Sun, 8 Dec 1996 09:16:46 +0100 (MET) COCKROACH! #24 - Marxism and the Third World A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscribtions are free at How often this zine will appear depends on you! ---------------------------------------------------- 1. Marxism and the Third World 2. Belgium! Marxism,cowardness or religion? 3. The Stalin chimera in modern Vietnam ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- Marxism and the Third World (continued) >Bob Malecki wrote, in reply to Richard P.: > > >>So stop the poor third worldist shit Richard. Millions of workers in the >>west died in this historical struggle and both Soviet and Cuban workers died >>and suffered in the thousands helping Africans. Rolf writes; >That's precisely what they did *not*. The Soviet Union tried - using >own troops to a lesser extent and those of its underling Cuba much >more - to *enslave* Africa, to get its own foot in there instead of >that of US imperialism (above all), in the '70:s etc. If one is to >understand the world at all, it's absolutely necessary to see the >difference between socialim, on the one hand, and social-imperialism, >on the other. Yeah right ROlf the Cubans were trying to take over South Africa! In fact i do not take responsibility for what the Stalinists did in Africa however it would be the duty of any workers state including the then Soviet Union and Cuba which was and are a degenerated workers state and a deformed workers state to do everything possible in its power to help in developing the struggles in places like South Africa. Unfortunately we must say that the Stalinists did far to LITTLE in regards to this kind of activity. And in Africa what they did was pretty criminal in suppling the local African military dictatorships with the guns. But in South Africa it was not a military dictatorship but the ANC they supported with both guns and troops. But unfortunately it had nothing to do with setting up a dictatorship of the proletariat in South Africa but putting the Nationalist ANC in power. This has showed how incredibly anti-working class the ANC really is with its program. What has happened is that Aparthied has been replaced with a fairly unstable bougeois parlimentry democracy and the bougeois and capitalist order is thriving and well in the "new" South Africa. > >There recently was a "discussion" on "M1" about the aggression >by Soviet social-imperialism against Afghanistan , also a part >of the third world, 1979-1989. Some people openly quoted with >approval someone's earlier saying "if there was ever a country that >deserved to be raped, it was Afghanistan" (!!). Others pretended >to believe that the social-imperialists, who killed 1.5 million >people there, drove away as refugees some 5-6 million, destroyed >7000 villages and littered the country with something between >10 million and 60 million mines (which it will take decades to >get rid of) were - listen to this! - "exerting a civlizing >influence" on that country! Against me, who condemned the >aggression, they used some pretty foul language. Yes! Afghanistan where the anti-imprialist Mullahs are really showing their hand now. The guns are comong through the CIA backed Pakistani state. It is in relation to not sdo much the Soviet Union at this point but directed at India with its millions and millions of people. So in fact what you are supporting is and American attempt first directed at the former Soviet Union and now more today of the American committment to strengthen the Pakistani bougeoisie in a show down with India. It is called devide and rule and in the long term interests it is not Afghanistan that is the real prize but the markets of India, Pakistan and Russia that are at stake. You inceesant support of any of these states against imperialism is sickening and counter revolutionary to the core. Only by creating Bolshevik parties in India, Pakistan and the former Soviet Union can we begin to turn back th clock and move forward. > >How can this be? It has to do with what Richard pointed to, >a certain type of "Marxists" in reality being *defenders >of imperialism (including social-imperialism)* and not only >after getting a little more of imperialism's spoils by >actually, above all, very interested in *maintaining* the system >of exploitation and thus above all *attacking* and *trying to >suppress* the real Marxists. Richard! Asad! Rolf is sucking up to you and is playing the friend of the poor third world. But his political line will cause more misery and war for the millions and million of Africans and Indians in a new round of so called progressive wars against imperialism. In fact the only progressive wars in these countries is the workers and poor people armed with a political program and the guns smash their own bougeoisie and turn the areas into gigantic Soviets and dictatorship of the Proletariat,peasantry and poor people. Don,t get sucked into a new round of reactionary Maoist garbage. > >>The whole history of >>imperialism and class struggle is filled with horror both in the first, >>second and third worlds. > >So it is. But I don't know what *Bob M*. means by "the second world". >Mao Zedong, who really was supporting the liberation movements >of the third world, used the term as meaning Europe, Japan, >Canada and some other countries in an intermidary position between >the then superpowers (1974 etc) and the third world. In fact Mao support to the so called "2nd worlds" and foremost Japan i find quite amazing Rolf! Japan is one of the leading if not strongest imperialist power along side of America and Germany. But the whole gimmick by Mao was in reality the line of peaceful coexistence and class collaboration connected to buildiong socialism in one country. In order to do this operation the Maoists sacraficed a potentialö revolutionary overthrow in Indinesia and turned it into a bloodbath. They were also instrumental along with Ho Chi Min in making the deal with the French prolonging the colonial occupation of that country for 40 more years! > >Even if people's intentions are good, as I believe Bob's to some >part at least are, they're not much use if they hang on to various >Trotskyite/revisionist misconceptions and prejudices. They then even >in the main are *helping* reaction. No Rolf the heydays of the social imperialist line about the Soviet Union are over. The Soviet Union has disintegrated. If you want to make a mass movement again then you will have to find a new line or use China as a social imperialist drum to beat on. Maoism like state capitalism has show itself completely incompetant in not understanding the Trotskyist theoy of deformed and degenerated workers states. The only real difference is back then your loyalties were to the Mapists under Mao. But in fact it was just petty bougeois liberals taking one side or the other in a clicke fight between to Stalinist bureaucracies. The one in Peking or the one in Moscow! Now you have nothing to fight about any longer and no theory of Social imperialism which in the west played more into anti communist McCarthite hysteria rather tyhen any kind of Communist politics. Because the so called social imperialist Soviet Union no longer exists! >Brezhnev and company as big friends of the Africans?? You and i both know that Brezhnev was not a friend of the African peoples or proletariat in South Africa. But given a choice between the then Stalinist Soviet Union or the Cubans and American Imperialism, communisT and especially Trotskyists take sides. The side of the deformed and degenerated workers states against imperialism. You my friend wind up supporting the German,Swedish, Japanese, bougeoisies in the so called second world with Mao. Ha what a joke Rolf. Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Marxism and the Third World (continued) >Richard P, > >You wrote, on 18.10: > >>Hieta >> >>As an African it is difficult to take class struggles in Europe and North >>America seriously. After all Harlem or London's East End are very NICE >>areas compared to the slums around African cities. Rolf writes; >You're precisely quite right in that the workers of the "rich" >countries will get absolutely nowhere if they don't support and >team up with the billions of people who are the most exploited >and oppressed by the present system of international society, >the imperialist system. Amen Rolf and the Maoist two stage theory of revolution in a nutshell. > >That's why Lenin in his time raised another call than that >original one of Marx and Engels. He advocated that one should, >instead of "Proletarians in all countries, unite!", say: >"Proletarians in all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!" >I have had that call on top of the lefleats I've been publishing >a series of here in Sweden since 1975. No that is why Lenin was a Marxist and the Maoist are revisionists of the Leninist line. > >*Real* class struggles in the USA, Europe etc *should* be taken >seriously by you Africans too - and it's very welcome to have >someone from that continent writing here! - since it's *also* >in support of your struggle. > >I *don't* mean such actions which could be characterized as >"strivings to get more of the imperialist spoils of plunder". >> >>It seems to me that it is not legitimate to consider First World >>societies as monads since they have a profound impact on and, >>indeed, dominate the third world economically, politically and >>culturally. > >Absolutely correct. One cannot consider the USA, for instance, >only by itself, but must see its international role, the >inyternational economic relations of imperialism. The same >goes for "my" country which is likewise among the exploiting >ones. What crap Rolf. Historically Africa was a gigantic European colonial territory! > >However, it's also necessary to see that which Mao Zedong >pointed out: The differentiation among the exploiting countries, >which plays a not unimportant role internationally today too. Which means that your advice to Richard is to forget all about history the Germans are our friends now against those evil Americans and horrtible Russkies. I doubt if any thinking African will buy this Rolf! > >You probably meant such countries as Sweden too, when you >wrote "First World". But Sweden, though still comparatively >"rich", has *not* the same position in the world as the USA. >Mao Zedong earlier differentieted the superpowers from >certain intermidate countries and from 1974 on described the >world as divided into theree worlds. Since then, many things >have changed. But it would still be correct to describe Sweden, >for instance, *not* as a "First World" country bus as a >*Second World* country. Ah Richard! According to Rolf poor little imperialist Sweden is a second world country worth defending against the horrible Americans and Russkies! > >Certain "Marxists" don't like that differentiation at all. >Why? Because in reality, they're *for* the interests of >the very *worst* and biggest reactionary powers in the >world, US imperialism and Russian new tsarism, and these >powers in part are opposed even by the second-world countries >and are to a certain extent oppressing them too. Rolf is right about Marxists not liking Rolf's pro European imperialist line. It means that Rolf would be voting for war credits to his own bougeoisie like the Social Democrats in 1914 did and Lenin condemed and broke with to build the third International. The Communist International against thease reformist traitors! > >I've posted some things earlier to "M1" with articles >originally from the earlier, socialist, China in which >the international situation was correctly analyzed in this >manner. Yes Rolf certainly has published a lot of stuff which is basicallty anti working class and a whole lot of making all kinds of deals with the class enemy all over the world. > > Does this not mean that analysis that looks >>exclusively at what happens within societies (instead of what happens >>between societies) gives support to the status quo? (ie it operates on >>the assumption that what happens between classes within one society is >>political but that what happens between societies is "natural") > >Yes. The "forgetting" of that overwhelming fact, that of >imperialism in the world, actually supports the "status quo" >of continued massive exploitation of the third-world countries Yes it sure does! And Rolf is calling on you to support those poor German Imperialists against the horrible Americans and Russkies!. > >Lenin once said that *the main point* in the whole program of >the social-democratic parties (as they were called then, before >the treason by most soc-dem leaders) must be the differentiation >in the world between *expoiting* coutries and *exploited* ones. >This still holds true today Yes, but Lenin did this from the perspective of the International working class and not rotten blocks with the class enmemy that Rolf purposes and supports. This is not Leninisn but a Mao-Stalinist variant of class betrayal.. Rolf continues with almost a full page of the virtues of the progressiveness of the Swedish and European bougeoisies! Are their any Africans in the world that have read any history that can believe this garbage? I hope not! Warm Regards Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- Belgium! Marxism,cowardness or religion? I find it extremely irritatating that the lists have been silent about one of the major events on the European working class scene the last week and the fact that 100,000 people will probably be demonstrating tomorrow and a good part of them being working class people in Belgium. I thought that Marxists and Communists had the duty to tell the truth to the workers or at least have a line when workers march in any issue. Especially this very inflamatory issue around the Pedophil murders and the surrounding events. Is the silence about this on the list a sign of cowardness? Or that marxist and especially communist have nothing to say on the issue, or is everybody on the list all of a sudden got religous? So to break the ice i will write a purposal for political agitation around the events in Belgium. (Pretty difficult to write a leaflet for the demo from Sweden) As Communists, as those that vy for the leadership of the workers movement it is our reponsibility and duty to reply to the present pedophil hysteria and obviouly in the long run anti working class, anti women, anti-sex that this question will raise from many quarters. Naturally as Communists our condolences go out to the families involved of the murdered and abused children. But because a few people, obviously with very high connections in the political heirarchy have criminally used and murdered children in a particulallly brutal way and using sexual oppression in a particular bizzar form in order to turn a buck in a very old capitalist enterprise of sex as a business does not mean that we are going to join in any general attack on sexual rights in general! Naturally any capitalist enterprise uses people. But a worker in any industry must prostitute himself (sell his body) in order to make a buck in order to live. However he has his union or political party and the right to fight in his own interests. Wheras these children had no choice, but were induced by force and threats of real violence including murder to use their bodies so that some greedy small capitalists with connections high up in the political super structure could turn a buck. So obviously as communists we condemn these people responsible. We stand completely on the side of the children and the families in this case! However this horrible, despicable and tragic incident can and should not be used by the working class in a general attack on freedom and especially sexual freedom which i am sure the church, the right wing as others purpose in their historical role of using this issue of sex to oppress poor and working class people. For example this incident should not mean a general attack on sexual rights between consenting adults who can decide for themselves who and what sex they want to live with. It should be not used as and attack on the right to abortion. It should not be used in the present wave and general attack internationally by the christian fundementalists who want to take sexual liberation back to the middle ages and "iron chasity belts". As Communists, as workers we are for the complete freedom of these kind of activities between consenting adults, including homosexual, by sexual or lesbian marriages. We are for a real pedological and free sexual education plan for all children in school starting in the 4th or 5th grade like in Scandinavia for example. The reason we are for this is because we know that the bougeoisie and the church, and the monarchies before them used this issue in order to tie the working class in chains. The bougeois family and sex is and institution used to oppress the working class historically and tie it to the reactionary church and bougeois and monarchist societies. Believe me all of the elegant barons and baronesses were getting laid any time and who with they wanted to despite all the rules which were imposed on the working class. No to reactionary sex legislation of any kind because of this present incident. Only the working class can guarantee full sexual liberation by taking power and introducing legislation that wrips down all of the archaic reactionary ideology produced by the church,bougeisie and monarchies. This kind of stuff i think should be the general context of any kind of agitation in Belgium tomorrow at the big demonstration. But the attitude of silence is shocking for me on all the lists calling themselves marxist or whatever. Stop being cowards! Stop avoiding this issue! Or are you all a bunch of nuns or munks in deguide? Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- The Stalin chimera in modern Vietnam As the economic renovation known as *doi moi* (restructuring) continues apace, a quieter revolution has been occurring within Vietnam's government and communist party at virtually all levels. The much heralded liberalization of the economy--Ho Chi Minh City now has a stock market and in July Vietnam became the seventh member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) founded at the height of the Vietnam War at the urging of the U.S. to counteract the growing communist threat in the region) has been accompanied by a new conservatism within the country itself. Shortly after signing a $70 million deal with Hanoi in April, Mitsubishi saw one of its main public relations subsidiaries booted out of Vietnam for "stirring up an evil wind", ostensibly by publishing ads with scantily-clad women posing suggestively over new automobiles. Another change involves the recasting of traditional communist icons. The role of Stalin is now being reassessed in light of events in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and, especially, with a wary eye cast toward the influx of foreign influences within Vietnam itself. Indeed, some within the party's politburo invoked Stalin's 1930s policy of the "socialist offensive" in endorsing the early stages of *doi moi* in an attempt to win critical support from skeptical conservatives. Phan Van Kai, then a politburo member with close ties to the army and later a deputy prime minister, declared in 1987 that "our 'socialist offensive', like that of our comrades in the Soviet Union under Stalin, is an attempt to infuse the party's activist, voluntarist, and mobilization norms and methods into all institutions...and promote the advance of socialist construction" ("The Vietnamese working class in the lead," *Vietnamese Studies* (new series, vol 22, 1988). He of course did not elaborate on the reasons why the Soviet mobilization under Stalin failed ignominiously while similar Chinese efforts in the 1950s and 60s were able to sustain momentum for a period of some years (Andrew G. Walder, *Communist neo-traditionalism; work and authority in Chinese industry* [Berkeley, 1986: University of California Press], 120-21). And, as recently as two years ago, Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet compared Vietnam in the mid-1980s with the Soviet Union in the early years. "It is possible to argue," he told a group of visiting journalists, "that the revival of Russian pre-1917 industry, wrecked in the Civil War, and its expansion were of essential importance to the future of the country: that Stalin being what he was, and finding himself in the circumstances in which he did, could only have acted as he did, and was in that sense necessary. And successful" (*Business News Indochina* July 22, 1994). These deliberate references to the Soviet leader, coming as they do in the midst of a wave of nostalgia in the socialist (and formerly socialist) countries for Stalin, are significant. As Vietnam's economy opens wide to foreign investment (Taiwan and South Korea--two anticommunist stalwarts--are by far the largest foreign investors in the country), its government is tightening its political control over virtually all facets of civil and political life, and the question of Stalin and his place in Marxist lexiconography is assuming a new importance. New translations of Stalin's works on the national question have been published in Hanoi within the past year and a new editon of *Problems of Leninism* appeared in 1993. Stalin's likeness is beginning to turn up at local Communist Party headquarters, particularly in the rural areas of the North. And last year the central party publishing house brought out an anthology entitled, simply, *On Stalin* that included favorable assessments by a number of fraternal parties, including one dating back to 1956 from the Communist Party of India (Marxist)! A number of delegates to June's eighth party could be seen slipping this tome into their briefcases together with financial white papers and the Vietnamese version of *Financial Times*. It could well be, as Vietnamese friends have suggested, that the ghost of Stalin is merely a surrogate for the anxieties of a system in the throes of deep and fundamental change. Or it could signal another step in the party to party reapproachament with China (Stalin continues to hold a place of official approbation there) as economic ties between the two countries strengthen. It is, for whatever reason, a continuing paradox. Louis G -------------------------------------------------------- http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people NOW ON LINE -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people NOW ON LINE --------------------------------------------------------