Archive for March, 2010
Posted by Mike E on March 25, 2010
Serve the people
From the famous red book of “Quotations from Mao Tse Tung,” Chapter 11.
The Mass Line
The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.
“On Coalition Government” (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 257.*
The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.
“Preface and Postscript to Rural Surveys” (March and April 1941), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 12. *
The masses have boundless creative power. They can organize themselves and concentrate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy; they can concentrate on production in breadth and depth and create more and more undertakings for their own well-being.
Introductory note to “Surplus Labour Has Found a Way Out” (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China’s Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. II.
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Posted in China, Mao Zedong, Maoism, mass line | 4 Comments »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 25, 2010
Thanks to blackandbrownnews
By BBN Editors
There is no kind, gentle, diplomatic way to describe the offense against a community by this ‘Jail Playground’ on a New York City Housing Authority property, located at Tompkins Houses (Park Avenue between Tompkins and Throop) in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where Black and Latino children live and play. (Disproportionately, Black and Latinos enter the criminal justice system. Encouraging young Black and Latino children to first play in Jail until they may actually get to jail or prison is playing loosey-goosey with their young, impressionable psyche and something no community should stand for or be subjected to).
Mr. Mayor Bloomberg, whether or not the word “Jail” was painted on after the City erected the apparatus or it came manufactured with “Jail” written on it, this egregious offense still falls on the City to take corrective action immediately.
Because of the nature of the offense we ask that the City of New York respond with the same urgency and expediency it would for residents – including children – who live and play in city owned-operated parks on the Upper West Side (below Washington Heights), the Upper Eastside (below Harlem), Battery Park City and definitely Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope – both in Brooklyn. We ask that the City disassemble and replace the ‘Jail Playground’ with suitable, appropriate, safe (body and mind) recreational apparatus within 24 hours (no need to drag the feet of bureaucracy on this one).
We encourage the City to review all recreational apparatus on city owned-operated housing developments and parks in neighborhoods where these offenses are more likely to occur. And, we encourage residents in and around Tompkins Houses to contact the Mayor’s Office, New York City Housing Authority and the Community Board representing the area.
BBN can’t thank enough photographer Monifa Bandele for being observant, taking the photograph and permitting us to post it.
UPDATE (3.23.10): BBN visited the property at Tompkins Houses in Bedford Stuyvesant where the jungle gym stands and found that the structure is manufactured with “Jail” and the cell door. The lettering and cell door is not painted on the structure. For clarification of which city agency orders these products, BBN contacted the local representative of the manufacturer who explained that New York City Housing Authority orders these structures and that the city agency selects the items.
BBN contacted NYCHA and spoke with spokesperson, Sheila Stainback, who would only say, “We are looking into it and assessing the situation and what needs to be done.” Ms. Stainback also said she would get back to us about when the structure would be removed and replaced. As of the filing of this update NYCHA has not contacted us with a response.
BBN contacted Mayor Bloomberg’s Press Office and was told by the person who answered the telephone that someone would get back to us. As of the filing of this update the Mayor’s Press Office has not responded to us.
While visiting the property yesterday, BBN spoke with a Tompkins Houses resident, Maria (she did not give us her last name), who was walking with her five year old son about the jungle gym with “Jail” written on it. “I don’t think they should put that there in a neighborhood where many Blacks and Latinos go to jail. My son will ask me, Mommy, if I go in there, will I go to jail,” Maria said.
BBN is waiting for responses from the NYCHA and the Mayor’s Office. Among several other questions, we will ask city officials if other NYCHA properties have this same jungle gym structure on playgrounds, and who is responsible for selecting and ordering products for playgrounds.
BBN will keep you posted.
Posted in >> analysis of news, civil rights, prison, racism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 25, 2010
This article is from the most recent issue of Monthly Review. We will be publishing it in several installments as its is quite long, and in the hope that it will generate some serious discussion here on the questions that it addresses. If you want to read the whole article now, just click on the link above.
by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster
III. Characteristics of Capitalism in Conflict with the Environment
The economic system that dominates nearly all corners of the world is capitalism, which, for most humans, is as “invisible” as the air we breathe. We are, in fact, largely oblivious to this worldwide system, much as fish are oblivious to the water in which they swim. It is capitalism’s ethic, outlook, and frame of mind that we assimilate and acculturate to as we grow up. Unconsciously, we learn that greed, exploitation of laborers, and competition (among people, businesses, countries) are not only acceptable but are actually good for society because they help to make our economy function “efficiently.”
Let’s consider some of the key aspects of capitalism’s conflict with environmental sustainability.
A. Capitalism Is a System that Must Continually Expand
No-growth capitalism is an oxymoron: when growth ceases, the system is in a state of crisis with considerable suffering among the unemployed. Capitalism’s basic driving force and its whole reason for existence is the amassing of profits and wealth through the accumulation (savings and investment) process. It recognizes no limits to its own self-expansion—not in the economy as a whole; not in the profits desired by the wealthy; and not in the increasing consumption that people are cajoled into desiring in order to generate greater profits for corporations. The environment exists, not as a place with inherent boundaries within which human beings must live together with earth’s other species, but as a realm to be exploited in a process of growing economic expansion.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, environment | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mike E on March 24, 2010
Previously known human migrations out of Africa
One leading expert of human evolution, Ian Tattersall, originally trained by studying lemurs. Lemurs exist in dozens of distinct species, some of them not distinguishable by morphology (meaning that you can’t tell from the bodies of some species that they are distinct from other lemurs).
Tattersall brought this with him to the study of humans, and sees no reason not to assume that there weren’t a great many early human species — often hard to distinguish by bone structure.
Now a simple bone discovered in a cave reveals a distinctive DNA pattern — that documents a separate (previously unknown) exit from Africa — between the known migration of Homo erectus and the later emergence of Neanderthals. Here is the story, as it appeared in the New York Times.
Bone May Reveal a New Human Group
March 24, 2010–A previously unknown kind of human group vanished from the world so completely that it has left behind the merest wisp of evidence that it ever existed — a single bone from the little finger of a child, buried in a cave in the Altai mountains of southern Siberia.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, archeology, evolution, human history | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mike E on March 24, 2010
This piece first appeared on CounterPunch.
The Pope’s Message to Irish Sex Abuse Victims: Fight the Real Enemy
By GARY LEUPP
I’ll never forget that Saturday Night Live appearance by Sinead O’Connor on October 3, 1992. It was her second performance of the evening, following the (relatively uncontroversial) title track from her recent album, “Am I Not Your Girl?” backed up by her band. This was an a capella version of Bob Marley’s “War,” an extremely powerful song that links war to racism and begins:
Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war
That until there are no longer first class
And second class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes
Me say war
Marley sang about imperialism in Africa, but the young Irish singer altered the lyrics to her own purposes. Where Marley referred to Angola, Mozambique and South Africa, Sinead surprisingly substituted “child abuse, child abuse” and where Marley referred to “the African continent” Sinead sang “children, children…” before delivering the closing lyric: “We are confident of the victory of good over evil” and producing out of nowhere a photo of Pope John Paul II and ripping it to shreds in the face of tens of millions intoning “Fight the real enemy.“
(Stop here, and click for her performance on vid.)
It was bizarre, to be sure. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Stunned silence from the audience as NBC shifted to a commercial. Profuse apologies from the network the next day. Massive indignation at the effrontery of this 26 year old Irishwoman, insulting the pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, insinuating his responsibility for child abuse.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, abuse, Gary Leupp, Ireland, music | 4 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on March 24, 2010
The Chairman would (I suspect) enjoy the joke.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Mao Zedong | 1 Comment »
Posted by Mike E on March 24, 2010
Mobilizing the people to solve major problems -- like epidemics and plagues
Kasama will be hosting a series of essays and discussions concerning the Maoist concept of “mass line.” An initial discussion appeared earlier this week.
The following essay is an edited version of a lecture given by Dr. Horn in New York in 1971. It is presented here in the form it took as the introductory essay in the pamphlet “Health Care in China” published in 1976 by the Anglo-Chinese Educational Institute. Dr. Horn was part of an important generation of revolutionary activists who went to socialist China after its historic revolution, and who came back to explain the concepts and processes that were transforming that country.
This essay is available thanks to the work of the massline.info website, and its tireless creator. Props!
“…the word “masses” (of the people) I have discovered since I came back to the western world doesn’t always have a very good connotation. People think of masses as being, you know, mindless, blue ants, blue outside, yellow inside, just a mass of people, mindless, nameless, no individuality. But this is not what is meant by masses. Masses are the people who do the work, the ordinary people, whether they work as automobile workers, or as doctors, or as teachers or as clerks or as peasants, they are the masses. And we are the masses too.”
* * * * * * * *
The Mass Line
by Dr. Joshua Horn
When I went to China I thought that I was going there to teach surgery and I suppose I did a little bit. But by far the greater part of what I did there was to learn, to learn about how to change the world, how to change people and how to build the society of the future.
Now, although the Chinese experience applies principally and first and foremost to China, nevertheless I think there are certain things in Chinese experience which have a worldwide relevance. And this is the reason why I am very happy to tell you about them.
Since I was first in China in 1936, for only a few weeks as a young ship’s doctor, there have been tremendous political and economic transformations. But far above these in long-term importance and durability is the transformation of the people. When I got back to China in 1954, I could see that the Chinese people were just as Chairman Mao had said. He said they had stood up. They stood up all right. They were walking upright, their heads up, purposeful; they knew what they were doing and why they were doing it and where they wanted to go.
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Posted in China, communism, Mao Zedong, Maoism, mass line, revolution | 8 Comments »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 24, 2010
This article is from the most recent issue of Monthly Review. We will be publishing it in several installments. If you want to read the whole article now, just click on the link above.
by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster
For those concerned with the fate of the earth, the time has come to face facts: not simply the dire reality of climate change but also the pressing need for social-system change. The failure to arrive at a world climate agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009 was not simply an abdication of world leadership, as is often suggested, but had deeper roots in the inability of the capitalist system to address the accelerating threat to life on the planet. Knowledge of the nature and limits of capitalism, and the means of transcending it, has therefore become a matter of survival. In the words of Fidel Castro in December 2009: “Until very recently, the discussion [on the future of world society] revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive.”1
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Posted in >> analysis of news | 5 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on March 23, 2010
Firewolf sent these thoughts after the recent Left Forum in New York City.
Dear Mike:
I wanted to write this email for 2 reasons.
1) To give my observations of tabling at the Left Forum this past weekend. and
2) To put out some of the inspirations, ideas, questions & suggestions this has spurred on inside me. To say it was a hell of a weekend – in the best possible way – is an understatement!
Firstly, let me say that I was very nervous the night before. I hardly slept due to the fear I had of saying or doing something that might embarrass Kasama.
I am happy to say that I believe this fear was unfounded. I absolutely LOVED being at the table, speaking to so many people about pertinent issues, making connections & speaking for a project I have so much enthusiasm & belief in. I had read all of the literature you’d given me, plus Jed’s amazing letter & had listened to G & E going through their ‘run-through’ the previous night.
As soon as I actually began talking to people, all my nervousness fled. I felt comfortable answering most of the questions I was asked. For the ones I couldn’t answer: if F wasn’t there, I explained that I didn’t know all the answers, but was learning & was passionate about being involved in a project that was true collective — especially after having worked w/ other projects or organizations that have not been. It seemed as if many of the people I said this to liked what I said & continued speaking with me, but then started really taking our various literature w/o my asking them to.
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Posted in >> Kasama Project, Kasama pamphlets | 9 Comments »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 23, 2010
The following account is taken from Solidarity webzine.
by Isaac
To kick off a national “Coming Out of the Shadows” week, more than one thousand Chicago immigrant youth and allies, crowding behind a banner with the words UNDOCUMENTED AND UNAFRAID, chanted “Without Papers, Without Fear – Immigrants are Marching Here!”
Four years after a historic march here began the tidal wave of mobilization that defeated James Sensenbrenner’s anti-immigrant bill HR4437, today’s action – while it had significantly lower turnout – was a new step in youth leadership. The veteran activists of the original March 10 committee assisted with organizing, but the initiation, collection of endorsements, publicity, planning, and media work was led by a new generation of organizers, many from the Immigrant Youth Justice League. IYJL itself has a short history, having formed in late 2009 by activists who’d successfully campaigned to prevent the deportation of an undocumented student, Rigo Padilla.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, immigrants, immigration | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mike E on March 23, 2010
Need we say more? We received the following. Here is their new website.
What’s up Ozoheadz?!
Today is a big day in Ozo-landia – not only are we launching a NEW website homepage today, you can also pre-order our NEW album Fire Away on iTunes and also get exclusive bundles only only on Ozomatli.com.
Pre-Order Fire Away on iTunes and Ozomatli.com
We have paired up with iTunes to offer a pre-order of our new album Fire Away, which includes 11 new tracks, plus 3 bonus songs. Get it here: Ozomatli iTunes Pre-Order.
We also are offering several DELUXE EDITIONS only on Ozomatli.com, which include bundles offering t-shirts, hats, messenger bags AND Ozomatli Zippos along with the music. We’ve got a bundle to suit all of our fans, so check it out and get a jump on ordering all the new music and swag before anyone else!
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Posted in >> analysis of news, music | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mike E on March 23, 2010
The following appeared in the Rag Blog (March 22), which has written extensively on the story of Brandon Darby. In an intro to this piece, Jed wrote:
“Machismo, manipulation, sectarianism, pseudo-militancy. Agent provocateurs use a set of behaviors, whether they are paid to do it or not. Don’t tolerate the behaviors. They treat our open arms and morality as weakness. Knowledge is power. Learn the tricks and they don’t work (so well). Thanks, Lisa, for this brave truth telling.”
Late in this piece Lisa writes:
“I am still struggling with forgiveness for choices made in activist communities and by some of my friends. I understand how difficult it was; Brandon, at times, was also my friend. In the end we must examine the behavior we experienced, reflect on the array of choices we had, and explore what we could do differently to insure this does not happen again. Brandon’s behavior was problematic long before 2008. Whether or not he was actually working for the state, he was doing their job for them by breeding discord within our politically active communities. I raised my concerns about Brandon’s behavior in New Orleans, in Austin, and also in Minneapolis.”
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Posted in >> analysis of news, abuse, organizing, police, political prisoners, surveillance, war on terror, women | 22 Comments »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 22, 2010
The video below shows a spirited debate between former Black Panther and political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Democratic Representative Keith Ellisonon the merits of working inside and outside the system. Thanks to Twin Cities Indymedia.
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Posted in >> analysis of news | 3 Comments »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 22, 2010
From Fight Back! News
Gainesville, FL – Over 400 angry protesters – a coalition of students, local residents and university professors – rallied and marched to protest the racist police shooting of Kofi Adu-Brempong.
Students, Faculty, and citizens storm Emerson Hall demanding to speak with the Board of Trustees.
Adu-Brempong is an international graduate student from Ghana who was shot in the face by a University of Florida policeman. After receiving a call from a neighbor concerned that Adu-Brempong was screaming, due to stress over his studies and his immigration status, campus police stormed his apartment, tased him three times and then shot him in the face with an assault rifle.
Adu-Brempong is hospitalized in critical condition, having lost his tongue and jaw. Incredibly, the police action took less than 30 seconds. Having suffered a case of childhood polio, Adu-Brempong was unable to walk without a cane. To add to the outrage, the University of Florida police charged him with a felony for ‘resisting arrest with violence.’
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Posted in police, racism, SDS, students | 2 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on March 22, 2010
Posted in Iraq, video | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Tell No Lies on March 22, 2010
UCLA students block van carrying UC Regents. November, 2009. "Sometimes it happens that the best way to get a campaign going is to unite the advanced to carry out an action (such as a sit-in or visible confrontation with the governor, mayor, etc.)."
It is presented to encourage discussion (and debate) over how revolutionaries should connect with the people.
By Freedom Road Socialist Organization
This study was prepared by a leading member of FRSO in the late 1980s. Since then this study has been used extensively inside and outside our organization and it has been reprinted in a number of different political settings. The application of the mass line is basic to how we do our work in trade unions, in the movements of oppressed nationalities, in anti-war and other progressive struggles. It informs our work on building a new communist party.
Introduction
1) The mass line is the basic political/organization method of communists. Although the term mass line was coined by the Communist Party of China, the basic method of reliance on, and the mobilization of, the masses of people has been utilized by all successful revolutionary parties.
As a topic, discussion of the mass line encompasses aspects of many things, including philosophy (the relationship between theory and practice, between knowing and doing), Marxist-Leninist strategy and tactics (united front work, correct methods of leadership), and organizational theory (party building – the construction of revolutionary organization).
2) Our starting point is this:
“The people, and the people alone are the motive force in making world history.” (Mao Zedong)
Not only is this historically true, but for us communists it hits on the basic issue of on whom do we rely and how to get stuff done. Perhaps it is self-evident that without people, very little can be accomplished, but this has been the subject of more than a little debate among revolutionaries in the past.
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Posted in Maoism, Marxist theory, mass line | Tagged: communist theory, Maoism | 36 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on March 21, 2010
Arundhati Roy during a visit to the forest where she broke the taboo of of interviewing Maoist guerrillas in their base areas.
Last month, quietly, unannounced, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India’s Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribespeople many of whom have taken up arms to protect their people against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She recorded in considerable detail the first face-to-face journalistic “encounter” with armed guerrillas, their families and comrades, for which she combed the forests for weeks at personal risk. This essay was published on Friday in Delhi’s Outlook magazine. Arundhati Roy made the pictures in this 20,000 word essay available exclusively to Dawn.
The following was first posted on Dawn.com. Kasama urges all readers to give it close attention and wide circulation. We urge all our readers to share and download this new pamphlet. It makes it much easier for people to study this important work by Arundhati Roy describing the revolutionary fighters and people of India’s Maoist political base areas. This pamphlet includes many of Roy’s remarkable photographs from her trip that bring the text to life.
* * * * * * *
Walking with the Comrades
by Arundhati Roy
The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with India’s Gravest Internal Security Threat. I’d been waiting for months to hear from them.
I had to be at the Ma Danteshwari mandir in Dantewara, Chhattisgarh, at any of four given times on two given days. That was to take care of bad weather, punctures, blockades, transport strikes and sheer bad luck. The note said: “Writer should have camera, tika and coconut. Meeter will have cap, Hindi Outlook magazine and bananas. Password: Namashkar Guruji.”
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Arundhati Roy, communism, Communist Party, CPI(Maoist), India, Maoism, Marxist theory, mass line | 33 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on March 21, 2010
We now have Jed’s first report from Nepal available in printable PDF pamphlet form. The is tabloid sized and folds into an illustrated pamphlet. The original first appeared in English on jedbrandt.net
* * * * * *
by Jed Brandt
March 7, 2010 — I can’t leave home for a few weeks without everything going crazy.
It took a bit for my time to adjust, to see things as they are coming here and where they’re coming from. Not the instant back-and-forth rhythm of New York multi-tasking anxiety time. Most days the electricity is out in Kathmandu. You can hear chickens in the morning, children playing after school and quiet talk at night when the old women laugh and call across the rooftops. Blackouts make working a computer hard, but the pace of people living by hands and minds alone, without so much mediation, is not a place I’ve ever spent much time. And I do love it here. The city is dirty. The people are upright, direct and curious….
Did I mention there is a revolution going on?
We haven’t seen a revolution in our lifetime. Not a communist revolution anyway, with broad support and participation sustained, growing over such a short period of time.
The Maoists are unorthodox, to be sure. They have defied everyone’s expectations, friend and foe alike. To their credit, they haven’t let their enemies tell them who they are or been confined to some historical script handed down by the Comintern in 1930-whatever. After a 10-year People’s War, starting in 1996, they grew exponentially among the rural people who make up the heart and body of Nepal.
Posted in communism, Jed Brandt, Maoism, Nepal, peoples war, Prachanda, UCP Nepal (Maoist), UCP Nepal (Maoist), UCP Nepal (Maoist) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mike E on March 21, 2010
Kasama received the following Farsi translation of Jed Brandt‘s first report from Nepal. You can download and print this translation in Word format. (Thanks to the translation team that did this work.)
The English version of this letter from Nepal was originally published on the new blog, jedbrandt.net.
با درود های گرم از کاتماندو!
چند هفته ای نمیتونم خونه رو ترک کنم چون اوضاع قاطی پاتی میشه
یه چند وقتی طول میکشه بفهمی که اینجا آدم چه جور بایستی رفت و آمد کنه. مثل ضربات حرکتی تند و تند تو نیویورک نیست که آدم عصبی میشه چون باید صدتا کار و یک جا انجام بده. بیشتر روزها برق قطعه تو کاتماندو. صبح صدای خروس رو میشنوی، بعد از مدرسه بچه ها بازی می کنند و شبها میشنوی زنها ی پیر می خندن و مردم رو پشت بوم همدیگه رو صدا میکنن. کار با کامپیوتر سخته وقتی برق نیست اما من خیلی تو جاهایی که اینقد زندگی مردم به عقل و زحمت مستقیم شون وابسته است نبوده ام. اینجا رو خیلی دوست دارم. شهر کثیفه. مردم صادق و رو راست و کنجکاو هستند. سریع تونسته ام دوست پیدا کنم اما فکر کنم که عروسی کردن راحت تر از معاشرت و قرار گذاشتن دختر و پسر هاست.
کاتماندو یه دره است. حد تانگلانگ کوهستان هیمالیا دیوار آسمونه که آسیای جنوبی رو از فلات تبت در شمال سوا کرده. نوک سفید کوه ها رو که میبینی غمگین میشی… چون آلودگی هوا افتضاحه. همین بیست سال پیش بود که ماشین سواری ها وارد شهر کاتماندو شدند. اکثر شهر که اصلاً واسه پیاده روی ساخته شده اما همه جور ماشین میبینی که یهو از وسط بن بست های ترافیک بیرون میپرن و خلاصه هرج و مرجه تو خیابون ها. مردم از بی نظمیش غر میزنند اما بعد خودشون دست به همون کارای غلط می زنند. تا حالا سه بار دیده ام ماشین زده به مردم ولی ماشین نمی ایسته. موتورسیکلت ها همه طرف هستند و هر جور دوست دارن میرن. تنها یک بار چراغ قرمز دیدم که اونم کار نمیکرد. برق نیست که نیست. دود موتور ماشین ها عین سقف دره آسمون رو سیاه کرده و هوا اغلب تازه نیست. تو راه های اصلی هم سواره و هم پیاده یکی از صد رقم ماسک رو صورتشون گذاشتند تا لااقّل از بعضی از گازهای کشنده خلاص باشند. هر جمعی که باشه صدای سرفه کردن مردم و از دست خلط راحت شدن به گوشت خورده. فقط با بارون هوا عوض میشه که اون هم بارون های موسمی تابستون هستند. فقط یکی از همین روزا بود که اعجاز شد و … هوا عوض شد.
خوبه خیلی نوجوون به تورم خورده و چند تاشون باهام دوست شدند. الان نشستم این کنار موزیک شاده، بیروت و آلیسیا کیز گوش Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, communism, Jed Brandt, Kasama translations, Maoism, Nepal, peoples war, Prachanda, Socialism, UCP Nepal (Maoist), UCP Nepal (Maoist), UCP Nepal (Maoist) | 3 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on March 19, 2010
Contested elections were an important arean for the earlier revolution against slave owners -- after the decisive armed civil war had shifted power.
by Mike Ely
Joseph Ball wrote, in an accompanying thread:
“It’s sometimes claimed that the multi-party elections in this system will take place under the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this makes no sense at all. If it’s a dictatorship of the proletariat how can you allow bourgeois parties to compete for power with the party of the proletariat? It is absurd to believe that elections could routinely take place between two parties both with a proletarian line. The proletariat has a common interest. It’s vanguard should be encouraging unity not institutionalising a split so we can blindly copy bourgeois democracy. Multi-party democracy has a material basis in capitalism because different factions of the bourgeoisie have different selfish interests. Not so the proletariat.”
Joseph articulates here a view and a logic inherited from the Comintern. It assumes that the Stalin-era state form is inherent in the process of socialist transition and in the very nature of the working class as a historic revolutionary agent. I think this views deserves a respectful discussion and repudiation. It is a view that I disagree with on almost every level. I think it is refuted by actual experience (including the experience of capitalist restoration). I think it has been deeply challenged by Mao’s view on continuing revolution — and needs to be challenged even further. This theory rests on a way of thinking that is deeply schematic and mechanical, and really doesn’t bother to look at living reality in a creative or penetrating way.
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