

Because the supposed scientists (predominantly Western) were so far off as not to be able to identify who is exploited and who is not, the more scientifically inclined members of the proletariat took up Islam. That sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. It is simply an ironic and unhappy truth in a world that we can only vainly wish would be a little more straightforward. The Western bourgeoisie bought off the Western intellectuals and corrupted Marxism to the core, a fate Karl Marx did not deserve in death. There is still no substitute for the labor theory of value and dialectical materialism, but one would never know from the people claiming them in the West. This sort of result is inevitable when people with some sense of reality take up Islam while the most utopian people continue to take up Marxism.

Up to now, we have not fully identified the split in the international communist movement. We have preferred to force a scientific economic discussion of what the fault line has to be. The drawback of announcing the sociological and political truth is that opportunists--"hypocrites" in Islamic language--will flock to our banner once they see what they could not see before. Inducing the truth from a head-counting approach to politics is pragmatist opportunism and sizeism.

We have no inclination to florid language. Khruschev claimed to be a "salt of the earth" peasant, but he was a buffoon. For Khruschev to stand against a Mao or Zhou Enlai just by virtue of his upbringing is a joke. So, it is not our point to create an identity politics of the exploited, but it is simply reality that Islamic insurgents are less utopian on average than Western intellectuals including those calling themselves "Marxist." The ultimate underlying reason is that uneven development caused a split in the working class internationally. Those with more leisure time are disproportionately distributed to the West where they have occupations on the intellectual side of the division of labor and the gender aristocracy side of gender. The exploited including their most intellectual element have ended up disproportionately in the Islamic world. This has made our job as Marxists more difficult in a dialectical way. The first step in healing the communist movement is to recognize the invisible schism.

Notes:
1. http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/mn/sept1.../wtc091007.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/mn/sept112001/wtc091007.html)
2. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_w...in_attacks.html (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20070930_Converts_to_Islam_playing_role_in_attacks .html)
3. Micahel Scheeur, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005) p. 39.
Scheuer, 2005, p. 39.
4. Michael Scheuer, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006), p. xxi.
Scheuer, 2006, p. xxi.
5. "We still manifest an aversion to military casualties so intense that we have overestimated the impact our air power and military technology have made on al Qaeda and the Taliban. We have shown our might, but we have not inflicted it with full effect. . . . Simply put, we have failed utterly to kill enough Taliban or al Qaeda fighters."
Scheuer in Scheuer, 2006, p. 278.
6. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hjX0Zhd...DQQbhUi3NrVdYQ; (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hjX0ZhdxLa-2ZtDQQbhUi3NrVdYQ;)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IJ20Df01.html
7. Thomas W. Lippman, Understanding Islam: An Introduction to the Muslim World (NY: Penguin, 1990), p. 59.
8. Scheuer, 2005, pp. 132, 151.
9. Scheuer, 2005, p. 67.
10. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071022/engelhardt
11. Scheuer, 2005, p. 157.
12. Andrew Rippin, Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Vol. 2: The Contemporary Period (NY: Routledge, 1993), p. 135.
13. http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/cong...theory2004.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/cong/languagetheory2004.html)
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[YSR]

Satire or reality, who can tell anymore?

"Communists" endorse Islamists. What's next?

[ComradeR]

In case you needed more proof that the MIM is made up of fools.

[Bilan]

I pose this simple question:

What the fuck?

[LSD]

Has the "MIM" ever released anything that made sense?

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 09:57 am
Has the "MIM" ever released anything that made sense?
Yeah, some of their movie reviews are pretty great in terms of humor value.

[Keyser]

Small time cult made up of a few university lecturers and their hangers makes a nonsensical statement urging people to support a process of establishing a global society based on the complete oppression of women, the abolition of any independent working class organisation and the forceful imposition of a global totalitarian theocracy.

No, other small time cults that claim to be on the left have made the same nonsensical statements, so the MIM are not even able to claim this 'new idea' as their own. :rolleyes:

Funny how the loons of MIM talk of this 'labour aristocracy' yet they are all made up of middle class professionals. The MIM are nothing to the working class and never will be.

[Eleftherios]

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin+October 29, 2007 05:06 am--> (Led Zeppelin @ October 29, 2007 05:06 am)
[email protected] 29, 2007 09:57 am
Has the "MIM" ever released anything that made sense?
Yeah, some of their movie reviews are pretty great in terms of humor value. [/b]
My thoughts exactly (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/movies/review.php?f=short/batmanreturns.txt)

Some things just don't need to be taken very seriously


Funny how the loons of MIM talk of this 'labour aristocracy' yet they are all made up of middle class professionals.

I'm not saying your wrong or anything, but how do you know this?

The MIM is a very isolated and extremely closed movement in order to hide from the police, which is why the working class has little to do with them. Ironically, however, the police does!

[Comrade Rage]

MIM has definitely moved ahead of the RCP in terms of craziness. :lol:

[Jazzratt]

Irrelevant group says something stupid. Holy fuck I'm shocked.

[Eleftherios]

Originally posted by COMRADE [email protected] 31, 2007 07:09 pm
MIM has definitely moved ahead of the RCP in terms of craziness. :lol:
The RCP cannot even compare to the MIM in terms of craziness :P

[Comrade Rage]

Originally posted by Alcaeos+October 31, 2007 08:14 pm--> (Alcaeos @ October 31, 2007 08:14 pm)
COMRADE [email protected] 31, 2007 07:09 pm
MIM has definitely moved ahead of the RCP in terms of craziness. :lol:
The RCP cannot even compare to the MIM in terms of craziness :P [/b]
:lol:

[Great Helmsman]

Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.

[Keyser]

Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.

Fighting imperialism to replace it with a barbaric 7th century system. Working class liberation is all that matters, not replacing a group of US backed dictators with a bunch of Islamist dictators.

If your idea of 'chauvinism' is opposing a system that kills women for going out in the street without a male relative or hangs or beheads gays a trade unionists and others, then call me a 'chauvinist' becuase that title can neverbe as low as a Islamist.

[Great Helmsman]

Originally posted by Anarchism [email protected] 01, 2007 01:43 am

Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.

Fighting imperialism to replace it with a barbaric 7th century system. Working class liberation is all that matters, not replacing a group of US backed dictators with a bunch of Islamist dictators.

If your idea of 'chauvinism' is opposing a system that kills women for going out in the street without a male relative or hangs or beheads gays a trade unionists and others, then call me a 'chauvinist' becuase that title can neverbe as low as a Islamist.
How misguided and wrong it is to equate the oppressor and oppressed. I'll bet you think reverse racism exists too. Communists oppose all imperialism, fake communists oppose it only when it's convenient, or when it doesn't offend their delicate sensibilities.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Electronic Light+November 01, 2007 01:47 am--> (Electronic Light @ November 01, 2007 01:47 am)
Anarchism [email protected] 01, 2007 01:43 am

Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.

Fighting imperialism to replace it with a barbaric 7th century system. Working class liberation is all that matters, not replacing a group of US backed dictators with a bunch of Islamist dictators.

If your idea of 'chauvinism' is opposing a system that kills women for going out in the street without a male relative or hangs or beheads gays a trade unionists and others, then call me a 'chauvinist' becuase that title can neverbe as low as a Islamist.
How misguided and wrong it is to equate the oppressor and oppressed. I'll bet you think reverse racism exists too. Communists oppose all imperialism, fake communists oppose it only when it's convenient, or when it doesn't offend their delicate sensibilities. [/b]
Real communists support working class liberation--not just retort to simpleminded, uncritical "antiimperialism".

You are no different than radical liberals. Radical liberals rally behind reactionary rulling classes just because they represent the "downtrodden".

We seek the emancipation of humanity, not rallying behind every thing that is antiamerican.

If you feel so guilty about living in the first world, why not just fuck off to the third world.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 31, 2007 06:33 pm
Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.
Don't lump "Islamism" all into one. Some Islamist groups collaborate with Imperialists to advance their political goals, i.e al-Quaeda(!). Some also fight for some vague, ignorant vision of Islamic society. Others use the name of Islam for simplicity's sake of gaining some substantial support in their localities in fighting a tyrant/colonizer/imperialist.

They're not all anti-imperialist, just look at the sheiks and kings in most Muslim countries who get rich as hell exploiting their own starving people. Also the Mujahadeen/Taliban of Afghanistan who drove out the USSR with the aid of the US.

On the other side of the coin, anti-imperialists in those nations use Islamism as a means for National Liberation. Sort of like how Vietnam, Algeria, Nepal, and most countries who took up the title of "communist" in the names of their organizations fought with nationalist sentiment.

Fighting imperialism to replace it with a barbaric 7th century system.
Most Islamist groups in the Muslim world, I'd say, have many leftist tendencies leftover from the old Nasserist, Pan-Arab socialism era. Indeed, most of these groups advocate the people's direct involvement in how the areas of social, economic, and public life would be ran (Hizbullah). Probably not strictly communist or libertarian socialist ideas mind you, but a better alternative than the imperialist ones they're fighting against. They should be pressured by their political participants to implement social services and policies that benefit the whole of society. Maybe then that would pave the way for truly socialist ideals.

A question you should ask yourself is why the communist/anarchist left is not present at all in some of those countries. Some of the most obvious answers are the constant threats of 1) US Intervention, and 2) the dominance and influence of US markets within those countries. How would a country go from occupied/colonized to socialism or further in a snap?

On the original thread:

Anti-imperialism is a-ok with me, just don't go around asking non-Islamists/Muslims to use Islam as an anti-imperialist tool. Especially in the first world where most public discourse sees the words "Islam" and "Muslim" as threatening and foreign. It's a bit silly. :rolleyes: :lol:

[Great Helmsman]

Originally posted by Marmot+November 01, 2007 02:06 am--> (Marmot @ November 01, 2007 02:06 am)
Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 01, 2007 01:47 am

Anarchism [email protected] 01, 2007 01:43 am

Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.

Fighting imperialism to replace it with a barbaric 7th century system. Working class liberation is all that matters, not replacing a group of US backed dictators with a bunch of Islamist dictators.

If your idea of 'chauvinism' is opposing a system that kills women for going out in the street without a male relative or hangs or beheads gays a trade unionists and others, then call me a 'chauvinist' becuase that title can neverbe as low as a Islamist.
How misguided and wrong it is to equate the oppressor and oppressed. I'll bet you think reverse racism exists too. Communists oppose all imperialism, fake communists oppose it only when it's convenient, or when it doesn't offend their delicate sensibilities.
Real communists support working class liberation--not just retort to simpleminded, uncritical "antiimperialism".

You are no different than radical liberals. Radical liberals rally behind reactionary rulling classes just because they represent the "downtrodden".

We seek the emancipation of humanity, not rallying behind every thing that is antiamerican.

If you feel so guilty about living in the first world, why not just fuck off to the third world. [/b]
Anti-imperialism is working class liberation. Who will the first world exploit when the entire third world opposes them? Maybe you respond to that without regurgitating cheap slogans.

And no, I'd rather not live on the other end of Western imperialism.



Don't lump "Islamism" all into one. Some Islamist groups collaborate with Imperialists to advance their political goals, i.e al-Quaeda(!). Some also fight for some vague, ignorant vision of Islamic society. Others use the name of Islam for simplicity's sake of gaining some substantial support in their localities in fighting a tyrant/colonizer/imperialist.

They're not all anti-imperialist, just look at the sheiks and kings in most Muslim countries who get rich as hell exploiting their own starving people. Also the Mujahadeen/Taliban of Afghanistan who drove out the USSR with the aid of the US.
How has al-Qaeda collaborated with the imperialists? The Mujahadeen were correct in opposing the Soviet Union's social imperialism; Afghani Maoists also fought against the invasion of their country. I don't think they ever saw the U.S. as an ally, but it was sensible at the time not to reject gifts from the U.S. given the Soviet occupation was a more pressing concern.

[Keyser]

How misguided and wrong it is to equate the oppressor and oppressed.

I never equated the two. When the Taliban were in power from 1996-2001, they were to oppressor of the Afghan people. The current regime in Iran is currently the oppressor of the Iranian people.

I just look at the class standpoint, and in the case of many anti-imperialist movements, today's anti-imperialist can very well turn out to be tomorrow's oppressor. Imperialism, to be defeated totally, not just in one nation or in some locality in the world, will only be defeated when capitalism itself will be defeated, globally. Capitalism and imperialism are inter-dependent. That means the imperialist countries like the US, the EU, Russia, China etc... need a workers revolution from within those nations,to bring down their capitalist ruling class so that there is no longer a US, EU or other ruling class to continue the process of imperialism.


I'll bet you think reverse racism exists too.

Sadly racism, along with other phobias and hatreds exists in all countries. I lived in Morocco for four years and there was a ugly case of racism by the local population against black sub-saharan immigrants from West Africa, to use one example I personally saw.

That does not excuse racism in the industrialised countries, but I won't make excuses for racism in any country.


Communists oppose all imperialism, fake communists oppose it only when it's convenient, or when it doesn't offend their delicate sensibilities.

I don't really know what point you are trying to make here, but communists oppose imperialism not because they are nationalists or uphold the concept of the nation state, but because imperialism, as a global system is a power structure that existsfor the purpose of capitalist growth and exploitation on a global scale. Like I said, the stage capitalism has advanced to in this era means that imperialism goes hand in hand with capitalism, to defeat one means you also need to defeat the other.

And if you consider supporting the right of women to be equal with men, the rights of homosexuals not to be executed by some religious wacko and the right of all people not to have to live under a religious dictatorship, as 'delicate sensibilities', then you have no understanding of what communism is, it stand for the complete and total freedom of all people to live in a moneyless, stateless and classless society with reason and rational thought replacing superstition and mysticism in how people think and interact with each other.

[manic expression]

In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.

The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...ifesto/ch03.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm)

Loud and irreverent laughter.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 31, 2007 07:16 pm
How has al-Qaeda collaborated with the imperialists?
Receiving training, arms, funds from the United States government.

The Mujahadeen were correct in opposing the Soviet Union's social imperialism; Afghani Maoists also fought against the invasion of their country.
Who are these Afghani Maoists? The same people from the PDPA who splintered off during the civil war?

I don't think they ever saw the U.S. as an ally
CIA operative Bin Laden. :rolleyes:

but it was sensible at the time not to reject gifts from the U.S. given the Soviet occupation was a more pressing concern.
What baffles me is why they saw the need to fight against the domestic DRA. Wasn't it 'pure' Islamism? Isn't that what Osama bin-Laden still fights for in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and throughout the Islamic world?

It wasn't for a few years that the government of Afghanistan finally got the aid it requested from the USSR. Forgive my ignorance, but why couldn't they have worked within the ruling, supposed 'communist' party?

[Keyser]

How has al-Qaeda collaborated with the imperialists? The Mujahadeen were correct in opposing the Soviet Union's social imperialism; Afghani Maoists also fought against the invasion of their country. I don't think they ever saw the U.S. as an ally, but it was sensible at the time not to reject gifts from the U.S. given the Soviet occupation was a more pressing concern.

Weak and pathetic excuse making for Islamism.

I don't uphold the USSR, it was corrupt and had nothing to do with genuine socialism in any shape or form, but to say that Taliban ruled Afghanistan was somehow an improvement on the PDPA regime shows your anti-communist line of though and the complete lack of any grasp of reality that you have.

It's a shame that the Maoists did not get the upper hand in the post 1989 Afghanistan, they were not perfect but a lot more preferable to the Taliban.

Also, Al-Qaeda don't represent the oppressed, they are led by a multi-millionaire businessman and someone who has royal blood (Bin Laden) and it's upper leadership membership are all upper class or well to do middle class. Hardly an oppressed strata!

[Keyser]

Most Islamist groups in the Muslim world, I'd say, have many leftist tendencies leftover from the old Nasserist, Pan-Arab socialism era. Indeed, most of these groups advocate the people's direct involvement in how the areas of social, economic, and public life would be ran (Hizbullah).

But we are talking about Al-Qaeda as this thread is dealing with MIM's support for them. And we saw what Al-Qaeda/Taliban Afghanistan looked like!

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by Anarchism [email protected] 31, 2007 07:41 pm
But we are talking about Al-Qaeda as this thread is dealing with MIM's support for them. And we saw what Al-Qaeda/Taliban Afghanistan looked like!
Mhm, waiting on Electronic Light's response on why he's justifying al-Quaeda's attack on the PDPA. ;)

[RNK]

Funny, IMO Bin Laden wouldn't hesitate to murder each and every MIMist simply for being a Communist.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You assume that MIM actually exists outside of the internet, and that MIM members would somehow concretely fight for communism were they to find themselves under the rule of a Islamist government.

As for what position communists take.. we "[C]ombat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc." (Lenin).

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It's ridiculous to even discuss these clowns, by the way. They just put something out claiming they are imperialists, here: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/pirao/se...rity102007.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/pirao/security/security102007.html)

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 02:06 am
You are no different than radical liberals. Radical liberals rally behind reactionary rulling classes just because they represent the "downtrodden".
Exactly. MIM is nothing more than the guilt of white American middle-class intellectual liberals run amok.

[Eleftherios]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 31, 2007 09:12 pm
It's ridiculous to even discuss these clowns, by the way. They just put something out claiming they are imperialists, here: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/pirao/se...rity102007.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/pirao/security/security102007.html)
:lol: :lol: :lol: That is just too funny.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/gender/c...warmongers.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/gender/choicewarmongers.html)

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/gender/pets0706.html

[Great Helmsman]

I never equated the two. When the Taliban were in power from 1996-2001, they were to oppressor of the Afghan people. The current regime in Iran is currently the oppressor of the Iranian people.

I just look at the class standpoint, and in the case of many anti-imperialist movements, today's anti-imperialist can very well turn out to be tomorrow's oppressor. Imperialism, to be defeated totally, not just in one nation or in some locality in the world, will only be defeated when capitalism itself will be defeated, globally. Capitalism and imperialism are inter-dependent. That means the imperialist countries like the US, the EU, Russia, China etc... need a workers revolution from within those nations,to bring down their capitalist ruling class so that there is no longer a US, EU or other ruling class to continue the process of imperialism.
Only in the minds of David Horowitz and the Islamofascist fighting Neo-con freakshow are the Taleban and Iranian government worse than interventionism. You correctly identify that capitalism will only be defeated with the defeat of imperialism, but then go off the rails about workers revolutions in the imperialist countries. Why haven't we seen revolution, or even international class consciousness in the imperialist countries? Because first world workers are themselves beneficiaries of imperialism and exploiters of the third world.



I don't really know what point you are trying to make here, but communists oppose imperialism not because they are nationalists or uphold the concept of the nation state, but because imperialism, as a global system is a power structure that existsfor the purpose of capitalist growth and exploitation on a global scale. Like I said, the stage capitalism has advanced to in this era means that imperialism goes hand in hand with capitalism, to defeat one means you also need to defeat the other.

And if you consider supporting the right of women to be equal with men, the rights of homosexuals not to be executed by some religious wacko and the right of all people not to have to live under a religious dictatorship, as 'delicate sensibilities', then you have no understanding of what communism is, it stand for the complete and total freedom of all people to live in a moneyless, stateless and classless society with reason and rational thought replacing superstition and mysticism in how people think and interact with each other.
I support feminism, and I support anti-imperialism. There's no contradiction here. What I oppose are pseudo-feminists who claim to support the rights of women while supporting imperialist intervention. Support should be provided to anti-imperialist movements because it benefits the workers struggle, not because we necessarily endorse every aspect of Islamism.

I'm not going to address all of rev0lt's conspiracy theories, but the group al-Qaeda was not around during the Soviet occupation, and Bin Laden was receiving money from the Pakistani ISI. The PDPA was a fake government propped up by the imperialists, but the Maoists had mostly been defeated by the mid 80s, so there wasn't much they could after the Soviet invasion.



Also, Al-Qaeda don't represent the oppressed, they are led by a multi-millionaire businessman and someone who has royal blood (Bin Laden) and it's upper leadership membership are all upper class or well to do middle class. Hardly an oppressed strata!
What exactly does someone's class background have anything to do with how committed they are to revolution? Islamic revolutionaries fiercely oppose the Saudi regime not because it's too liberal, but because of its collaboration with the principle imperialist powers.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 01, 2007 03:24 am
Only in the minds of David Horowitz and the Islamofascist fighting Neo-con freakshow are the Taleban and Iranian government worse than interventionism. You correctly identify that capitalism will only be defeated with the defeat of imperialism, but then go off the rails about workers revolutions in the imperialist countries. Why haven't we seen revolution, or even international class consciousness in the imperialist countries? Because first world workers are themselves beneficiaries of imperialism and exploiters of the third world.
Capitalism will be defeated by a revolutionary working class.

Capitalism will NOT be defeated by reactionaries fighting for long-outdated social orders.


I support feminism, and I support anti-imperialism. There's no contradiction here. What I oppose are pseudo-feminists who claim to support the rights of women while supporting imperialist intervention. Support should be provided to anti-imperialist movements because it benefits the workers struggle, not because we necessarily endorse every aspect of Islamism.

So you support the improvement of women's rights, yes?

Would you say that capitalism has brought improvements in women's rights? Would you say that these improvements are more progressive than feudalism?


What exactly does someone's class background have anything to do with how committed they are to revolution? Islamic revolutionaries fiercely oppose the Saudi regime not because it's too liberal, but because of its collaboration with the principle imperialist powers.

Does "class interest" ring a bell? One's interests are determined by their class (their relationship to the means of production).

Many of these Islamic revolutionaries are reactionary in that they oppose the Saudis because of they are enabling the encroachment of capitalism on the old order.

[Keyser]

Only in the minds of David Horowitz and the Islamofascist fighting Neo-con freakshow

I don't support that bastard or the ruling class he stands for.

And I don't think in narrow minded black and white terms like you do! Just because I refuse toget into bed with the loons of Al-Qaeda, does not mean I support the loons in the neo-con side.

I don't support the policy of interventionism by any imperialist country, I oppose the US occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq, but I don't let my opposition blind me to the vile politics of the Islamist movement and I oppose them too.

Religion is the complete opposite of communism, like Christianity and all other faiths, the day Islam and other religions ceaseto exist, the better the world will be.


You correctly identify that capitalism will only be defeated with the defeat of imperialism, but then go off the rails about workers revolutions in the imperialist countries.

I said that imperialism and capitalism will be defeated at the same time, imperialism won't go before capitalism, because it's part of it. The two cannot live without one another, but they cannot outlive each other too. You seem to think imperialism can be defeated first.


Why haven't we seen revolution, or even international class consciousness in the imperialist countries? Because first world workers are themselves beneficiaries of imperialism and exploiters of the third world.

There has been a greater presence of class consciousness in the industrialised countries than the developing world, the communists and anarchists were very organised in the US in the 1920s, the same in Britain, Germany, Italy (pre-Mussolini), France and Spain during the Civil War.

Thats becuase the industrialised nations have a working class, places like Afghanistan don't, those nations are fuedal in social structure and have landlords and peasants, different system to capitalism.

You say there is no hope for a workers revolution in the industrialised nations, well there is even less hope in places like Afghanistan. There has been no successful example of socialism anywhere in the third world either, making MIM stupid 'labour aristocracy' theory absolutley redundant!

I am a worker in Britain and I tell you from personal experience, the labour aristocracy theory is bogus. I neither benefit from imperialism nor do I have any say in how British society is run, it's exclusive to my countries ruling class alone.

Are you a worker? You seem to have arrogant 'I know everything about the working class' approach.

My guess is that your another middle class teenager without any clue about what being working class means.


I'm not going to address all of rev0lt's conspiracy theories, but the group al-Qaeda was not around during the Soviet occupation, and Bin Laden was receiving money from the Pakistani ISI. The PDPA was a fake government propped up by the imperialists, but the Maoists had mostly been defeated by the mid 80s, so there wasn't much they could after the Soviet invasion.

Only in your mind is it a conspiracy, there are even videos of CIA agents talking openly of their support for the 'jihad'.

And I wonder where the ISI get their money from, from Washington DC you dupe.

Okay, so the PDPA was installed by the USSR, there is truth in that, but the Taliban then took power with US arms and money, so out goes a vaugley socialist government with women having the best rights in comparison with the rest of Afghanistan's history to Afghanistan becoming a fuedal and violent bigoted theocracy that placed the country in a time warp going back some 1400 years in time, yes what a wonderful success. :rolleyes:

I'm not going to bother debating with this wanker anymore, his stupidity bores me now and I could have a more intelligent debate with a dog. This guy has no clue about anything.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 31, 2007 08:24 pm
I'm not going to address all of rev0lt's conspiracy theories
There were no conspiracy theories to address in the first place, thanks.

[Keyser]

There were no conspiracy theories to address in the first place, thanks.

Like I told him in my last post, I ain't gonna bother responding to him anymore, the guy is a moron.

People who hold the 'labour aristocracy' idea and MIM could only ever reach that viewpoint on the basis that they are not working class themselves, they have no idea of how workers live, in any country. I don't have time for middle class and well off types on a guilt trip, a waste of time!

[Spirit of Spartacus]

The MIM line on Al Qaida is highly unrealistic. In fact, in this particular case, they have been misled by the very imperialist propaganda which they seek to fight.

You see, AQ is not some mass movement which is capable of mobilizing the working-class in the fight against imperialism. The MIM article lumps together genuine mass movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas along with the tiny and over-magnified organization called Al Qaida.

AQ is not capable of winning the anti-imperialist struggle, because its leaders are fools who are not capable of thinking outside 7th century religious nonsense.

Hamas and Hizbullah, on the other hand, have learned to compromise their Islamic principles with the realities of the 21st century. Their cadres are often lower-middle-class (the lower half of the petit-bourgeoisie) and workers.

AQ, on the other hand, consists of wealthy or at least well-off petit-bourgeois fanatics who enjoy very little actual support on the ground, even in Muslim countries.

[p.m.a.]

Al-Qaeda has long been a CIA-funded and -trained operation. It was established by Rumsfeld and Bush during the brief succession of presidential powers following the assassination attempt on Reagan. It was intended as a Pan-Middle Eastern mujahideen -- that is, sponsored by the CIA but capable of pulling off actions they don't want traced back to them. Al-Qaeda's funding, laundered through Pakistani ISI, is well-documented. MIM's endorsing them as valiant anti-imperialists is laughable, and further testimony of the complete disconnection the anachronism of their ideas presupposes today.

[jacobin1949]

MIM has become so enamored with Islam that they are ready to condemn Lenin and Stalin in favor of an obscure Islamic Turk from the 1920s.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/countrie...amic/index.html (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/countries/panislamic/index.html)

#
Sultan Galiev: Starting a Re-Appraisal

MIM opens this web page to start a process of re-appraisal of Mirza Sultan-Galiev, a Tatar communist who worked for Stalin on the nationalities question, but who rumor says Stalin eventually shot 1939 or 1940.

MIM does not doubt that what Stalin said about Sultan-Galiev's violations of democratic centralism is true. We should investigate on this page to what extent those violations of democratic centralism were on account of being an intellectual unable to follow democratic centralism and to what extent all the ideas concerned were too new. MIM has too much experience organizing a movement to doubt that people often have strange ideas about democratic centralism, especially when much action occurs in a short space of time.

Nonetheless, more important than Sultan-Galiev's success or failure in organizational matters is his theoretical legacy. This web page was ironically inspired by pseudo-feminist Amerikkkan nationalist Phyllis Chesler, who asks the world to support "Muslim dissidents." This made MIM think of Sultan-Galiev, for his project was to set up a Pan-Islamic communist movement.

Sultan-Galiev was for the formation of a "Colonial International" to replace the Comintern as organization of central importance. He also called for the "dictatorship of the colonial nations over the metropolis."

The reason we have to re-evaluate Sultan-Galiev is that his most central theoretical predictions appear to have turned out true:
# He predicted that Russian socialism would either be conquered by the Western bourgeoisie or turn to state capitalism via forces similar to those in the NEP, because the Russian proletariat would not manage a strong enough revolutionary impetus. In fact, it would turn toward copying the labor aristocracies.
# He pointed to the revolutionary impetus from the East and of course he turned out right that Mao alone was more significant than anything that happened in Western Europe in the last 100 years.

On both a theoretical and factual level, the central question is which is the greater danger to the international communist movement, the national bourgeoisie of the neo-colonial countries or the labor aristocracy. MIM has answered this question in factual detail. It is the Western labor aristocracy which in fact predominates in the global bourgeoisie.

MIM is for the "joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations." Missing from Sultan-Galiev's formulations is the word "proletariat." On the other hand, Lenin and Stalin were for the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Missing is the term "oppressed nations," except as allies.

We should be absolutely clear that when Lenin and Stalin said "dictatorship of the proletariat" allied with the oppressed nations, they meant the European industrial proletariat. Having brought the Russian proletariat to revolutionary activity, we can say that Lenin and Stalin earned their theoretical formulation. However, the last 89 years since 1917 have shown that the faith in the Western industrial proletariat, especially the French and British proletariats as targetted by Sultan-Galiev, was not earned in the material world. It must be consigned to the dustbin of metaphysics.

When Stalin said Sultan-Galiev "sapped" the will of the oppressed nations to work with the European industrial proletariat, he was right. Nonetheless, the history that followed cannot be boiled down to a violation of democratic centralism. Either Stalin was more correct or Sultan-Galiev was more correct about the future.

Sultan-Galiev came up with the phrase "proletarian peoples" to refer to oppressed nations. It was the flipside of the thesis adopted by Lenin in "Imperialism," that entire countries could be parasites. Again the danger is that Sultan-Galiev whitewashed the reactionary classes of the colonial countries. It is only retrospectively that we can evaluate--which was the greater danger, the labor aristocracy or the colonial exploiting classes?

The Bolsheviks undertook a dizzying series of moves from 1917 to 1923. When we track down Phyllis Chesler's concerns about the condition of wimmin under Islam we often end up right in the circles of Sultan-Galiev. The first Muslim wimmin pioneers for equality trace back to the Bolshevik-inspired movements.

In quick succession, the Bolsheviks supervised the formation of a Muslim communist party specifically separate from the Russian one. Then it abolished that party and merged it into the Russian Party. The decisions came quickly based on the demands of war. At the crucial juncture in 1923, Stalin chose to give Karabakh to Azerbaijan to appease Turkey. Sultan-Galiev had successfully called for the formation of a Crimean autonomous region for Tatars, but his call for Pan-Turkic or Pan-Islamic nationalism as an alternative way of handling Turkey fell by the wayside. Now the great historical question is: were Lenin and Stalin right? Did they orient themselves to the East enough? The underlying question is really, what was the greater danger, the labor aristocracy or the exploiter classes of the colonial nations?

It's interesting that M.N. Roy of India backed Sultan-Galiev for the most part theoretically, but opposed some of Sultan-Galiev's projects, calling one of them "Zinoviev's circus." Zinoviev we will recall was the one appointed by Lenin to keep the German communists from representing the labor aristocracy. Lenin and Zinoviev both referred to Germany as a majority petty-bourgeois. (See our "On the historical role of G. Zinoviev."

One last point we will raise is Lenin's own Tatar background. He was from a similar place as Sultan-Galiev. Can we give any credence to the term "Tatar imperialism"? Did Lenin make a mistake and forget his own formulation of what imperialism is? Was there a Tatar financial banking elite manipulating Sultan-Galiev when Lenin turned down the idea of a joint republic with Bashkirs?

MIM has already pointed out that Lenin's formulation of the republics of the Soviet Union prevented some of the colonial settler type wars that plagued France. At the same time, there were settler type activities going on throughout the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union fell apart relatively peacefully in some ways Lenin was vindicated again, but should he have pushed for internationalism of the smaller oppressed nations joined together in a larger republic? Is the division of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan etc. really in the interests of those peoples or did those divisions end up serving Russian imperialism? Could the oppressed nations have managed a joint effort without killing themselves internally?

Here we invite contributions on the subject. We hope to update this page as we discuss the relevant topics. Whether or not Stalin was right in 1923, we can say for sure that Sultan-Galiev's ideas deserve more respect today.

A "what if" fantasy about Sultan-Galiev

In the early 1920s, the Bolsheviks made a decision to turn in a certain direction that needs re-evaluating. In purging Mirza Sultan-Galiev in 1923, the Bolsheviks took a direction against "bourgeois nationalism" that we have 83 more years of data to look back on as Monday morning quarterbacks.

It was Sultan-Galiev putting forward the theory that what the Bolsheviks needed was a Colonial International, not a Comintern, most of whose members were Europeans. Today we know that the Comintern split many hairs with many a German, French and Italian faction, but nothing came of it, except for the influence of the process on the migrants in the imperialist countries who returned home to make revolution in China, Vietnam and Ghana for example. China and Albania did break free. Then the colonies revolted. Germany never went socialist even when Hitler lost. The Red Army had to come, and even then the Germans chose to work harder for capitalism than for socialism. The rich countries got richer and the poor fell further behind.

The converse of Lenin's "seal of parasitism" "on a whole country" was Sultan-Galiev's "proletarian people." According to Sultan-Galiev there were whole peoples that communists should have faith in because of the role of their nationalities in the imperialist system.

Sultan-Galiev's theories put forward at the time give MIM a glimpse of something that causes a "what if" question. What if Lenin had taken charge of Soviet Russia and Russian-speaking territories that joined such as Ukraine and Belarus.

Then what if Stalin had taken charge of the USSR minus Russia? What if he had had the Tatar-Bashkir combination plus everything down to Azerbaijan and over toward China? Stalin could have had his capital in Baku or Kazan and Stalin's USSR would have spoken some variant of Turkish, maybe Azeri, since Stalin was familiar with Azerbaijan already.

Georgia and Armenia could go to either the USSR or the Soviet Republic of Russian Speakers. Religion and history would say Georgia and Armenia would go with the Russian-speakers, but theory would say they would have been better off with the new USSR under Stalin. Georgia also has Muslim districts.

The Chechen and Ingush people would have been in the USSR, but the Ossetians could have been in the Russian-speaking territory if they wanted. However, those with resentments of Russian imperialism should have joined the USSR under Stalin. Oppressed nations should not have used resentment of Russia as an excuse for everything: if they wanted they could join Stalin's USSR, so complaints against Russia should only go so far.

The key to the USSR was to exclude ex-imperialist countries. Though Russia had been an imperialist country, the Russians earned the right to set up a dictatorship of the proletariat because the workers and peasants of Russia were exploited and rose up. They even showed that they could withdraw from imperialist war, so not to rely on the Russian exploited at that time would have been bourgeois nationalism. This was true of Russia, because Russia was the "weak link" among imperialists, and least bourgeoisified with the least super-profits. Today there are no major imperialist countries with the possible exception of Russia and China (who Mao said would be "social-imperialist") again where there is any reason to believe the so-called workers would create anything other than a sham socialism. Our comrades in Russia and Belarus even tell us that the hold of the labor aristocracy is strong there.

The basic theory behind the USSR would be to exclude imperialist countries including Russia and organize oppressed nations. Internally, the oppressed nations would have to resolve their frictions, but having a large state covering many ethnicities would have contributed to internationalism, as would its contributions to defeating imperialism.

Personnel

Lenin should have chosen Zinoviev to run the Russian-speaking SR. Zinoviev had proved to be the right man for the job. His famous fight depicted with John Reed in the movie "Reds" was on the necessity of using Islamic language of struggle. Zinoviev also made the point against Hilferding that 80% of the world was not European. In the movie, Zinoviev comes off looking opportunist and John Reed looks individualist to the point of not wanting his speeches rewritten; although Reed surely knew that Zinoviev was in charge. A re-examination might tend to show that Zinoviev was exactly right and should have pushed further. The party ended up retreating from the Zinoviev- Sultan-Galiev goals.

Stalin was uncompromisingly forward-looking with proletarian thought. He also knew all the sordid little fights the small nationalities had among themselves and he would have cracked down on them. It was to become the task of non-imperialist nations to get along and to distinguish conflicts with the dying system of imperialism from conflicts among themselves that may have been instigated at the beginning by imperialism.

Sultan-Galiev should have been Stalin's right hand and it would have been most correct for Mikoyan and Armenia to join the USSR. The Armenians were actually involved in putting down ethnically based revolts in the USSR as it was.

In this personnel shift, perhaps the biggest potential disaster would have been a Trotsky rise to power in Russia. Although Lenin made Trotsky witness some of Lenin's criticism of Stalin from the time, in fact, the things Lenin did not like about Stalin were even more true of Trotsky, when it came to the national question. Lenin's critiques at the end of 1922 in particular would really support Sultan-Galiev more than Trotsky, who was no friend of "going slow" in Russia-to-oppressed-nation relations. It was Trotsky who used the tsarist officers and we have no reason from his line to believe that he would have opposed the Europeanization of Central Asia.

Immediate implications

As Lenin spent his last political breath worrying about the nationalities question even in Stalin's Georgia, and he knew well that with the exception of the diplomatic ministries, old Russian chauvinists remained in place, Lenin would have had more reason for hope and a different set of fears with Sultan-Galiev playing a more prominent role.

Lenin's first fear would be that political elites of Turkey would somehow gain the upper hand over Stalin, with the help of the Western imperialists. Then Lenin would have regretted handing over all the territory to Stalin. However, these imperialist schemes go on all the time anyway. Nonetheless, the Russians would have to understand that they would need to aid Stalin's USSR. Stalin would surely accept the aid of Russian NKVD types against imperialist scheming. There is no reason to believe that such schemes would have had a better chance just because the USSR spoke a Turkish variant of language and had a smaller economy than it would have combined with Russia.

Would there have been enough fermentation among the peoples of the East? Perhaps it would have been a different fermentation. Today we see that the centrifugal placement of Russian settlers in the republics did not bring decisive revolutionary change. Rather the presence of Russians became a reason to avoid the solution of problems and exacerbate other problems.

Lenin said the following in December, 1922: "Now, we must, in all conscience, admit the contrary; the apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and tsarist hotch-potch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the course of the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been 'busy' most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine."

"It is quite natural that in such circumstances the 'freedom to secede from the union' by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is. There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk." Trotskyists loved this, because it is criticism of Stalin, but Trotsky was even more for preservation of direct European influence on Asia through tsarist officers, one international party etc. This late 1922 statement was really more supportive of Sultan-Galiev than Trotsky.

The "what if" road had a different set of risks. The idea that the Russian empire gave up territory for a revolutionary project, only to see it snatched up by Turkey is one risk. There would also be the risks of having two states where there used to be one--and hence a political basis for disunity.

Later implications

The resulting USSR under Stalin and Sultan-Galiev would have dwarved Turkey. Instead of going begging to Turkey, where communists died in a massacre, after being sent from World War I opponent Russia, Stalin would have gone to Turkey as the head of the largest pan-Islamic state, and the largest one using a Turkish group language. The Western connections of Turkey's rulers would have become their political weakness. If for example, the USSR started a campaign in India's Muslims, could Turkey's ruling class afford to look the other way?

Energy spent on the Basmatchi would have been reduced. The Whites still would have had the same problem, had they resuscitated, that they did not favor national liberation from Russia. The Tatars in the Crimea would have fought any Whites.

By the time the Great Depression rolled around in 1929, Stalin could have had the USSR moving forward, and posing an ever greater material challenge to Turkey.

Had Chechens belonged to Stalin's USSR set up from Baku, they would have had less contradiction with historical Russian imperialism, because they would not have been in the same state as the Russians. Perhaps Stalin would not have had to deport the Chechens. If the Germans decided to attack the Russian Soviet alone, perhaps Stalin would have had to keep an eye on the Chechens, but if the Germans decided to attack Stalin's USSR, the Chechens might think that they and other oppressed nations were under attack. Again it would seem that deportations could have been avoided then. Germans likely would have attacked anyway, to obtain Baku's oil, just as Hitler did in World War II. Chechens may have sensed that and opposed it.

Dare we dream that Pakistan would have separated from England before World War II and joined the USSR, partly because the USSR aided its armed struggle? Would the world have seen the Depression in Western Europe and seen the writing on the wall? Would Arabs and Persians have stood by because there were not so many in Stalin's USSR? Would there have been an I$rael if communist fire with an Islamic lifestyle had spread?

In terms of getting ready for World War II, the Estonians, Latvians and Finns may have been influenced by Stalin's example in Baku, but if not, the Russians would have had to take them over as they did. It would have been necessary to keep Ukraine in one or the other bloc. By language, the Ukrainians would have stayed with the Russians. Unfortunately, there is no "pan-X" ideology that would work in eastern Europe, only a confused medley of contenders that end up being genocidal "Greater Country Y" borders.

Even had the Germans still gone ahead with World War II to the East, there was every possibility that Stalin's USSR expanded to include more Islamic culture people, would have won more lopsidedly in combination with the Russian-speaking Soviet, with the biggest question mark being whether men such as Molotov could have kept Trotsky at bay (without Stalin on hand in Moscow) and moved the Soviet Russian-speakers ahead. (Another fantasy to consider would be keeping Stalin in Moscow while letting Sultan-Galiev set up the USSR.)

Although various moves in the East could raise or lower the mood of German workers with regard to Marxism-Leninism, a pan-Turkic movement led by Stalin and Sultan-Galiev would have contributed to Western imperialist stability only if Stalin and Sultan-Galiev ended up politically conquered. Whatever they managed to snatch away from imperialism in the East would have only undermined imperialism that much more.

Today

It's hard to see how we Maoists can apply the above "what if" today, even as many non-Maoists cite Sultan-Galiev all over the world, because the persynalities seem missing and the world players even as countries are different. Although Sultan-Galiev apparently wrote a good bit, even thinking about 1923 and whether it had the persynalities necessary to have a USSR under Stalin excluding Russia is speculative.

Nonetheless, in the future, it is not so much that industrialism is inherently flawed, but Sultan-Galiev was correct that labor aristocracies would form and crush Marxist hopes in the industrial proletariat of many countries. Therefore, with the possible exception of the Russians or new imperialist "weak links," the general model of the revolution in the imperialist countries should be from the outside as part of the dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations. Specifically that means we do not want to see imperialist country settlers claiming to spread socialism. Nor do we want to see settler minorities become an excuse for old antagonisms.

On the other hand, settlers among oppressed nations should be regarded differently. Also, unless a nationality has capitalism with the dominance of its own finance capital, it should not be called "imperialist." The entire purpose of oppressed nation unity at this stage is to throw off the yoke of finance-capital, which dominates in the united $tates, Japan, England etc. This will do the most to clear the way for economic advance of the oppressed nations.

Conclusions

The West spills too much ink on Trotsky and Liberalism's interpretation of the USSR. Trotsky's faith in the Western so-called worker proved unrequited. The same is true of the Mensheviks. They cannot end imperialism.

Likewise, though Bukharin may have influenced some peasant policies in China and Vietnam, it is hard to see that losing World War II under his leadership would have helped Marxism-Leninism any. The real alternative, the real "what if" for communism now that we can look at the last 82 years since Lenin died is Sultan-Galiev.

For Lenin to leave Marx and Engels in the dust and say that Germany or Europe was not the center of the world would have been hard to do. He did not go far enough, but we certainly do not begrudge him the appearance of things in 1923. The people we begrudge are the ones who look at the history since and cannot admit that Mao was right and if anything Stalin did not go far enough in his Eastern orientation. If Sultan-Galiev were a bourgeois nationalist worthy of purging, it is 1000 times more true that today's Trotskyists are also bourgeois nationalists. They represent labor aristocracies of Europe and Amerika. That is the confusion we are living in today, the confusion that needs correcting.

Lenin and Stalin could not go as far East as they needed, because Germans had shown signs of rising. The communist versus fascist showdown of the early 1930s in Germany was still to come. On the other hand, Lenin had had his share of choosing among social-democratic factions and trying to determine which were the least social-democratic factions in Europe and why the workers did not follow the more communist leaders. All of that proved to be useless nitpicking except for non-European observors who took something from it.

As Peruvian Mariategui said, Trotsky was a man meant to be a Napoleon of Europe. His overall line turned out completely wrong and he ended up being a man totally out of place. Nonetheless, if he could have stayed within centralism, he should have been allowed to talk with the European social-democrats and arrange secret aid to comrades in Western Europe. Since he probably would have confused the already confused European communists, perhaps the Russians could have taken Trotsky up on one musing of his and given him 30 or 40,000 Russian men to go to India through Stalin's USSR. If Russians were so advanced, they could go prove it by fighting the British in India, not by settling in areas dominated by other nationalities.

Neither Stalin nor Sultan-Galiev may have been 100% correct about their view of the future. Lenin's tension with Stalin at the end of life had to do with the fact that Russian imperialism and its rotting corpse was much of the glue holding the USSR together. Lenin and Stalin had to make many decisions very quickly. The one we have the most doubts about today is the one concerning Sultan-Galiev. If a USSR ranging from the southwest region near Turkey spreading to Central Asia near China had adopted a state without Russian imperialism, Lenin's concerns could have been alleviated, and had it been led by a Stalin, the class struggle could have increased its intensity within its own borders without exacerbating tensions with Russians. A brutal class struggle to fuse the oppressed nations together under a Stalin would not have been blamed on Russians. Hence, Stalin could have been more Stalin and Lenin could have ceased his worries.

[A.J.]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 01, 2007 01:33 am
Almost everything written there was correct, it just stings fake communists when they're faced with the overwhelming evidence of their own Western chauvinism. Face it, Islamism has done more to fight imperialism than the entire Western so-called left.
Affirmative.

[Dimentio]

Utterly crazy speculations.

MIM is actually playing into the hands of white supremacists. By their non-compromise attitude against the western "labor aristocracy", that same "la" would be given no option to defend itself than to ally with white supremacists.

MIM is a modern variant of the flagellants.

[lvleph]

I wouldn't use the Black Planthers as a good example of anything, but a racist reactionary movement. I am sure that statement may make me unpopular here, but it is the truth. However, there were many things the Black Panthers did that were good, but there are plenty of good things that come out of movements that I would still not want to associate myself with.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 01:30 pm
I wouldn't use the Black Planthers as a good example of anything, but a racist reactionary movement. I am sure that statement may make me unpopular here, but it is the truth. However, there were many things the Black Panthers did that were good, but there are plenty of good things that come out of movements that I would still not want to associate myself with.
What the fuck? How were the Black Panthers racist?

[lvleph]

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin+November 01, 2007 01:39 pm--> (Led Zeppelin @ November 01, 2007 01:39 pm)
[email protected] 01, 2007 01:30 pm
I wouldn't use the Black Planthers as a good example of anything, but a racist reactionary movement. I am sure that statement may make me unpopular here, but it is the truth. However, there were many things the Black Panthers did that were good, but there are plenty of good things that come out of movements that I would still not want to associate myself with.
What the fuck? How were the Black Panthers racist? [/b]
Well, they were black nationalists. Any organization that espouses nationalism aligned with race is racist. Oh and not to mention they only allowed black members.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 08:41 am
Well, they were black nationalists. Any organization that espouses nationalism aligned with race is racist. Oh and not to mention they only allowed black members.
No, they didn't. They allowed anyone join their party and didn't hesitate to serve them food or provide them with social services if they were poor.

The black nationalism was founded on revolutionary socialist principles. They did not see themselves as "better" than whites or anyone else. It wasn't about black superiority, it was about uniting the fragmented African American community which was left powerless for so long after reconstruction into trying to gain positive social upheaval.

Not too many whites in that period were of low class stature, by the way. Also, white privilege.

Calling the BPP racist is pure silliness.

[lvleph]

Originally posted by rev0lt+November 01, 2007 06:45 pm--> (rev0lt @ November 01, 2007 06:45 pm)
[email protected] 01, 2007 08:41 am
Well, they were black nationalists. Any organization that espouses nationalism aligned with race is racist. Oh and not to mention they only allowed black members.
No, they didn't. They allowed anyone join their party and didn't hesitate to serve them food or provide them with social services if they were poor.

The black nationalism was founded on revolutionary socialist principles. They did not see themselves as "better" than whites or anyone else. It wasn't about black superiority, it was about uniting the fragmented African American community which was left powerless for so long after reconstruction into trying to gain positive social upheaval.

Not too many whites in that period were of low class stature, by the way. Also, white privilege.

Calling the BPP racist is pure silliness. [/b]
Even founding member Bobby Seale later said in his book Seize the Time that Black Nationalism was a form of Black Racism.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 03:41 pm
Well, they were black nationalists. Any organization that espouses nationalism aligned with race is racist. Oh and not to mention they only allowed black members.
Calling the Black Panthers a "racist reactionary movement" is just stupid, and a quick look at ANY of the actions or words of the Black Panthers would show this.

Just something I quickly dug up:

"And I've got to point out right here that what I'm saying is not racist; I'm not speaking racism, I'm not condemning all white peole. I'm just saying that in the past the whie world was in power, and it was."

-Malcolm X, January 24, 1965

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 11:54 am
Even founding member Bobby Seale later said in his book Seize the Time that Black Nationalism was a form of Black Racism.
"Racism" against their racist government.

They weren't the same with low-middle, working class whites. That's why they helped form the White Panthers. (NOT a white supremacist group)

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Porkchop" nationalism, which the BPP identified and fought against, was a problem. The BPP was internationalist.

Fred Hampton said they were dealing with "a class thing, not a race thing" because "capitalism comes first, and racism comes from that."

Bobby Seale sells cookbooks now, so I wouldn't take everything he says to heart.

[lvleph]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 01, 2007 07:11 pm
"Porkchop" nationalism, which the BPP identified and fought against, was a problem. The BPP was internationalist.

Fred Hampton said they were dealing with "a class thing, not a race thing" because "capitalism comes first, and racism comes from that."

Bobby Seale sells cookbooks now, so I wouldn't take everything he says to heart.
Well, I have read more and it appears that during the 70s the BPP changed their policy of Black Nationalism.

[Dimentio]

The New Black Panthers are racist, and aligned with the LNSGP

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yeah, they are, but what do they have to do with the BPP, besides the name?

[Great Helmsman]

Capitalism will be defeated by a revolutionary working class.

Capitalism will NOT be defeated by reactionaries fighting for long-outdated social orders.

What did I say about slogans? Capitalism, and principally imperialism, is a problem that needs to be fought within a united front, and most of the fighters who you call reactionaries display more revolutionary potential. Given the sad state of class politics, modern Islamic radicals show up leftists on a regular basis.



So you support the improvement of women's rights, yes?

Would you say that capitalism has brought improvements in women's rights? Would you say that these improvements are more progressive than feudalism?

Is this an attempt at a defense of capitalist imperialism? I knew Trotskyite thinking was pretty common here, but I didn't expect them to be so indiscreet. What makes you think that they propose anything like feudalism anyways?


Does "class interest" ring a bell? One's interests are determined by their class (their relationship to the means of production).

Many of these Islamic revolutionaries are reactionary in that they oppose the Saudis because of they are enabling the encroachment of capitalism on the old order.
Saudi Arabia is not going to develop past their current stagnation without revolution. They are the Russia of 1917.



I don't support that bastard or the ruling class he stands for.

And I don't think in narrow minded black and white terms like you do! Just because I refuse toget into bed with the loons of Al-Qaeda, does not mean I support the loons in the neo-con side.

I don't support the policy of interventionism by any imperialist country, I oppose the US occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq, but I don't let my opposition blind me to the vile politics of the Islamist movement and I oppose them too.

Religion is the complete opposite of communism, like Christianity and all other faiths, the day Islam and other religions ceaseto exist, the better the world will be.
Nobody has said anything about abandoning class politics and the struggle for a communist world. By abandoning principled anti-imperialism, the revolutionary socialist movement risks making itself even more irrelevant than it currently is (if that were possible). And that line on religion is very anti-Marxist, and is something that would be expected from Christopher Hitchens types.



I said that imperialism and capitalism will be defeated at the same time, imperialism won't go before capitalism, because it's part of it. The two cannot live without one another, but they cannot outlive each other too. You seem to think imperialism can be defeated first.

Of course the destruction of capitalism will follow the destruction of imperialism. How could it possibly be any other way?




There has been a greater presence of class consciousness in the industrialised countries than the developing world, the communists and anarchists were very organised in the US in the 1920s, the same in Britain, Germany, Italy (pre-Mussolini), France and Spain during the Civil War.

Thats becuase the industrialised nations have a working class, places like Afghanistan don't, those nations are fuedal in social structure and have landlords and peasants, different system to capitalism.

You say there is no hope for a workers revolution in the industrialised nations, well there is even less hope in places like Afghanistan. There has been no successful example of socialism anywhere in the third world either, making MIM stupid 'labour aristocracy' theory absolutley redundant!

I am a worker in Britain and I tell you from personal experience, the labour aristocracy theory is bogus. I neither benefit from imperialism nor do I have any say in how British society is run, it's exclusive to my countries ruling class alone.

Are you a worker? You seem to have arrogant 'I know everything about the working class' approach.

My guess is that your another middle class teenager without any clue about what being working class means.
I believe Lenin exposed the problem with this line quite sufficiently in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. And excuse me, no successful example of socialism anywhere in the third world? Where do you come up with this nonsense?

The only thing that is bogus is your claim of being working class. You are nothing but a parasite. And don't try to make this anymore about the individual, it's already ironic enough that we have an anarchist accusing someone else of being an ignorant middle-class teenager.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 01, 2007 10:19 pm

The only thing that is bogus is your claim of being working class. You are nothing but a parasite. And don't try to make this anymore about the individual, it's already ironic enough that we have an anarchist accusing someone else of being an ignorant middle-class teenager.
So you are a paraiste too, huh?

I dont understand how can soemone acknowledge being a parasite, and not doing anything about it, without being a terrible person.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 01, 2007 10:19 pm
What did I say about slogans? Capitalism, and principally imperialism, is a problem that needs to be fought within a united front, and most of the fighters who you call reactionaries display more revolutionary potential. Given the sad state of class politics, modern Islamic radicals show up leftists on a regular basis.
That's not a slogan, that's Marxism 101. Get back the basics if you want to be a revolutionary, instead of a shill for feudalist thugs (which you are, as of now).


Is this an attempt at a defense of capitalist imperialism? I knew Trotskyite thinking was pretty common here, but I didn't expect them to be so indiscreet. What makes you think that they propose anything like feudalism anyways?

You are, clearly, an anti-Marxist.

Tell you what, go back and read anything Marxist about the onset of capitalism. Does it say that it is an ultimately regressive system? No. Does it say that it brings humanity backward? No. Does it say it is part of the progress of humanity? Yes.

Your utter incapacity to see the progression of history is at the basis for your support of feudalist reactionaries.

As I said before, loud and irreverent laughter.


Saudi Arabia is not going to develop past their current stagnation without revolution. They are the Russia of 1917.

And the people you support are the Black Hundreds.

Loud and irreverent laughter.

[Random Precision]

Electronic Light: When the glorious third-world army finally does come to break up the white amerikkkan race and send them the world to be re-educated, how will they be able to tell you apart from the rest of us parasites?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Wow, lots of reactionary pseudo-communist morons on the forum today.


Originally posted by "Anarchism Now"
You say there is no hope for a workers revolution in the industrialised nations, well there is even less hope in places like Afghanistan. There has been no successful example of socialism anywhere in the third world either, making MIM stupid 'labour aristocracy' theory absolutley redundant!

I am a worker in Britain and I tell you from personal experience, the labour aristocracy theory is bogus. I neither benefit from imperialism nor do I have any say in how British society is run, it's exclusive to my countries ruling class alone.

Does your home have running water? Air conditioning? Heating? Television? A DVD player? A computer? Do you have a car? Can you afford to eat three times everyday? Do you have access to health care? Education? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have probably benefitted from imperialism. ...Because... England is a wealthy country because it exploited its colonies and continues to receive benefits through neocolonial imperialism. On top of this, if you deny that there exists a labor aristocracy in the occidental countries, can you explain why the oppressed nations are so much less wealthy? They have the resources, they create wealth; their wealth is simply exported. This is imperialism and labor aristocracy is essentially the result of imperialism.

I simply can't figure out what you mean by saying that labor aristocracy is "redundant." Sorry, you fail at making sense; try again. And how ridiculous to say that labor aristocracy is a theory of the MIM, it has been established to exist for some time before those fucks. How do you get away with saying that there is no hope for communist revolution in the third world when we have already seen communist revolutions in the third world numerous times?

[PigmerikanMao]

Take everything MIM with a spoon of salt, it makes it taste sweeter.

In all seriousness, however, MIM does make since sometimes, and we as communists should listen and heed to what they do right, even if they really are a bunch of idiots.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Fly Pan [email protected] 02, 2007 11:38 pm
Wow, lots of reactionary pseudo-communist morons on the forum today.


Does your home have running water?
In the winter yes, in the summer three days a week.

Air conditioning?

Ha, Ha, Ha,

A DVD player?

Yes, we have one on the computer.

Do you have a car?

No

Do you have access to health care?

My wife does in her work. If I were ill, I would have to pay. I don't think we could afford for me to be seriously ill.

Education?

I left school at 16, and worked in construction. But by the standards of our country, yes, I have an education.

Obviously people like us in the Middle East are the bourgeoisie in your eyes. Personally, I consider myself to be working class, but I am sure the Maoists know better.

While you are fantasising about people's war tomorrow. I will be demonstrating against Turkey's war against the Kurds in Iraq.

Actually, I am really scared. I will be there though. You can read some nice radical book, and fantasise about 'Maoist' groups in the Middle East.

Devrim

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I don't know what you're talking about with this Maoist shite. My post was simply meant to show the existence of labor aristocracy. For example, most U.S. Americans, Britons, and other western Europeans do have the things I mentioned, and Turkey is a less wealthy country than the U.S. so in fact by answering the questions you have shown somewhat for our friend Anarchism Now that labor aristocracy does exist as a person of a social level parallel to you (in comparison to the rest of the country) in the U.S; would almost certainly have access to running water all year long and probably a car.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Fly Pan [email protected] 03, 2007 12:25 am
I don't know what you're talking about with this Maoist shite. My post was simply meant to show the existence of labor aristocracy. For example, most U.S. Americans, Britons, and other western Europeans do have the things I mentioned,
Right, and does that make them the bourgeois?

What do you want me to do;
hate American workers because they have cars, and air conditioning?

Actually,I am in my forties, and I don't have a car. One of our younger comrades' father's has one. Should I hate him for it?

I think one of the things about Maoism in the west is that they reject the working class, because the have no way of relating to it, and they reject the peasantry, because they understand them even less.

Devrim

[black magick hustla]

Its so fucking simplistic to say that americans have "running water" because of imperialism.

If imperialism was cut off, I assure you americans will still have televisions, cars, dvd players, and running water.

If the first world was made of "parasites", then how would buisnesses in the first world even exist? The mere fact that here in Michigan cars are still made, and that the bourgeosie can manage to extract surplus value from the "excessive" wages of unionized, automobile workers, debunks all your bullshit.

If imperialism was cut off, the first world would still have the capital and technology to mantain the "high maintenance" lives of first worldlers.

In fact, I would argue that much of imperialism today only benefits the rich. Workers get sent to get butchered, and billions of tax dollars are sent overseas instead of being spent here in American colleges and healthcare. Jobs are getting outsourced overseas.

[Killer Enigma]

There ought to be a rule about posting long blocks of text without a substantive opinion. Quote relevant passages which are pertinent to the discussion. No one wants to sift through an essay on a message board.

[Great Helmsman]

That's not a slogan, that's Marxism 101. Get back the basics if you want to be a revolutionary, instead of a shill for feudalist thugs (which you are, as of now).
That's manic expression 101. A flawed and simplistic dogmatism that confuses potential revolutionaries about what class struggle really means.



You are, clearly, an anti-Marxist.

Tell you what, go back and read anything Marxist about the onset of capitalism. Does it say that it is an ultimately regressive system? No. Does it say that it brings humanity backward? No. Does it say it is part of the progress of humanity? Yes.

Your utter incapacity to see the progression of history is at the basis for your support of feudalist reactionaries.
Are you willfully ignorant or just stupid? Explain how countries that are dominated by imperialism are ever going to advance beyond their exploited state. Nationalists and 'feudalist reactionaries' as you erroneously refer to them as are the national bourgeois revolutionaries that will bring progression and liberation to the third world. These people simply have better reasons to take up arms against the oppressors.

In contrast, your line is very similar to the line that many chauvinistic socialist parties in Europe used to defend continued colonialism in the third world. They were ignored for good reason.




And the people you support are the Black Hundreds.

Loud and irreverent laughter.
Maybe in the future you can just put a little note at the top of your posts to let everyone when you feel like being a smarmy little twit. Save us some time.



Obviously people like us in the Middle East are the bourgeoisie in your eyes. Personally, I consider myself to be working class, but I am sure the Maoists know better.

While you are fantasising about people's war tomorrow. I will be demonstrating against Turkey's war against the Kurds in Iraq.

Actually, I am really scared. I will be there though. You can read some nice radical book, and fantasise about 'Maoist' groups in the Middle East.

Devrim Protesting an aggressive war against a Marxist-Leninist party! Shouldn't you be sitting on the fence or something? Those guys are just as bad as the oppressors, aren't they?

[Great Helmsman]

Originally posted by Hope Lies in the [email protected] 02, 2007 10:14 pm
Electronic Light: When the glorious third-world army finally does come to break up the white amerikkkan race and send them the world to be re-educated, how will they be able to tell you apart from the rest of us parasites?
It's not really clear what you're insinuating. Nothing here has anything to do with MIM, or what they believe about random theory X.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 03, 2007 04:27 am


Obviously people like us in the Middle East are the bourgeoisie in your eyes. Personally, I consider myself to be working class, but I am sure the Maoists know better.

While you are fantasising about people's war tomorrow. I will be demonstrating against Turkey's war against the Kurds in Iraq.

Actually, I am really scared. I will be there though. You can read some nice radical book, and fantasise about 'Maoist' groups in the Middle East.

Devrim Protesting an aggressive war against a Marxist-Leninist party! Shouldn't you be sitting on the fence or something? Those guys are just as bad as the oppressors, aren't they?
Obviously the writer has no idea about our politics, or those of the PKK.

In fact, the only leaflets, or wall posters that I have seen against the war in Ankara, are the left communist ones.

The war is clearly anti-working class. Both the PKK and the state are anti-working class.

The PKK are only a Marxist Leninist party in your fantasies.

Devrim

[ComradeR]

Nationalists and 'feudalist reactionaries' as you erroneously refer to them as are the national bourgeois revolutionaries that will bring progression and liberation to the third world.
This is true of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah but not of groups like the Taliban, as is evident by what they wrought in Afghanistan. Don't confuse those who are truly fighting for the progression and liberation of their country's with those who are fighting to undo progression and return to a form of feudalism.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Again:


As for what position communists take.. we "[C]ombat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc." (Lenin).

And, again, what many here (especially, but not limited to the MIMites) term the labor aristocracy (i.e. workers that have won some moderate gains through hard struggle) has nothing to do with what Lenin described. There was a thread on that here (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=69157), with lots of sources.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Electronic [email protected] 03, 2007 04:27 am
That's manic expression 101. A flawed and simplistic dogmatism that confuses potential revolutionaries about what class struggle really means.
This is rich. Electronic Light, I can tell that you know NOTHING about Marxism, capitalism, imperialism...or anything else in the real world. You call basic Marxist analyses "simplistic dogmatism", which betrays your thick ignorance. You display not a shred of awareness.

Are you really saying the Taliban brought "progression and liberation" to Afghanistan? Don't mince words in order to hide your undeniable insanity.

You support feudalist lunatics and have the guile to call me "chauvinistic"? Typical. Supporting national self-determination does not mean you have to support the adherents of a long-outdated mindset and system.

Call me "smarmy" if you want, but you'll never be able to call yourself "sane".

Loud and irreverent laughter.

[Eleftherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 11:52 pm
The PKK are only a Marxist Leninist party in your fantasies.


But I'm pretty sure it was quite close to the Soviet Union. Did they begin to change their ideology after the Soviet Union's collapse?

[Entrails Konfetti]

By comparrison I probably live as well as a Cuban Communist Party official.
But according to Maoists because I'm in the USA that makes me an aristocrat, however if I were in Cuba that would make a great leader of the proletariat :lol: .

EDIT: But unlike a Cuban Communist Party Official, I don't have health-care! :D

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Alcaeos+November 07, 2007 02:21 am--> (Alcaeos @ November 07, 2007 02:21 am)
[email protected] 02, 2007 11:52 pm
The PKK are only a Marxist Leninist party in your fantasies.


But I'm pretty sure it was quite close to the Soviet Union. Did they begin to change their ideology after the Soviet Union's collapse? [/b]
Their ideology completely changed. Now they are quite pro-American.

On another point you have to judge these organisations on what they do, not what rhetoric they justify it with. The PKK were reactionary nationalist gangsters when they called themselves Marxist too.

Devrim

[Killer Enigma]

Their ideology completely changed. Now they are quite pro-American.
Of course! For one must be wholly and resolutely anti-American to be revolutionary!

[Killer Enigma]

On another point you have to judge these organisations on what they do, not what rhetoric they justify it with. The PKK were reactionary nationalist gangsters when they called themselves Marxist too.
"Reactionary", "nationalist", and "fascist" are all the equivalents of "son of a *****", "douche-bag", and "motherfucker" in Marx-speak; they are used for shock effect and most of the time the user has no idea what they mean.

Show me how the Kurdistan Worker's Party is reactionary, and furthermore, show me how their nationalism differs from that of the Naxalites, the Zapatistas, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran, etc.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Killer [email protected] 07, 2007 11:41 am

On another point you have to judge these organisations on what they do, not what rhetoric they justify it with. The PKK were reactionary nationalist gangsters when they called themselves Marxist too.
"Reactionary", "nationalist", and "fascist" are all the equivalents of "son of a *****", "douche-bag", and "motherfucker" in Marx-speak; they are used for shock effect and most of the time the user has no idea what they mean.

I didn't actually call them fascist. It is not a word I throw around.


Show me how the Kurdistan Worker's Party is reactionary, and furthermore, show me how their nationalism differs from that of the Naxalites, the Zapatistas, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran, etc.

I would say that as a simple example the PKK's campaign of shooting school teachers was pretty reactionary.

A speech where one of our members put forward our position on nationalism in the Middle East, and in Turkey in particular is available in English here (http://eks.internationalist-forum.org/en/node/43).

I don't know anything about the Naxalites so I am not going to comment on them. The Zapatistas are, however, a nationalist group. There is a clue in their name. The Worker Communists in my opinion have internationalist positions on the conflict in Iraq, not nationalist ones. They do, however, have roots in the Kurdish nationalist group Komala, and I am not sure what their position on the Kurdish issue is today.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Killer [email protected] 07, 2007 11:38 am

Their ideology completely changed. Now they are quite pro-American.
Of course! For one must be wholly and resolutely anti-American to be revolutionary!
It is not a question of verbal radicalism. It is a question of whether the PKK are actually moving towards being a puppet of US imperialism.
Certainly it looks as if PEJAK has become part of the US offensive against Iran.
Devrim

[Killer Enigma]

I didn't actually call them fascist. It is not a word I throw around.
I was remarking on the liberal (no pun intended) usage of the terms on this board. You are guilty of using the former two recklessly.


I would say that as a simple example the PKK's campaign of shooting school teachers was pretty reactionary.
How? What exactly are they reacting against? Education? Reactionary, when used as an adjective in the Marxist context, refers to a political tendency which seeks to suppress or eliminate revolutionary efforts.


A speech where one of our members put forward our position on nationalism in the Middle East, and in Turkey in particular is available in English here.
Thanks. I will now proceed to search for this post throughout revleft with not even a name, much less a starting point. I didn't even get a link. A good rule of thumb is to quote relevant passages from a document which you cite if you wish it to be taken seriously.


I don't know anything about the Naxalites so I am not going to comment on them. The Zapatistas are, however, a nationalist group. There is a clue in their name. The Worker Communists in my opinion have internationalist positions on the conflict in Iraq, not nationalist ones. They do, however, have roots in the Kurdish nationalist group Komala, and I am not sure what their position on the Kurdish issue is today.
My point is that you accused the Kurdish Worker's Party of being "reactionary nationalist gangsters" and there are many other groups, to which I suspect you would be less than critical of, who practice an analogous, if not equivalent degree of nationalism.

[Dros]

Dear Electronic Light,

You have made some correct arguments. For instance, the proletariat in the first and second world are benefiting from imperialism. But what you have to realize is that their "benefit" is still a form of exploitation. It works like this. The wealth generated by the third world takes the form of commodities for sale in the first world. The Bougoisie take these commodities and sell them for more than they are worth (value of labor + value of materials). Thus, all these commodities do is steal from the 1st world proletariat in the form of profits. The goal of communism is not to reduce everyone to third world poverty. Thus, the proletariat in the first world can still be revolutionary because, at the point where they are not going to lose anything (except their chains), they can be and still are a revolutionary force. Secondly, this fact does not change that the proletariat in the first world is being brutally exploited. The fact that they indirectly "benefit" from other forms of exploitation does not change the fact that the first world Proletariat would be fundementally better off without capitalism.

Taking your line is defeatist and reactionary in the sense that it does not allow for first world revolution which I beleive is possible. Indeed, it is a great hope for communists the world over.

Lastly, I really wish you wouldn't use the term labour aristocracy. It's absurd and makes you sound kind of silly, especially to people who work with the first world proletariat.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Killer [email protected] 07, 2007 08:21 pm

I didn't actually call them fascist. It is not a word I throw around.
I was remarking on the liberal (no pun intended) usage of the terms on this board. You are guilty of using the former two recklessly.

I don't think that it is reckless to describe the PKK as nationalist. They do it themselves.


How? What exactly are they reacting against? Education? Reactionary, when used as an adjective in the Marxist context, refers to a political tendency which seeks to suppress or eliminate revolutionary efforts.

Reactionary means more than that. I would say that nationalism is a reactionary ideology. I would also say that running campaigns of shooting workers is reactionary.


Thanks. I will now proceed to search for this post throughout revleft with not even a name, much less a starting point. I didn't even get a link. A good rule of thumb is to quote relevant passages from a document which you cite if you wish it to be taken seriously.

Look at the post again. The word here is a link to the article.


My point is that you accused the Kurdish Worker's Party of being "reactionary nationalist gangsters" and there are many other groups, to which I suspect you would be less than critical of, who practice an analogous, if not equivalent degree of nationalism.

No, we would see groups like the Zapatistas as anti-working class nationalists.

Devrim

[ecopolecon]

I think much of this debate is hinging on overly simplistic conceptions of class. First of all, as Anuradha Mittal put it, "there is a North in the South and a South in the North." This partly overlaps with race/ethnicity: the elites in Latin America, for example, are disproportionately white, and the most exploited in the U.S. are disproportionary Black, Latino and Native American. But the majority of Americans living below the poverty line are white, and anyone who has been to Appalachia or rural Pennsylvania knows there are white communities living in squalor. Second, it's true that the benefits of imperial exploitation of the South trickle down to the European, U.S., Canadian, Japanese (and also South Korean and Taiwanese) working classes in the sense that per capita mass consumption on the levels of those countries is not generalizable globally. If the whole planet consumed oil, water, paper and much else in the quantities that the working class in the imperialist countries do (as the United Nations Environmental Programme has pointed out), we'd need three additional earths. On the other hand, the elite in the imperialist countries controls the vast majority of the resources; and the elite in China, India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East have more in common with elites in the imperialist countries than with their own populations. So it's a mixture: the working class in the imperialist countries is "bought off" just enough by inflated consumption levels, made possible by imperialism abroad and at home, to prevent them from radicalizing and challenging their (real) exploitation.

In Europe, the welfare state and "third way" social democracy has amounted to a capital-labor contract, and has been tied to accomodation with imperialism by some sectors of the trade union movement (but not others). In the U.S., this capital-labor contract has taken the racialized form of white supremacy. W.E.B. Du Bois put forward the most nuanced discussion of the U.S. labor aristocracy in 'Black Reconstruction,' where he showed how whites-only priveleges like homesteading the West, immigration (largely barred to non-whites before 1965), Jim Crow, and job/homebuying/legal discrimination helped solidify intra-white class cohesion. The white capitalists reaped most of the benefits, but the white workers got certain material goodies from excluding people of color from various social sectors.

Similarly, in the "South"/"Third World" there has generally been a comprador bourgeois/educated class acquiescing with neo-colonialism since formal decolonization. Look at Franz Fanon's discussion of the indigenous bourgeoisie and educated class in the "Wretched of the Earth." He showed how this elite was caught up in contradictions between struggling for independence and selling out to imperialism through foreign direct investment, bank loans, etc. All very relevant today.

The point is, we can't overlook broad correlations OR internal contraditions in categories like "First World" and "Third World." No one should pretend that the form and content of mass consumption in the "North" (which absorbs the majority of global commodity production) isn't a product of imperialism, but the profits from this consumption, and far and away the highest consumption levels, are concentrated in the elite. Exceptions aside, mass obesity in parts of the North and mass malnutrition in parts of the South are two sides of the same coin, which is the overconsumption and underconsumption in different places of one finite pool of global resources. Equitable distribution would mean bringing the mass of the North down several notches in consumption of raw materials (SUVs, cell phones, and much else can't exist without imperialist production relations in mining, oil and assembly). Conversely, the mass of the South would be brought up several notches if imperialism (defined as foreign political and economic domination of governments and economies) was destroyed.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 02:20 pm
Maoist Internationalist Movement
On converting to Islam: the invisible schism in the international communist movement

October 23 2007

41 years ago on October 15 the Black Panther Party founded itself, an important date for MIM's ideology. In a video statement in September,(1) Osama Bin Laden has asked Amerikans to convert to Islam.
It should read:

41 years ago on October 15 the Black Panther Party founded itself, an important date for MIM's ideology. In a video statement in September,(1) Osama Bin Laden had asked Amerikans to convert to Islam.

I stopped reading after this since the writer was too incompotent to use proper grammar, and credits the "victory of the Black Panther Party solely to the MIM" :lol:

Why did you even copy/paste this cult's newsletter?

[Sky]

Scientific Communism proclaims its rejection, in principle of any sectarianism: “The communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.”, declared the Communist Manifesto. Those that slander Islam consciously engage in chauvinism because such insults simultaneously equate to racism towards nations in which Islam is a firmly established part of culture; Islam is completely inalienable from the Arab nation and the Iranic and Turkic nations. In some regions of the Middle East, Communists and other progressive forces have established a broad populart front; in 1975, Communists, Druzes, Palestinians, and Amal formed an anti-fascist front against the reactionary regime in Beirut.

Those that call Islam "barbaric" again are guilty of chauvinism, racism, as well as ignorance; in Saudi Arabia where the Sharia is practiced, some of the most magnificent cities can be found. The Islamic Revolution in Iran was a profoundly democratic, anti-imperialist, and bourgeois revolution.

The teachings of Muhammad were a response to the acute crisis in Arabian society brought about by the breakdown of tribal relations and the undermining of corresponding moral-ethical and religious (polytheistic and fetishistic) concepts and by the emergence of early class society. The times required the creation of a stable sate and social organization in Arabia, and it fell to the religious and political movement of Islam to accomplish this task.

[Zurdito]

errors to the Third World bourgeois side or errors toward the Western labor aristocracy bourgeois side.

so the "western" (a false term - Japan is imperialist, so is Russia) working class is now equated to its bourgeoisie, while tiny, secretive cells of religious fighters such as "al qaeda" are equated to the working class of Islamic country's?

I don't know where to start. good luck establishing a global revolution on that basis.

[Lenin II]

Aw Lenin have mercy, here we go AGAIN!!!
AGAIN with the old third campism "blame the victims of imperialism for developing reactionary policies" bullshit! Suddenly, because we dont agree with some or even most of their policies, we can't support their battle against the "White Man's Burden"-style imperialism being practiced in the middle east even as we speak? Apparently working class liberation must be put on hold until we can find anti-imperialist forces that are cuddly enough to be our allies.

Most serious problems in the world's history can be traced back to colonialism and imperialism of one type or another. When someone in a developed country looks at a Bible, or Qu'ran, or etc. They see a book that you "live life by" only in the most liberal sense. In third world countries, they view said books as ones of liberation, ones to bring prosperity to their nation. Hence why the whole liberation theology thing was popular among Catholics in the 1970's and 80's in the Americas. Now there are the actual leaders of nations now that have become bourgeois but most are anti-imperialist, such as Iran.

I can see where theyre coming from. I mean, those motherfuckers are nothing nice. We shouldn't support the actual policies of the people in charge. If they are fighting imperialism we'll stand by them on that regard. Zimbabwe is anti-colonialist. It's leader is not a great guy, but that's irrelevant, since the leader genuinely is anti-colonialist/imperialist.

[Dros]

Scientific Communism proclaims its rejection, in principle of any sectarianism: “The communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.”, declared the Communist Manifesto. Those that slander Islam consciously engage in chauvinism because such insults simultaneously equate to racism towards nations in which Islam is a firmly established part of culture; Islam is completely inalienable from the Arab nation and the Iranic and Turkic nations. In some regions of the Middle East, Communists and other progressive forces have established a broad populart front; in 1975, Communists, Druzes, Palestinians, and Amal formed an anti-fascist front against the reactionary regime in Beirut.

Those that call Islam "barbaric" again are guilty of chauvinism, racism, as well as ignorance; in Saudi Arabia where the Sharia is practiced, some of the most magnificent cities can be found. The Islamic Revolution in Iran was a profoundly democratic, anti-imperialist, and bourgeois revolution.

The teachings of Muhammad were a response to the acute crisis in Arabian society brought about by the breakdown of tribal relations and the undermining of corresponding moral-ethical and religious (polytheistic and fetishistic) concepts and by the emergence of early class society. The times required the creation of a stable sate and social organization in Arabia, and it fell to the religious and political movement of Islam to accomplish this task.

You make me laugh. Calling Islam reactionary is not chauvinism. It is reactionary. It justifies private property. Religion in general is one of the single largest stumbling blocks the international proletariat must overcome. The fact that the MIM fanatics support these ultra-reactionary, hyper-counter-revolutionaries as part of a "working class" movement just goes to show that the MIM is a.) delusional, b.) hateful of the working class, and c.) batshit crazy (again).

[bezdomni]

I think it is important to put forward the Marxist-Leninist thesis of uneven development, and point out the errors of the Trotskyists in understanding this thesis...but, as I've said before, MIM also misunderstands imperialism (but in a very different way from Trotskyists).

Also, we should recognize that strengthening islamic fundamentalism strengthens U.S. imperialism (and vice versa). It is the task of communists to create a radically different situation in society and repolarize the masses in order to defeat both reactionary trends.

[Lenin II]

You make me laugh. Calling Islam reactionary is not chauvinism. It is reactionary. It justifies private property.
I would hope we can all agree on this.

Religion in general is one of the single largest stumbling blocks the international proletariat must overcome.
True, but it is a far distant fourth to capitalism, imperialism and fascism, which should be our highest enemies.


Also, we should recognize that strengthening islamic fundamentalism strengthens U.S. imperialism (and vice versa).

This is simply not true. US imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism are directly opposed to each other! How do you figure that the US, the only country worldwide that support Israel, is the ally of Hamas? The only fundamentalists who ally with the US are the Saudis, who should be considered imperialist themselves. Nations like Iran and groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are directly against the main imperialist forces and thus deserve our support, if not our military or ideological defense.

[Luís Henrique]

as I've said before, MIM also misunderstands imperialism

MIM misunderstands imperialism?! Give me a break. Those guys haven't the faintest idea of what is surplus value, how can they even suspect what imperialism could be?

Luís Henrique

[Dros]

True, but it is a far distant fourth to capitalism, imperialism and fascism, which should be our highest enemies.

To me, religion is third in the third world (fascism is behind it) and second in the first world (only behind capitalism). This is because, unlike fascism or imperialism, religion prevents revolution by preventing the proletariat from even considering revolution. And it is really really entrenched. It's a really big problem.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

I disagree with a lot of MIM's stuff, but I don't find this article particularly wrong.

I wish some comrades would get over their knee-jerk reaction to MIM's stuff, and actually READ that article.

And yes, I found Marmot's comment distasteful, to say the very least.

[RedAnarchist]

I wish some comrades would get over their knee-jerk reaction to MIM's stuff, and actually READ that article.

Call me lazy, but that article is just too long. If they want to get their point across, they need to prune it a little.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Call me lazy, but that article is just too long. If they want to get their point across, they need to prune it a little.

Hehehe, MIM loves to ramble on about stuff. :P