Sixty years ago, the U.S. army continued to occupy southern Korea, five long years after Japan had been defeated. It was clear to the whole world that the U.S. did not intend to leave Korea, but had instituted its own colonial occupation in the place of the Japanese. And it was also clear that this forward basing of U.S. troops was intended as a foothold on the mainland of Asia — a military threat to the new revolution in China.
On June 25, 1950, war broke out on the Korean peninsula as newly formed armies of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea engaged and drove back the U.S. occupiers. A bitter three-year war had started.
This is the story about a historic and unprecedented U.S. defeat — the first direct confrontation between a triumphant U.S. imperialism and the new revolutionary forces they were fighting to contain.
Under U.S. General MacArthur, the Americans were first driven back, to their southern enclave at Pusan, and then (after the Inchon landing) started to push the DPRK forces north, toward the Yalu River and China itself.
Clearly they had visions of taking back China. And we now know how extensive their secret debates were — about using nuclear weapons against revolutionary China.
The following is a little known story about the intervention of revolutionary Chinese troops into the Korea war, and how they drove the U.S. Army back from their borders by applying revolutionary methods of warfare.
This piece originally appeared in the Revolutionary Worker newspaper on the 50th anniversary of the Korea war (June 18 and 25,2000).Both parts appear below.
Tearing Up the U.S. Paper Tiger in Korea
Part 1: How 300,000 Chinese Troops Snuck into Korea & Kicked the Ass of the U.S. Armed Forces
INTRODUCTION
On June 25, 1950 the Korean People’s Army (KPA) army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea let loose a full-scale attack, pushing aside the troops of the reactionary Republic of Korea along the 38th parallel (the line demarcating North and South Korea). A civil war had begun. The United States which had been training and arming the Republic of Korea (ROK) army as part of its own plans to gain a foothold in Korea used the KPA offensive as an excuse to launch its own war of aggresression against the Korean people.
Someone just wrote me an email and asked “What is the story behind Kunstler and this statue of David? Do you know?”
Here it is:
The people’s lawyer William Kunstler had a picture of David’s statue up in his office.
He would love to tell the story (repeated in the recent biographical film made by his daughters) that as a teenager he traveled through Italy, and saw Michelangelo’s statue for the first time, and was captivated by it.
And he said, someone mentioned to him there in front of that statue:
This is a statue of David before he slew Goliath.
Before David made the fatal decision to walk onto the battlefield. At a moment when he could still blend into the crowd, and be safe, and unseen.
And so this is a statue that captures that moment, that inner decision, when someone dares to step into harms way, to defy the powerful, to leave everything behind and risk all.
Kunstler loved that. Because those who dare to fight, those like Kunstler, live and then relive that moment over and over. And the decisions they make, at each of those moments, define who they are. And who they become.
In Nepal, the Young Communist League is playing a special role in training professional revolutionary cadre for the creation of a new socialist state
“There are ways in which a “revolutionary people” rises to the occasion, and makes up for the lack of trained cadre — by rapidly “stepping into the shoes,” by innovating, by unleashing its own great creative initiative. That is part of the communist mass line. And it is not like we should envision our communist movement as a mega-thinktank of revolution, preparing future generals and ambassadors in some academic way. Yes, we mainly “rely on the people” to solve the great problem of leading and administering all of society. and many many people will step forward to take up tasks they would NEVER dream they would do.
“But there is also, alongside that (alongside our PRINCIPAL mass line strategy for solving these problems) also a real need for highly trained and sophisticated political cadre — for statesmen, planners and organizers of a highly trained kind.”
“This is why I have always been wary of arguments that lightly condemn the communist ‘party-state.’ If we are not going to try to seize and wield the OLD state, and if we are not going to generate waves of new cadre within sophisticated party and army formations, where exactly will the many hundreds of thousands of cadre come from to create and lead the new state and the new order?”
“I’m all in favor of the need for a division of labor! but do think that perhaps division of labor gets muddled and misconstrued in practice with the concept of professional revolutionaries—even with the leadership and cadre in a revolutionary/communist organization…
“Within the concept of being a professional revolutionist, further divisions held sway in the hierarchy of the “professionally trained” revolutionary organization I had devoted my life to. The chasm widened and deepened between the theorists and the “practical” workers, leadership and led, under the guise of being professional revolutionaries.
“Without getting into some very crass (and ultimately demoralizing) examples, this experience did make me wonder—was there something inherent in Lenin’s call in the first place that would lead to this kind of practice, or was Lenin correct for his time and in general, but that his call left the door open for future revolutionaries’ misinterpretation, bastardization of the concept, or even an opening for political abuse?”
Part of the question of professional revolutionary is this:
An organization that aims at fighting for reforms needs to be able to organize a mass campaign. And the kind of cadre it trains and develops have to be able to organize a mass campaign (i.e. agitate, organize, fundraise etc.)
But a revolutionary movement aims to replace the existing state, develop an army, organize a planned economy. Its tasks at the moment (writing, organizing, fundraising, dealing with state repression, etc.) are only a distant precursor of the tasks it plans to undertake.
How a Founding Document Was Found, or
100 Years of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?
Part 1
By Lars T. Lih
Once upon a time I taught in the political science department of a small liberal arts college. As one of the teachers of the introductory course for first-year students, I proposed that the reading for the session we spent on Lenin be switched from selections from What Is to Be Done? to Lenin’s final articles of 1923 (this was during the perestroika period when these late articles were by far the most prominent Lenin texts). A colleague — a specialist in Chinese politics — quashed my proposal. After citing the famous sentence in What Is to Be Done? about “consciousness from without,” he commented approximately as follows: “According to Marx, being determines consciousness. According to Lenin, consciousness is independent of working-class being. Lenin stood Marx on his head and this is the basic fact we have to get across to our students.”
This little episode defined for me the undisputed ascendancy of what I will call the textbook interpretation of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? (henceforth WTBD). If a teacher could say only one thing about the outlook of the founder of the Soviet Union and of 20th-century communism, he or she should use this or similar sentences from Lenin’s book of 1902. As is the way with textbooks, this reading of Lenin is presented to students as a plain and simple fact. Indeed, although I was the Soviet specialist in the department, it was my colleague who expressed the consensus of the academic specialists on Russian and Soviet history. Read the rest of this entry »
The following is a study guide sent to Kasama by Rowland from his Speed of Dream blog.
It appears here as part of a our emerging discussion of study guides for communist reconception.
Our thought is to gather a library of such study guides, as a first step toward synthesizing and refining them. Please send in your own contributions.
“Soon you will see, we all sit in the shade of the sacred tree
The water and the knowledge, they can never rob from us
The ancient voices form a key to the lock, setting you free” – Mexica Tiahui by El Vuh
The last twenty years, especially this last decade, have been marked by increasing struggle between the indigenous people of North America and the illegitimate colonial governments in Ottawa and Washington D.C. Inspired by the watershed events at Oka in 1990 and the 1994 uprising by Mayan Indians in Chiapas, Mexico, indigenous people in North America, especially in Canada, have begun to reassert themselves, their power and their rights on the international stage. They have forced a largely complacent settler population to stare them right in the eyes and have opened the minds of many, though many more remain closed and some have turned towards even greater repression of the indigenous population. From continued defence of sacred sites against colonial encroachment to the reclamation of stolen land to ecological struggles to resistance against the Olympics Indians across this continent have decided they are fed up with 500 years of oppression and have begun to move against that which oppressed them.
This short study guide hopes to educate both indigenous and non-indigenous readers about the roots, prospects and present state of the indigenous resurgence in North America. It briefly examines the long history of colonial oppression, including the use of sexism and sexual violence against Native women, and the suppression of traditional acceptance of LGBT people. It then looks at the state of current struggles, especially in Canada, and presents some of the ideas of contemporary Native activists and thinkers about how we should move forward in our struggle for liberation. Finally, it takes a quick look to the struggles of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Maobadi in Nepal as examples of powerful living and dynamic revolutions against colonialism and capitalism.
With a screenplay co-written by Tariq Ali and Mark Weisbrot, Oliver Stone’s South of the Border promised to be a good movie. I am pleased to announce that it is much better than I expected and a must-see for people knowledgeable about the Latin American left as well as those who only get their information from CNN. Indeed, part of the pleasure of watching the movie is seeing the talking heads at Fox and CNN get exposed as the lying idiots that they are. The movie opens with three dorks from Fox discussing Hugo Chavez’s “drug problem”, which is described as starting his mornings with cocoa. You can’t make this shit up.
To date capitalists have financially supported two types of revolution: they have funded the neoliberal revolution to “take the risk out of democracy”,[1] and they have supported/hijacked popular revolutions (or in some cases manufactured ‘revolutions’) in countries of geostrategic importance (i.e. in counties where regime change is beneficial to transnational capitalism).[2] The former neoliberal revolution has, of course, been funded by a hoard of right wing philanthropists intent on neutralising progressive forces within society, while the latter ‘democratic revolutions’ are funded by an assortment of ‘bipartisan’ quasi-nongovernmental organizations, like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and private institutions like George Soros’ Open Society Institute].
The underlying mechanisms by which capitalists hijack popular revolutions has been outlined in William I. Robinson’s seminal book, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (1996), which examines elite interventions in four countries – Chile, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Haiti.[3] Robinson hypothesized that as a result of the public backlash (in the 1970s) against the US government’s repressive and covert foreign policies, foreign policy making elites elected to put a greater emphasis on overt means of overthrowing ‘problematic’ governments through the strategic manipulation of civil society. In 1984, this ‘democratic’ thinking was institutionalised with the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, an organisation that acts as the coordinating body for better funded ‘democracy promoting’ organisations like US Agency for International Development and the Central Intelligence Agency. Robinson observes that:
“…the understanding on the part of US policymakers that power ultimately rests in civil society, and that state power is intimately linked to a given correlation of forces in civil society, has helped shape the contours of the new political intervention. Unlike earlier US interventionism, the new intervention focuses much more intensely on civil society itself, in contrast to formal government structures, in intervened countries. The purpose of ‘democracy promotion’ is not to suppress but to penetrate and conquer civil society in intervened countries, that is, the complex of ‘private’ organizations such as political parties, trade unions, the media, and so forth, and from therein, integrate subordinate classes and national groups into a hegemonic transnational social order… This function of civil society as an arena for exercising domination runs counter to conventional (particularly pluralist) thinking on the matter, which holds that civil society is a buffer between state domination and groups in society, and that class and group domination is diluted as civil society develops.”[4]
I’ve been reading this list for more than a year and find the commentary and analysis to be great reading. I like how the list branches out into areas of popular culture, history, science, etc.
However, I was wondering if it might be possible for Kasama to develop a reading list (from a Marxist/Maoist perspective) of important works on political economy, philosophy, Russian Revolution, imperialism, etc.
The reading list could allow for readers to engage in independent study, discussion, etc. I’m not sure if kasama has some reading lists developed, but I thought I’d throw it out there.
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
By Kiyoko McCrae
Review of THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE FUNDED: BEYOND THE NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, South End Press, 2007
Following the Ford Foundation’s reversal of its decision to award INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence a $100,000 grant after reviewing their position on Palestine, the radical feminist organization sponsored the 2004 conference, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, where most of the essays in this collection were presented. This resulting anthology offers some of the best analysis of the government and the corporate elite’s attempts to co-opt social movements in the US. It answers an urgent call to confront the normalization of what has come to be known as the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC)—the corporatization of progressive and radical social movements.
For those who work in the non-profit sector, the insights offered by this diverse array of activists can be enlightening, but also sobering. Perhaps the most disheartening fact is the NPIC’s power to shape our approaches and tactics for social change. As Dylan Rodriguez points out, “[m]ore insidious than the…constraints exerted by the foundation/state/non-profit nexus is the way in which [it]…grounds an epistemology—literally, a way of knowing social change and resistance praxis—that is difficult to escape or rupture.” This epistemology is responsible for the belief that activists must conform to 501(c)(3) status for legitimacy and funding and that social services serve a greater need and purpose than the arduous task of social change. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent uprising of Iran's people against the bloody mullah dictatorship
“But reducing imperialism to those acts (and thinking that opposing particular imperialist actions is inherently “anti-imperialism”) leaves out the revolution and waters down anti-imperialist until it means little more than anti-intervention.”
“When you start talking about ‘anti-imperialist politics,’ an important question is what exactly is meant by ‘imperialism.’
“It seems that for the Workers World Party and a lot of Left groupings, ‘imperialism’ refers concretely primarily to the power position of the US and its allies and that by extension any opposition to the US and its allies is anti-imperialist. Within that framework which is IMO basically geopolitical and not social revolutionary in its criteria, it makes sense to align with Cuba, China etc….
“However if you view imperialism as i do as the world system of monopolistic capital following Bukharin,Lenin etc,then its difficult to see how the PRC or DPRK etc are any more ‘anti-imperialist’ than the USA/EU, in all you have a variable combination of state/private monopoly capital integrated within the world market system.”
I agree with your main point: Imperialism is a system, that defines the world’s current economic and political order.
Imperialism is another name for monopoly capitalism. It is the currently dominant form of class society. This is what we need to be against, what we need to unite with others to oppose and overthrow. It is also what we need to analyze anew because of its many changes and developments — we can’t just affirm Lenin’s work from a century ago.
As part of opposing imperialism, we should of course be energetically against specific imperialist acts — aggression, threats, assassination-by-drone, assassination-by-deathsquad, Guantanamo Bay, interventions, plunder, nuclear blackmail, military aid to proxies, covert intrigues, unequal treaties, robbery of resources etc. etc.
Thanks to Ian for writing this piece and submitting this to Kasama. His examination of Queer Liberation originally appeared on the New Zealand Workers Party website and was adapted from a talk he gave at their Marxism 2010 conference.
by Ian Anderson,
What does queer liberation mean?
This article aims to deal with this question utilising historical materialism, the mode of enquiry pioneered by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Historical materialism explores social relations, such as homosexual oppression, by explaining the productive forces that shape them. With a particular focus on New Zealand history, this analysis aims to sketch the material basis of modern queerness, attempts to control or suppress it, and the politics that have emerged from this contradiction.
To deal with queer liberation, we must first define ‘queer.’ This is a heavily contested term, used both as an insult and a chosen identity. Queer theorist David Halperin has this to say:
‘Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence. ‘Queer’ then, demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normal.’
So, to simplify, queerness is defined not as a thing in-itself, but in opposition to normalcy, or attempts at control. Largely it refers to queerness of sexuality, gender or orientation. The question for Marxists then becomes, how are queer identities defined and formed? What is their material basis?
To answer this question, we need to set up a theoretical framework and undertake a historical analysis. This analysis will rely particularly on the work of Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault, and draws on the notion of ‘historical specificity’ which Karl Korsch emphasised in the writings of Karl Marx. Historical specificity means that our analysis must be specific to historical conditions: so it’s not enough, for example, to claim that the National Party is conservative, we have to observe how they have changed and adapted historically.
Dancers in the Maoist rallies, April 2010, photo: Jed Brandt
Read the following article (which appeared today in the New York Times).
The Supreme Court has upheld the Bush government’s attack on international political connections. Seriously repressive government moves, launched in the name of anti-terrorism, criminalize “material support” for groups on the governments terrorists lists. Now the Supreme Court has upheld this dangerous policy.
Some things that stand out:
First, there are forces on those lists who are genuine liberators and revolutionaries. Including the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), their Young Communist League and their Peoples Liberation Army.
Second, the definition of “material support” is radically widened (both by government assertion, and now by Supreme Court decision). Material support includes offering such groups “expert” advice (possible examples: sharing simple advice on law, on translation, on websites).
This is an outrage and a serious threat against free speech and a direct threat against projects engaged in international activities (including in the legal case, activities involved in spreading knowledge of international law).
In the case of Nepal, for example, it raises questions of whether the U.S. federal government can prosecute NGO activists who help provide education (for example) in Maoist controlled areas. NGOs play a huge role in Nepal currently, and so this could be used by the U.S. government to destablize Nepal itself if the Maoists continue to make gains.
Nepal’s Revolution:
Radical, Communist & Non-Dogmatic
Thu, 06/24/2010 – 1:00pm – 5:30pm
Cobo Hall: D2-12
Speakers: Jed Brandt and Eric Ribellarsi
Today, seemingly a world away, the population of a small oppressed nation is engaged in an ongoing revolution that is striving and maneuvering for a decisive victory. Led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), they approach their revolutionary process in a way that is shockingly radical yet deeply undogmatic. Their thinking is fresh. What can we learn from their new revolution and how can we defend it?
Jed Brandt and Eric Ribellarsi, two revolutionary journalists who visited Nepal, will be sharing their experiences witnessing the turmoil and transformation that is currently underway. This workshop will feature two talks, a question and answer period, and an open discussion period for building a Nepal revolution solidarity movement here in the U.S.
This panel is sponsored by the Kasama Project andthe FIRE Collective.
As the U.S Social Forum meets in Detroit, many will be discussing (or not discussing) the role of the Non-Profit sector in blunting the militancy of social movements in the U.S.. The following article from Monthly Review discusses the counter-insurgent functions of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Latin America. While the examples are from a different context, the larger analysis clearly has implications for understanding how neo-liberal policies have been implemented in the U.S. with so little effective resistance.
The NGOs became the “community face” of neoliberalism, intimately related to those at the top and complementing their destructive work with local projects. … Anti-Statism was the ideological transit ticket from class politics to “community development,” from Marxism to the NGOs.
It is no coincidence that as NGOs have become dominant in certain regions, independent class political action has declined, and neoliberalism goes uncontested. The bottom line is that the growth of NGOs coincides with increased funding under neoliberalism and the deepening of poverty everywhere. Despite the claims of many local successes, the overall power of neoliberalism stands unchallenged and the NGOs increasingly search for niches in the interstices of power.
Imperialism and NGOs in Latin America
by James Petras
By the early 1980s the more perceptive sectors of the neoliberal ruling classes realized that their policies were polarizing the society and provoking large-scale social discontent. Neoliberal politicians began to finance and promote a parallel strategy “from below,” the promotion of “grassroots” organization with an “anti-statist” ideology to intervene among potentially conflictory classes, to create a “social cushion.” These organizations were financially dependent on neoliberal sources and were directly involved in competing with socio-political movements for the allegiance of local leaders and activist communities. By the 1990s these organizations, described as “nongovernmental,” numbered in the thousands and were receiving close to four billion dollars world-wide. Read the rest of this entry »
Kasama has received the following document from Redguard. It will be distributed at the coming Social Forum gathering in Detroit.
Regroupment of the left is “in the air” — meaning that people generally see that the old forms are fading, and new ones have not yet been conceived. Different forces are putting forward their programs for regroupment (and refoundation) — with different notions of what should unite us, and what should be seen as lines of demarcation. This document by WWP represents a contribution to that discussion, and it would be useful to uncover what particular process, lines, plans and assumptions it embodies.
“A socialist front of organizations, parties and individuals — whose agreement on fundamental questions outweighs whatever differences they might have – could greatly advance the work of revolutionaries on many levels.”
What is the road to something politically impactful, revolutionary and new, or what amounts to a bid for mutual defense of politics that are aging and exhausted?
Workers World Party and Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) statement:
SOCIALISTS UNITE!
Something important happened last November that did not seem to elicit the widespread interest that it should have. In a speech to a large gathering in Caracas, Venezuela, of communist, socialist and left parties, and social movements from around the region and the world, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made a call for a new Fifth International of socialists and communists.
Chávez said the Fifth International must be “an instrument for the unification and articulation of the struggle of the peoples to save this planet.”
Set aside for the moment a discussion of what became of the earlier internationals, or what will come out of this new call for unity amongst revolutionaries. The fact that a leader as prominent on the world scene as Hugo Chávez made this call, and the sense of urgency in the motivation of this call for unity, is something that all who are dedicated to making another world possible should take heed of.
What’s the Difference Between a Radical and a Good Organizer?
“What’s the difference between a radical and a good organizer?”
I got that question twice in one week—from two organizers I respect a lot.
I was stumped. I couldn’t answer the question. So I asked a dozen workers and labor activists: Does the labor movement really need radicals and our politics?
Here’s what these nurses, teachers, UPS part-timers and union organizers had to say.
“Of course!” “Absolutely.” “F*** yeah!”
Every organizer and worker I talked to agreed that labor does need radicals. And they gave me six good reasons: we help link up workers with lessons from past fights; we challenge business as usual; we take on racism and sexism when other activists are afraid to address it; and a lot more.
Most important, the best of us are long distance runners, who stay with the movement—and keep it going—through good times and bad.
Junkyard Empire seem to be one of those bands that don’t burst onto the scene but slowly seep into the cracks of your consciousness over time until you realize they’re everywhere. Example: their most recent album, Rebellion Politik was released last summer, but it was only three days ago that OkayPlayer finally gave it a review.
No doubt about it, their sound and politics are tight–Political Affairs magazine referred to them as “a jazz version of Rage Against the Machine.” Though their lyrics can be a bit overly-blunt (rapper Brihanu bothers little with subtlety in calling out war, oppression and capitalism for what they really are) but never seem to get lost in the la-la land of preachiness due to being firmly rooted in a rich musical mixture of punk, acid jazz, funk and instrumental hip-hop. These five guys clearly take the time to hone their craft.
If you just want to read and not speak here on Kasama, that is fine. It is your choice. But I want you to consider de-lurking — participating openly on Kasama threads to clarify your own thoughts and enrich our common work .
We meet here because fresh thinking is needed. And because we want to school each other.
So much revolutionary experience and thinking is not well known, even among us. Things that are new need to be shared, things that are stale need to be debunked. We need to hammer our way toward deeper summations. We need to listen across generational and sectarian divides. Many once-familiar ideas and events need to be held up, examined from many sides, debated and then clarified. The back and forth of our public discussion is a great way to draw out contradictions and insights.
Many to Many
A major problem of the past communist movement is the mistaken habit of “one-to-many” — as if revolutionary politics can emerge and take root from a one-way flow of ideas and plans.
One-to-many is an outdated schema that cuts the creative process and the mass line out of our politics. It is a habit of class society that reemerges in our own brains and our work. It generates a culture of snarky encapsulation, exactly where we need a civil exploration of real differences.
And it is one reason we have too often generated organizations that cannot listen. Structures that cannot adapt. Leaderships that cannot learn. Cadre that cannot speak. Movements that don’t move. Errors and fantasies that go unchallenged. Experiences that go unheard.
Instead we need to embrace the possibilities of “many-to-many” — both develop horizontal pollination within a common process.
Which means: There are few valid arguments for simply lurking. Modern revolutionary politics cannot be a spectator sport.
Ten to One
In “Kasama at 2 Million,” we mention that over Kasama’s first 30 months, our cloud of participants have written over 18,000 comments on the site’s 2,000 posts. Dozens of people comment here regularly. Which is, I suppose, not bad.
It remains true, however, that lurkers still outnumber participants by 10 to 1. That is quite typical for Internet discussions. But should discussions among revolutionaries be typical in that way?
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