RIM is MIA: Seeking Communist Regroupment amid Fractures & Madness
Posted by Mike E on May 9, 2010
This post quickly explores some history and details of the world’s Maoist movement. I’m not going to break everything down so this will not be that accessible to everyone. For those interested, here it is.
by Mike Ely
Gary writes:
“On the other hand, if as Mike suggests with more knowledge than I about this issue) RIM is basically an RCP (Avakian) tool at this point, the opposite might be true. I don’t know how much line struggle there might be within RIM at this point about Nepal because AWTW hasn’t been published in a long time, I have no idea what happened to the Italian and Tunisian parties (etc.) and no real understanding of how RIM’s influencing the world apart from issuing occasional press releases.”
Thanks for giving me a chance to clarify…. First, I don’t speak from any special knowledge — beyond the published record. If I had non-public information I would not leak it, for obvious reasons. Second: my understanding is not (as Gary writes) that “RIM is basically an RCP (Avakian) tool at this point.”
My understanding is that the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement is moribund — and that it has been dead for much more than a decade. And that for varying reasons, no one has bothered to shovel dirt over it publicly.
I.e. that there is no functioning network of organizations and parties called the RIM. That the groups listed as being part of the RIM are not functioning as a movement in any recognizable way. That when there are publicly mentioned meetings of communist parties (from South Asia, or at an international level) it is not under the auspices of the RIM (even when nominally RIM parties like the Nepalese organized them).
Sorting Things Out
There is a difference between the CORIM, the RIM and AWTW News Service. The fact that a committee called CORIM issued declarations for a few years did not mean that an actual RIM was functioning — i.e. that this committee actually represented a movement. And even that somewhat-cynical charade of CORIM statements has stopped happening. (The Nepalis noted acidly that none of these bodies issued any declaration when they emerged as the leading party of Nepal in 2008!)
The fact that there is AWTW news service (producing occasional articles) does not mean that their view represents an international movement (or that any international network shares their views).
At this point the situation is fragmented.
There are groupings of European Maoists working with exile groups along their approaches. A key issue here is the Gonzalo-like belief (among some) of the applicability of “PPW” in Europe — an approach that the RCP will never have rapprochement with.
There are bilateral relations the RCP apparently has with groups like Sarbedaran (and a few even-smaller circles — including the RKs in Germany).
But since Gonzalo was captured 1992, the RIM (as such) has showed little sign of coherent common life.
The only real statement was the RIM millennial statement (which the RCP clearly does not uphold — because of the document’s formulations about principal contradiction and main trend etc.)
The Nepalis generally refer to the RIM in past tense, while occasionally their statements reflect the fact that they are still (nominally) within it.
However over and over, they have made it clear that they think it “played its role” (which is true) in regrouping maoists after the coup in china — but that the responsibility falls to them to regroup communists internationally. And it is clear that the Nepali initiatives around international regroupment are not within the confines of RIM, nor do they follow the approaches that shaped the RIM (in the 1980s etc) when it had some appearance of cohesion.
The Maoist Movement After Mao
One way to look at it: There were a few major Maoist parties in the world, and a number of minor groups with little traction. The major parties were Turkey, India, Nepal, Philippines and Peru. (For simplicity, I’m not discussing the currents of former Maoists who supported the 1976 coup in China.)
The RCP played a role in the RIM’s emergence (but itself has been one of the relatively small propaganda groups with little real-world political traction.)
After 1992 (and the emergence of Gonzalo’s Assumir document) the RCP parted roads with all surviving factions of the PCP (while the PCP seems to regrouped around Gonzalo after having suffered a steep decline after setbacks).
The party in Turkey also suffered important setbacks — including splits and the decapitation of the Maoist party leadership.
The Philippine Maoists were never in the RIM.
India’s main Maoist group is not in the RIM. The pro-RIM group MCC merged with the Peoples War Group (PWG) to form the current CPI(Maoist)— to the RCP’s obvious chagrin. The RIM’s Naxalbari group adopted a Gonzalo-like line — deeply opposed to Avakian’s politics.
And finally, the RCP is now hurling impotent directives at a largely indifferent and rather busy UCPN(M) (complete with heated charges of revisionism and disturbing calls for a split).
Meanwhile the RCP has adopted a new view (since Avakian’s auto-coup of 2003) that the dividing line among communists is Avakian’s synthesis (not the previous dividing line of adopting Maoism as the third and higher synthesis of Marxism).
Who is with the RCP on their side of that new dividing line? Even forces who have some sympathy with this or that element of Avakian’s view don’t adopt him as the new man of “the level of Mao or Lenin.” I’m curious (for example) to know what the Sarbedaran has said about this new dividing line.
So, anyway, look over all this wreckage. And do the math:
What is left of the RIM?
Which of the significant Maoist parties participate in it?
What would be a visible political/ideological basis for unity or cohesion of anything called RIM?
Avakian seems to have settled on a very threadbare Avakianite network — more cause for teeth grinding anger over the lack of appreciation. Life is so bitter when the world and history just refuse to acknowledge your world-historic specialness.
It has served the RCP’s culture of hype and info diet to pretend (i.e. to its own supporters!) there was a RIM… but that emperor had no clothes. I run into RCP supporters still shocked that they only recently learned that the RCP leadership had deep conflicts with Gonzalo from the beginning.
And even that is now gone: When was the last time the RCP pretended there was a RIM, or mentioned it? (Their recent polemic defensively claims to be “internationalist” but don’t mention any Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.)
Meanwhile the Nepali Maoists are openly planning to actively help regroup the international movement — if they have a moment of breathing room to focus on it.
In Serious Need of Reconception and Regroupment
Put another way: the international Maoist movement is in the throes of major line struggle along many key and rather longstanding ideological and political faultlines. And the RIM has long been MIA.
NSPF: Help me here. I got this basically right, right?
CPSA said
Mike thanks for this, it’s a good start particularly on the international solidarity issues. I’m curious, could you, NSPF or someone else knowledgeable tease out a little more how the Indian party or their pre-merger antecedents oppose Avakian’s politics, as you put it? I’ve not seen anything written on the matter from the RCP or CPI(M, i.e. Maoist). This would presumably answer why the latter has rarely long (if ever) taken the RCP seriously, as well as why the RCP hasn’t discussed India in nearly 10 years, if not longer. And more info on the RCP’s (lack of) relationship with the CPP in the Philippines I think would also be useful.
Crimson_Deviant said
hey mike what is your opinion of the ICMLPO?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Conference_of_Marxist–Leninist_Parties_and_Organizations_(International_Newsletter)
David_D said
Yes, it ought to be acknowledged that RIM as an actual organization force was never particularly strong. A World to Win, at times, played an important role in the consolidation of post-Mao revolutionary communist politics, but fairly early on, it seems clear that it was subsumed within the RCP political prioritization. Many of the signatory groups were on their way out or consisted of very small groups largely dependent on one of two people, as with the Haitian group, for instance. I see nothing wrong with the RIM endeavor, and much right with it, that said.
But I do think that it is inappropriate the try to resuscitate the Communist International. I tend to think that the Filipino party has a better conception of party-to-party relations that should be based on mutual equality, which should never mean that criticism should somehow be disallowed, however. Recently, there were bourgeois media reports that Filipino comrades were providing some military training for Indian comrades. If so, I think that is fine – a good thing. That would be a good example of exchange of experience and assistance between fraternal parties. But I see no need for a new “Executive Committee of the Communist International” expelling this party or that.
I think ICPMLO is a better organizational structure, making fewer pretensions about forging a new international, etc.; however, some of the politics of weak, and there seems to a lack of understanding of the principle contradiction in the world today – between imperialism and oppressed countries and people. The formulation “principle contradiction” may strike some as dogmatic or wooden – call it what you like – but I think that the essence is true and that we should proceed from that starting point.
“Communist Party of Peru” is currently listed as a signatory of the RIM. What does that mean, however? Which PCP? The one headed by the imprisoned Gonzalo? The one headed by Comrade Raul? I rather think that neither has anything to do with RIM. And, as for the latter group, I think revolutionary forces abroad should publicize and support their important work in reforging people’s war and summing up lessons from 1980-1999, but there is none of this.
What, in my opinion, would be most helpful, is a news service publicizing the activities and statements (translating them, etc.) of all nominally or actually revolutionary organizations. I don’t mean this even in the sense of Maoist groups, but also FARC/PCCC, PKK, etc. The focus on revolutionary movements in the subcontinent is very helpful, but there is much else to publicize.
amrit said
I don’t know much about parties in Peru or other countries, but there is no genuine communist party in India at present… total void is there.. Hope in future a genuine communist party will take shape with correct political analysis and line with correct understanding of Indian conditions & stage of revolution..
CPSA said
The CPI (Maoist) is very much a CP, in the Maoist sense anyway. The CPI, CPM and Liberation would be revisionist, true, which is another matter. Whether the former is the type of revolutionary party people in India would like to see is another matter.
David_D said
CPSA, why do you say CPI-ML (Liberation) is revisionist? I am not saying it is not; however, I see no evidence it was actively participated in counterinsurgency and has indeed opposed counterinsurgency. This would distinguish it from, say, “Patria Roja” in Peru in the 80s. Liberation drew certain conclusions from the Naxalbari experience, that being that there aren’t sufficient conditions for building red political power. I think that the facts show otherwise, but are you sure they are revisionist?
CPSA said
I say it’s revisionist b/c it’s in the LF, it’s pursuing a reformist program using reformist stategies and tactics, it’s participation in electoral politics for the last 2 decades and it’s conflict w/the CPI (M) and the latter’s antecedents indicate as much. It hasn’t been a revolutionary party for 20 years or more since it dropped the armed struggle. What you say about the conclusions Mishra and the party drew over these questions after the Emergency is true, but one could basically characterize these as the most conservative conclusions of any Naxalite party with a large mass following in the country. You’re also correct that Liberation has organized and/or participated in many protests against Green Hunt, for example. And they do alot of positive social movement organizing on land, caste, women’s and other issues. But this would be just the sort of party Amrit, for example, has in mind when he makes the sort of statement he’s making, there’s no plan for coherent strategy for organizing a struggle with a view to carrying out some new democratic or other sort of ml or even simply marxist revolution, in the near or long term. Ganapathy’s party, for all its flaws, has one and is executing it, however “unrealistic” some of us may feel it to be.
CPSA said
Oh and let me add, the CPI (M) has base areas, large ones, with populations in the millions (albeit only a few), something at this point I’m unaware that any other Maoist or Naxal parties in India do. If others do, feel free to correct me. Lastly, I’m not saying armed struggle is the only way to make a revolution (Maoist, Marxist or otherwise), but I am saying I’m not sure there’s another player in India at this time worthy of the mantle that’s achieving something, while also committed to a revolutionary outcome/process on paper. Believing in such a project doesn’t make your party or organization revolutionary in practice.
CPSA said
More from Dr. Alpa Shah on the CPI Maoist from the new EPW: http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/14734.pdf
Gopalji is the spokesperson of the Special Area Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)]. In a recent interview in a forest in Jharkhand, eastern India, he talks of the party’s goals, the quest for “New Democracy”, the nature of development, its beneficiaries and its victims, the concrete achievements of the party, and the question of violence.
amrit said
firstly, there is much confusion in Indian communists about relations of production in India… here every group or party passes judgements of its own, but no clear fact & statistics based analysis and moreover no one wants to do serious work on it, this problem more with groups with semi-feudal semi-colonial thesis.. some take India to a predominantly feudal, others take semi-feudal which in reality again predominantly feudal and few are saying India to a capitalist though a backward one.. similarly, some say semi-colonial with no political independence, and others take as post-colonial with a political independent state.. many say NDR is the stage of revolution and some other say new-socialist stage of revolution..
..Liberation considers India a semi-colonial semi-feudal but takes part in elections instead of building base areas and what about its party structure…??
CPSA said
Agreed Amrit. The mode of production debate is the starting point for the problem. I have much to learn about this I confess, though I still stand by assessment. I suppose if we disagree on the CPI (M, Maoist) we see eye to eye on Liberation.
amrit said
in Chinese revolution, proletariat was the vanguard class with landless peasantry main force and major ally of proletariat.. communist party first built its base in proletariat and then it went to work in then landless peasantry.. but here in India, a pathetic situation is prevailing… only 31% of total labour force is formed by farmers.. rest by wage labour, mostly in un-organised sector.. but still no major communist group is working in proletariat [though communist party is party of proletariat].. they prefer to work in most backward section of society i.e. tribals.. or are organising struggles of land owning farmers for getting subsidies, free electricity for agriculture, hike in market prices of agriculture produce [and at the same time the groups doing so consider Indian agriculture to be feudal ..!!!]..the so called maoists are also doing same things… they have unions of land owning farmers but will never step in factories.. ahhh.. indian communists ..!!
CPSA said
The percentage of the labor force is in the unorganized sector is around 95%, I believe that’s including agriculture. I believe the party has some sort of plan for industrial organizing (perhaps not very well formulated), but under the present circumstances and given the preferences for forests and some agrarian organizing you have a point. If that’s what you mean by communist, I see what you mean. But then again, that was true of the Chinese revolution after 1927, the vanguard was actually pretty small and really just the front of an essentially peasant revolution. Something that only changed significantly under Mao in the 1960s and 70s, and in some ways only very recently since the reforms. China’s more proletarianized now than ever before, but obviously not in a socialist manner.
tellnolies said
What does it really mean to say the proletariat was the vanguard class in the Chinese Revolution? How much of the party or its leadership was actually proletarian in origin? It seems to me that while the Party did build up an urban proletarian base prior to 1927 and some of that base (again how much?) followed it to the countryside, that the CCP was an overwhelmingly peasant party led by intellectuals. It was, arguably, “proletarian” only in the sense of its broad ideological orientation which derived from the international communist movement more than from a base among the Chinese proletariat. Of course there was a small rural proletariat and the CCP enjoyed their support, but does anyone claim that this group led the party?
tony said
the proleteriat hardly played a role in the chinese revolution, altho this is not entirely the fault of the CCP. an early urban insurrection was ruthlessly crushed the Kuomitang, causing Chen Dixiu to resign and Mao becoming the leader of the CCP and his new and original tactic of surrounding the cities and guerilla warfare. in 1949 the CCP told the workers in the cities not to worry when the PLA took over; hardly a sign that the workers led and took a big part in the revolution. i do not think the chinese revolution was a workers or proleterian revolution, altho it was of course progress and a victory against imperialism.
here is an article on chen dixiu, the original leader of the ccp before mao
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/china/zheng.htm
Mike E said
Here is what I wrote in an earlier post Where’s the Proletariat in Mao’s Long March or Nepal’s Revolution?
I think there are real ways in which it is true to say that the Chinese revolution had proletarian leadership.
* * * * * * *
First, I want to dig into what it does not mean: It does not mean that a sociological class of Chinese workers literally and directly led the Chinese peasants in revolution. There were of course actual workers involved in the revolution at each point. The early CCP built itself among workers (and among supporters of the then-revolutionary KMT from other class). They had a base among railroad workers and in Shanghai. Mao himself went among the coal miners of Anyuan. And there were considerable numbers of miners in the Autumn harvest uprising that was defeated — among the forces Mao then led up into the Chingkang mountain region to create his first political base area.
But, again, to be clear: it is not the existence of people of working class origin at key posts or in key numbers within the party, the army or the leadership that is the basis for saying that there is “proletarian leadership.”
The basis for saying there is “proletarian leadership” lies somewhere else.
* * * ** * *
Starting with the Paris Commune something new is stirring in the world — there is an increasing organized, increasingly self-conscious and increasingly international attempt to carry though a revolutionary movement against class society itself. With the Russian revolution, it bursts on the world stage in an unprecedented way, and the theory leading the Russian revolution bursts into the sight of oppressed and revolutionary people all over the world. Mao writes that the cannons of the October Revolooution brought us Marxism-Leninism.
This view of proletarian revolution starts by seeing all of the communist revolutions as a world process. And after the 1917 revolution something new happens, the proletarian revolutionary movement of Europe connects with the anti-colonial movements of Asia — and the outlook (and the organized forces) emerging from the most radical socialist/communist circles in Europe starts to profoundly influence and shape those anti-colonial movements. And (at the same time, as they take root) those anti-colonial movements start to reshape and influence the ideas and organizational forms that fell into their hands.
It is often hard to look back in history and actually see the shocking nature of things that radical and new. But this was something shockingly new.
* * * * * * *
In the early politics of this transition, the term “proletarian leadership” meant both a communist line leading the national democratic struggle, and also a strategic assumption that urban workers were (demographically) the strategic base of revolution, and that working class soviets were the “discovered” universal political form for socialist transition.
The first part of this was, in fact, crucial. The second part of this proved, in fact, to be doctrinaire and disconnected with the realities of most colonial countries. (Attempts at urban uprisings in China, reproduced the isolation of the Paris commune — i.e. they could not stand as small radical islands surrounded by an unaroused countryside. Or they reproduced the rash failures of the German uprisings of 1923, they were called into being by a leadership in Moscow that underestimated the importance of particularity.)
* * * **
One of the ironies of the last century of history is that revolutionary successes have mainly come in the most backward of countries. Instead of breaking out in the most developed countries, it often broke out at the margins.
* * * * * *
On one hand, as I’ve been pointing out, Mao’s application of “proletarian leadership” meant a distancing from a naive sociological meaning (i.e. “proletarian leadership” means workers lead the movement at the grass roots and in the organization at every level). This is not about the proletariat as a class in itself — it is about the historic and international impact of the class for itself (the impact of its self-consciousness concentrated in communist organization, politics and theory).
It privileges the idea that ideas have a class character, and that “proletarian leadership” also means the leadership of a particular ideology and set of goals that are said to be “characteristic of the proletariat” (as a class for itself). And it has a conception of the communist movement (internationally) and the communist party in each country as a representative (not of “the workers” in that country) but of the proletariat as an international class, as a carrier of the most advanced philosophy, strategic thinking and organizational principles of the proletariat as an international class at that stage of the world revolutions development.
* * * * * *
Now to put it sharply: If you zoom in from outer space, and look at Mao’s rag tag army on the long march — an army of bone-weary peasant soldiers and a few intellectual, traveling through some the most remote and impoverished areas of Asia — moving from the mountain fastness in southern China to the even more remote loess regions on the fringes of the Mongolian steppes in Yenan… It is easy to ask (as TNL does) what is proletarian about any of this? How can one look at that force, and that project and say “it is proletarian led”?
* * ** * * * * *
However…. the question was whether the Chinese revolution has proletarian leadership.
And i’m pointing out the ways (and the sense) in which I think that is true. The achievements (the ideology, organization, previous victories, etc.) of the working class internationally (in many ways) led the peasant war in China — through the work of the communists, including Mao.
The fact that the Chinese revolution was a national liberation struggle and a radical anti-feudal agrarian revolution led by communists represented (in a real sense, at some levels of abstraction and mediation) a revolution led by the proletariat. In the sense that it was led as part of an ongoing process aimed for communism. That it was led by ideas and organization uncharacteristic of the peasants, or the local merchants but that (in fact) were a product (and extension) of the most class conscious movements of the working class (and the theory that led them).
And this “proletarian led” is not just something in the heads of the communist leaders in china, or in our heads — it is something very concretely manifested in that Chinese revolution, in how it was organized, in how it progressed, in how it took its place in the world system of states and classes, in how it responded to nuclear pressures, in how it moved to form socialist industry, in the internationalist way viewed the people of other countries, and so on…
In other words, there was something new and radical and different about how the peasants and oppressed of china were LED….. and it had everything to do with historic consciousness, and organization, and experiences of the working class (as a historic class up to that point).
[i won't repost the whole thing here -- just these loosely connected excerpts -- go check out the whole.]
t1201971 said
CPSA, Amrit, Mike: What are your opinions of the SUCI? Just curious.
amrit said
hello… some people are asking that how many proletarians were there CPC leadership posts..?? ..well, in which factory Trotsky or his father worked as wage labourer in Russia..?? ..leave him, what about other Bolsheviks including Lenin.. and above all Marx & Engels ..?? ..how many of them even have family background of a factory worker ..??
.. Regarding SUCI, it is strange case.. regarding party structure, the usual non-Leninist bourgeois loose party.. I have heard that they even do not convened party congress as they say that they are in process party building since last 50 yrs. or so.. I may be wrong here.. And they declare India to be a capitalist country since its independence from British colonial rule, because they think Indian bourgeois class captured state that means India must be a capitalist country, just opposite to Marxist approach of deciding relations of production, then passing to determine state character… whether they consider the contradiction between Indian working class & imperialism, I don’t know much.. regarding practice, I have not heard much of it other than bringing out some protests in Kolkata against CPM brutalities on its cadres..
… Thanks Mike, for a good commentry…
t1201971 said
Thanks Amrit.
Mike E said
A World To Win News Service has just published a report on May First in Berlin. It confirms (and even fleshes out) a number of points made in the post above.
Berlin has historically been a place where there were powerful revolutionary actions on May First, and where Maoist forces led demonstrations year after year that drew thousands of people.
This year inheritors of these Maoist May First actions drew “300 to 400 people” and were completely eclipsed by the more-anarcho May First event which drew 6,000.
This piece then reports that there was sharp struggle after this much shrunken event over how to evaluate it. “…some people felt that the attendance of 300 to 400 people at the revolutionary event represented a setback.” Some suggested that their tradition of a revolutionary May First event might be “dying out.”
But the authors of this report (send from Berlin) argue that the turnout is actually quite good considering conditions. And more the important thing is that there are forces in Germany (however small) who are “rallying to Bob Avakian’s new synthesis.”
And (like the RCP’s own reports) there is breathless reporting whenever someone mentions Bob Avakian or reads from one of the RCP’s recent manifestos.
This shows that the RCP’s approach to international networking is (as mentioned above) based on taking Avakian as the cardinal question.
The AWTW report on May First internationally does not mention the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
This is overrall a good example of the rather stark pessimism of the RCP-aligned forces internationally — who see their continuing collapse and failure as a result of objective conditions, and who portray their own mere existence (however marginal) as grounds for excitement.
The AWTW report, like the RCP’s own “roundup,” also claims that there were revolutionary May first action in the U.S. — but avoids giving any estimate of participants at the only action the RCP called, in Harlem, which we might assume was far far below “300 to 400.”
Their basic summation: The mere fact that there was organized promotion of Bob Avakian in Berlin (or anywhere) “truly does represent a potentially important step.”
Here is the full report:
Over the last two decades 1 May in Berlin, Germany, has come to be eagerly
anticipated. While the mainstream news media has principally concentrated on the
frequent street battles with the police, the real heart of the matter has been
the actions by a wide range of radical and revolutionary political tendencies to
promote their various programmes. A defining element of these activities has
been the efforts of genuine communists to raise the banner of proletarian world
revolution and a communist future in the midst of this highly politicized
ferment. This has focused around, though not been limited to, the Revolutionary
1 May demonstration starting at the Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg district of Berlin
at 1 pm. 2010 was no exception.
Communists who have been rallying to Bob Avakian’s new synthesis formed a
coalition together with a number of communist-inclined anarchists and feminists
to wage the political battle necessary to mobilize for this year’s revolutionary
demonstration. The main slogans were: “No Liberation Without Revolution!” and “A
Communist World is Possible! “. Over 20,000 calls to the demo were distributed
throughout Berlin in German and Turkish.
The leaflet emphasized two main points: 1) “We are living in times in which
nothing less than the future of humanity is at stake… A radical rupture with the
dominant relations is urgently necessary: a small class of capitalists and their
capitalist/imperial ist system is ruling over our planet and turning the lives
of the majority of humanity into a nightmare. ” And 2) “All this doesn’t have to
be! The prerequisites for a radically different world in which the people have a
radically different consciousness; a world without any form of exploitation and
oppression, without class divisions and rule, a world in which the people
voluntarily and consciously work together to meet the needs of everyone and
develop themselves and society as a whole – a communist world never seen before
– have long since existed. But there is only one realistic path to achieving
such a world: we need a revolution aimed at emancipating all of humanity!”
The call ended by declaring: “On 1 May, the international holiday and day of
struggle of the oppressed of this world, we will make visible to all that even
here in the heart of the European beast there are people who are aiming for
nothing less than a revolutionary upheaval and transformation from below. A
transformation that does not view the world from the point of Germany or Europe,
but from the standpoint of internationalism: the understanding that the future
we are seeking can only be achieved through a common worldwide effort… We say to
all those who share this revolutionary vision of the emancipation of humanity
and a communist future: join us and come to the demonstration! We say to all
those who want to make history instead of being its victims: on 1 May 2010, your
place is with us!”
The demonstration began with the traditional rally at the Oranienplatz. The
speaker representing the Revolutionary 1 May Coalition emphasized the key points
of unity of the Coalition as a whole and in particular that: “All the discussion
about how to best reform this system, how high or low the minimum wage should
be, which ruling coalition will bring a little bit better situation, etc. is
completely beside the point. This people-eating profit-über-alles system cannot
be reformed. We need a revolution!” And further; “While we must defend ourselves
against the abuses and cruelty of this system, it is the system itself which
must be made our main target, because we want nothing less than a radically
different and far better world!”
Among the other speakers was a supporter of the Revolutionary Communists (FRG)
who read a message noting the necessity for preparing to actually carryout the
revolutionary seizure of power: “In order to emancipate humanity we must
overthrow the power of the imperialist ruling classes through a revolution from
below… We need to establish revolutionary power in all the countries of the
world. A revolutionary power that actually is in the hands of the people and
serves their interests and needs… A power that will be used to eliminate both
the logic and workings of capital in all areas of society, as well as support
the world revolution until class society is completely and totally eliminated on
the entire planet.” She went on to say: “This revolutionary power is socialism.
Not the phoney socialism of the former German Democratic Republic and the other
countries of the former revisionist Eastern Bloc or of today’s China. No, we
mean revolutionary socialism as an actual transitional stage to a classless
world in which there are no rulers or ruled of any kind… A revolutionary
socialism and a revolutionary power which aims to dismantle itself until there
is no political power anywhere in the world. ”
And finally she remarked that while it is true that, with the coup in China in
1976, the first wave of proletarian world revolution ended with a defeat, “With
the new synthesis of the science of communism that Bob Avakian, the Chairman of
the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA) has brought forward, we have an
historical breakthrough in our understanding of the way the world functions, the
positive and negative lessons of the historical experience of socialism and of
communist revolution in general. We have a re-envisioned and more scientific
understanding of a viable and revolutionary socialism, one that will enable us
to make new breakthroughs in revolutionary practice and actually initiate a new
second wave of the communist world revolution!”
The last speaker was a veteran revolutionary who spoke on behalf of the newly
formed Revolutionary Communist Manifesto Group (Berlin) which took part in the
Coalition and actively supported the demonstration who read from the Manifesto
from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA with the title, “Communism: The
Beginning of a New Stage”. He concluded by remarking that, “The goal is not just
to read and write or talk. Rather the purpose and goal of our work is to
continue on our path to a more extensive, deeper, comprehensive and dialectical
understanding of reality in order to transform that reality and reach the goal
of a communist world.”
Along with this speech at the rally, the Manifesto Group had a very successful
book table featuring the Manifesto and works by Bob Avakian at the street
festival at the nearby Mariannenplatz, which has also been held on May 1st for
the last 10 years and draws thousands of visitors. Beyond that around 2,500
copies of a leaflet in German and Turkish calling on people to engage with the
new synthesis and advertising a programme the group is planning to hold at the
end of May were distributed throughout the day at the street festival and the
various demonstrations.
Following the rally between 300 and 400 people joined the demonstration as, for
the 23rd year in a row, it made its way from the Oranienplatz, passed under the
giant banner suspended above and moved down the Oranienstraße.
As has been typical over the years the demonstration was very broad in its
political and class composition. Young and old, students and others from the
middle classes joined together with basic working class people to make an
inspiring revolutionary statement – one that was both internationalist in its
content and very international in its make-up. People from over a dozen
different countries took part. After making its way through the streets in
Kreuzberg the demonstration concluded with a short rally near the Kottbusser Tor
that ended with the Internationale – the international anthem of the communist
revolution.
In addition to the various revolutionary demonstrations a major feature on this
year’s 1 May agenda in Berlin was the planned demonstration by a coalition of
“autonome national” neo-Nazi groupings who have been pushing a program of
“anti-capitalism from the right” and who, in their style of dress and
presentation, pattern themselves after the autonome/anarchist tendencies. A
broad coalition of bourgeois parties including those running the government in
Berlin (the SPD and the Left Party – the current name of the ruling party in the
former East Germany) along with the Greens and some major trade unions together
with some left-wing forces to try to stop any Nazi march. Their slogan was
“Block the Nazis”.
A major political dispute accompanied this “anti-fascist mobilization” , as it
was called. Some of the “left-wing” and “anti-fascist” forces involved in this
mobilization also play a leading role in the coalition that organized a
demonstration that was scheduled for 6 o’clock that evening and also refers to
itself as revolutionary. The main slogan of this demonstration was: “End the
Crisis, Abolish Capitalism!” This dispute centred around the question of whether
or not on 1 May the main concentration should be on fighting to raise the banner
of international revolution and communism, or if the principal emphasis should
be on simply “stopping” the Nazi march. Closely connected to this was the
related question of on what basis the Nazis should be opposed: by dropping all
revolutionary slogans and merely calling on people to “stop Nazis” and by
implication – if not open declaration – falling into a defence of the existing
system to the exclusion of any exposure of the links between the Nazis and the
system as a whole, or by making the need for revolution and the fight for a
communist future the central point overall and the basis for calling for
opposition to the fascists’ planned march as well.
The Revolutionary 1 May Coalition was united around the later understanding and
course of action. In a statement it issued on this question it declared: “There
are people and forces who truly believe that preventing any Nazi march on 1 May
is significantly more important than a revolutionary 1 May demonstration. For
this reason they believe that it is not possible to have a revolutionary 1 May
demonstration before 6 o’clock in the evening. While we respect this position,
we do not share it. Whether desired or not, this approach subordinates the
revolutionary struggle against the current ruling system overall to a struggle
against the Nazis and in defence of bourgeois parliamentarianism. Such a
struggle can never succeed. For as along as there is capitalism/imperial ism
there will be fascists. If the revolutionary struggle to make a complete break
with and revolutionary transformation of all the existing social relations is
pushed off to a tomorrow that never comes, the struggle will only go in circles.
Independent of the motives behind it, following this logic will only inevitably
end up in bourgeois reformism.
“May 1st belongs to the oppressed people of the world. The Nazis have absolutely
no place in it. On May 1st the most important thing is to make the vision of a
classless communist world visible. The approach which seeks to subordinate
everything to just preventing a Nazi march ends up handing 1 May and what should
happen on that day over to the Nazis. This cannot be allowed to happen. After
all, what would result if the Nazis decided to wait until 6 o’clock to hold
their march?”
Based on this stand the Revolutionary 1 May Coalition decided to continue its
mobilization and demonstration at 1 o’clock under its revolutionary slogans as
planned. When, in the last few days before 1 May it became clear that the Nazis
were actually going to try to carry out their march, the Coalition made the
decision to shorten its original route and following the closing rally in
Kreuzberg, call on people to join a second revolutionary demonstration in the
part of Berlin where the Nazis were planning to march. To its original slogans,
a new one was added: “Stop the Nazis, Bury the Whole Capitalist/Imperial ist
System”.
As this second demonstration with its red flags, revolutionary banners and
slogans joined a section of those who had gathered to block the Nazi march, it
was met with broad smiles, cheers and applause. Many of those radical and
revolutionary minded people who had been taking part in the blockade had become
thoroughly dissatisfied with the fact that the entire action had been organized
on an openly reformist basis and that although the “left-wing” forces had been
the main ones who actually carried out the mobilization, the political stage was
– up until that point at least – totally dominated by bourgeois politicians,
including Wolfgang Thierse, a major figure in the SPD and currently the
vice-president of the German parliament. The sound-truck from the Oranianplatz
demonstration became the centre of radical and revolutionary politics for a
crowd of 200 to 300 people that had quickly gathered. Not only did the
revolutionary slogans and agitation find very open ears, but cheers and applause
came from the crowd as the loudspeakers blared the famous song by the punk group
Slime, “Deutschland muss sterben, damit wir leben können” (“Germany must die, so
that we can live”).
In previous years the police in Berlin had tried to prevent this song from being
played on 1 May, making numerous arrests and demanding the Revolutionary 1 May
demonstration disband when it had been played. The struggle around this question
went on for a number of years until the German constitutional court finally
ruled that it was a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of artistic
expression to club and arrest people for playing this song in public (the police
and prosecutors had been arguing that a song which “insulted” Germany in this
way had lost all claim to being “a work of art”).
Thus the playing of this song at the blockade was an act that not only enraged
the Nazis, but also the bourgeois forces that were present to demonstrate their
“democratic” credentials. Interestingly – and revealing of the logic guiding
their actions – even a representative of one of the “left-wing” groups that had
played a leading role in the anti-Nazi-coalition showed up at the sound-truck to
complain that it was “too loud”. On the other hand, a number of the more
radically-minded people who themselves were taking an active part in organizing
the 6 o’clock demonstration came over to openly express their appreciation to
those who had “turned up the bass” and brought a revolutionary line and vision
into the mix along with some watts of PA-power to back it up. About an hour
after the revolutionary demonstration had entered the scene, the march of 500 to
600 Nazis, which was being protected by hundreds of cops in full riot-gear and
had stopped a few hundred yards away, turned around and under police escort
returned to the train station where it started and disbanded.
In the days following Revolutionary 1 May a discussion has developed as to how
to evaluate the actions. Because in past years the turnout has usually been
between 1,000 and as many as 8,000 people (in 2003, a year that a united
demonstration of all forces was possible), and while around 6,000 – mostly young
– people took part in the demonstration at 6 o’clock, some people felt that the
attendance of 300 to 400 people at the revolutionary event represented a
setback. They have even raised the question of whether or not the demonstration
– and by implication, revolution itself – is “dying out”.
The blackout in both the bourgeois and “alternative” media about the
Oranienplatz demonstration and the widespread feeling that stopping the Nazis
should be the focus of the day’s activities were factors in lowering the turnout
at Revolutionary 1 May this year. But there are deeper – and more fundamental –
reasons for this as well.
The “Manifesto” points out that communism – and communist revolution – is at a
“crossroads” and is faced with the question of whether it will remain a
“vanguard of the future” or become a “residue of the past”. Since the coup in
China in 1976 through which the end of the first wave of proletarian revolution
was marked by a defeat and initiated a period in which no socialist countries
have existed, the world has in many ways experienced almost 35 years of
counter-revolution. This is not to say that there has not been any revolutionary
struggle or even some important – if temporary – advances. There have. But there
have been no breakthroughs – no revolutionary seizure of power. And the
international communist, including especially the communist movement in Germany
and Europe, which collapsed in the wake of the coup, has never been able to
recover from the blow it suffered at that time. Given the state of the communist
movement and communist-led revolutionary movements and formally anti-imperialist
forces and struggles around the world, given the atmosphere of lowered sights
and disbelief in – if not open rejection of – socialism and communism as a
viable and emancipatory road and the corresponding strength of bourgeois
democratic illusions and prejudices among the people and within the communist
movement itself, and the lack of genuine and influential communist organization
in so many countries of the world – including in Germany – it is actually not
surprising that given its clearly articulated radical character and
revolutionary ideals and goals the revolutionary demonstration had to “go
against the tide” and fight to stay on a revolutionary path and maintain itself
as a real, visible and meaningful revolutionary pole on 1 May.
Looked at in this context, it is not only understandable that in this period the
number of those attending the demonstration would be lower, but given the
specific situation in Berlin, in Germany and actually the world as a whole it is
actually quite good – and important – that 300 to 400 people rallied to the call
that was made. The mobilization and the demonstration itself – as well as the
other work carried out by communists, their supporters and others during this
period and on May 1st and especially the popularization of the “Manifesto” and
Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism – did in fact succeed in raising a
genuine revolutionary pole on the broader political terrain. As mentioned above,
this truly does represent a potentially important step in the direction of a
radically different future. Only the further course of the class struggle itself
can answer the question as to whether or not this potential will be realized to
the fullest extent possible.
Harsh Thakor said
A most noteworthy point is that the very foundations of the R.I.M were defective.It is most important to study the viewpoints of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1960′s represented by Com.Zhou En Lai on this point.The Chinese Revolution succeeded after the dissolution of the 1943 International.The chief representativ of the revolutionary camp in India ,the C.P.I(Maoist) is not part of R.I.M , nor were it’s erstwhile components with the exception of the M.C.C in the later period.It was the R.I.M.that was responsible for the setback to the Sendero Luminoso of Peru.The erstwhile C.P.I.(M.L.)Red Flag group which promoted the R.I.M.today is major exponent of the rightist trend in India.Being dissascociated from the R.I.M is a major factor in the consolidation of the struggle of the Communist Party of Phillipines .
Below I am reproducing some material from the trend which has it’s origin in the polemics of the U.C.C.R.I.(M.L.)led by Harbhajan Sohi .In 1984 the Central Team group had published a document refuting the formation of the R.I.M.
Since the fall of proletarian power in the C.C.P. there is no Socialist base in the World. History remembers that despite the achievement of C.P.C under Mao ,the party did not go towards establishing he Communist International or establishing an International Organisation. Instead it stressed for he Communist Parties of the camp to apply he universal truths of Marxism-Leninism in the concrete situation of their country. It emphasized that other countries should not copy the Chines Experience to-to but apply the Chinese experience in accordance to their own condition.The main reason for the C.P.C’s caution was
a .Imperialism was devising through its local regimes new forms of neo-colonial rule and only a native communist party could analsye and review such situations. An outside force could not grasp the concrete reality. Thus he necessity of political independence of each country’s communist party.
b.Chauvinistic tendencies may develop under Communist Parties .The more developed and advanced may act chauvinistically and deliver big-brother treatment to the less developed or successful parties.
c.The victory of a revolution in a country under the leadership of a Communist Party indicates that certain crucial contemporary problems of he revolutionary movement have been resolved by it ,and thus the experience can be passed on to Communist Parties of othe Countries.At presnt there is no such party in the World..The ideological political struggle against Oppurtunism withi the revolutionary Camp is fierce and bitter in each country.
A dialectical process involving unity of Communist Parties is required. Mutual exchange has to take place Actual experience should be shared, which would pave the ay for more advanced form s of collective positions on issues and ralying of more forces worldwide. Mutual Exchange and Common stands,bilaterally and laterally,,and multilateral platforms on the basis of the general line are required.