The Leading Light http://llco.org Central Website of the Leading Light Communist Organization Sat, 19 May 2012 02:00:28 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Bengali: Forward! FAQ http://llco.org/bengali-forward-faq-%e0%a6%a7%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%95-%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%9c%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%9e%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b8%e0%a6%be-%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%9c/ http://llco.org/bengali-forward-faq-%e0%a6%a7%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%95-%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%9c%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%9e%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b8%e0%a6%be-%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%9c/#comments Sat, 19 May 2012 01:59:06 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=2118

ধারাবাহিক জিজ্ঞাসা ও জবাব ঃ দি লিডিং লাইট ।

প্রাথমিক কথা ঃ আমরা এখন এক অন্ধকার সময়ে বসবাস করছি ।  দারিদ্রতা, নিরন্তর যুদ্ধ, অনাহার, রোগ সূখ, নিমর্মতা ও ধর্ষন খুন  ও প্রকৃতিক দূষণ আমাদের নিত্য সংগী । ইহা আমাদিগকে হতাশ করতে পারে ।  তবে, আমরা আবার ্মন সময়ে ও আছি যখন মানব জাতি তার উন্নতির এক উচ্ছতম সময়ে উপনিত হয়েছে ; ভালো কিছু করার জন্য প্রচেষ্ঠা ও চালাচ্ছে । অসম্ভবকে সম্ভব করছে । বিপ্লব , একটি রক্তিম লাল ঢেউয়ের মত চড়িয়ে পড়ছে সারা পৃথিবীতে । মনবতার এখন বিকল্প পথে হাঠার সময় এসেছে । যদি ও অতীতের বিপ্লবগুলোর সমাপ্তি ঘটেছে হয়েছে তবে  তারা  আমাদেরকে দেখিয়ে গেছে যে, প্রচলিত ব্যবস্থাকে বদল করা কোন অসম্ভব কাজ নয় । আমরা আরো ভাল করতে পারি । আমরা কর্তৃত্ব দখল করতে পারি । পরবর্তীতে, আমরা দীর্ঘ সময় কর্তৃত্ব হাতে ধরে রাখতে পাবে এবং বিপ্লবের পরিপূর্ণতা আনয়ন করতে পারব । এমন কি এটা ও বলা যায় যে, আমাদের র্ব্যাথতা  পুঁিজবাদের সফলতার চেয়ে ও উত্তম । বিগত মহান বিপ্লবগুলো আমাদেরকে বহুকিছু শিখিয়েছে ।  তবে আমাদেরকে বোঝতে হবে সেই দিন শেষ । অতীতের মহান বিপ্লবগুলোর ঢেউয়ের সমাপ্তি ঘটেছে । যদি ও বিচ্ছিন্ন ভাবে তাদেও কিছু অবশেষ রয়েছে । আমরা মুধুমাত্র অতীতের পানে তাকিয়ে থাকব না । আমরা চেষ্ঠা করব অতীত অভিজ্ঞতা  থেকে আগামীতে ভূল ভ্রান্তি কমিয়ে সামনের পানে এগিয়ে চলার জন্য । সামনের মহান বিপ্লবের ঢেউকে তরান্নিত করতে, আমরা অবশ্যই অতীতকে অধ্যয়ণ করব, সারাংশ করব,বিজ্ঞানে অগ্রগতি আনব, আমাদেরকে প্রস্তুত করব, সংগঠন গড়ে তুলব, নেতৃত্বের বিকাশ ঘটাব । লিডিং লাইটের কাছে বিজ্ঞান আছে, আছে বিপ্লবে বিজয়ী হওয়ার মত সংগঠন ও নেতৃত্ব । যে কোন বিপ্লবেই  কেহ কেহ অন্যদেও চেয়ে অধিকতর অগ্রসরশীল হয়ে থাকে । কিছু  মানুষ প্রজ্ঞা সম্পন্ন হয় । তারা পথ দেখাতে পারে । তারা অন্যদেরকে সামনে এগিয়ে নিয়ে যেতে পারেন । আবার পদাঘাত ও প্রতারণা ও করতে পারে । তারা হলো নেতার নেতা, পথ প্রদর্শকের পথ প্রদশর্ক । তারাই আধারের আলো, তারাই নেতৃত্ব দেন এবং প্রাগ্রসর জনগৌষ্ঠী । তারাই অগ্রনী বাহিনী । দি লিডিং লাইট ।

যখন কোন মহান বিপ্লবের চূড়ান্ত প্রচেষ্ঠা সংগঠিত হয় তখন বিজ্ঞান নানাহ কৌশল অবলম্ভন করে থাকে । সকলের জ্ঞান ও অভিজ্ঞতা একরূপ নয় । মানুষ এক সাথে সকলেই এগিয়ে যেতে পারে না । আমরা এ বিষয়ে লিডিং লাইটে প্রস্তুতি গ্রহন করছি যারা আমাদের সাথে অংশ নিচ্ছেন । এর অর্থ হলো ইহা প্রাথমিক পরিচিতি । নতুন কর্মী সমর্থকদেরকে আমাদের বক্তব্য সম্পর্কে পরিচিত করানো । এই জিজ্ঞাসা ও জবাব গুলো হলো জ্ঞানের প্রাথমিক স্তর । ইহা চূড়ান্ত কোন বিষয় নয় ; সামনে এগিয়ে আসুন । নিজের যোগ্যতা প্রমান করুন । সর্ব স্তরে লিডিং লাইটের আলো অনুসরন করুন । লিডিং লাইট হয়ে উঠোন ।

১.লিডিং লাইট কি?

লিডিং লাইট কমিইনিষ্ট অর্গানইজেশন, হলো একটি নতুন ধরণের অগ্রগামী সংগঠন । ইহা একটি আর্ন্তজাতিক সংগঠন হিসাবে আসছে মহান কমিউনিষ্ট বিপ্লবের ঢেউ তুলার জন্য কাজ করছে ।    ইহা বর্তমানে অনেক দেশেই কর্মরত । তৃতীয় ও প্রথম উভয বিশ্বেই বিরাজমান । দি লিডিং লাইট প্রধানত গোপনীয় ভাবেই কাজ করছে ।    দি লিডিং লাইট নতুন ভাবে বিপবের পথে এগিয়ে যাওয়ার প্রত্যয়ে পরিচালিত , এ যুগের বিপ্লবী বিজ্ঞানের ব্যবহার করে এর উ”্চতম স্তরে উন্নিত হতে চায় আর এটাই হলো দি লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম। দি লিডিং লাইট এর হাতেই আছে বিজ্ঞান, সংগঠন, এবং নেতৃত্ব যার আধ্যমে সত্যিকার কমিউনিজমে উন্নিত হওয়া সম্ভব ।

২.অগ্রগামী বাহিনী কি?

প্রতিটি মানুষ একই সময়ে উন্নতির একই স্তরে উন্নিত হতে পারে না । কিছু মানুষ  হয় চরম প্রতিক্রিয়াশীল । কিছু মানুষ দ্বিধাদ্বন্ধে ভোগে । আর কিছু মানুষ সবে মাত্র সচেতনতার পথে পা বাড়িয়েছেন । কিছু মানুষ মোটামোটি অগ্রসর মানষিকতা পোষন করেন । কেহ কেহ বেশ অগ্রসর আবার অনেকেই অগ্রসর চিন্তাভাবনায় উলেরখযোগ্য ভাবে এগিয়ে আছেন । যখন অগ্রগামী মানুষ গুলো সংঘবদ্ধ হয় , তারাই তৈরী করে অগ্রগামী বাহিনী ।  অগ্রগামী বাহিনীর নিকট খুবই অগ্রসরশীল ও উন্নত বিপ্লবী বিজ্ঞান রয়েছে । তারই অগ্রসর হয়ে ঐক্যবদ্ধ হয়েছে প্রকৃত নেতৃত্ব প্রদানের জন্য । তাঁরা হলেন সেই মানুষ যারাঁ অন্যদেরকে ও জাগিয়ে তুলতে পারেন । তারাই মানবতাকে উর্ধ্বে তুলে ধরেন । তারা হলেন পথ প্রদর্শকের পথ প্রদর্শক । তারা হলেন নেতার নেতা । তারাই একসময় অন্ধকার যুগে মানবতাকে নেতৃত্ব দিয়েছেন । আজকের যুগে দি লিডিং লাইট দুনিয়ার মানুষের জন্য অগ্রগামী বাহিনী ।

৩.অন্যান্য দল যারা নিজেদেরকে বিপ্লবী বলে দাবী করে, তাদের সর্ম্পকে দি লিডিং লাইট এর মতামত কি?

পৃথিবীতে বহু দল উপ দল আছে, যারা নিজেদেরকে বিপ্লবী বলে দাবী করে থাকে । কেহ কেহ প্রগতিশীল কিন্তু ত্র“টিযুক্ত । কেহ কেহ প্রকৃত অর্থেই প্রতিক্রিয়শীল । কেহ কেহ   ফ্যাসিস্ট । কেহ কেহ সংশোধনবাদী । কেহ কেহ বিপ্লবেরে সাথে বিশ্বাসঘাতক । কেহ কেহ মেকী পতাকাদারী । আমরা বিপ্লবী বৈজ্ঞানিক পন্থায় চলার পথে যাচাই করে নিব কে সঠিক আর কে বেঠিক ; কে অগ্রগামী আর কে অগ্রগামী নয ; বিপ্লবের বিজ্ঞান হলো একটি আদেশ । কেবল মাত্র দি লিডিং লাইট বিপ্লবের বিজ্ঞানই আমাদেরকে প্রকৃত স্বাধীনতার পথ দেখাতে পারে ।

৪. অন্যান্য দলের সাথে কি আমরা একতা গড়ে তুলতে পারি?

নীতিগত ভাবে, বিপ্লবী বৈজ্ঞানিক নেতৃত্বের আওতায় আমাদের সব ধরনের লোকের সাথেই মেশা ও একতা গড়ে তুলা উচিৎ । তা অবশ্যই লিডিং লাইট নেতৃত্বের অধীনে হবে । তবে, সকলেই বিজ্ঞান ভিত্তিক নয় । সকলেই আমাদের চূড়ান্ত  উদ্দেশ্যের সাথে সম্পকযুক্ত নয় । সকলেই সর্বহারা শ্রেনীর ও নির্যতিত এবং নিপিড়িত মানুষের  প্রতিনিধিত্ব করে না । তাই সকলের অবস্থান ও এক নয় । তা ছাড়া, সকলে বিপ্লবের বিজ্ঞান ও অনুসরন করেন না ।  আমরা বরং তুলনামূলক ভাবে কম অগ্রসর দলের সাথে একতা গড়ব : যারা আমাদের ও প্রলেটারিয়েটের উদ্দেশ্য  অর্জনে সহায়ক হবেন । আমরা একতার জন্যই একতা গড়ব না । আমরা যখন তুলনা মূলকভাবে কম অগ্রসর দলের সাথে একতা গড়ব তা হবে কৌশলগত ও আন্তরিকতাপূর্ণ । আমরা সবর্দা লাল পতাকা উর্ধ্বে তুলে ধরি । আমাদের সর্বদা সংগ্রাম হবে জোট মহাজোটের ভেতরে নেতৃত্ব অর্জনের জন্য ।

৫. লিডিং লাইট কেন সাধারণত গোপনীয়ভাবে কাজ করে ?

লিডিং লাইট গোপনীয়তা বজায় রেখে কাজ করে এর কারন হলো উৎপীড়ক রাষ্ট্র ; প্রাথমিক ভাবে এর উৎপিড়নকে এড়িয়ে চলার জন্য ।  আমাদের একান্ত উদ্দেশ্যই হলো যে কোন মূল্যে  পুরাতন র্কতৃত্বের (ওল্ড পাওয়ার) অবসান ঘটানো । বার বার আঘাৎ হানা । রাষ্ট্র এবং তাদের এজেন্টদেরকে এবং তাদের নেতা ও তাদের অনুসারীদেরকে বিপ্লবী সংগঠন আঘাৎ করবে । আমাদেরকে অনভিজ্ঞ হলে চলবে না ।

৬.আমাদেও প্রধান উদ্দেশ্য কি? লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম কি ?

লিডিং লাইট এর বিপ্লবের প্রধান গন্তব্যস্থলই হলো কমিউনিজম । সকল প্রকার নিপিড়ন ও শোষণের অবসান । কেহ ধনী আর কেহ গরীব থাকবেনা । জাতিগত, গৌষ্ঠীগত ও লিঙ্গগত বৈশম্য থাকবে না । থাকবেনা তরুণ ও যুব সমাজের অপব্যবহার । সাম্যবাদ হলো সম্পূর্ণ মুক্তি ও স্বাধীনতা । এক দলের উপর আর এক দলের কোন প্রকার প্রভুত্ব করার সুযোগ থাকবে না । মার্কস ও লেনিনের ভাষ্য অনুযায়ী রাষ্ট্র হলো এক শ্রেণরি উপর আরেক শ্রেণীর উৎপিড়ক যন্ত্র । যখন এক দল অরেক দলের উপর প্রভাব খাটানোর চেষ্ঠা করবেনা, তখন আর রাষ্ট্রের ও দরকার থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো ন্যায় পরায়ণতা । সমাজ গঠিত ও পরিচালিত হবে সমাজের প্রয়োজনে । ব্যাক্তিবাদ ও অর্থলিপ্সা থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদী সমাজে মানুষ নিজেকে একা বা একক ভাবে বিবেচনা করবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো সামগ্রীকতা, সকলের অংশগ্রহনে সকলের জন্য কল্যান । সাম্যবাদে কোন প্রকার ব্যক্তিগত সম্পত্তি থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো আত্ম ত্যাগের সঠিক নমুনা । মহান মার্ক্সের ভাষ্য হলো, “ সামর্থানুসারে কাজ করবে, এবং চাহিদানুসারে পাবে”। মানুষের কাজকর্ম মানব সেবার চেতনায় পরিচালিত হবে । মানুষ একক সাম্যবাদের আওতায় থাকবে । সাম্যবাদে আমি, আমি,আমি  নেই, সেখানে স্থিতিশীলতা নিশ্চত হবে । সকল মানুষ, আর আমাদের সকলের বাসযোগ্য গ্রহটিকে ধ্বংস করবে না । আগামী প্রজন্মের জন্য আমাদের রয়েছে এক সুন্দর স্বপ্ন ও অঙ্গীকার । সাম্যবাদে কোন প্রকার আগ্রাসী শক্তির আস্ফালন থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো শান্তি । সাম্যবাদের আওতায় বিপ্লব সয়ংক্রিয়ভাবে চলমান থাকবে । পূর্ণ সাম্যবাদ পৃথিবীতে কখনই ছিলনা, যদিও কোন কোন আদিবাসী সমাজে সাম্যদাদের সাথে মিলে যায়, এমন কিছু  রীতিনীতি চালু ছিল যাকে কেহ কেহ “আদিম সাম্যবাদ বলে অভিহিত করেছেন” ।  বর্তমানে প্রযুক্তি সামাজিক দুঃখ দুদর্শা লাগবে উল্লেখ যোগ্য ভুমিকা রাখতে পারে । যখন বিজ্ঞান ও প্রযুক্তি উৎপাদনে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ভূমিকা রাখতে পারছে তখন আমাদেও প্রচলিত সমাজ ব্যবস্থার একটি ব্যাপক পরিবর্তন ও পূর্নরগঠন একান্ত আবশ্যক হয়ে দাড়িছে । যেমন ঃ- শ্রেনী সংগ্রম ও নের্তৃত্বের লড়াই । সমাজ ব্যবস্থা এখন যন্ত্রনির্ভর ও জটিলতায় আক্রান্ত । কমিউনিষ্ট বিপ্লবের প্রথম ধাপে অন্ধঅনুসরনের দ্বারা আক্রান্ত হয়ে পড়েছিল । বিজ্ঞানকে অনুসরন করা হয়নি । আমরা কি কেবল বিপ্লবের বিজ্ঞান প্রয়োগ করেই সত্যিকার কমিউনিজমে পৌছতে পারব ? লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম হলো পরবর্তী কমিউনিজম । লিডিং লাইট  এর কাছে অনেক অগ্রসর পরিকল্পনা ধারণা রয়েছে যা পূর্বের কমিউনিজমের ধারণা থেকে বহু অগ্রসর । লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজমই হলো আজকের সবচেয়ে সত্য ও খাঁটি কমিউনিজম ।

৭. ইহতো খুবই চমৎকার বিষয়, তবে ইহা কি মানব প্রকৃতির বিরোদ্ধে যায় না ?

মানব জাতি সবরকম বৈচিত্রময় পরিবেশে বসবাস করেছে  । কোন কোন পরিবেশ ছিল খুবই,শ্রেণী বিভাজিত প্রকৃতির, যেমন সামন্তবাদী, এবং পুঁিজবাদী প্রকৃতির। তবে বেশীর ভাগ মানব সমাজই তার অস্থিত্ব ঠিকিয়ে রেখেছিল সুসম বন্ঠন ভিত্তিক আদিবাসী  সমাজ ব্যবস্থার ম্ধ্যমে । উদাহরণ হিসাবে  উল্লেখযোগ্য হলো যে, উত্তর আমেরিকার আদিবাসী সমাজে সু সম বন্ঠন ব্যবস্থা আজকের পুঁজিবাদী সমাজের চেয়ে অনেক উন্নত ছিল । দুনিয়ার বেশীর ভাগ সমাজ এই প্রক্রিয়ায়ই চলে এসেছে হাজার হাজার বছর ধরে । মহান কার্ল র্মাক্স এই সমাজকেই “আদিম সাম্যবাদী সমাজ” বলেছেন । অধিকন্ত আরো বলা যায় যে, বিংশশতাব্দীতে মহান সমাজতান্ত্রিক বিপ্লবের পর ও তা প্রমানিত হয়েছে যে, মানব জাতি আজ ও অনেক সুসম বন্ঠন ব্যবস্থার ভেতর বসবাস করতে পারে ; পুজিঁবাদী সমাজ প্রদত্ব সুবিধার চেয়ে অনেক বেশী সুবিধা পেতে পারে সাজতান্ত্রিক ব্যবস্থায় । চিন বিপ্লবের উৎকর্ষতার সময়, বিশ্বের প্রায় এক চতুর্থাংশ মানুষ সাম্যবাদী ব্যবস্থাপনায় বসসাস করতে পেরেছে । এমন কি পৃথিবীর  কোন কোন এলাকায় ছোট পরিষরে হলে ও কিছু আদিবাসী মানুষ সাম্যবাদী সমাজ বজায় রেখেছে । আরো দেখা যায় যে, কোন কোন ধর্মীয় ও অন্যান্য জনগৌষ্ঠি নিজেদেরকে আলাদা ভাবে রাখতে ও শাসন করতে, সাম্যবাদী পদ্ধতীর বন্ঠন প্রক্রিয়া চালু রাখতে  পছন্দ করে থাকে । যদিও ইহা প্রায়শই অগনতান্ত্রিক ও চাপিয়ে দেয়ার সংস্কৃতির ভিত্তিতে হয়ে থাকে । তাই ইহা স্পষ্ট ভাবেই বলা যায় যে, সুসম বন্ঠন ও সাম্যবাদী সমাজ মানব প্রকৃতি বিরোধী বলে যে প্রচার চালানো হয়, তা ঐতিহাসিক ভাবে সত্য নয় ; বরং,ঐতিহাসিক ও বাস্তবতা বলে তাদের দাবী অসত্য ও মিথ্যা ।

যদি এমন ও দেখা যায় যে, সত্যিকার সাম্যবাদী সমাজ ও সমান বন্ঠন ব্যবস্থা কায়েম করা অসম্ভব ছিল অথবা টেকসই হয়নি  কিন্তু এর মানে এ নয় যে, আমরা এই মতবাদের প্রকৃত পথ ও পন্থাকে বোঝার চেষ্ঠা করা থেকে সরে আসব । গবেষনা বলছে, মানুষ অধিক মাত্রায় সাম্যবাদী ব্যবস্থায় সমবন্ঠনের সমাজে সূখ ও শান্তিতে বসবাস করছে । মানুষ সেখানে অধিকতর বেশী দয়া মায়া ও স্নেহশীল জীবন যাপন করছেন । তুলনা মূলক ভাবে সেই সকল সমাজে সমস্যার মাত্রা অনেক কম । তাই আমাদেও উচিৎ সাম্যবাদী সমাজের আদর্শ ও রীতিনীতি সমূহ ভালোভাবে আত্মস্থ কার এবং বোঝা ।

মানুষ তো সমাজে বসবাস করে নিজেদেরকে আরো উন্নত করতে । আমাদেরকে বোঝতে হবে, সমাজকে বুঝাতে হবে, আমাদের প্রকৃতির সাথে সামঞ্জস্যশীল আদর্শ কোনটি । সমাজকে নিরুতসাহিত করতে হবে কোনটি আমাদের প্রকৃতি বিরোধী । আমরা নতুন শক্তি ব্যবহার করব, নতুন সমাজে নতুন মানুষ গড়তে, একটি উন্নত মানবতাবাদ গড়ে তুলার জন্য ।

৮. মানুষ কি প্রকৃতি গত ভাবে লোভী নয় ?

মানুষ প্রকৃতিগত ভাবে লোভী নয় । মানব ইতিহাসের বিপুল অভিজ্ঞতা বলে যে, তারা সাম্য ও সমবন্ঠনের সমাজে বহু কাল বসবাস  করে এসেছে । সৈনিকগণ প্রাণ দেন তাদের সাথীদের জন্য । পিতামাতা নিজেদের আরাম আয়েশকে বিষর্জন তাদের সন্তানদের জন্য । শহীদগণ প্রান দেন তাদেও আদর্শেও জন্য । লিডিং লাইট আত্মত্যাগ করেন স্বাধিনতার ও দুনিয়ার সকল মানুষের মুক্তির জন্য  । মানুষ প্রকৃতিগত ভাবে দয়ালু ও মহান । আমরা সামাজিক জীব । আমরা যেহেতু পুজিঁবাদী ব্যবস্থার আওতায় বসবাস করছি, এখানে আমরা এই ধারণাই পাচ্ছি যে, মানুষ আত্মকেন্দ্রীক ও লোভী । পুঁজিবাদ মানুষকে এইরূপ ধারণাই প্রদান করে থাকে যে, যদি জীবনে উন্নতি করতে চাও তবে আত্মকেন্দ্রীক ও লোভী হও । আর অন্যদিকে সাধারণ সমাজের মহান আদর্শঋ হলো ‘নিজেরে লয়ে বিব্রত রহিতে আসেনাই কেহ অবনী পরে’ অর্থাৎ অন্যের প্রয়োজনে নিজেকে বিলিয়ে দাও । পুজিঁবাদের আদর্শ হলো সীমাহীন ভোগই সকলের জন্য ভাল ।   আর এই করেনেই মানুষ ভাবে সকলেই লোভী, তাই সমাজের বহু মানুষই আজ লোভী হয়ে উঠেছে, পরিনত হচ্ছে লোভি মানুষে  । মানুষ পুঁজিবাদের আদর্শকে মানুষের প্রকৃত আদর্শ হিসাবে বিবেচনা করছে । তারা বিশ্ব বুর্জোয়া আদর্শকে প্রথম বিশ্বের এবং মানবতার আদর্শ হিসাবে প্রদর্শন করছে ।

কোন কারনে যদি ও কেহ কেহ লোভী হয়ে উঠে , কিন্তু এর মানে এই নয় যে, সমাজ এটাকে উৎসাহিত করছে । মানুষের পরিবতর্ন করতে ও হতে  পারে । মানুষ খুবই স্পর্শ কাতর প্রকৃতির হয়ে থাকে । মানুষ তাদের সমাজকে নিজেদেও সংশোধন করার হাতিয়ার হিসাবে ব্যবহার করে থাকে ।  তাই যদি ও কিছু কিছু খারাপ চরিত্র আমাদের মধ্যে অনুপ্রবেশ ঘটেছে ,তা বিদূরীত করার জন্য আমরা সমাজকেই ব্যবহার করতে পারি । সমাজকে আমরা সত্যিকার মনবতা গড়ে তুলতে ব্যবহার করতে পারি ; যা মন্দ ও খারাপ তার জন্য নয় । আমরাই নতুন মানবতাবাদ গড়ে তুলতে পারি ।

১১. বিপ্লব কি অবশ্যই সহিংস হতে হবে ? শান্তি পূর্ণ নয় কেন?

বিজ্ঞানিক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি নিয়া ইতিহাসের দিকে থাকালে আমরা দেখতে পাব যে দুনিয়ার কোন পরিবর্তনই সরল পথে হয়নি। একটি জটিল প্রক্রিয়ার ভেতর দিয়ে সম্পন্ন হয়েছে । সমাজিক শক্তি গুলোর মধ্যে দ্বন্ধের ভেতর দিয়েই সকল সামাজিক পরিবর্তন সাধিত হয়েছে  । মহান কার্ল মার্কস বলেছেন, পৃথিবীর ইতিহাস হলো শ্রেণী সমূহের দ্বন্ধের ইতিহাস । পূর্বের সকল বিপ্লবের আকাঙ্খা ছিল কমিউনিষ্ট আকাঙ্খা এবং গন মানুষের আকাঙ্খার ই নামান্তর । সেই বিপ্লবে সহিংস ও অহিংস দুই ধরনের ব্যবস্থাই ছিল ।  বিপ্লব কোন ডিনার পার্টি নয় । কমিউনিষ্টদের নেতৃত্বে পরিচালিত বিপ্লব সমাজের মৌলিক কাঠামোগত আমূল পরিবর্তন আনয়ন করবে । এটা সমাজের সংসকৃতি, অর্থনীতি, রাষ্ট্র কাঠামো, এবং নাগরিক সমাজের আমূল পরিবতর্ন ঘটাবে । একটি সামাজিক শক্তি আর একটির উপর কতৃত্ব গ্রহন করবে । লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম বিপ্লব সাধনের জন্য আমাদেও পৃথিবীতে প্রয়োজনীয় পরিস্থিতির সৃষ্ঠি করছে । কর্তৃত্ব এবং সুযোগ সুবিধা মৌলিকভাবে  পরিবর্তন সাধন করতে হবে । সম্পদ ও তার বন্ঠন ব্যবস্থা ব্যাপক ভাবে পরিবর্তিত হবে । সামগ্রীক জীবন ব্যবস্থার সকল অসংগতি বিদূরিত করে নতুন নিয়মে পরিচালিত হবে । কেহ কেহ এটা সমর্থন করবে আবার কেহ কেহ এটা সমথর্ণ করবে না বরং এর বিরোীধতা করবে । সমাজিক পরিবর্তনটি কোন প্রার্থনা অনুষ্ঠানের মত হবে না । ইহা কোন মন্ত্রবলে ও সাধিত হবে না । এটা কেবল মাত্র আমাদেও আশা আর অঙ্গুলি হেলনে ও হবে না । লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম প্রতিষ্ঠার জন্য সত্যিকার অর্থেই সামাজিক পূর্নগঠণ মূলক কার্যক্রম গ্রহন করতে হবে । আমরা অবশ্যই শত্র“ মিত্র যাচাই কওে নেব । ইহা নিপিড়িত ও অসহায় মানুষের ভরসার স্থল ও নতুন শক্তি হিসাবে  গড়ে উঠবে । ইহা বিদ্যা অর্জন এবং আদর্শিক পূর্নগঠণে উদ্দোগ গ্রহন করবে । এটা বিপ্লবের  স্থায়িত্ব নিশ্চিত করতে প্রয়োজনীয় সব রকম ব্যবস্থা গ্রহন করবে, সাম্রাজ্যবাদ,পুঁজিবাদ, সমন্তবাদ , ফ্যাসিবাদ, প্রথমবিশ্ববাদী এবং অন্যান্য প্রতিক্রিয়শীল গৌষ্ঠিকে সমূলে বিনাশ করার জন্য শক্তি প্রয়োগ করবে । বর্তমানে যে প্রথম বিশ্ব রয়েছে তাদেরকে ও আমরা ছিন্ন ভিন্ন  করে দেব । বাস্তবতা হলো এই লড়াই সংগ্রাম তার প্রয়োজনেই সহিংস হয়ে উঠবে ।

১২. গান্ধি ও মার্টিন লুথার কিং সম্পর্কে আপনাদের ধারণা কি? তাঁরা তো অহিংসভাবেই জয়ী হয়েছেন ।

প্রথমতঃ গান্ধি ও মার্টিন লুথার কিং জুঃ সম্পকে প্রচুর উপকথা ও কাহিনী প্রচলিত আছে । প্রকৃত ইতিহাস জানা আমাদের খুবই দরকার , প্রচলিত বিদ্যালয়ে যে বাজারী ও কাল্পনিক ইতিহাস পড়ানো হয় তা নয় ।

দ্বিতীয়তঃ গান্ধি ও মার্টিন লুথার কিং উনারা কেহই আমাদের মত সমাজের মৌলিক আমূল পরিবর্তনের জন্য উদ্দোগী ছিলেন না । তারাঁ প্রচলিত ব্যবস্থার সংস্কার ছেয়েছিলেন মাত্র, আর পুরাতন রাজনৈতিক শক্তির সাথে কতিপয় বিষয় নিয়ে দরকষাকষি করেছিলেন । গান্ধীর ব্যাপারে কথা হলো, ব্রিটিশ উপনিবাস বাদের সরাসরি নিয়ন্ত্রনের পরিবর্তে আংশিক ও উপ উপ নিবাসবাদের আদলে সাম্রাজ্যবাদের সাশন প্রতিষ্ঠা করতে ছেয়েছিলেন । আর  মার্টিন লুথার কিং এর ব্যাপারে কথা হলো, তিনি তো সাম্রাজ্যবাদ ও পুঁজিবাদের বিনাশই চাননি, বরং তাকে স¤প্রসারিত করতেই ছেয়েছেন, শুধু র্শত  ছিল আমেরিকায় কালো মানুষেরা যেন রাজনৈতিক ও সামাজিক মর্যাদা পায় । তবে অবশ্যই তাঁদের অবদানের কারণে সমাজ ব্যবস্থায় অধিকার আদায়ের আন্দোলন সংগ্রামের পটভূমি রচনায় ও সংস্কারে ভূমিকা রাখে । আপনি যদি কেবল মাত্র সরকারকে কম আয়কর দিবেন বলে দাবী করেন তবে, যে প্রতিক্রিয়া হবে, নিশ্চই আরো বেশী প্রতিক্রিয়া হবে যদি, দাবী করেন যে পুরো পঁিজবাদি ব্যবস্থাটাকেই আপনি বিনাশ করতে চান । মানবতার সামগ্রীক মুক্তির পশ্নটি আর অন্য কোন প্রকার সংস্কারের বিষয়টি মোটেই এক জিনিষ নয় । যেমন, আয়কর কমানো, পরিবেশ উন্নয়ন, বেকার ভাতার দাবী ইত্যাদী । গান্ধী ও মার্টিন লুথার কিং এর দাবী গুলো সেই রকম সংস্কারমূলক ও ছিলনা । লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম হলো আমূল পরিবর্তন কারী সংগঠন, সমাজের মৌলিক ও গভীর উপাদান গুলোর  পূর্নবিন্যাশে বিশ্বাসী এক অগ্রণী বাহিনী । ইহা স্বল্প সংখ্যক লোকদের কাছ থেকে সম্পদ নিয়ে অন্যান্য লোকদের মাঝে বিতরনের ব্যবস্থা গ্রহন করবে । ইহা স্বল্প সংখ্যক লোকদের নিকট থেকে কর্তৃত্ব কেড়ে নিয়ে সকলের মাঝে সর্মপন করবে । ইহা হাজার বছর ধরে চলে আসা সমাজের মৌলিক উপাদান এবং রিতিনীতির পবির্তন করবে ফেলবে। এটা  নির্বাচনে নিচক ভোট পাওয়া নয় ।  লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম হলো বিপ্লবের দাবীতে অনঢ়  এক মহান সংগঠনের নাম ।

অধিকন্ত, গান্ধী  ভারতীয় স্বাধিনতা আন্দোলনের,কোন উল্যেখযোগ্য ব্যক্তিত্ব ছিলেন না । ভারতীয় আন্দোলনের পেছনে যে গুরুত্বপুর্ন কারনটি ছিল তা হলো দ্বিতীয় বিশ্ব যুদ্ধ । ব্রিটিশ সাম্রাজ্য সেই যুদ্ধে দুর্বল ও অনেকাংশে বিধস্ত হয়ে গিয়েছিল । তাদের জন্য তাদের বিশাল সাম্রাজ্য ধরে রাখা কঠির হয়ে পড়েছিল । কে অর্থে  বিশ্ব ব্যাপী উপনিবেশ বিরোধী আন্দোল শুরু হওয়ার পর ই ভারতীয় স্বাধিনতার অর্ধেক অর্জিত হয়ে গিয়ে ছিল । দ্বিতীয় বিশ্ব যুদ্ধ শুধু সশস্র সংগ্রমকেই অনুমোদন করেনি বরং তাকে বিজয়ী ও করেছে , সেই কারনেই সর্বত্র স্বাধিনতা আন্দোলন সফলতা অর্জন করে , আর সেই গুলোর সবই অহিংস ছিলনা । একটি উপনিবেশ দখল করার আন্দোলন অন্য আরেকটিকে উৎসাহিত করেছে এবং দুর্বল থেকে দুর্বলতর করেছে ব্রিটিশ সাম্রাজ্যবাদীদেরকে । সাম্রাজ্যবাদের কোন একটি অংশে সশস্র সংগ্রাম প্রকারান্তরে অন্যদিকে  ভারতীয় স্বাধীনতার আন্দোলনকে সহায়তা করেছে । দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধ মূলত সেই বিশাল কাজটিই করে দিয়েছিল । পরিস্কার করে বললে বলতে হয়, ভারতীয় স্বধীনতা সংগ্রামের একমাত্র ব্যাক্তি গান্ধী নন । সেখানে আরো বহু সংগ্রামী শক্তি ছিল, তারা কখনই নিজে দেরকে অহিংস আন্দোলনকারী হিসাবে  বলেন নি। স্বাধীনতার বিষয়টি সত্যিই একটি জটিল প্রক্রিয়া । ব্রিটিশরা তাদের স্বর্থের প্রয়োজনেই গান্ধীবাদীদের নিকট দেশের নেতৃত্ব হস্তান্তর করতে ছেয়েছিল  । ইহা কালো মানুষদের আন্দেলনে ও প্রয়োগ করা হয়ে ছিল । ইহা বিশ্ব ব্যাপী উপনিবেশবাদের বিলুপ্তির আন্দোলনে বৃহত্তর পরিষরে সংগঠিত হয়েছিল । তবে সকল জায়গায় অহিংস পরিস্থিতি ছিলনা ।  মার্টিন লুথার কিং ই একমাত্র আন্দোলন কারী ছিলেন না বরং আরো অনেকই ছিলেন । গ্যাটুসকে পুড়িয়ে মারা হয়েছিল । তৎকালিন প্রচলিত ব্যবস্থাকে সংগ্রামের শক্তি প্রয়োগ করে অবদমিত করে নবদিগন্তের উন্মেষ ঘটানো হয়েছিল যাদের মধ্যে সবাই অহিসং ছিলেন না । একটি মিথ্যা উপকাহিনী চালু আছে যে, কেবল মাত্র অহিংস আন্দোলনের পথেই সংস্কার ও সামগ্রীক পরিবর্তন সাধন করা হয়েছে । কিন্তু এর সত্যিকার ইতিহাস অনেক জটিল ।

কর্তৃত্ব কেহ কাউকে দেয়না বরং তা কেরে নিতে হয় । অবশ্যই, বিপ্লবের সফলতার জন্য সমাজের নেতৃত্ব ও সুযোগ সুবিধা  যারা ছেড়ে দিতে চায় না, সাধারণ নিপিড়িত মানুষ তাদের কাছ থেকে নেতৃত্ব কেরে নিবে  । যারা বিপ্লবের বিনাশ কামনা করে তাদের কাছ থেকে তাকে হেফাজত করতে হবে । বিপ্লব হেফাজত করতে হলে অবশ্যই  একে অন্যের উপর শক্তি প্রয়োগ করতে হবে ।  কোন কিছুই একক ভাবে হয়না । সেখানে কিছু মানুষ থাকবেই যারা সবাত্মক চেষ্ঠা করবে পুঁজিবাদকে টিকিয়ে রাখার জন্যে । পুজিঁবাদ নিমর্ম কসাইয়ের মত তৃতীয় বিশ্বের সম্পদ কেরে নেয়ার জন্য যত্রতত্র বোমা ফেলছে । আপনিকি মনে করেন যে, আপনি বললেই তারা তা বন্দকরে দিবে । আমাদের প্রয়োজন সত্যিকার বিপ্লব সাধন করা কোন প্রকার অলিক কল্পনা নয় ।

]]> http://llco.org/bengali-forward-faq-%e0%a6%a7%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b0%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%ac%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b9%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%95-%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%9c%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%9e%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%b8%e0%a6%be-%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%9c/feed/ 0 Bengali: What is socialism? What is communism? সমাজতন্ত্র ও কমিউনিজম http://llco.org/bengali-%e0%a6%b8%e0%a6%ae%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%a8%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b0-%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a6%ae%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%89%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%ae/ http://llco.org/bengali-%e0%a6%b8%e0%a6%ae%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%a8%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b0-%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a6%ae%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%89%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%ae/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 03:14:22 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=2109 সমাজতন্ত্র ও কমিউনিজম

মৌলিক প্রশ্ন হলো, সমাজতন্ত্র কি? কমিউনিজমই বা কি? কোন কোন সময় আমরা ভূলে যাই যে, সকলেই এই মৌলিক বিষয় গুলো সম্পর্কে সাম্যক অবগত নন। সংশোধনবাদীরাও এ বিষয়ে প্রচুর জলগোলা করেছে । আসুন আমরা বিষয়টি পরিষ্কার করার চেষ্ঠা করি ।

প্রথমেই সম্ভাব্য ভূল ধারণা গুলো দূর হওয়া প্রয়োজন । এমন কি ফ্যাসিবাদীদের সম্পর্কে ও যে সকল ভূল ধারনা রয়েছে, ওবামা সমাজতন্ত্রী ও নয়, কমিউনিষ্ট ও নয় । এছাড়া ইউরোপীয় স্যোসাল ডেমোক্রেসীরা ও সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, নয় তারা কমিউনিষ্ট । যরা বলে সুইডেন, ফ্রান্স ও ওবামা সমাজতন্ত্রী, এবং কমিউনিষ্ট এর সোজা উত্তর হলো তাদের সর্ম্পকে যা বলা হয়, এরা তা নয় ।

বাস্তবতা হলো, আজ সমাজতান্ত্রিক সমাজ কোথাও নেই । কিউবা সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, ভেনিজ্যুয়েলা সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, ইরান সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, ভিয়েতনাম সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, চীন সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, লিবিয়া সমাজতন্ত্রী নয়, উত্তর কোরীয়া সমাজতন্ত্রী নয় । তারা কিছু কিছু বিষয় অনুসরণ করে, যা প্রকৃত সমাজতন্ত্রী সমাজতন্ত্রে ও করা হয়, কিন্তু এর অর্থ সমাজতন্ত্র নয়। তাদের কে সমাজতন্ত্র গড়তে হবে । সোজা কথা হলো তারা আজ সমাজতন্ত্রী নয় । ইহা আর বলার দরকার নেই যে পৃথিবীতে বর্তমানে কোন সমাজতান্ত্রী সমাজ নেই । প্রকৃত সত্য হলো, প্রচলিত ও তথা কথিত বেশীর ভাগ সমাজতান্ত্রী সংগঠন গুলোও ভূয়া । মিথ্যা দাবীদার ; তারা হলো সংশোধনবাদী । তারা লাল পতাকা দিয়ে, লাল পতাকার বিনষ্ট করতে চায় । আজ প্রকৃত সমাজতন্ত্রী হলো লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিষ্ট ।

বড় একটি ভূল ধারণা প্রচলিত আছে যে, সমাজতন্ত্র মানেই হলো, রাষ্ট্র কর্তৃক ব্যাপক হারে উৎপাদন ব্যবস্থার উপর মালিকানা প্রতিষ্ঠা করা, কল কারখানা জাতীয়করন এবং সমাজ কল্যাণমূলক কর্মসূচী গ্রহন । এই সকল বৈশিষ্ট্য সমাজতন্ত্রের খূবই গুরুত্ব পূর্ণ বিষয় তবে সেগুলোই এর মূল প্রতিপাদ্য বিষয় নয় । ফ্যাসিষ্ট রাষ্ট্র, ইউরোপীয় স্যোসাল ডেমোক্রেসী, উদার কল্যাণ রাষ্ট্র আমেরিকা, সৌভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন যুগে রাষ্ট্রীয় পুজিঁবাদী রাশিয়া, এবং চীন, বুর্জোয়া জাতীয় রাষ্ট্র ভেনিজ্যুয়েলা , লিবিয়া, কিউবা, এবং ইসলামী ইরান বিভিন্ন মাত্রায় তারা সেই সকল সামাজিক বিষয় গুলো জনগণের সাথে ভাগাভাগী করে থাকে । কিন্তু তারা প্রকৃত বিচারে সমাজতন্ত্রী নয় । সমাজতন্ত্রকে বুঝতে হলে শ্রেণী সংগ্রাম ও রাষ্ট্রের মৌলিক কাঠামোয় নেতৃত্বের বিষয়টি সমানে রেখে বিবেচনা করতে হবে । সমাজতন্ত্রকে অবশ্যয়ই ্কমিউনিজমে উত্তরণের প্রথম স্তর হিসাবে বিবেচনা করতে হবে । সাজতান্ত্রিক সমাজ হলো শ্রমিক শ্রেণী কর্তৃক দখল ও নিয়নত্রিত সমাজ ব্যবস্থা । শ্রমিকশ্রেণী শাসকের ভূমিকায় অবর্তীণ হবে । শ্রমিক শ্রেণী নেতৃত্ব গ্রহন করে তা ক্রমে দৃঢ় থেকে দৃঢ়তর করবে। সহজ ভাবে বলতে হয়, সমাজতন্ত্র হলো, সমাজ পূর্ণঘটনের এক দীর্ঘ প্রক্রিয়ার বিষয় যা শ্রমিক শ্রেণরি স্বার্থে পূর্ণগঠিত হবে । তার অর্থ হলো সমাজ কমিউনিজমের পথে এগিয়ে যাচ্ছে, সকল প্রকার শোষন প্রক্রিয়ার সমাপ্তি ঘটাতে । সমাজতন্ত্রের অর্থ হলো এখন ও আমরা আমাদের চূড়ান্ত গন্তব্য সাম্যবাদে বা কমিউনিজমে পৌঁছতে পারিনি । সমাজতন্ত্র হলো একটি অর্ন্তবতী কালিন স্তর ; যেখানে শ্রমিক শ্রেনীকে কাজ করতে হয় বিপ্লবের প্রতিক্রয়াশীল চক্রের বিরোদ্ধে । সমাজতান্ত্রিক স্তরে শ্রেনী শত্রুর অস্তিত্ব বিদ্যমান থাকে, তাদের কে ও দমন করতে হয় । যদিও শ্রমিকশ্রেণরি হাতে রাষ্ট্র ব্যবস্থার কর্তৃত্ব থাকে তবু সেই স্তরে দ্বন্ধ ও অস্থিরতা বিরাজ করে, তার ও সমাধান করতে হয় । কোন একটি মাত্র দেশে ও সমাজতন্ত্র কায়েম করা যেতে পারে, তবে কমিউনিজম কায়েম করতে হবে বিশ্বজুড়ে । যেসকল কারণে উত্তর কোরিয়া ও কিউবা সমাজতান্ত্রিক নয় ; ঠিক সেই সকল কারনেই ওবামার রাজ্য ও সুইডেন সমাজতন্ত্রী নয । সেই সকল রাষ্ট্র গুলো কমিউনিজমের জন্য পরিচালিত হচ্ছে না, সেই নেতৃত্ব ও সমাজের সকল নিপিড়নের সমাপ্তি ঘটাতে নেতৃত্বে আসীন হননি। সমাজতন্ত্রকে শুধুমাত্র কমিউনিজমে উত্তরণের পথ বা পন্থা হিসাবেই বিবেচনা করতে হবে ।

আমাদের বিপ্লবের প্রধান গন্তব্যস্থলই হলো কমিউনিজম । সকল প্রকার নিপিড়ন ও শোষণের অবসান । কেহ ধনী আর কেহ গরীব থাকবেনা । জাতিগত,গৌষ্ঠীগত ও লিঙ্গগত বৈশম্য থাকবে না । থাকবেনা তরুণ ও যুব সমাজের অপব্যবহার । সাম্যবাদ হলো সম্পূর্ণ মুক্তি ও স্বাধীনতা । এক দলের উপর আর এক দলের কোন প্রকার প্রভুত্ব করার সুযোগ থাকবে না । মার্কস ও লেনিনের ভাষ্য অনুযায়ী রাষ্ট্র হলো এক শ্রেণরি উপর আরেক শ্রেণীর উৎপিড়ক যন্ত্র । যখন এক দল অরেক দলের উপর প্রভাব খাটানোর চেষ্ঠা করবেনা, তখন আর রাষ্ট্রের ও দরকার থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো ন্যায় পরায়ণতা । সমাজ গঠিত ও পরিচালিত হবে সমাজের প্রয়োজনে । ব্যাক্তিবাদ ও অর্থলিপ্সা থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদী সমাজে মানুষ নিজেকে একা বা একক ভাবে বিবেচনা করবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো সামগ্রীকতা, সকলের অংশগ্রহনে সকলের জন্য কল্যান । সাম্যবাদে কোন প্রকার ব্যক্তিগত সম্পত্তি থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো আত্ম ত্যাগের সঠিক নমুনা । মহান মার্ক্সের ভাষ্য হলো, “ সামর্থানুসারে কাজ করবে, এবং চাহিদানুসারে পাবে”। মানুষের কাজকর্ম মানব সেবার চেতনায় পরিচালিত হবে । মানুষ একক সাম্যবাদের আওতায় থাকবে । সাম্যবাদে আমি, আমি,আমি নেই, সেখানে স্থিতিশীলতা নিশ্চত হবে । সকল মানুষ, আর আমাদের সকলের বাসযোগ্য গ্রহটিকে ধ্বংস করবে না । আগামী প্রজন্মের জন্য আমাদের রয়েছে এক সুন্দর স্বপ্ন ও অঙ্গীকার । সাম্যবাদে কোন প্রকার আগ্রাসী শক্তির আস্ফালন থাকবে না । সাম্যবাদ হলো শান্তি । সাম্যবাদের আওতায় বিপ্লব সয়ংক্রিয়ভাবে চলমান থাকবে । পূর্ণ সাম্যবাদ পৃথিবীতে কখনই ছিলনা, যদিও কোন কোন আদিবাসী সমাজে সাম্যদাদের সাথে মিলে যায়, এমন কিছু রীতিনীতি চালু ছিল যাকে কেহ কেহ “আদিম সাম্যবাদ বলে অভিহিত করেছেন” ।

সাম্যবাদের পথে এগিয়ে যওয়ার জন্য মানব ইতিহাসে দুইটি বড় ধরনের বিপ্লবী ঢেউ বয়ে গেছে । ১৯১৭ সালে রাশিয়ায় লেনিনের নেতৃত্বে বলশেভিকদের বিপ্লব । যদি ও হতাশা জনক ভাবে প্রতি বিপ্লবের মাধ্যমে ১৯৫০ সালের পর থেকে পুঁজিবাদ পুনঃ প্রতিষ্ঠা লাভ করে । আমরা বিপ্লবী যাত্রা পথে সৌভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন থেকে অনেক কিছু শিখতে পারি । লেনিন ও ষ্ট্যালিন এর শাসন আমল থেকে ও আমাদের অনেক কিছু শেখার আছে । অমরা মুক্ত ভাবে , সমালোচকের দৃষ্ঠিতে ও যুক্তি সহকারে তুলে ধরতে পারি । দ্বিতীয় বিপ্লবের ঢেউটি এসেছিল দ্বিতীয় বিশ্ব যুদ্ধের পর উপনিবেশিকতার বিরোদ্ধে লড়াইয়ের পথ ধরে । তখন বেশ কিছু দেশে বিপ্লব সংগঠিত হয় । আর এর মধ্যে মাও এর নেতৃত্বে চিনের বিপ্লবের কথা বিশেষ ভাবে উল্লেখ করা যেতে পারে । পৃথিবীর প্রায় এক চতুর্থাংশ মানুষ জেগে উঠলো, তাদের সুন্দর ভবিষ্যৎ গড়তে। সমাজতন্ত্র বির্নিমানের সকল পথ ও পন্থা গ্রহন করা হয়েছিল সাম্যবাদের দিকে এগিয়ে যওয়ার জন্য । এর মধ্যে চিনের সংস্কৃতিক বিপ্লব ছিল বিশেষ ভাবে উলেখ করার মত। যা শুরু হয়েছিল ১৯৬৬ সালে এবং তার সমাপ্তি হয় ১৯৭০ সালে । সাংস্কৃতিক বিপবের প্রধান উদ্দেশ্যই ছিল সমাজতন্ত্র থেকে সাম্যবাদে উত্তরণ ঘটানো । মওবাদীগণ ভাল ভবেই বোঝতে পেরেছিলেন যে, যদি তারা সামনের দিকে সাম্যবাদের দিকে ক্রমাগত এগিয়ে না যান তবে বিপ্লবের সমূহ বিচ্যুতি হওয়ার সম্ভাবনা দেখাদিতে পারে । একটি নতুন বুর্জোয়া দল পার্টি ও রাষ্ট্রে উদ্ভব হতে পারে । ১৯৬৬ সালে একটি সাংস্কৃতিক বিপব শুরু করা হয়েছিল নতুন বুর্জোয়দেরকে দমন করে সাম্যবাদেও পানে দ্রুত এগিয়ে যওয়ার জন্য । ইহা ১৯৬৭ সাল থেকে ১৯৭১ সাল পযর্ন্ত উৎর্কষ সাধিত হয় । সেই সময়টাতেই শ্রেণী সংগ্রাম, গণ আন্দোলন, বৈপবিক সামাজিক মিতষ্ক্রিয় ও সাম্যবাদী করন প্রক্রিয়া ; এবং প্রাগ্রসর সামাজিক ও সংস্কৃতিক র্চচা । তখন সাজিক ও সাংস্কৃতিক বৈপ্লবিক পরিবর্তন আনয়ন করে । মাওবাদীগন পরিকল্পনা করেন যে, সাংস্কৃতিক বিপবের ভেতর দিয়ে , সামাজিক সঞ্চালনের মধ্যদিয়ে রাষ্ট্রের আমলাতন্ত্রের অবসান ঘটিয়ে পূর্ণ সাম্যবাদ কায়েম করা । তখন সুসম বন্ঠন ও আত্ম ত্যাগের উদাহরন সৃষ্টি হয় । সেই সময়েই আমরা দেখেছিলাম নতুন সমাজিক কর্মকান্ড এবং সমাজের নতুন নেতৃত্ব ও কর্তত্ব । গতানুগতিক ধারার রাষ্ট্র ব্যবস্থায় ইতিবাচক পরিবর্তন সাধিত হয় । নতুন নেতৃত্বের উন্মেষ ঘটে । যৌথ কর্মকান্ডের বিকাশ ঘটে । ব্যাক্তি মালিকানাবাদে মনুষ নিরুৎসাহিত হয় । আমরা সাংস্কৃতিক বিপ্লবের কালে এবং তার শ্রোতধারায় আমাদের দৃষ্টিভঙ্গীকে উচ্ছে তুলে ধরতে পেরেছিলাম । আমাদের সামনে নতুন ও অন্য এক দুনিয়ার দরজা খোলে গিয়েছিল ; আর ইহাই সাম্যবাদী পৃথিবী যা দেখতে এমনই হবে ।

সাংস্কৃতিক বিপব কি নির্ভূল ছিল ? অবশ্যই না । ইহা হেরে গেছে । ১৯৭০ সালে সংশোধনবাদী ও নতুন বুর্জোয়দের মাধ্যমে পুঁজিবাদ আবার চীনে পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠা লাভ করেছে । মাও সেতং বলেছিলেন সাম্যবাদে পৌছাঁর জন্য আমাদেরকে অনেকগুলো সাংস্কৃতিক বিপ্লব সাধন করতে হবে । সে যাই হোক, সমাজতন্ত্র থেকে সাম্যবাদে উত্তরণের জন্যই সাংস্কৃতিক বিপ্লব শুরু করা হয়েছিল । পরবর্তীতে আবার আমরা যখন কর্ত্বত্ব গ্রহন করব তখন সাম্যবাদ পতিষ্ঠা করবো । বিপ্লবের ইতিহাস হলো বিশাল ও বৈজ্ঞানিক বিশ্লেষন ও যাচাই বাচাইয়ের বিষয় । আমরা আমাদের অতীত সফলতা বিফলতা থেকে বহু কিছু শিখব । আমরা আমাদের বিপ্লব কে ক্রমাগত চালিয়ে যাব, যতদিন পর্যন্ত না সাম্যবাদ প্রতিষ্ঠিত না হবে । বর্তমানে আমাদের অগ্রগতি হলো লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজম । আমাদেও আছে পরিকল্পনা, আছে নেতৃত্ব, আছে সংগঠন, লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিষ্ট অর্গানইজেশন, যা একটি অগ্রনিবাহিনী হিসাবে নতুন আরও এক বিপবের ঢেউ তুলতে সহায়তা করবে ।

এখন খুবই খারপ সময় চলছে । কোথাও কোন সাজতান্ত্রিক রাষ্ট্র নেই । অল্প সংখ্যক প্রকৃত কমিউন্ষ্টি আছে । আকাশে আজ পথ দেখানোর মত তারকার সংখ্যা ও খুব কম । এখন আমরা এক গোলাটে অবস্থায় আছি । কে সত্য আর কে মিথ্যা তা ফারাক করা বেশ কঠিন । আমাদের আন্দোলন দিনে দিনে বেড়ে উঠছে বলতে পরছিনা কার মনে কি আছে ? কার মনে সত্যের সূও বাজছে । চার পার্শ্বে থাকলে এখন কিছু লিডিং লাইট দেখতে পাওয়া যায় । তারাই আমাদেরকে আগমী দিনের বিপবের জন্য নেতৃত্ব দিতে পারেন । তারাই সাম্যবাদেও আলোকোজ্জল পথে হাটছেন । পৃথিবীতে সাম্যবাদের চাইতে সুন্দর ও গৌরবের আর কিছু নেই । ইহা একটি কঠিন পথ । ইহা একটি বিপদ সংকুল লং র্মাচ । আমরা আমাদের কমরেডদেরকে হারাতে পারি, অনেক ভুল করতে পারি । সেখানে অনেক মতামত ও চলার পথে বাকঁ নিতে হতে পারে । যখন কঠিন সময় আসবে তখন আমরা এ পথ ছেড়ে দেওয়ার কথা ভবতে পারি । আমাদেও মনে রাখতে হবে আমরা সাম্যবাদ চাইছি তা আমরা পাবই । এটা শুধু সময়ের ব্যাপার মাত্র । সাম্যবাদের জন্য লড়াই হলো দীর্ঘমেয়াদী লড়াই । ছোট ছোট অভিযানে বড় বড় বিজয় । সম্যাবাদের জন্য লড়াইয়ের চেয়ে সৃজনশীল ও সুন্দর আর সাহসের কিছু নেই । এর চেয়ে আর কোন বড় অভিযান নেই । আমরা ইতিহাস তৈরী করতে যাচ্ছি । আমরা সম্যবাদের জন্য বাঁচব, আমরা সাম্যবাদের জন্য মরব। আমরা আর কিছুই চাই না ।

লাল সালাম !

লিডিং লাইট কমিউনিজমের পথে আসুন !

লিডিং লাইট দীর্ঘজীবি হোক !

-একেএম শিহাব

]]> http://llco.org/bengali-%e0%a6%b8%e0%a6%ae%e0%a6%be%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%a4%e0%a6%a8%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%a4%e0%a7%8d%e0%a6%b0-%e0%a6%93-%e0%a6%95%e0%a6%ae%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%89%e0%a6%a8%e0%a6%bf%e0%a6%9c%e0%a6%ae/feed/ 0 The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein http://llco.org/the-shock-doctrine-by-naomi-klein/ http://llco.org/the-shock-doctrine-by-naomi-klein/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 02:34:23 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=2100 Book review of The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

(llco.org)

The Shock Doctrine (2007) by Naomi Klein was a New York Times bestseller that appeared in 2007 at the height of the wave of public anger toward the George W. Bush administration in the United States. It was one of many books that made the rounds amongst outraged liberals in those years. In many ways, reading the book years after its original popularity allows us to absorb its claims without seeing them in the context of the left Democratic Party’s “anybody but Bush” political campaign. The book documents the evolution of what the author terms “disaster capitalism” from the classrooms of the University of Chicago to Pinochet’s stadiums-turned-death camps to the restoration of capitalism in China to the fall of the Soviet bloc to the compromises the African National Congress made in South Africa to the Green Zone in Iraq to the economic reforms enacted during the tsunamis in Asia and hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Even though the book is, ultimately, First Worldist, it contains important insights that help our understanding of neoliberalism and the new forms that imperialism has taken since the fall of socialism and the fall of the Soviet revisionist bloc. Klein holds that because of the radical, extreme nature of neoliberal economics, policy makers have come to understand that in order to impose such extreme, neoliberal reforms, populations have to be shocked, stunned, de-patterned as victims of electro-shock therapy are. Such is the only way to get populations to go along with reforms that are in opposition to their interests. Shock and awe crisis combined with radical, capitalist reform is the hallmarks of the emerging neoliberal corporate order. So argues Klein.

Intellectual origin of neoliberalism

A forerunner of the Chicago school was the Austrian school. Austrian school economics is represented best by Friedrich Hayek who also had taught in Chicago for a time in the 1950s. The immediate intellectual origin of the neoliberal economics is the University of Chicago, but it really is just a continuation of the Austrian tradition. The University of Chicago school of economics of the 1950s, Milton Friedman and his students, has been mythologized in the media and intellectual imagination. Their radical brand of capitalism appeared when real socialism was reaching its height, with Stalin’s victory in World War 2 and Mao’s victory in China. This was a time, after the Marshal Plan, that European social democracy was seen as the kinder, gentler future of imperialism for Europe, North America, Japan, and Oceania. This was a time when anti-colonial, patriotic nationalist regimes sought to develop their countries with large state sectors and large welfare programs. Among liberals, social democrats, and nationalists, Keynesianism ruled the roost. The economic battle on the world scene was largely between Stalinist and Maoist economics versus Keynesianism and social democracy. It was in this climate that Milton Friedman played the capitalist rebel. Contrary to popular opinion at the time, Friedman echoed Hayek, arguing that free markets were true freedom. Hayek, Friedman’s personal guru, argued that any state intervention in the market, be it Marxist or Keynesianism, was a “road to serfdom.” (pp. 66-67) State involvement in the market inevitably lead to a kind of feudalism that reduced the bulk of humanity to unfree paupers who toil for their state overlords. For Friedman, free markets solve all economic problems. Markets create freedom and abundance — never mind the ugly realities of capitalism in the real world or the problems of sustainability. For the neoliberals, all problems are a result of interference, hindrance of the free market. Contrary to the consensus at the time, they argued that the invisible hand must be freed to solve all problems:

“Friedman dreamed of de-patterning societies, of returning them to a state of pure capitalism, cleansed of all interruptions — government regulations, trade barriers and entrenched interests… Friedman believed that when the economy is highly distorted, the only way to reach that prelapsarian state was to deliberately inflict painful shocks: only ‘bitter medicine’ could clear those distortions and bad patterns.” (p. 60)

The advocacy of unbridled, unregulated, anti-state capitalism had been largely discredited not only in socialist regimes, but in both the post-colonial Third World and in the social-democratic First World ever since the Great Depression. The neoliberals needed an intellectual revolution; they needed to gain credibility by building public opinion for their views among intellectuals. Such pro-corporate views could not be sold to intellectuals or even politicians unless they found an academic advocate. Arguments by corporate robber barons to enrich themselves would fall on deaf ears. The corporations needed a champion who could convincingly argue for a return to unregulated capitalism, a return to a mythological capitalism, a time before the rise of socialism, before the state capitalism of the social democracies, social imperialists, and welfare states. Milton Friedman and his students fit the bill:

“The enormous benefit of having corporate views funneled through academic, or quasi-academic, institutions not only kept the Chicago school flush with donations, but, in short order, spawned the global network of right-wing think tanks that would churn out the counterrevolution’s foot soldiers worldwide.” (p. 68)

A new generation of radical capitalist ideologues and policy makers was born. The new wave posed as the radical, rebel capitalist among the evil, status quo statists. Anti-communism. Anti-social democracy. Reverse the new deal. Privatize everything. These young turks would come to dominate economic thinking in the capitalist world. They would preside over coups, depressions, wars, and other catastrophes over the next few decades. They would preside over whole new wave of imperialist terror against the world. They would preside over and profit from disasters in both the Third and First Worlds.

Disaster as opportunity

Marxists have often seen crisis as an opportunity that can create the conditions for revolution. However, crisis is not only a gift to the revolutionary forces, it can be used as a way to restructure society by others also. Fascists used economic crisis to catapult themselves to power. Now, it was time for the neoliberals:

“Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” (p. 174)

Crisis situations are ones in which people are willing to experiment with new policies, are willing to accept radical solutions, both left and right, as necessary, even inevitable. Chicago School economists called this “the crisis hypothesis.” Not only did Chicago School economists create the policies to implement in times of crisis, but they participated in the generation of crisis themselves by closely collaborating with the imperialist militaries and their proxy dictatorships, but also by their role advising and working for transnational corporations and in the global financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF. Later, the “crisis hypothesis” would inform the U.S. military policy of “Shock and Awe” that was first advanced in the mid-1990s, but formed the basis of the military and economic strategy used against the people of Iraq in 2003. In the 1996 paper that articulated the concept. The paper states that an invading force should “seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary’s perceptions and understanding of events so that the enemy would be incapable of resistance.” (p. 184) Disasters, be they a result of war, economy, or nature, are opportunities, according to the neoliberals. An overwhelming crisis can be used to shove any radical reform on a people incapable of mounting resistance.

Indonesia’s shock, a forerunner for the neoliberal counter-revolution

During World War 2, the old imperialist powers of Europe had annihilated each other. The old empires of Europe — England, France, Germany, and others — were no longer able to hold onto their colonies. European powers were forced out of the Third World. Sometimes they were forced out to as communist-led revolutions swept places like China. They were also forced out of other parts of the Third World as the patriotic bourgeoisie seized power and sought to implement economic reform that favored national development. Mao freed a quarter of the world from the “two mountains” of feudalism and imperialism. Ho Chi Minh sought to do the same in Vietnam. Mossadegh in Iran, Gaddafi in Libya, Nasser in Egypt, Arbenz in Guatemala, Sukarno in Indonesia, and many others across the Third World sought to implement limited reform that would reduce the imperialist hold on their economies. Their reforms pursued developmental strategies that increased the state sector, often at the expense of imperialists and transnational corporations. Washington fought back with economic terrorism, bombings, wars, coups and death squads. In 1954, Mossadegh was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup in Iran. He was replaced by the brutal Shah, a friend of the West. Again, in 1954, the CIA came to the rescue of the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The CIA disposed of the Arbenz regime that had dared to move toward land reform. This happened over and over, in country after country. Indonesia was to be a battle ground.

Indonesia was one of the first experiments in using shock therapy to restructure an economy, although not along strictly neoliberal lines. Prior to the pro-Western restructuring, Sukarno’s regime in Indonesia was a nationalist one that sought a course independent of both the Western and Soviet imperialists. The regime was one of national development and social democracy that made concessions to poor peoples and their organizations, including the powerful, Maoist-Influenced Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). A high-level CIA directive sought to “liquidate President Sukarno, depending upon the situation and available opportunities.” (p. 81) After several false starts, the CIA’s goal was accomplished by a military coup in October of 1965. The military, led by general Suharto, began a bloody campaign to eliminate the left. Death squads went from door to door, from village to village, torturing and executing anyone suspected of being sympathetic to communism. Educated people, teachers, students, worker and peasant organizers, human rights activists, nationalists, social democrats and communists were murdered by the new regime with the blessing and support of the CIA. Within one month, at least a half million people were killed, “massacred by the hundreds of  thousands,” according to Time magazine.  “Travelers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies; river transportation has at places been impeded.” (p. 82)

Indonesia’s economy was then restructured to serve the West. This restructuring was planned by a group of intellectuals funded by the Ford Foundation. This group was called “the Berkley Mafia” in the press and in intellectual circles. They were Indonesian students who studied at Berkley as part of Ford Foundation funded program. When they returned home, they founded a Western-style economics department at the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Economics. John Howard, then Director of Ford’s International Training and Research program states, “Ford felt it was training the guys who would be leading the country when Sukarno got out.” (p. 83)

The Berkley Mafia got to work. They recorded lectures on economics for the generals. They personally tutored general Suharto, who was reported to have been attentive, closely taking notes. They filled important positions in the new regime. They became the new economic technocrats. They made Indonesia friendly to foreign capital. “They passed laws allowing foreign companies to own 100 percent of these resources [food, basics, oil and mineral wealth], handed out ‘tax holidays,’ and within two years, Indonesia’s natural wealth — copper, nickel, hardwood, rubber and oil — was being divided up among the largest mining and energy companies in the world.” (pp. 83-84) Even though the Berkley Mafia were less explicitly ideological, even though they were not as anti-state as future neoliberals, the parallels with later neoliberals, such as the “Chicago Boys” in Latin America, would be striking. (p. 84)

“Suharto… had shown that if massive repression was used preemptively, the country would go into a kind of shock and resistance could be wiped out before it even took place. His use of terror was so merciless, so far beyond even the worst expectations, that a people who only weeks earlier had been collectively striving to assert their country’s independence were now sufficiently terrorized that they ceded total control to Suharto and his henchmen. Ralph McGehee, a senior CIA operations manager during the years of the coup, said Indonesia was a ‘model operation… You can trace back all major, bloody events run from Washington to the way Suharto came to power. The success of that meant that it would be repeated, again and again.”’ (p. 85)

It was the Indonesia experience of mass terrorism against the populace that would interest the architects of the neoliberal, orchestrated disasters and counter-revolutions to come.

Latin America, the real beginning

Even though there were forerunners like Indonesia, it was in the southern cone of Latin America that the Chicago school would get its big break. It was in 1953, that Adbion Patterson, director of the U.S. International Cooperation Administration in Chile, the agency later would become part of the infamous USAID, met with Theodore W. Shultz, chairman of the Department of Economic at the University of Chicago. USAID is known as being part of the “carrot” side of the United States’ “carrot and stick” foreign policy. USAID tries to project a more humane face for U.S. imperialism. USAID is known to collaborate with the CIA, death squads, and dictators across the Third World. The neoliberals came to the conclusion that Latin America was in a life-and-death struggle with Marxism. They began a collaboration to recreate the Chicago school in Chile, to create cohorts of capitalist intellectuals to save the continent. Similar to the creation of the Berkley Mafia in Indonesia, they created exchange programs between the Chicago School and universities in Chile. Because of lack of interest at more the prestigious campuses of Chile, they decided to create and finance a whole new school of economics at Chile’s Catholic University, a lesser institution. This was paid for by foundations and U.S. tax dollars. The student ideologues were described as “more Friedmanite than Friedman himself.” “Los Chicago Boys” would become the ideological vanguard of the coming neoliberal revolution that would begin in Chile.  (pp. 72-74)

By 1968, 20 percent of U.S. foreign investment was tied up in Latin America. There were 5,436 U.S. subsidiaries in the region. In previous decades, over a billion dollars was invested in Chile’s mining industries by U.S. corporations. Chileans saw few benefits. Following the typical pattern, value and resources left Chile at an astonishing rate. 7.2 billion in Chilean mining dollars ended up in pockets in the United States. (p. 78) In the early 1970s, Salvador Allende sought to reform the Chilean economy, which was dominated by foreign-owned corporations. Fearing that Allende would set a regional example, the U.S. state and corporations began waging a covert war to destabilize the economy and the Allende regime. When the U.S. State Department, CIA, and corporations failed to muscle Allende to reverse course early on, they began implementing a plan to overthrow him. (pp. 78-80)

“The other 9/11” occurred on September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet launched a coup d’etat. Allende’s civilian defense leagues were no match for Pinochet’s military and police. Pinochet described his coup as a “war.” Allende was killed. The Presidential Palace was in flames. The Allende government was imprisoned. In the days that followed, 13,500 civilians were rounded up. They were sent to the National Stadium, which was turned into a torture center and death camp. Thousands were tortured and killed. 80,000 imprisoned. 200,000 escaped the country for political reasons. (pp. 93-95) Books by Marx, Freud, and Neruda were burned. Chilean society was thrown into disarray.

The Chicago Boys saw their chance. “To us, it was a revolution,” one recalled. The capitalist intellectuals went into action. Pinochet knew nothing about economics, which allowed the Chicago Boys free reign to push through drastic reforms very quickly. As blood flowed in the streets, the Chicago Boys rushed to put together a statement, a program, that advocated privatization, deregulation, and cuts to social spending. With military approval, the Chicago Boys got the right-wing newspaper El Mercurio to print a long document that came to be known as “The Brick.” By noon, on September 12, 1973, government workers had the plan on their desks. The plan heavily resembled Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. To implement their radical agenda, they no longer needed to win anyone’s approval except a handful of military men. They could impose their ideas at gunpoint. Several of the Chicago Boys were named advisers to the dictatorship. (pp. 94-96)

A year after the coup, inflation reached 375 percent. This was the highest rate in the world, double that of the rate under Allende. The markets were flooded with cheap imports, putting local manufactures out of business. Unemployment hit record levels as hundreds of thousands lost manufacturing and public-sector jobs. In that first year, domestic industrialists began to resist the Chicago Boys, whose policies were only benefiting foreign importers, financiers and compradors. The National Association of Manufactures declared that the experiment of the Chicago Boys was “one of the greatest failures of our economic history.” (p. 97) Feeling the experiment in jeopardy, Friedman himself arrived. He was treated like a rock star by the dictator-controlled press. Friedman advised that the dictatorship was off to a good start, but to really succeed, Pinochet had to go further. Friedman said “shock treatment is the only medicine.” Friedman promised an economic miracle. Inflation could be ended and unemployment brought under control. All problems could be solved. However, it was necessary to act quickly, gradualism was not an option. More radical solutions were needed. Pinochet, reportedly, liked the ring of “shock treatment.” With a Chicago Boy newly appointed as Pinochet’s economic minister, they went forward with more neoliberal reforms. Public spending was cut by 27 percent in 1975. By 1980, public spending was half of what it was under Allende. Five hundred state-owned companies and banks were privatized. Some were almost given away. More trade barriers were removed. 177,000 industrial jobs were lost in the decade since the coup. The manufacturing sector shrank, returning to pre-World War 2 levels. Seventy five percent of a family’s income went to bread alone. Milk and bus fare were now luxuries for many. Chile’s economy was in ruin. The Chicago Boys and the dictator had taken Chile into a deep recession. (pp. 99-102)

In 1982, the economy got worse. The situation was to bad that Pinochet broke with the Chicago Boys out of necessity. He returned to Allende-type nationalization of major industries. The Chicago Boys were fired from influential government posts. Several came under investigation for profiteering and corruption. What prevented total collapse was that Pinochet never nationalized Codelco, the major copper company that generated 85 percent of Chile’s export revenues. Even in the worst period of neoliberal reform, the regime still had a revenue stream from copper profits. (p. 104) It was only in 1988 that the Chilean economy began to rapidly grow. The growth occurred only after 45 percent of the population had been forced under the poverty line by neoliberal policies. Neoliberals often point to the “Chilean miracle” as an example of the success of their policies. However, the “Chilean miracle” is a myth. The Chilean economy began to bounce back rapidly only after being first destroyed by neoliberal policies. The recovery happened by abandoning neoliberal policies, not because of them. And, even then, the recovery was uneven. In 2007, Chile was one of the most unequal societies in the world. The top ten percent saw their incomes rise 83 percent. Out of 123 countries counted by the United Nations, Chile ranked 116 in terms of inequality. (p. 105) In Chile, the “shock therapy” amounted to the rapid plunder of state assets. There was a massive redistribution of value from the middle and poor classes to the bourgeois classes, especially the compradors and the imperialists. The reality is that what developed was far from the free-market utopia of academics. The vision of Friedman and the Chicago Boys was made possible by a U.S.-sponsored police state that exterminated all opposition. The rapid economic hardships combined with the terror campaign waged by the state were a key part of subduing the Chilean people and expediting the neoliberal reform.

Klein describes the Pinochet dictatorship that streamlined the neoliberal “shock therapy”:

“Corporatism, or ‘corporativism,’ originally referred to Mussolini’s model of a police state run as an alliance of the three major power sources in society — government, businesses and trade unions — all collaborating to guarantee order in the name of nationalism. What Chile pioneered under Pinochet was an evolution of corporatism:  a mutually supporting alliance between a police state and large corporations, joining forces to wage all-out war on the third power sector — the workers — thereby drastically increasing the alliance’s share of the national wealth.” (p. 105)

While not meaning to, Klein has made an important observation. Despite anti-fascist propaganda at the time, in some fascist states, the workers — for example, in Germany — were not always on the receiving end of state violence or economic terrorism. The fascist state in Germany saw itself as above class, not unlike social-democratic regimes have since Lenin’s time. Although the fascist state served corporate and banking interests, it also sought to accommodate the bourgeoisified, German worker. It did this through social-democratic reform and also by redistribution of wealth from conquered peoples to Germans. Thus the state sought to deliver a higher standard of living to Germans, including German workers at the expense of other peoples. Not so in Chile. As a Third World country, fascism doesn’t typically seek an alliance with its own proletarian workers, at least not in the long term. Fascism, as Georg Dimitrov, theorist of Stalin’s Comintern around World War 2, put it, is “the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” However, fascism, in a Third World country like Chile, does not really seek any real alliance with the workers. Fascism does not seek to benefit the workers so much as cannibalize workers in the interests of local compradors and imperialists. Police, military and paramilitary terror facilitates the transfer of value from the poor and workers to compradors: generals, police, state bureaucrats, corrupt officials, middlemen for the imperialists, landed and other oligarchs, etc.  State and extra-state terror facilitate the transfer of value to the imperialists: multi-national corporations, financial institutions, global entities and bureaucracies, imperialist states and populations, etc. Pinochet’s regime subdued the Chilean workers. It did not court them.

The “shock therapy” that occurred in Chile happened elsewhere in Latin America, but with variations. When Pinochet took power in Chile in 1973, Brazil was already under the jackboot of a military junta. In the Brazilian junta, Friedman’s students held key posts. At the height of the junta’s brutality, Friedman traveled to Brazil to declare the neoliberal experiment there “a miracle.” External debt in Brazil would go from 3 billion to 103 billion. In Argentina in 1976, a military junta seized power. The Chicago Boys occupied positions in the military government: secretary of finance, president of the central bank and research director for the Treasury Department of the Finance Ministry, and other lesser posts. Although the neoliberal reform did not go as far there, state-ownership of the oil sector and social security survived, the neoliberal reforms were enough to push the middle classes into the poverty. Argentina’s external debt grew from 7.9 billion to 45 billion after the coup. Uruguay was also ruled by the military with similar results. The external debt doubled.  Arnold Harberger and Larry Sjaastad and their team, along with Chicago graduates from Argentina, Chile, and Brazil were tasked with reforming Uruguay’s tax and commercial policy. Similarly, in Bolivia, the unemployment rate increased dramatically. Real wages were reduced by 60 percent. Per capita income dropped from $845 to $789 two years later. Shanty towns and tent cities multiplied as people lost their land and homes. At the same time, Bolivians eligible for social security dropped by 61 percent. The majorities grew poor. A few grew wealthier. Countries that had previously had enjoyed a higher standard of living through economies with large national sectors and active state intervention were turned into Washington-backed neoliberal experiments accompanied by state and economic terror to pacify the populations. Henry Kissinger, who has been indicted for his role in these murderous regimes, was pleased with the neoliberal shock. Friedman and the Chicago Boys provided the ideological cover. Dictators, CIA, death squads, murderous police and military terrorized populations into submission. The juntas of the region cooperated in hunting down refugees and dissent. Through Operation Condor, the juntas and the U.S. intelligence and military shared information to hunt down, torture and kill opposition and perceived opposition. U.S. military and intelligence provided extensive training, even going so far as to produce torture manuals. Klein points out that Condor foreshadowed the system of secret prisons and “extraordinary rendition” that has developed today. Condor and the murderous suppression of dissent and resistance across the region was packaged as a “war on terror” in its day. (pp. 106-112) (pp. 185-186) (p. 196) Countries were subdued by military terror and economic strangulation under the cover of so-called anti-terrorism.

Eastern Bloc

Similar neoliberal restructurings occurred with the fall of the Soviet Bloc. Although the Soviet Bloc had long ceased to be socialist nor were the regimes there led by communists, the fall of the state-heavy regimes there was helped along and planned by neoliberals. As many of the Eastern European regimes reached a breaking point, those who had originally advocated Western European-style social democracy were either transformed or outmaneuvered by neoliberals. In the case of Poland, Solidarity took power from the Soviet-backed regime. Solidarity transformed itself from a trade union movement into one that advocated neoliberal “solutions.” In Poland, when Solidarity gained power, they now had to come up with the funds to pay the state apparatus, including the police. The IMF originally allowed the Polish economy to fall in the face of a debt crisis. The Unites States made statements that it expected the new regime to make good on its payments. The United States offered very little relief to the crumbling economy. In the face of an economic meltdown due to debt, the Polish regime turned to the Chicago School economists.  Jeffery Sachs dubbed “the Indiana Jones of Economics,” adviser to the Bolivian military regime, now advised the Solidarity regime. The Polish regime adopted what was known as “the Sachs Plan” or “shock therapy.” It was only after the regime adopted the plan that the IMF agreed to provide loans. Poland was strong-armed into accepting the emerging neoliberal consensus. (pp. 221-233) It caused a  depression in Poland. There was a 30 percent reduction in industrial production in the first two years. Unemployment skyrocketed, reacting a quarter of the population in some places. (pp. 241-243) Eventually, there was a backlash in Poland. Solidarity was defeated at the ballot box. (pp. 242-243) Similarly, Gorbachev in the Soviet Union originally advocated Western-style social democracy but was displaced by the more neoliberal-friendly Yeltsin. Like elsewhere, ideological and technical help was provided for the neoliberal transformation of the economy:

“To provide ideological and technical backup for Yeltsin’s Chicago Boys, the U.S. government funded its own transition experts whose jobs ranged from writing privatization decrees, to launching a New York-style stock exchange, to designing a Russian mutual fund market. In the fall of 1992, USAID awarded a $2.1 million contract to the Harvard Institute for International Development, which sent teams of young lawyers and economists to shadow the Gaidar team. In May, 1995, Harvard named Sachs director of the Harvard Institute for International Development, which meant that he played two roles in Russia’s reform period: he began as a freelance adviser to Yeltsin, then moved on to overseeing Harvard’s large Russia outpost, funded by the U.S. government.” (p. 281)

What followed was a massive selling of state assets, especially to foreign corporations and corrupt bureaucrats. The public assets were sold off at rock bottom, undervalued prices.

“Forty percent of an oil company comparable in size to France’s Total was sold for $88 million (Total’s sales in 2006 were $193 billion.). Norilsk Nickel, which produced a fifth of the world’s nickel, was sold for $170 million — even though its profits alone soon reached $1.5 billion annually. The massive oil company Yukos, which controls more oil than Kuwait, was sold for $309 million; it now earns more than $3 billion in revenue a year…” (p. 293)

The average Russian consumed 40 percent less in 1992 than 1991. There was a drop in the standard of living. (p. 283) A massive transfer of wealth occurred. Like in Latin America, the economic masterminds of the process often got a piece of the action, selling influence and profiting off of the plunder of the public sector. Enormous profits were moved offshore at the rate of 2 billion dollars a month. A new oligarchy of new millionaires and billionaires arose from the bureaucrats and their advisers that oversaw the process. (p. 291) So much so that the regimes of the post-Soviet Bloc were often described as kleptocracies. This pattern was repeated again and again in Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet bloc.

China, the restoration of capitalism on overdrive

Deng Xiaoping, one of the main architect of China’s counter-revolution and restoration of capitalism, was a big supporter of moving toward a neoliberal, corporate-based economy. In the 1980s, the Chinese regime invited Friedman to tutor hundreds of top-level civil servants, professors and Party economists in the wonders of the free market. Friedman spoke to audiences in Beijing and Shanghai. Deng sought to open up China’s economy, but also maintain the regime’s monopoly on political power. Klein describes the model in China as something close to Pinochet’s Chile. And this was acceptable to Friedman, for whom political freedom is the same as so-called economic freedom, free markets. In 1983, Deng opened the country up to foreign investment. He reduced protections for workers. He created a new 400,000-person People’s Armed Police charged with quashing all signs of “economic crimes.” Prices soared when prices ceased to be regulated. Job security was eliminated. Unemployment rose. Inequalities increased. Dissent grew. Klein suggests that this was the catalyst for the 1989 protests that were crushed by the Chinese state. But the violent suppression of the protests at Tiananmen threw the country into a shock that allowed Deng Xiaoping to go even further.  (pp. 232-239) Five days after the violence, Deng Xiaoping stated:

“Perhaps this bad thing will enable us to go ahead with reform and the open-door policy at a more steady, better, even a faster pace…” (p. 238)

The crackdown paved the way for reorganizing China’s economy along neoliberal lines. Klein characterizes Deng’s philosophy as “Friedmanism without the freedom.” (p. 293) Klein continues:

“It was this wave of reforms that turned China into the sweatshop of the world, the preferred location for contract factories for virtually every multinational on the planet. No country offered more lucrative conditions than China: low taxes and tariffs, corruptible officials and, most of all, a plentiful low-wage workforce that, for many years, would be unwilling to risk demanding decent salaries or the most basic workplace protections for fear of the most violent reprisals.” (p. 239)

For the Chicago School, China is a success. China is now the sweatshop of the First World, producing cheap goods for the populations of the United States. Along with the imperialists, the new bourgeoisie within the Chinese ruling party benefited:

“For foreign investors and the party, it has been a win-win arrangement. According to a 2006 study, 90 percent of China’s billionaires are the children of Communist Party [sic.] officials. Roughly twenty-nine hundred of these party scions — known as ‘the princelings’ — control $260 billion.” (p. 240)

The conflicts within China’s ruling elite today reflect a conflict between a more globalist, comprador-oriented bourgeoisie and a more patriotic bourgeoisie that seeks to retain China’s independence vis a vis the Western-dominated global market and the neoliberal consensus. Although neither pole within China’s elite is revolutionary, it is the more nationalist wing of the bourgeoisie that resists the extension of Western power in the Middle East and Africa. With the global markets in crisis, the nationalist wing of China’s elites have been able to assert themselves.

U.S. policy makers seek to remake the Middle East using Iraq as a model

The imperialists had similar plans for the Middle East and Islamic world. After the First Gulf War between the United States and Iraq, Saddam Hussein retained power in Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s regime was a Baathist one where the state managed much of the economy. It had a large public sector, nationalized industries, a large welfare state. Even though the regime was not truly socialist, it promoted a socialist rhetoric at time. It also promoted nationalism, even though the regime often compromised with the imperialists. Like most regimes in the Third World, the Iraqi regime was a regime ruled by the national bourgeoisie. The national bourgeoisie in the Third World has a patriotic pole that favors independence and development. The national bourgeoisie also has a comprador pole that favors accommodation with imperialism and maldevelopment. The regime in Iraq veered between these two poles. At times, the regime was mainly comprador. At other times, especially after coming into conflict with the United States, the regime was forced to take on more patriotic policies in opposition to the United States. After the First Gulf War, the Iraqi state was severely weakened, but continued to exert control of much of the national economy. The imperialists plundered and exploited Iraq after the First Gulf War through sanctions and reparations after that war ended in 1991. However, with Saddam still in power, they were unable to completely restructure the economy along neoliberal lines. So, their victory in Iraq was incomplete. The events of September 11 gave the imperialists their excuse. Not only could they finish the job in Iraq, Iraq could also serve as a regional example in the Middle East and Islamic world much as Pinochet’s Chile had in Latin America. To this end, Bush II would wage Gulf War II beginning in 2012, a war and occupation that continues to this day. Policy makers and economists had big plans for the post-Saddam Iraq:

“Since the entire Arab world could not be conquered all at once, a single country needed to serve as the catalyst. The U.S. would invade that country and turn it into, as Thomas Friedman, chief media proselytizer of the theory, put it, ‘a different model in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world,’ one that would set off a series of democratic/neoliberal waves through. Josh Muravchik, an American Enterprise Institute pundit, forecast a ‘tsunami across the Islamic world” in Tehran and Baghdad,’ while the arch-conservative Michael Ledeen, an adviser to the Bush administration, described the goal as ‘a war to remake the world.’” (p. 415)

From the beginning, Gulf War II was not simply about Iraq, but a new Middle East and, ultimately, a new world:

“[T]he architects of the invasion had unleashed ferocious violence because they could not crack open the closed economies of the Middle East by peaceful means, that the level of terror was proportional to what was at stake.” (p. 414)

The stakes were big, not just Iraq, but the world. The future of the world was at stake. The neoliberals saw it as  a war of civilizations, a war between two ways of life. Friedman wrote, “We are not doing nation-building in Iraq. We are doing nation-creating.” (p. 417) The Middle East was to be cleaned of terrorists and radicals. Shortly after declaring the fighting over in Iraq, Georg W. Bush announced plans for the “establishment of a U.S.-Middle East free-trade area within a decade.” (p. 416) A giant free-trade zone was planned. (p. 415) This was seen as a unified project to “bring democracy” to the Middle East, and the world. In reality, the “democracy” and “freedom” that neoliberalism brought was only for corporations and Western contractors.

The war planners and neoliberals ran into a problem: Iraq is not a blank slate. Iraq’s civilization is an ancient and rich one. Its popular culture is fiercely proud and anti-imperialist. It had a deep history of Arab nationalism. In addition, the majority of the adult male population had military training. (p. 417) Whole cultures would have to be uprooted to create a neoliberal-capitalist utopia in the region. In order to create the blank slate, a new type of war was to be waged. Donald Rumsfeld promoted a Pentagon-research paper, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. (p. 416) The paper prides itself on not merely targeting the enemy military, but “society writ large.” Fear on unprecedented scales is a key component of the theory. (p. 420) Like shock therapy, the goal is “rendering the adversary completely impotent.” (p. 421) A society is completely erased in order to be rebuilt. “Shock and Awe” states:

“In crude terms, Rapid Dominance would seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary’s perceptions and underlying understanding of events.” (p. 421)

And:

“With a far larger canvas, that was the invasion and occupation strategy for Iraq. The architects of the war surveyed the global arsenal of shock tactics and decided to go with all of them — blitzkrieg military bombardment supplemented with elaborate psychological operations, followed up with the fastest and most sweeping political and economic shock therapy program attempted anywhere, backed up, if there was any resistance, by rounding up those who resisted and subjugating them to ‘gloves-off’ abuse.” (p. 419)

Iraq was a great experiment in this mass terror for months. The citizens of Baghdad were subject to sensory depravation on a mass scale:

“…real-time manipulation of sense and inputs… literally ‘turning on and off’ the ‘lights’ that enable any potential aggressor to see or appreciate the conditions and events concerning his forces sand ultimately, his society… depriving the enemy, in specific areas, of the ability to communicate, observe.” (pp. 421-423)

Not only did the bombing terrorize the population, it helped erase Iraq’s cultural history:

“The hundreds of looters who smashed ancient ceramics, stripped display cases and pocketed gold and other antiquities, from the National Museum of Iraq pillaged nothing less than records of the the first human society,” reported the Los Angeles Times. (p. 425) “Gone are 80 percent of the museum’s 170,000 priceless objects.”  (p. 425)

And:

“The national library, which contained copies of every book and doctoral thesis ever published in Iraq, was a blackened ruin. Thousand-year-old illuminated Korans had disappeared from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which was left a burned-out shell. ‘Our national heritage is lost,’ pronounced a Baghdad high-school teacher. A local merchant said of the museum, ‘It was the soul of Iraq. If the museum doesn’t recover the looted treasures, I will feel like a part of my own soul has been stolen.’” (p. 425)

Also:

“The Baghdad International Airport was completely trashed by soldiers, who according to Time, smashed furniture and then moved on to the commercial jets on the runway: ‘U.S. soldiers looking for comfortable seats and souvenirs ripped out many of the planes’ fittings, slashed seats, damaged cockpit equipment and popped out every windshield.’ The result was an estimated $100 million worth of damage to Iraq’s national airline — which was one of the first assets to be put on the auction block in an early and contentious partial privatization.” (p. 426)

U.S. troops failed to prevent the looting in most cases. In some cases, troops even joined in. The behavior of U.S. troops mimicked the behavior of the Nazi troops who personally plundered the countries they occupied in World War 2. Despite the danger, it was a bonanza for U.S. troops. Not only could they walk away with Iraq’s wealth in hand, life in the Green Zone was fun and luxurious compared to the surrounding war zone. It was a kind of Disneyland island for the troops and contractors:

“Baghdad’s Green Zone is the starkest example of this world order. It has its own electrical grid, its own phone and sewage systems, its own oil supply and its own state-of-the-art hospital with pristine operating theaters — all protected by five-meter-thick walls. It feels oddly, like a giant fortified Carnival Cruise Ship parked in the middle of a sea of violence and despair, the boiling Red Zone that is Iraq. If you can get on board, there are poolside drinks, bad Hollywood movies and Nautilus machines. If you are not among the chosen, you can get yourself shot by standing too close to the wall.” (pp. 522-523)

The bombing and looting also helped sweep away the old state institutions. Reagan-era bureaucrat and senior economic advisor to Paul Bremer, Peter McPherson was a true Chicago School believer. He did not mind the plunder of the public sector, especially the public education system. The looting of state property did not bother him. He referred to the pillage of the public sector as “shrinkage.” Thus the massive loss of state assets into private pockets was by design, all the better to create a clean slate for nation building. (p. 427) Iraq’s public education system, the best in the region with 89 percent of Iraqis literate, a number higher than much of the United States, was lost within weeks. (p. 428) This was all part of the plan:

“It’s hard to believe — but then again, that was pretty much Washington’s game plan for Iraq: shock and terrorize the entire country, deliberately ruin its infrastructure, do nothing while its culture and history are ransacked, then make it all okay with an unlimited supply of cheap household appliances and imported junk food. In Iraq, this cycle of culture erasing and culture replacing was not theoretical; it all unfolded in a matter of weeks.” (p. 429)

Neoliberals gloated over their new power. Joe Allbraugh, Bush’s ex-FEMA director, remarked that “One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out 30 Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country.” (p. 430) Iraq’s large state firms, or what was left of them, were sold off, two thirds of the employees lost their jobs to make the companies attractive to Western capital. (p. 446) Iraq was flooded by foreign goods. Foreigners bought up factories for very little. (p. 445) Just as Pinochet slashed 25 percent of state employees, so did the imperial occupation de-Baathify the Iraqi state and economy. (p. 444) However, it was not smooth sailing for the neoliberal invaders.

“As is now well known, nothing about Bush’s anti-Marshall Plan went as intended. Iraqis did not see the corporate reconstruction as ‘a gift’; most saw it as a modernized form of pillage, and U.S. corporations didn’t wow anyone with their speed and efficiency; instead they have managed to turn the word ‘reconstruction’ into as one Iraqi engineer put it, ‘a joke that nobody laughs at.’” (p. 442)

The people of Iraq saw their standard of living fall dramatically while foreign contractors and corporations cashed in. Sectarian gangs and death squads roamed the streets. Ethnic and religious conflict tore the country apart. The post-Saddam regime was corrupt and not in control of the country. National liberation, Islamist, and sectarian forces all fought for power. As chaos reigned, it was a free-for-all for foreign corporations who plundered and exploited the economy. The chaos of Iraq, according to Klein, was created by the careful and faithful application of Chicago School ideology. (p. 444)

Natural disasters: Sri Lanka and New Orleans

It is not only coups and wars that can provide the chaos and shock necessary to implement neoliberal restructuring of economies. In recent decades, neoliberals have used the trauma and social dislocation caused by natural disasters to implement their economic vision. 2004 and 2005 were great back-to-back years for neoliberals, but terrible years for humanity. The Asian tsunami and hurricane Katrina devastated populations on two sides of the planet. In December 26, 2004, Sri Lanka was hit by a tsunami that claimed the lives of a quarter million people and left 2.5 million homeless throughout the region. (p. 488)  Prior to the disaster, there was a neoliberal plan called Regaining Sri Lanka.

“Like all such shock therapy plans, Regaining Sri Lanka [the World Bank approved plan] demanded many sacrifice  in the name of kick-starting rapid economic growth. Millions of people would have to leave traditional villages to free up the beaches for tourists and the land for resorts and highways.” (p. 497)

It was defeated at the polls by a “center-left” coalition, but after the tsunami, all bets were off. (p. 498) The tsunami accomplished what could not be done through ordinary channels. It cleared the beach; it created a clean slate sought after by neoliberal reformers. No people, no problem.

“When the tsunami came, it did what the fire couldn’t; it cleared the beach completely. Every single fragile structure was washed away — every boat, every fishing hut, as well as every tourist cabana and bungalow. In a community of only 4,000, about 350 were killed, most of them… who make their living from the sea. And yet, underneath the rubble and the carnage was what the tourism industry had been angling for all along — a pristine beach, scrubbed clean of all the messy signs of people working, a vacation Eden. It was the same up and down the coast: once the rubble was cleared away, what was left was… paradise.

When the emergency subsided and fishing families returned to the spots where their homes once stood, they were greeted by police who forbade them to rebuild. ‘New rules,’ they were told — no homes on the beach, and everything had to be at least two hundred meters back from the high-water mark… The beaches were off-limits.” (p. 490)

Armies of NGOs poured in to keep the lid on social discontent as the neoliberals sold off the beaches to the tourist industry. (p. 494) This would not be the first or last time that natural disasters would create the stage for the radical capitalist reformers. Similarly, the Maldives used the tsunami to clear out its poor people. (pp. 504-506) Earlier, in 1988, Central America was hit by Hurricane Mitch. Water and landslides killed over 9,000 people in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Whole villages were destroyed. With its population in shock, Honduras used the opportunity to push through privatization laws that sold off its airports, seaports and highways and fast-tracked plans to privatize its telephone company, the national electric company, and parts of its water sector. Protections on land were overturned, making it easier for foreign capitalists to buy and push out local and smaller farmers. Environmental standards were lowered. People were evicted from their homes to make way for foreign-owned mines. Similarly, Guatemala used the opportunity to sell off its phone company and Nicaragua sold off its electric company. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund strong-armed Nicaragua by making 4.4 billion in debt relief tied to the implementation of neoliberal policies. (p. 500) “Destruction carries with it an opportunity for foreign investment,” announced Guatemala’s foreign minister on a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1999.

Even people in the United States were not immune to natural disasters or the neoliberal ambulance chasers. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit. Parts of New Orleans was flooded. Images of families, usually from the poorer  and Blacker areas, stranded on roofs were broadcast on TV. Black refugees from the disaster were described and treated by the racist authorities as “looters” and criminals. Over 1,800 people died. There was an estimated 81 billion dollars in property damage. Americans witnessed on their TVs a refugee crisis at home. The football stadium, the Superdome, became a giant refugee camp. The disaster was one of the greatest in the history of the United States. In a propaganda move, even Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro offered help to a hapless United States. The weak state proved itself completely incapable of responding to the disaster.

“There was a brief window of two or three weeks when it seemed that the drowning of New Orleans would provoke a crisis of economic logic that had greatly exacerbated the human disaster with its relentless attack on the public sphere. ‘The storm exposed the consequences of neoliberalism’s lies and mystifications, in a single locale and all at once,’ wrote the political scientist and New Orleans native Adolph Reed Jr. The facts of the exposure are well known — from the levees that failed, to the fact that the city’s idea of disaster preparedness was passing out DVDs telling people that if a hurricane came, they should get out of town.” (p. 516)

In the previous year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had turned down a request by the State of Louisiana to develop a contingency plan in case of a hurricane.

“Just as the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq turned out to be an empty shell, when Katrina hit, so did the U.S. federal government at home. In fact, it was so thoroughly absent that FEMA could not seem to locate the New Orleans superdome, where twenty-three thousand people were stranded without food or water, despite the fact that the world media had ben there for days.” (p. 517)

Baghdad’s Green Zone was recreated in New Orleans:

“Within weeks, the Gulf Coast became a domestic laboratory for the same kind of government-run-by-contractors that had been pioneered in Iraq. The companies that snatched up the biggest contracts were the familiar Baghdad gang: Halliburton’s KBR unit had a $60 million gig to reconstruct military bases along the coast. Blackwater was hired to protect FEMA employees from looters. Parsons, infamous for its sloppy Iraq work, was brought in for a major bridge project in Mississippi. Flour, Shaw, Bechtel, CH2M Hill — all top contractors in Iraq — were hired by the government to provide mobile homes to evacuees just ten days after the levees broke. Their contracts ended up totaling $3.4 billion, no open bidding required.” (p. 519)

The American population was getting a taste, albeit a small one, of what its government and corporations were dishing out across the Third World. Even populations in the United States, which are generally some of the most advantaged and wealthiest in the world, were hit by neoliberal policies. Attacks on the disadvantaged were being carried out under the name of relief both abroad and in the United States. (p. 522)

In most places, despite attempts to quash resistance, these neoliberal attacks did not go unanswered. Across the Third World, progressive forces mobilized against the imperialists and their agents. They recognized that their interests were fundamentally opposed to the policies being foisted upon them. In Latin America, the dictatorships  were always challenged by an array of forces, including armed guerrillas. Today’s resurgence of the nationalist left in Latin America can be seen as a response to the failure of neoliberalism. The Iraqi population, both Sunni and Shia, responded to defend themselves from the imperialist occupiers. This kind of resistance was not witnessed among people in the United States. Even with the decline of the traditional social-safety net and economic decline, most Americans, even those most victimized by the system, still identify with the system itself. They still correctly see themselves as having more to lose by opposing the system than by supporting it. What Katrina showed is that even in the face of a huge crisis and failed state, that most Americans will still side with their system. Even the small and marginal populist movements within the United States, like Occupy, framed their opposition to neoliberalism mostly within the capitalist-imperialist framework. Rather than rejecting Americanism, capitalism, imperialism and First Worldism, Occupiers framed their demands as a way to save America, as a return to a capitalism uncorrupted by corporations and cronyism, as a return to a happier time, the era of the Democratic Party of FDR. Anti-imperialism is mostly an afterthought, if that, among U.S. populists. Only handfuls framed their dissent as an opposition to capitalism, inequality, and unsustainability as such. Most frame their opposition as an attempt to preserve their First World privilege, not reject it.

911

George W. Bush’s administration represented the continuing privatization of the public sector in the United States. The elimination of and contracting out of state services had been a trend long before the administration of George W. Bush. Both the Republican and Democratic Party since Reagan had supported the downsizing of the public sector. Clinton’s administration, like George Bush’s before him, embraced the corporatization of the public sector. However, it was under the administration of George W. Bush that the downsizing was elevated to a matter of principle. Bush II corporatism went back to his days as governor of Texas. George W. Bush in his prior role as governor of Texas did not distinguish himself in too many ways. According to Klein:

“[T]here was one area in which he excelled: parceling out to private interests the various functions of government he was elected to run — especially security related functions, a preview of the privatized War on Terror he would soon unleash. Under his watch, the number of private prisons in Texas grew from twenty-six to forty-two, prompting The American Prospect magazine to call Bush’s Texas ‘the world capital of the private-prison industry.’” (p. 371)

Similarly, top Bush Jr. appointees were drawn from circles of neoliberal ideologues and the corporate world. Donald Rumsfeld when he was appointed Secretary of Defense under Bush Jr had a personal fortune of over 250 million dollars. He spent decades in top positions of multi-national corporations. He had a personal relationship with Milton Friedman, who he considered a friend and teacher. Rumsfeld saw himself as representing the new economy and new neoliberal state. The neoliberals were on a mission and so was Rumsfeld. He was a man on a mission to reinvent the Pentagon and modern warfare. He would head up a controversial program to cut and slash the public sector within the military. He did not cut the military budget though. Under Bush Jr., it increased significantly. However, he headed up a program to hollow out the military, to contract out as much military work as possible. Bush Jr. said of his defense secretary, “Don’s work in these areas did not often make the headlines. But the reforms that set in motion — that he has set in motion — are historic.” (p. 358) Klein describes the neoliberalization of the state:

“During the 1990s, many companies that had traditionally manufactured their own products and maintained large, stable workforces embraced what became known as the Nike model: don’t own any factories, produce your own products through an intricate web of contractors and subcontractors, and pour your resources into design and marketing. Other companies opted for the alternative, Microsoft model: maintain a tight control center of shareholder/employees who perform the company’s ‘core competency’ and outsource everything else to temps, from running the mailroom to writing code. Some called companies that underwent these radical restructurings ‘hollow corporations’ because they were mostly form, with little tangible content left over.” (p. 359)

She continues:


“Rumsfeld saw the army shedding large numbers of full-time troops in favor of a small core of staffers propped up by cheaper temporary soldiers from the Reserve and National Guard. Meanwhile, contractors from companies such as Blackwater and Halliburton would perform duties ranging from high-risk chauffeuring to prisoner interrogation to catering to health care. And where corporations poured their savings on labor into design and marketing, Rumsfeld would spend his savings from fewer troops and tanks on the latest satellite and nanotechnology from the private sector.” (p. 360)

Milton Friedman had always been disappointed that Ronald Reagan had not chosen Rumsfeld for the Vice Presidency. Like other members of Bush Jr.’s administration, Vice President Dick Cheney was a champion of neoliberal reform:

“Dick Cheney, a protégé of Rumsfeld’s in the Ford administration, has also built a fortune based on the profitable prospect of a grim future, though where Rumsfeld saw a boom in plagues, Cheney was banking on the future of war. As secretary of defense under Bush Sr., Cheney scaled down the number of active troops and dramatically increased reliance on private contractors. He contracted Brown & Root, the engineering division of the Houston-based multinational Halliburton, to identify tasks being performed by U.S. troops that could be taken over by the private sector for a profit. Not surprisingly, Halliburton identified all kinds of jobs that the private sector could perform, and those findings led to a bold new Pentagon contract: the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP. The Pentagon was notorious for its multi-billion-dollar contracts with weapons manufactures, but this was something new: not supplying the military with gear but serving as manager for its operations.” (p. 367)

Cheney was very connected to Halliburton. During the Clinton administration, Cheney was head of Halliburton. Under his leadership, Halliburton sought to transform the nature of war along neoliberal lines. Halliburton would provide all the infrastructure of war. The Pentagon need only supply bodies, the troops.

“The result, first on display in the Balkans, was a kind of McMilitary experience in which deploying abroad resembled a heavily armed and perilous package vacation. ‘The first person to greet our soldiers as they arrive in the Balkans and the last to wave goodbye is one of our employees,’ a Halliburton spokesperson explained, making the company’s staff sound more like cruise directors than army logistics coordinators. That was the Halliburton difference: Cheney saw no reason why war shouldn’t be a thriving part of America’s highly profitable service economy — invasion with a simple.

In the Balkans, where Clinton deployed nineteen thousand soldiers, U.S. bases sprang up as mini Halliburton cities: neat, gated suburbs, built and run entirely by the company. And Halliburton was committed to providing the troops with all the comforts of home, including fast-food outlets, supermarkets, movie theaters and high-tech gyms. Some senior officers wondered what the strip-malling of the military would do to troop discipline — but they too were enjoying the perks. ‘Everything with Halliburton was gold-plated,’ one told me. ‘So we weren’t complaining.’” (pp. 368-369)

Cheney’s family was involved in the selling off of the public sector. His wife, Lynne, was earning from stock options from her work as a board member of Lockheed Martin, which in the mid-nineties, began taking over the information technology divisions of the U.S. government, including running its computer systems and data management. (pp. 369-370) The Bush Jr. administration’s selling off of the state would get a new boost with the events of 9/11.

The events of 9/11 was a shock that allowed the Bush jr. administration, and later Obama’s, to streamline the corporatization of society. The population demanded a response, the neoliberals answered. They had long planned the neoliberal reorganization of the world economies. They had long planned for a war against Iraq. Now, they were able to go forward with little opposition at home. The United States had lost its Cold War opponents. Now,  the United States had a new enemy. It was fighting a new, endless, open-ended “War on Terror.” It was this war that would be used to justify neoliberal restructuring in the United States and abroad.

“Although the stated goal was fighting terrorism, the effect was the creation of the disaster capitalism complex — a full-fledged new economy in homeland security, privatized war and disaster reconstruction tasked with nothing less than building and running a privatized security state, both at home and abroad. The economic stimulus of this sweeping initiative proved enough to pick up the slack where globalization and the dot-com booms had left off. Just as the Internet had launched the dot-com bubble, 9/11 launched the disaster capitalism bubble.” (p. 377)

This resulted in a corporate free for all:

“That was the business prospectus that the Bush administration put before corporate America after September 11. The revenue stream was a seemingly bottomless supply of tax dollars to be funneled from the Pentagon ($270 billion a year to private contractors, a $137 billion increase since Bush took office); U.S. intelligence agencies ($42 billion a year to contractors for outsourced intelligence, more than double 1995 levels); and the newest arrival, the Department of Homeland Security. Between September 11, 2001 and 2006, the Department of Homeland Security handed out $130 billion to private contractors — money that was not in the economy before and that is more than the GDP of Chile or the Czech Republic. In 2003, the Bush administration spent $327 billion to private companies — nearly 40 cents of every discretionary dollar.” (p. 380)

Billions of dollars was spent on new security cameras. 4.2 million security cameras were installed in Britain, one per every 14 people; 30 million in the United States. New software and technologies, such as facial recognition were developed and purchased. Snooping boomed: wiretapping, phone logs, financial records, mail, internet, and cameras. New information technology developed. New security systems. Prisons were expanded or adapted to suit the needs of this new war. The most famous is the Guantanamo maximum-security prison. (pp. 382-384) This boom had a special effect on the Mexican border. The border became even further militarized as a result of the war on terror. More security, more cameras, more personnel, more fencing. Today, even drones are used by the United States to monitor unauthorized crossings. More and more jobs in security, prisons, and policing. And the United States turned to Israel, who had already been waging their war on terror for decades. The same technologies used against the Arab populations there were adapted for use by the United States. The United States would copy Israeli’s cutting-edge methods and technologies of oppression. “[B]ig business and big government [are] combining their formidable powers to regulate and control the citizenry.” (p. 388)

Power, not intelligent design

The instability and chaos of today has been good for business, at least some business. This has always been true to some extent within the capitalist system. War profiteering is an ancient enterprise. However, because some disasters have been so big as to threaten the whole system, the capitalists put in place stabilizing institutions. World War 1 was part of a world crisis that opened up the possibility of the Bolshevik revolution and the first sustained wave of proletarian revolution. Similarly, the Maoist revolution in China and the other social revolutions that piggybacked on anti-imperialist struggles occurred in the context of a world system weakened by both the Great Depression and World War 2. Since that time, capitalists and imperialist states sought to create ways to stabilize the system. The growth of the UN and other global institutions after World War 2 was part of this effort. Globalization, the growth of transnational corporations, transnational capital, NGOs, charities, and other intuitions etc. also was thought to help prevent chaos. Stability was seen as profitable for the most part. Not so for the neoliberals:

“For decades, the conventional wisdom was that generalized mayhem was a drain on the global economy. Individual shocks and crises could be harnessed as leverage to force open new markets, of course, but after the initial shock had done its work, relative peace and stability were required for sustained economic growth. That was the accepted explanation for why the nineties had been such prosperous years: with the Cold War over, economies were liberated to concentrate on trade and investment, and as countries became more enmeshed and interdependent, they were far less likely to bomb each other.” (p. 536)

So dramatic has the disaster profiteering been today that conspiracy theories dominate public discourse as never before:

“The recent spate of disasters has translated into such spectacular profits that many people around the world have come to the same conclusion: the rich and powerful must be deliberately causing the catastrophes so that they can exploit them. In July 2006, a national poll of U.S. residents found that more than a third of respondents believed that the government had a hand in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop them ‘because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.’ Similar suspicions dog most of the catastrophes of recent years. In Louisiana in the aftermath of Katrina, the shelters were alive with rumors that the levees hadn’t broken but had been covertly blown up in order ‘to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry,’ as the Nation of Islam’s leader Louis Farrakhan, suggested. In Sri Lanka I often heard that the tsunami had been caused by underwater explosions detonated by the United States so that it could send troops into Southeast Asia and take full control over the region’s economies…The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous. An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological or financial. The appetite for easy, short-term profits offered by purely speculative investment has turned the stock, currency and real estate markets into crisis-creation machines, as the the Asian financial crisis, the Mexican peso crisis and the dot-com collapse all demonstrate. Our common addiction to dirty, nonrenewable energy sources keeps other kinds of emergencies coming: natural disasters (up 430 percent since 1975) and wars waged for control over scarce resources (not just Iraq and Afghanistan but lower-intensity conflicts such as those that rage in Nigeria, Colombia and Sudan), which in turn create terrorist blowback…” (p. 539)

It is true that those with power sometimes consciously create disasters and exploit them, as in the case of Chile or Indonesia. However, the popular idea that there is one over-arching plot is inaccurate and counter-productive. Many conspiracy theories parallel the Christian outlook of so-called “intelligent design.” Christians often will see the patterns in nature, then they conclude that such a natural order must be the work of a creator. In 1802, the theologian William Paley argued that because a watch contains order that is a result of a designer so too nature’s order must be the result of God. Christians, extrapolating on Aristotle, argued that animals and plants were perfectly fit to their environments and each other. Thus, they argued, there must be intelligence behind it all. As early as David Hume, writing in the mid-1700s, intelligent design was challenged. Hume argued that order in nature can be a result of simple processes. This can be seen in snowflake formation or crystal generation. This idea would be confirmed later in biology with the publication On the Origin of Species in 1859. Charles Darwin showed how order could arise in species from simple, natural processes over great periods of time, creating the illusion of intelligent design. The order found in animal and plant kingdoms is a result of natural selection over millions of years.

Just as Christians see patterns in nature, conspiracy theorists see patterns in society and events. Both look for a non-existent single creator, a God or Illuminati, to explain the world or society. Such a view is inaccurate and unscientific. It is no accident that Karl Marx, the founder of revolutionary science, dedicated his major work, Capital, to Charles Darwin. Just as Darwin showed how evolution in nature results form wholly natural laws, so did Marx show how the order and evolution of society can be explained similarly, by material laws. Instead of looking for a master conspiracy or master plotter, revolutionary scientists examine the social forces and systems that produce such events. Even if an Illuminati, a master plotter, did exist, its members’ actions would still be largely determined over the long-term by their position in the power structure, by class, gender, national, etc. interests. In other words, even if there were an Illuminati, explanations that referred to individual plotters would be largely superfluous to scientific explanation of society. In addition, such conspiracy-theory approaches are disempowering. They encourage the masses to look at revolution and social change through a police paradigm instead of a power paradigm. Even if one knew who the make-believe Illuminati were, it is not as though one could go arrest and put them on trial. Instead, such theories mystify power and make the masses powerless victims of an all-powerful plot. By contrast, the power paradigm teaches the masses to apply revolutionary science, to unite the social forces necessary for revolution, to build New Power, to seize power, to create a new mode of production, to redesign all of society in order to reach Leading Light Communism, the end all systematic oppression.

The principal contradiction

The Shock Doctrine is well worth reading. Klein’s book is full of detailed information about neoliberalism and its disasters. It convincingly argues that the neoliberalism has features and implications that differ from other configurations of capitalism. Neoliberal restructuring, whether in the First or Third World, is a kind of radical act that is bound up with disaster and crisis. Klein argues that few have escaped negative consequences of the shift from traditional Keynesian capitalism and social democracy to neoliberalism. Third World and Second World peoples have suffered under terrible radical-capitalist economic policies implemented at bayonet point in places like Indonesia, Chile, in parts of the old Eastern Bloc, China and elsewhere. First World peoples have suffered too, as their social-democratic programs have been ended, as their welfare states have been downsized, as their public sector has been sold off, as their infrastructure deteriorates. If Klein were to name a principal contradiction in the world, it would be the contradiction between neoliberalism versus Keynesianism, the corporatist state versus the social-democratic one. Klein’s politics foreshadow the Occupy movement’s populism and social-democratic reformism. Klein’s outlook corresponds to the politics that views the world as one where corporate elites and their allies rule over the global population, the one percent versus the 99. Whereas it is true that neoliberal policies since the 1990s have, at times, resulted in a fall in the standard of living for populations in the United States, the loss of privilege that neoliberalism affects on First World peoples is nothing compared to the pain and death inflicted on Third World peoples. On the whole, whether under traditional Keynesianism or neoliberalism, First World populations receive far more than a fair share of the global social product while Third World populations receive less. The First World standard of living is not even sustainable, to maintain it is incompatible with socialism and communism. The vast majority of humanity is exploited along with future generations and the Earth to maintain the First World standard of living. This is true under neoliberalism and social democracy. Whether corporations are at the head or state bureaucracies, First World populations mostly benefit from the continued existence of capitalism. Third World populations, by contrast, have a more immediate interest in the radical reorganization of society along egalitarian and sustainable lines in order to reach Leading Light Communism, the end of all systematic oppression. Klein’s outlook assumes a unity that simply does not exist between First World and Third World populations against corporations. By adopting such an outlook, her politics does not just misunderstand the balance of forces globally, her politics panders to First World populism, liberalism, social-democratic imperialism. Although she would surely count herself an anti-imperialist in most cases, such politics puts opposition to imperialism on the back burner while stroking populism that seeks to preserve and increase First World privilege, which is based on imperialist exploitation of the Third World. In the United States, it ends up ultimately channeling energy into the Democratic Party, which is the only reformist game in town for social democrats. They end up providing grassroots cover for imperialist war in exchange for domestic reform. This can end up fanning up the flames of fascism and social fascism. Klein also overlooks the possibility that neoliberal restructuring may, as some of its proponents claim, be necessary to maintain First World privilege, that old-style social-democratic imperialism is no longer viable. This is the case in parts of Eastern Europe where standards of living have, in some cases, gone up due to integration into Western imperialism despite neoliberal conditions placed upon their economies. Neoliberal restructuring in the First World may be part of a package that, in the long term, benefits First World peoples even if it subjects them to a loss of privilege. Klein is blind to these possibilities. The reality is that, on the whole, First World peoples, when push comes to shove, will align with their own system be it Keynesian or neoliberal against Third World peoples. Even if neoliberalism ends up reducing the privileges of First World populations, it does not do so to such an extent that they break left toward proletarian internationalism en masse. First World populations have more unity with their own bosses than they do with workers, peasants and lumpen in the Third World. This is one reason that the principal contradiction is the First World versus the Third World. For this reason, the principal form of revolutionary resistance is not networks of social-justice movements and street protests in the First World, but anti-imperialist and Leading Light people’s wars in the Third World. Although Klein’s book is useful in explaining the neoliberal turn amongst imperialists, it falls far short of revolutionary science, of Leading Light Communism.

Source

Klein, Naomi, The Shock Doctrine (Picador,USA:2007)

]]> http://llco.org/the-shock-doctrine-by-naomi-klein/feed/ 1 On May Day and Occupy in the USA http://llco.org/on-may-day-and-occupy/ http://llco.org/on-may-day-and-occupy/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:13:57 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=2088

On May Day and Occupy in the USA

(llco.org)

 On the first of May, many people celebrate International Workers’ Day or May Day. Even though the day has not always been widely celebrated in the United States, its origins trace back to labor struggles there. May Day commemorates the victims of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886. During a general strike by workers in Chicago, USA in 1886, a bomb was thrown by an unknown person. In response, the police fired into the crowd killing many workers. Also, many police died from friendly fire. At the first congress of the Second International in 1889, Raymond Lavigne, called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. In 1891, at the second congress of the Second International, May Day was formally recognized. Later, there were May Day riots in 1894. And in 1904, the International Socialist Conference in Amsterdam called for demonstrations to be held on May Day by social democratic and trade unions to establish the eight hour workday. May Day has since become celebrated in many countries around the world, sometimes as an official holiday. In the old socialist regimes, May Day was often one of their biggest holidays.

In the United States, May Day celebrations have diminished. The official holiday for workers is Labor Day, which is observed on the first Monday in September. Labor Day was established, in part, as an alternative to the radical May Day. Labor Day was promoted by more mainstream, reformist organizations like the Central Labor Union and Knights of Labor. Thus President Grover Cleveland moved the workers’ holiday to the Labor Day celebrated by the more reformist organizations in 1887. Fascist and reactionary states have often worked to eliminate or repress May Day. Even though the state actively worked to draw attention away from May Day, the main reason for the lack of strong May Day demonstrations in the United States can be traced to changes in global class structure. With the rise of US imperialism, the standard of living of workers in the United States increased. More and more concessions were won through reformist struggles. The economic burden was shifted onto Third World peoples. Social peace was won in the First World by increased exploitation and oppression of the Third World. Thus workers in the United States had less and less need of a May Day as workers in the First World became bourgeoisified. May Day became a holiday mostly for insignificant leftist sects and nostalgists. However, in the last decade, May Day has been revived due to protests by migrants in the United States against racism. Even so, May Day protests have been diminishing. The Occupy movement is seeking to revive May Day this year. Although, such a revival can be used by Leading Lights to educate and organize, the premises of the Occupy effort are deeply flawed. The revival of May Day is an honorable goal, however, Occupy profoundly misunderstand the balance of forces globally. A populist attempt to revive May Day, at best, will only gather support from the usual communities of activists and their allies. There may be some spectacles in a few major cities, but the kind of mass outpouring that Occupy expects will not happen. A real general strike will not happen. The general public in the United States simply does not want revolution nor is it in their interest to make real socialist, communist revolution. The conditions for real revolution do not exist in the First World, especially in the United States. The workers here do not have a class interest in uniting with the proletariat in the Third World. Workers in the First World have far more in common with their own overlords than they do with workers, peasants and lumpen in the Third World. Contrary to Occupy’s populist rhetoric, the reality is that most First World peoples are part of the metaphoric global 1 percent, not the global 99 percent. Populist movements in the First World tend to stroke up fascism and social imperialism, not proletarian internationalism. However, such movements will exist whether or not Leading Light participates. At least by participating, Leading Light has some ability to influence some attendees to break left toward internationalism, anti-imperialism, and communism instead of breaking right toward economism, chauvinism, populism, and fascism. Establish a pole for global equality, anti-imperialism and decolonization, revolutionary environmentalism, and Leading Light Communism this May Day. Criticize economism, populism, chauvinism, imperialism and social imperialism, fascism, and First Worldism generally. Participate. Educate. Lead.

]]> http://llco.org/on-may-day-and-occupy/feed/ 0 Revolution in the Third World; Resistance in the First World http://llco.org/peoples-war-in-the-third-world-resistance-in-the-first-world/ http://llco.org/peoples-war-in-the-third-world-resistance-in-the-first-world/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:00:16 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=2070 Revolution in the Third World; Resistance in the First World

(llco.org)

The First World currently has no significant social base for revolution. This means that in the United States there is no social group that as a whole can be consciously mobilized along its class, gender or, generally speaking, even national interests to support the revolutionary proletariat of the Third World. Although there may be conflicts within the First World, and within the United States, the US populations find more unity with each other than they do with the revolutionary proletariat of the Third World. When the populations of the First World are aligned for their immediate and mid-term interests, when push comes to shove, they unite against the revolutionary proletariat of the Third World. Even if some communities are better recruiting pools, this does not mean there is a significant social base for revolution in the United States.  This does not mean that these contradictions within the First World can’t be exploited at times by Leading Lights and popular forces. This does not mean that we should give up on the First World. On the contrary, it means that we have to be even more intelligent and creative in our approaches inside the “Belly of the Beast.” Leading Lights should take the following into account, in no particular order:

1. Crisis. Capitalism is inherently unstable. The capitalist system is crisis ridden. Cycles of boom and bust are part of the system. Capitalism is constantly generating its own grave diggers, as Marx pointed out. Stability in one area is a result of crisis in another just as comfort in the First World is a result of suffering in the Third World. The system is constantly creating the conditions for its own destruction. By shifting the burden onto poor peoples, onto the Third World, capitalism creates those who will do away with the system. Also, as the process of globalization continues, a crisis in one area spreads more rapidly to other areas. A local crisis can become global very quickly. The process of globalization has strengthened capitalism, but also brought about a situation where its crises is not as easily localized or managed. This can be exploited by Leading Lights.

2. Global People’s War. Oppression creates resistance. The imperialist system has consigned the vast majority of humanity to grueling poverty. The median income worldwide is under 3 dollars a day. This means half of humanity is barely surviving from day to day. As resources are exhausted, the First World tightens the screws on the Third World to maintain its privilege. Famines, lack of water, genocide, ecological catastrophe, crisis all increase. People of the Third World fight back in various ways. Like anything else, learning to fight is a process. People learn from successes and failures. This is the nature of science. Eventually, the exploited majority will pick up revolutionary science, the most powerful weapon available in the task of liberation. The next wave of revolution is coming. The world will be set ablaze with people’s wars that will merge into a single global people’s war of the Leading Light. The global people’s war will begin in the global countryside and global slum of the Third World. It will cut off and encircle the global city of the First World. Finally, the First World will be conquered by revolutionary forces from within and without. The exact contours of the global people’s war cannot be known in advance. In many places it will take the shape of classic Maoist people’s wars, moving from rural areas in poor countries to the cities. However, new technologies and changing demographics open up more and more possibilities.  It will involve re-proletarization of the First World. It may involve a people’s war that spills over into the United States. For example, a people’s war in Mexico could spill over into the southern areas of the United States. There may be literal invasions of the First World by peoples of the Third World. Parts of the First World could find themselves conquered in the same way that the Soviet Union destroyed fascism and imposed a new system on Nazi Germany.

3. Re-proletarization. Currently, social tension within US borders is lessened, contradictions made non-antagonistic, due to imperialism. The United States receives so much value from the imperialist system by exploiting the peoples of the Third World that economic, gender, and even national struggles within its borders have been transformed in important ways in the United States. The First World way of life is propped up by the massive exploitation of the peoples of the Third World. Economic conflict within the United States, generally speaking, has become less and less antagonistic because the burden has been so shifted onto Third World peoples. Gender conflicts, generally speaking, also become less and less acute because of the relative autonomy that is available to First World individuals. Even conflicts between oppressed nations in the United States and their oppressor nations become less antagonistic. As more and more oppressed nation peoples receive the benefits of their status as First World peoples, there is less and less desire to assert themselves as distinct nations, generally speaking. The relative peace of First World, and US society, is created by shifting the exploitation onto Third World peoples. However, this system is unstable. Capitalism is unstable, crisis ridden. People fight back. As more and more people become organized in the Third World, as Leading Light and anti-imperialist struggles beat back the imperialists, more and more Third World peoples will conquer state power and de-link their economies from the capitalist-imperialist system. Thus the First World, including the United States, will be denied access to their labor and resources. The imperialists will have to fight more and more wars to defend their privilege. They will have to tighten the screws on other Third World peoples, which will cause more resistance. They will need to dedicate more and more value and resources toward fighting the Third World peoples. They will, ultimately, have to turn inward, to cannibalize their own First World people, to maintain their power. In other words, as Third World peoples become free, the imperialists will need to begin exploiting their own populations again to make up the difference. This will mean that First World peoples will become poorer and poorer as Third World peoples become free and prosperous. As this process happens, some First World populations will break right and embrace fascism and social fascism in order to try to protect their privilege as First World peoples. Others will break left, will begin to stand with the vast majority of humanity in the Third World. At first, the majority will break right, but eventually, the process of re-proletarization will spread. Eventually, a proletarian class will arise in what was the First World. This class can then be organized by the Leading Light to overthrow its capitalist overlords. This class will be part of the international proletariat.

4. Balkanization. The United States has a long history of brutal oppression of oppressed nations within its borders. The United States was founded on White supremacy and racism. The United States waged the greatest genocide in history when it exterminated most of its indigenous population. The land was cleared of indigenous peoples to make way for westward expansion.  Indigenous peoples were herded into prison camps that later became reservations. Social tensions of early capitalism were lessened because European-descended peoples, and later Blacks, Asians, and others could graduate from workers to land owners, from proletariat to bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. The frontier was a safety valve for social tensions not only in North America, but also Europe. The marginalized of Europe and elsewhere made their way to North America to settle on Indigenous land. In addition, slavery played a key role in the early development of the capitalist system.  Africans and Blacks were brutally enslaved to grease the wheels of early capitalism. Even after slavery was formally abolished, the Black population of the United States found itself living under the constant terror of an apartheid system.  Slavery’s legacy remains. Deep racism still exists in US society. As the United States is weakened by Third World resistance and economic crisis, it is possible that national contradictions will once again become heightened. As Third World people gain their freedom, the White population may try to maintain its privilege by shifting the burden onto oppressed nations within US borders. As their First World lifestyle is eroded and as they face more racism and national oppression, oppressed nation peoples may strike out on their own. The result could be wars of national liberation, wars between national populations, and a Balkanization of the United States. Other kinds of Balkanization can occur. If capitalism enters a big enough crisis or there is a catastrophe of some kind, the federal government may not be able to maintain its power. Warlordism could arise in the United States in a big enough crisis or catastrophe. Remnants of the federal government, governors, mayors, military officers, police agencies, criminal organizations, religious organizations, and the Leading Light could battle for power under extreme crisis conditions.  Balkanization will weaken the system, help destroy the First World, and allow greater opportunities for the Leading Light to maneuver.

5. Catastrophe. Ecological and other mass catastrophes could play a key role in bringing about the conditions for revolution in the First World. Capitalism is based on infinite growth. However, there is a finite amount of resources. As those resources are depleted, there will be more and more ecological crisis. Ecological crisis and catastrophes weaken and impoverish the First World, thus speeding up the revolutionary process, speeding up re-proletarization, speeding up Balkanization, etc. As the ecological crisis deepens, greater numbers of both Third and First World peoples will mobilize against the system in their own interests and interests of their children.

6. War, nuclear and mass destruction. Similarly, nuclear or other forms of war could also weaken the state and other institutions and create conditions for revolution in the First World.  In general, wars weaken economies. However, the use of nuclear weapons by state or non-state actors against the United States has the potential to quickly weaken imperial power. Nuclear conflict is one possibility that revolutionaries need to prepare for.

7. Resistance and subversion of the First World. Weakening the First World from within can play a role in the revolutionary process. Lenin used the crisis of World War 1 to transform that war into a revolutionary war. Lenin sought to bring down the empire of the Czar and, later, revisionists. The Bolsheviks advocated a policy of revolutionary defeatism. They aimed to defeat their own imperial country. Similarly, the Leading Light extends its power within the First World in order to subvert from within the heart of empire. Leading Light gathers those anomalies in the First World who will fight against their First World interests. Leading Light gathers those who will truly stand with humanity. Leading Light creates the institutional structures needed for when conditions change in our favor, when re-proletarization and global people’s war advance to higher stages. Leading Light seeks to neutralize and ideologically transform as much of the First World population as possible. As capitalist crisis, ecological crisis, and global resistance deepen, more and more First World resistance is possible. At this stage of development, Leading Light’s line can be summed up “Revolution in the Third World; Resistance in the First World!”

Our world is much different than Lenin’s. It is much different than Mao’s. Dogma is not going to create the next great wave of revolution. Cheerleading will not. Only the most advanced revolutionary science in the hands of the people can create a new future. Leading Lights can handle the reality of today’s world. There is nothing more radical then reality itself. The Leading Light is for the most advanced. Leading Lights don’t sit on the sidelines.  Surrender is First Worldism. Surrender is not an option for Leading Lights. Communism is not a spectator sport. Science, organization, leadership are key to victory. Lead.

]]> http://llco.org/peoples-war-in-the-third-world-resistance-in-the-first-world/feed/ 5 Movie review: Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
 http://llco.org/movie-review-children-of-men-alfonso-cuaron-2006%e2%80%a8/ http://llco.org/movie-review-children-of-men-alfonso-cuaron-2006%e2%80%a8/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:03:37 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=2039 Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

(llco.org)

This movie takes place in dystopian England of the not so distant future. All females are thought to have become infertile. Chaos has spread everywhere, even to the First World. The economies of the imperialist countries have collapsed to an extent; some degree of re-proletarization of segments of the First World may have occurred, but the extent isn’t clear in the movie. Chaos reigns and a teetering fascist state clings to power through more and more repression. Migrants are hunted, rounded up, tortured, brutalized and placed in city-sized ghetto-camps to fend for themselves and prey upon each other. Like much science fiction, Children of Men is an exaggeration of our own world.

The reluctant hero is Theo Faron (Clive Owen), an alcoholic burnt out ex-activist, whose life is spent in a zombified daze at his office job until he is kidnapped off the streets by his ex-lover Julian (Julianne Moore), a leader of a migrant liberation guerilla movement referred to as the “Fish.” Theo is paid by the Fish to smuggle a migrant, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), out of England to safety. Along the way, Theo discovers that Kee is miraculously pregnant, the first pregnant female in nearly two decades. After a power struggle within Fish, a new leader, Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), decides Kee and her child should not leave but become political symbols for a migrant uprising against the fascist state. Chased by the fascist state and the liberation forces, Theo and Kee escape to safety through the political turmoil of a migrant ghetto-camp uprising. They make their way to an underground group of scientists known in urban legend as the “Human Project.” According to the urban legend, the Human Project is trying to solve the infertility problem at their secret underground base, “possibly in the Azores.”

What is good about this movie is that it portrays the oppression of migrants and oppressed nations by a First World society turned rapidly fascist. The movie makes a point to show the fascist authorities participating in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo-stye torture of migrants. Even though the movie takes place in fascist England, it aims its spear at US imperialism and its treatment of prisoners and migrants. The English authorities are labeled as “Homeland Security” to underscore this obvious point. So, this movie makes a criticism against White nationalism, anti-migrant forces, police state measures and fascism.

This movie also correctly identifies the revolutionary forces as mostly comprised of Third World and oppressed nation peoples. Various revolutionary and anti-imperialist icons appear throughout the movie as part of the background. A cultural revolution poster featuring Mao Zedong hangs on Theo’s wall. Images of Lenin are seen on the mantle of a family that helps Theo and Kee escape the fascist state that terrorizes the ghetto-camp. Theo and Kee also pass through Islamic anti-imperialist parades and funerals reminiscent of the streets of Palestine. A group of communards with a French flag appear in one background scene. In this fictional wold, migrants flee chaos in France to England. In this world, “Fish” is a term used as “wetback” is in the United States; it may refer to those who have come across, swam across, the channel to England as fish do. In one scene, the Fish guerrillas make a point of saying some Cods (English Fish) have joined the Fish ranks, implying that the majority of their ranks are not English. This movie correctly mirrors our own social reality to an extent. As far as there is any revolutionary social base in the imperialist countries, it is not made up of any significant sections of the First World populations. Like our own world, the most revolutionary elements are outsiders in the imperial center.

What is bad about this movie is that it embraces idealist utopian solutions to the world’s problems. Instead of examining the political options presented in the backdrop of the film, the backdrop of Fish guerrillas, Islamists, and communists is presented as a whirlwind of indistinct chaos, not as solutions themselves. Rather than looking for answers in revolutionary science, the protagonists run. Rather than joining the migrant uprising against the fascist state, the protagonists make their way to the phantasmic Human Project. The protagonists choose not to use their child as a symbol of the migrant uprising. In this latter day Joseph and Mary story, the protagonists make a leap of faith that the Human Project is real and capable of solving the infertility problem for humanity. Rather than casting their lot with the oppressed, rather than seeking state power and using the resources of the state to solve the infertility issue, the protagonists make a religious decision that is portrayed as beyond politics. In reality, nothing is outside the realm of politics.

The movie portrays the fertility issue as more important than the struggle of the migrants and oppressed. In a fundamental sense, this may be true. If there are no people, then there is no proletariat, no revolution. However, there is no reason to believe that some urban legend, an isolated group of mythical  underground scientists, would be the only ones capable of curing female infertility. And, even if some secret cabal could solve the problem, there is little indication they would have the ability to implement such a cure. Even the teetering fascist, English state would be more likely to have the means to solve the problem than some mythical group of experts in the Azores. However, it is unclear such a fascist state would be able to or willing to implement the cure in a meaningful way either. A cure is meaningless if there is no ability to implement it. Better yet, a revolutionary state is more likely to unleash the kind of scientific creativity and political will to solve this kind of problem once and for all.

Here we can see a parallel with environmental issues of today. Environmental issues are a matter of life and death for the world’s peoples. However, only the struggle against imperialism and for communism is going to be capable of unleashing the social forces that have the capability to radically reorganize society such that humanity can strike a more balanced and sustainable relationship with the planet. Even though this kind of contradiction exists and can be very acute, it is not principal in our world. There is little reason given in the movie to think that the failing fascist state or mythical experts in the Azores could solve the infertility problem or be able to implement such a solution. Instead of thinking about their choice scientifically, the protagonists, like many environmentalists and anarchists, cast their fate to the wind. They place their faith in a mythical Human Project that is supposed to have the secret to solving the infertility problem and saving the world — although, curiously, they haven’t seem to make much progress so far if the background story of the film is to be believed. The mythical Human Project appears in a ship out of a foggy sea, like God’s hand, to rescue Kee and her miraculous Jesus child — the joke is made that the child is born of a virgin to underscore the religious tone of the film.

The movie poses a false choice. Use the baby to rally people against the fascist state and risk threatening the existence of the species or invest hope in some group of experts who may not exist. This obscures the principal contradiction while raising religious ideas and glorifying bourgeois experts to magical proportions. The protagonists don’t consider that using the baby in the uprising would not necessarily threaten the existence of the species,  such an uprising might be the key to humanity’s survival.

In the real world, there is no God nor cabal of wizard experts in the Azores nor league of super heroes to intervene from above to save the world. The real world is saved by revolutionary science unleashing the masses. And revolutionary scientists put Leading Light Communism in command and side with the proletariat in order to create a new revolutionary society; revolutionary scientists can then use the full resources of society to solve potentially catastrophic health and environmental issues of the day. Even with this idealism, Children of Men is an excellent movie that raises many important critiques of our society.

]]> http://llco.org/movie-review-children-of-men-alfonso-cuaron-2006%e2%80%a8/feed/ 3 Book review: The Cleanest Race (2010) by B. R. Myers http://llco.org/book-review-the-cleanest-race-2010-by-b-r-myers/ http://llco.org/book-review-the-cleanest-race-2010-by-b-r-myers/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:42:53 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=1993 Book review: The Cleanest Race (2010) by B. R. Myers

(llco.org)

The Cleanest Race (2010) is a must read for those trying to understand northern Korea. Ultimately, the book aims to influence US policy toward northern Korea in order to further imperialist ends. In that sense, it is a book by the enemy for the enemy. Even so, the book represents a real, very rigorous attempt to get to the bottom of how northern Korean society thinks. The book is cutting-edge thinking from the CIA wing of US imperialism, from liberal imperialism. For Leading Lights and anti-imperialists, the book is worth reading because it is important to know thy enemies and to know thy friends. The enemy is not all thumbs. The book is an example of contemporary literary and cultural analysis in service to imperialist policy makers. Even if the outlook of the book is fundamentally imperialist, even if it is organized around a set of imperialist questions, the book, in many respects, demonstrates an understanding of northern Korean ideology that is far more advanced than those orthodox “Marxist-Leninists” who defend northern Korea as their own. The book confirms the Leading Light’s position on northern Korea: Though it should be defended from imperialist attack, northern Korea is not a communist-led society, it is not socialist. Northern Korea’s regime is a monarchy that serves  one segment of the national bourgeoisie. Power there passes from father (or parent — more on this later) to son. The Cleanest Race shows that, even though it is a monarchy, the regime has some unique and surprising features that do not easily fit with preconceived notions. The book seeks to refute the cliches that northern Korea is “the last Stalinist state” or that it is a Confucian, patriarchal despotism. According to the author, northern Korea is unlike the Soviet regimes of Eastern Europe. Instead the book claims that northern Korea’s ideology is a racial one much more akin to the fascist states of World War 2. Although the author may overstate his case on some points, the book itself is an important piece of a puzzle. It increases our understanding of how northern Koreans see the world and how some of their more enlightened, liberal adversaries are coming to understand them.

Imperialists don’t get it, neither do orthodox “Marxist-Leninists”…

In the tradition of liberal imperialism, the author dispels the crudest lies about the northern state. The author  makes the point that the regime is, despite crude Western propaganda, a genuinely popular one. The sensationalist accounts promoted by the southern Korean regime, of dissidents who hire themselves out to the Western propaganda apparatus,  and other reactionaries, are dismissed by the author. The author admits that the regime is a plainly popular one; it had mass support even in the crisis years of the famine. Even so, external realities are slowly pushing the regime closer toward a legitimacy crisis:

“What is more, this ideology has generally enjoyed the support of the North Korean people through good times and bad. Even today, with a rival state thriving next door, the regime is able to maintain public stability without a ubiquitous police presence or a fortified northern border. Sensationalist American accounts of the ‘underground railroad’ helping North Korean ‘refugees’ make it through China to the free world gloss over the fact that about half of these economic migrants—for that is what most of them are —voluntarily return to their homeland. The rest remain fervent admirers of Kim Il Sung if not of his son. Though we must never forget the men, women and children languishing in Yodŏk and other prison camps, we cannot keep carrying on as if the dictatorship did not enjoy a significant degree of mass support. How significant? Enough to make the regime desperate to hold on to it. I intend to argue, however, that this support cannot be sustained for long, because what the masses are taught—especially in regard to South Korean public opinion—is coming increasingly into conflict with what they know to be true. It is the regime’s awareness of a pending legitimacy crisis, not a fear of attack from without, which makes it behave ever more provocatively on the world stage.”

The author describes migrants from northern Korea:

“Even among the few North Koreans who have left the country and stayed out, a heartfelt admiration for the Great Leader is mainstream. (I personally know migrants who still cannot talk of him without tearing up.”

In place of cliches, the book asks imperialist policy makers to take a new look at their subject matter. The author observes that the Western world is not interested in ideology. True enough. Americans know as much about Islamism after 9/11 than they did before it. Even with the 9/11 attacks, policy makers believe that the end of history is at hand and that the age of the big idea is over. Western liberalism is, so the story goes, the highest form of society. The ideology, the personality cult, in the view of many, could be nothing but a cynical tool used by the northern regime to create obedience. Northern Korean leaders could not actually believe such nonsense. The idea that ideology does not matter, that the northern Korean ideology is patently absurd, is a big obstacle in understanding the regime. Liberals believe that ideology must be epiphenomenal. Nothing so absurd as northern Korean ideology could influence its state’s decisions on the world stage. A similar criticism could be made of those “on the left” who advocate on behalf of the northern Korean regime. While the Pyongyang watchers put too little emphasis on ideology, the collection of Korean Friendship circles, internet Juche-ists, friendly leftist scholars, and others put too much emphasis on the regime’s official statements of ideology, its statements about the so-called “Juche Idea” and its statements crafted for an external readership. Just as the imperialists get it wrong when it comes to northern Korean ideology, so do many of those who elevate the obtuse speeches or works of Kim Il-Sung as the leading ideology of the regime. Just as those who dismiss the role of ideology will never understand the logic of the regime either will those who take the regime’s proclamations about “Juche” at their word. Juche, according to the author, is, at best, window dressing. To understand the regime and society it is necessary to dig deeper:

“Unfortunately a lack of relevant expertise has never prevented observers from mischaracterizing North Korean ideology to the general public. They call the regime ‘hard-line communist’ or ‘Stalinist,’ despite its explicit racial theorizing, its strident acclamation of Koreans as the world’s ‘cleanest’ or ‘purest’ race. They describe it as a Confucian patriarchy, despite its maternal authority figures, or as a country obsessed with self-reliance, though it has depended on outside aid for over sixty years. By far the most common mistake, however, has been the projection of Western or South Korean values and common sense onto the North Koreans. For example: Having been bombed flat by the Americans in the 1950s, the DPRK must be fearful for its security, ergo it must want the normalization of relations with Washington…. In this book, therefore, I aim to explain North Korea’s dominant ideology or worldview—I use the words interchangeably—and to show how far removed it is from communism, Confucianism and the show-window doctrine of Juche Thought. Far from complex, it can be summarized in a single sentence: The Korean people are too pure blooded, and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader. More must be added perhaps, if only to explain that ‘therefore’ to an American reader, but not much more of importance. I need hardly point out that if such a race-based worldview is to be situated on our conventional left-right spectrum, it makes more sense to posit it on the extreme right than on the far left. Indeed, the similarity to the worldview of fascist Japan is striking. I do not, however, intend to label North Korea as fascist, a term too vague to be much use. It is enough for me to make clear that the country has always been, at the very least, ideologically closer to America’s adversaries in World War II than to communist China and Eastern Europe. This truth alone, if properly grasped, will not only help the West to understand the loyalty shown to the DPRK by its chronically impoverished citizens, but also to understand why the West’s policy of pursuing late Cold War-type solutions to the nuclear problem is doomed to fail.”

Just as “Marxism-Leninism” and Confucianism are neither northern Korea’s real ideology,  Juche or “self-reliance” isn’t.  Despite proclamations of the regime to the contrary, despite much pomp, Juche is not its real ideology. Juche is described correctly as a “sham” doctrine by the author. The works of Juche, the writings of Kim Il-Sung, are convoluted, repetitive, and banal. Despite official praise of the works to the skies, the works are filled with little that is original. And what is true in the works are banalities repeated in better style by many others throughout history:

“The official worldview is not set out coherently in the leaders’ writings. These are more often praised than read. So-called Juche Thought functions at most as an imposing row of book-spines, a prop in the personality cult. (A good way to embarrass one’s minders in the DPRK is to ask them to explain it.) Unlike Soviet citizens under Stalin, or Chinese under Mao, North Koreans learn more about their leaders than from them.”

The propagandists of the regime are very good at their jobs, the clumsy thoughts and prose found in the works of Juche are not meant to be read seriously. They are to be admired from afar, proof that Kim Il-Sung is a great thinker, just like Mao. This is by design. In addition, the Northern Korean Central News Agency’s English-language press releases do not represent the worldview of the regime either. According to the author, domestic propaganda aimed at northern Koreans differs significantly from the image that is projected worldwide:

“Too many observers wrongly assume that the (North) Korean Central News Agency’s English-language releases reflect the same sort of propaganda that the home audience gets. In fact there are significant differences. For example, where the DPRK presents itself to the outside world as a misunderstood country seeking integration into the international community, it presents itself to its own citizens (as I will show later) as a rogue state that breaks agreements with impunity, dictates conditions to groveling U.N. officials, and keeps its enemies in constant fear of ballistic retribution. Generally speaking the following rule of thumb applies: the less accessible a propaganda outlet is to the outside world, the blunter and more belligerent it will be in its expression of the racist orthodoxy.”

According to the author, there is a big disconnect between what the regime projects and its deeper ideology. In order to understand the regime and its ideology, it is necessary to go beyond the clumsy banalities found in the works of Kim Il-Sung and the official press releases meant for the outside world. It is necessary to look at the propaganda diet that northern Koreans are actually fed. It is necessary to look at the history of those ideas in northern Korea. This is the key to understanding northern Korea, according to the author.

Imperial Japanese origins of northern Korean ideology

According to the author, Korea has a long history of xenophobia. Even so, Korean nationalism is more recent. Koreans historically saw themselves as part of the edge of the great Chinese cultural realm. This state of affairs existed for many centuries. This began to change when, in 1905, the Japanese established a protectorate over the peninsula. Annexation followed in 1910. Patriotic opposition grew toward the Japanese conquest until on March 1, 1919 in Seoul, Korean nationalists read a declaration of independence. A nation-wide Korean uprising was followed by a brutal crackdown by the Japanese. The mess caused the Japanese to reevaluate their strategy. The Japanese decided to change their game plan to avoid further rebellions. Rather than fight Korean nationalism, they would now try to cultivate it. They would promote Korean nationalism within the context of Korean-Japanese unity. The new message was: Koreans should be proud to be Korean, as Koreans are part of the greater Japanese people. The Japanese now promoted Korean-language media outlets. The Korean-language media spread the message of Korean-Japanese unity. Korean intellectuals and celebrities promoted the Japanese message that “Interior [Japan] and Korea as one body.” The Japanese co-opted Korean patriotism by asserting that Koreans and Japanese shared the same ancient racial progenitor. The peoples were part of the same ancient family, the same ancient bloodline. As early as the 1920s, the Korean upper and middle classes and celebrities were speaking Japanese fluently. Marriages between Koreans and their Japanese colonizers were socially accepted, such a marriage was “perhaps even a mark of distinction.”

“But even while these writers glorified the emperor, they urged their countrymen to cherish their Koreanness. In romance novels frail Japanese women fell in love with strong Korean men, much as they still do in South Korean films and dramas. Illustrations in newspapers and magazines showed girls in traditional hanbok costume waving the Japanese flag, and Confucian gentlemen in horsehair hats standing proudly by their newly recruited sons. The regime stimulated pride in ‘peninsular’ history for imperial ends, encouraging Koreans to reclaim their ancient territory by settling in Manchuria. One writer invoked the elite hwarang soldiers of the Silla dynasty to whip up fighting spirit. Another called on young men to ‘demonstrate the loyalty of a Japanese citizen and the spirit of a son of Korea’ by volunteering to fight in the ‘holy war’ against the Yankees. As the historian Cho Kwan-ja has remarked, these collaborators regarded themselves as ‘pro-Japanese [Korean] nationalists.’”

At first, the author informs, there were some nationalist efforts to resist the Japanese co-opt Korean nationalism. Nationalist writers revived interest in the legend of Tan’gun, the mostly forgotten progenitor of the uniquely Korean people described in works dating from 1284. Tan’gun established a Korean bloodline distinct from that of the Japanese in the eyes of the nationalists. One writer pointed to Mount Paektu, a volcanic mountain on the Chinese border, as Tan’gun’s birthplace. Even though the nationalists were trying to oppose Japan, this Korean ideology was a carbon copy of the Japanese one. Tan’gun replaced the ancient Japanese emperors. Mount Paektu replaced Mount Fiji. By the 1930s, however, the ideological resistance to the Japanese had mostly crumbled among the nationalists. When dissidents were rounded up in the early 1930s, most did an about face. Whether they had been communists, nationalists or libertarians, the author states, most began to support the pro-Japanese order. Even though the middle and upper classes, intellectuals and celebrities, supported the Japanese war as part of the same Korean-Japanese racial team, little of this propaganda reached the illiterate lower classes. As World War 2 progressed, the burden fell heaviest on the poor as Japanese demands for soldiers, workers, prostitutes, etc. increased. Even near the end of the war, Korean papers wrote: “If our destiny is thwarted in this war… it would be a tragedy for all mankind.. We must win.”

The US dropped two atomic weapon in the summer of 1945. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians died in this warcrime. The Japanese empire stood defeated. The Soviets occupied the northern part of Korea. The Soviets set out to create a Soviet-friendly people’s democracy similar to the states of Eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. However, unlike other places, according to the author, little effort was made at decolonization of hearts and minds by the Soviet or American authorities. The persecution of collaborators, the author informs, was greatly exaggerated by later accounts:

“Contrary to South Korean left-wing myth, which the American historian Bruce Cumings has done much to nurture, almost all intellectuals who moved to Pyongyang after liberation had collaborated with the Japanese to some degree. Several who had done so with special enthusiasm, like the novelist Kim Sa-ryang, had been virtually run out of Seoul. The North was more and not less hospitable to such collaborators. As a history book published in the DPRK in 1981 puts it, ‘the Great Leader Kim Il Sung refuted the mistaken tendency to doubt or ostracize people just because they … had worked for Japanese institutions in the past.’ Kim’s own brother, it is worth remembering, had interpreted for Japanese troops in China.”

Collaborators were mostly welcomed back into the post-war fold. The author informs that the post-war regimes needed them. After all, the Soviet effort to build a people’s democracy in the north was hindered by the lack of a left-leaning population, especially a left-leaning intelligencia. Prior to the Soviet occupation, the north of the country was a haven of conservatives and Christians. The Soviets moved quickly to install the Workers’ Party into leadership, transferring ownership of the media outlets in 1945. The Soviets sought to establish the legitimacy of their order in the peninsula at a mass rally on October 14, 1945:

“Among the Koreans who took the podium that day was Kim Il Sung, a Pyongyang-born thirty-three-year-old who had attained the rank of captain in the Red Army. Although Kim had sat out the Pacific War in the USSR, he had earlier fought against the Japanese as a commander in Mao Zedong’s army, acquiring brief renown in 1937 for an attack on an imperial outpost just south of the Yalu River. For better or worse Kim was the closest thing to a resistance fighter the Koreans had. He is said to have wanted a military career, but the Soviets, finding no more appropriate person to work with, persuaded him to assume leadership of the new state. Yet Kim was by far the least educated of all the leaders in the socialist world. His spotty schooling had ended at seventeen, and although he had spent a year at an infantry officer school in the USSR, it is unlikely that he understood enough Russian to grasp anything theoretical. None of his writings evinces an understanding of Marx. Equally ignorant of communist ideology were the guerilla comrades who comprised the core of Kim’s power base. Andrei Lankov, a prominent Korea researcher, has written that ‘with the exception of the Soviet Koreans, no top cadres had undergone training in … Marxism- Leninism.’ It is no wonder that instead of guiding the cultural scene in ideological matters the party allowed itself to be guided by it.”

It would not be until 1948 that the Workers’ Party received its own crash course in Marxism-Leninism. In the meantime, artists, writers, and intellectuals, many of whom had been collaborators, were expected generate support among the masses for the new regime. The cultural elite fell back into what it knew. Their work bore similarities with the racial outlook that existed when the Japanese occupied the country, albeit with some important differences:

“Having been ushered by the Japanese into the world’s purest race, the Koreans in 1945 simply kicked the Japanese out of it. The legend of the ancient racial progenitor Tan’gun, which Korean nationalists had failed to popularize during the 1920s, came almost overnight to be regarded as historical truth. Japanese symbols were transposed into Korean ones. Mount Paektu, hitherto known only as the peninsula’s highest peak, suddenly attained a Fuji-like, sacral status as the presumed place of Tan’gun’s birth. Much of the Japanese version of Korean history—from its blanket condemnation of Chinese influence to its canards about murderous Yankee missionaries—was carried over whole.”

Unlike other racial ideologies, the northern Korean racial purity and moral superiority did not necessarily translate into superiority in other areas:

“No physical superiority over other races is claimed. Propaganda freely acknowledges, for example, that Americans are much taller. Nor is superior intelligence asserted with any real conviction, though Kim Jong Il has described Koreans as ‘sensible’ and ‘prudent,’ and propaganda acclaims the will power they show in the face of adversity. To be uniquely virtuous in an evil world but not uniquely cunning or strong is to be as vulnerable as a child, and indeed, history books convey the image of a perennial child-nation on the world stage, wanting only to be left in peace yet subjected to endless abuse and contamination from outsiders. Films and novels routinely show invaders mistreating Korean children.”

Greater racial and moral purity does not translate into greater material wealth. As the information wall between the North and South has weakened, the author states that it is common knowledge in northern Korea that southerners are wealthier in material terms. According to the author, the northern regime does not derive its legitimacy from the level of consumption it provides. The author informs that the drastic drop in consumption following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the famine of the 1990s did not drastically affect the stability of the regime as some Pyongyang watchers anticipated. With a rival regime in the south able to provide its population with greater consumption, the northern regime, less able to provide, will, according to the author, fall back on its racial ideology to justify its existence and its claims to military prowess. Getting aid from the West was only a side benefit to displays of northern military strength in recent years. The more important reason for the displays was to prop up the regime’s legitimacy at home.

The Korean racial ideology from which the regime derives its legitimacy is very different than the racialism of  the Japanese occupation. Gone is the tone of a regime bent on conquest and the subjugation of  others. Although there is a kind of wish-fulfillment depicted in posters of northern Korean soldiers and missiles obliterating the US.

“This racialism is utterly irreconcilable with Marx and Lenin; not for nothing was the DPRK almost as isolated from the rest of the East Bloc as it still is from the West. But while drawing a clear line between North Korean ideology and communism, we should not overlook that which distinguishes the former from Japanese and (even more so) German fascism. The Text has never proposed the invasion of so much as an inch of non-Korean territory, let alone the permanent subjugation of foreign peoples. This is not to say that it does not propose military action against the US either as a pre- emptive strike or as revenge for past crimes. (I have already mentioned the wish-fulfilling posters of the US Capitol being blown to pieces.) But this is not the same as wanting to re-shape the world. Where the Nazis considered the Aryans physically and intellectually superior to all other races, and the Japanese regarded their moral superiority as having protected them throughout history, the Koreans believe that their childlike purity renders them so vulnerable to the outside world that they need a Parent Leader to survive. Such a worldview naturally precludes dreams of a colonizing or imperialist nature.”

The author states that purity of the Korean blood does not, according to the ideology, allow the northern Koreans to be world conquerers as the Japanese imagined themselves to be. Rather, their pure blood has historically made them victims until the arrival of the Leader and his protective embrace. According to the author, the propagandists portray Koreans as innocent and childlike in a world of monsters. Their purity was a weakness in the hostile sea of the less pure. There racial virtue had made them too pure for the world until the Leader’s arrival:

“The new racial self-image manifested itself clearly in stories of Soviet-Korean friendship written and published in the late 1940s. Writers depicted ailing men and women being carried to hospitals on the backs of Russian nurses and female doctors. Lest anyone miss the symbolism, the heroines were explicitly compared to mothers, the locals to children… The genre was evidently meant to flatter the Soviets with the implication of faithful subservience, and at the same time to plead for motherly protection of a race too pure to survive on its own. These tales should not, however, be misread as asserting the moral equality (let alone superiority) of the Russian people… so it is that only the child race is inherently virtuous; foreigners can at best do the occasional good deed.”

The author continues:

“Like the blood-based Japanese nationalism of the colonial era, the new Korean nationalism went hand in hand with the slavish imitation of foreign models and an often contemptuous indifference to indigenous traditions. In his speechifying Kim declared servile tribute to the USSR’s ‘superior’ culture. Literary critics  tossed around Soviet catchwords—“typicality,” and so on—in an effort to cut down their rivals on the cultural scene. University students scrambled to learn Russian, the new linguistic ticket to social status.”

To appease the Soviets, the regime would project Soviet-style “Marxism-Leninism” as needed. And, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the regime has dropped mention of “Marxism-Leninism” for the most part if not entirely. Neither the works of Marx or Lenin are allowed to be read without special permission. Similarly, the author states, Juche is just another face projected, often, for external consumption. The actual ideology that governs the regime’s domestic propaganda machine is a racial one that has little to do with real Marxism. If the author is correct, then Pyongyang watchers and Korea’s self-styled orthodox “Marxist-Leninist” friends are both wrong. If the author is right, then  — surprise, surprise — then the ones who have the best understanding of the regime in its own terms  are the weird circles of internet fascists, third positions, nationalists, and video game enthusiasts. This is not to say northern Korea is fascist, it isn’t. It is a bourgeois-nationalist state in the Third World that has come into conflict with imperialism, especially US imperialism. It is a society that has suffered terribly under the jackboot of the United States. The author makes a compelling case that imperial Japan’s fascist ideology has been transformed, modified in many ways,  in Korean hands into a tool that, at least at times, has served to resist American, Western, and Soviet fascism and imperialism albeit in limited ways. Whereas the Japanese regime a century ago used the dualism of racial purity versus impurity, cleanliness versus filth, toward imperial ends, northern Korea does so to thwart the efforts of northern Korea’s imperialist enemies.

A tale of two Great Marshals…

Kim Il-Sung, according to the author, took on many of the characteristics of the Japanese emperor. Just as Hirohito was depicted in white clothing, symbolizing racial purity, so is Kim Il-Sung. Just as Hirohito was depicted against a backdrop of white mountains and pure snow, so is Kim Il-Sung. Just as Hirohito is depicted on a white horse, so too is Kim Il-Sung. Later, Kim Jong-Il would be depicted in many similar ways. Even Pyongyang itself is a white city filled with white plazas and marble. Kim Il-Sung was dubbed “the Great Marshal,” the exact title used by Korean collaborators to designate Hirohito in the war years.

Kim Il-Sung’s biography was rewritten. Instead of living in the Soviet Union, he was now depicted as spending the Pacific War years fighting from a secret base on Mount Paektu, the birthplace of Tan’gun, mythological progenitor of the Korean race. Contrary to popular belief, Koreans had not always venerated the peak. The author states that veneration of Mount Paektu began in the 1940s in the north and decades later in southern Korea. Kim Jong-Il’s biography, as heir to the Great Leader, would be re-written also. He was now born, like Tan’gun, on Mount Paektu though he was really born in the Soviet Union. Later, the regime would claim to have excavated the tomb of Tan’gun outside Pyongyang, furthering establishing a link to the ancient racial progenitor. “As one propagandist recently put it, Kim Il Sung is ‘the symbol of the homeland.’”

The author informs that the cult in northern Korea differs significantly from Marxist cults. It has far more in common with fascist cults of personality. Stalin and Mao were both depicted as teachers. Marxist authority was, at least to a large degree, depicted as derived from their mastery of revolutionary science. The cult of the Kims, by contrast, derives from their embodiment of ethnic virtues: Kim “is the most naïve, spontaneous, loving, and pure Korean—the most Korean Korean—who ever lived.”

According to the author, the regime’s propagandists, in accord with the racial view, stress that the Leader’s virtues are inborn rather than acquired. They do this by stressing his impeccable lineage. Kim Il-Sung’s grandfather is said to have led a famous attack on a US warship in 1866. His father Kim Hyŏng-Jik is portrayed as a resistance fighter, even if enthusiasm for him is somewhat lacking. The invented link to the legendary Tan’gun, his birthplace on Mount Paektu, and resting place at Pyongyang are also significant. The young portrayals of the Leader’s virtue also underscore that his traits are innate and, ultimately, racial. This lineage is also carried by Kim Jong-Il and, now, Kim Jong-un.

“A wall poster photographed in September 2009 bears the lyrics of the song under a legend congratulating the masses on being blessed not just with the General, but with ‘the young General Kim Jong Un’ as well. The latter, whose title is written with a different Korean word for general (taejang) than the one applied to his father (changgun), is described as carrying on both the ‘bloodline of Man’gyŏngdae,’ i.e. of Kim Il Sung’s birthplace, and ‘the bloodline of Mount Paektu,’ i.e. the birthplace of Kim Jong Il. This roundabout way of indicating his parentage seems to reflect the regime’s sense of awkwardness in celebrating someone whose very existence was kept secret for so long. The song itself, with its puerile onomatopoeic refrain, adds nothing to our knowledge of the young man.”

The Leaders, beginning with Kim Il-Sung, is presented are presented an ideal types, according to the author, of a child race. This runs into problems with depicting the Leader as, well, uh, as a leader:

“One may well ask how a leader can pose as the embodiment of naivety on the one hand and a brilliant strategist and revolutionary on the other. In the 1940s and 1950s writers made ludicrous efforts to explain away this contradiction, claiming, among other things, that Kim’s best ideas came to him in his sleep. The propaganda apparatus soon realized it would be better simply to divert public attention elsewhere. While the leader’s genius and invincibility on the battlefield are accorded all due praise, only his ethnic virtues— his naivety, his purity, his spontaneity and solicitude—are constantly shown in action.”

This is also why, according to the author, the regime cannot be considered a patriarchal Confucian one, at least not totally. Even though the Korean race is portrayed as a child too innocent for the world, the Leader is portrayed not so much as a father figure, but as a motherly figure in many instances. According to the author, the motherly wins out over the fatherly qualities in northern Korean ideology. Even though Confucian traditions influence the society, the regime breaks from those traditions in important ways, especially when depicting the Leader.

Motherland, Mother Party, Mother,  child race

The author argues that the cult of the Leader, so central to the regime, is not a cult of the father, but a cult of the parent where the maternal is emphasized more then the paternal. For domestic consumption, “Motherland” is preferred over “Fatherland.” Kim Jong-Il himself stated: “The homeland is everyone’s mother … [from whose] bosom all true life and happiness springs.” A mythological Mother Korea, informs the author, plays an important role in the ideology. It was on this peninsula that, thousands of years ago, one of the first distinct races, the Koreans emerged. Tan’gun later arrived to create the Korea nation with Pyongyang as his capital. Over the hundreds of years since, Korea had been subjected to invading forces, Chinese, Japanese, American. Even so, northern Korean purity survives intact, according to the state mythology. It is only when a great leader emerges that the innocence and purity of the race becomes a source of strength in this narrative. Since the arrival of the Kim dynasty, northern Koreans can be free to indulge their childlike instincts. They can  be Korean  in peace.

Similarly,  the Workers’ Party of Korea is referred to in maternal terms. The Rodong sinmun newspaper explained the metaphor in 2003:

“The Great Ruler Comrade Kim Jong Il has remarked, ‘Building the party into a mother party means that just as a mother deeply loves her children and cares warmly for them, so must the party take responsibility for the fate of the people, looking after them even in the smallest matters, and become a true guide and protector of the masses.’”

The following is an excerpt from “Mother” (Ǒmŏni), one of the country’s best-known poems:

“Ah, Korean Workers’ Party
At whose breast only
My life begins and ends;
Be I buried in the ground or strewn to the wind
I remain your son, and again return to your breast!
Entrusting my body to your affectionate gaze,
Your loving outstretched hand,
I will forever cry out in the voice of a child,
Mother! I can’t live without Mother!”

Just as there is the Motherland, and the Mother Party, there is the Mother herself, as leader. In depictions of his guerrilla days, the young Kim Il-Sung is not pictured in combat. Instead, his motherly qualities are emphasized. Kim Il-Sung is depicted as plump. He usually “appears between battles, fussing cheerfully over his soldiers’ food and well being.” Even his wife, Kim Chong-Suk is depicted in a more martial role in her position as bodyguard. He, unlike Lenin, Stalin and Mao, does not personify the triumph of intellect and will over the instincts. Kim Il-Sung did not need to pose as an ascetic or intellectual. Motherly qualities have been even more emphasized in the depictions of Kim Jong-Il. The Leader’s designation is pointedly androgynous. He is mostly referred to by the hermaphroditic designation “parent,” as in “Parent Leader” (ŏbŏi suryŏng).  Even so, his maternal qualities are always at the fore, according to the author. His maternal side is praised far more often. Kim Jong-Il himself has long said that the key to his father’s success was his motherly qualities, which had manifested “even in his teenage years.”

This motherly side is often depicted in how Kim Il-Sung approaches problems:

“Indeed, the Leader’s published remarks are always trite: ‘Rainbow trout is a good fish, tasty and nutritious.’ Foreigners who mock these platitudes fail to realize that the content of Kim’s guidance is not as important as the time and effort he takes to administer it. (In many pictures of these visits, he is merely listening with a smile.) After all, to impart consciousness and discipline to the child race would be to make it less pure and childlike, which must never happen. Nor could Kim pose as an educator or disciplinarian without seeming an imperfect embodiment of Koreanness. In short stories, the emotional climax comes after Kim’s breezy solution of the problem, usually in a scene in which he fusses over someone in the adoring throng who looks cold or tired. It is this loving attentiveness on the part of the world’s busiest man that moves the characters to tears, and is meant to make the reader cry too. Even when Kim is referred to as Father Leader (abŏji suryŏng), therefore, there is nothing Confucian or patriarchal about him. In a short story called “Father,” for example, he neither exercises authority nor imparts wisdom, but rushes an injured child to hospital. The official encyclopedia praises the story in maternal terms, describing “the Great General as the loving parent who holds and nurtures all Korean children at his breast.”

His motherly breast is a recurring theme in northern Korean art and literature. Depictions in art often exaggerate the size of his chest to make him, physically, more woman-like. Northern Korean soldiers and children are depicted burying their faces in his breast. His face too is depicted soft, pale, and woman-like. “In one illustration he is tucking children into bed. The title of another, “The Parent Leader General Kim Il Sung Holding the Children of Mt. Ma’an to his Breast,” speaks for itself.” The first verse of a northern Korean children’s song:

“The Leader came all the way to the sentry post
And held us affectionately to his bosom
So happy about the warm love he bestowed on us
We buried our faces in his bosom
Ah! He is our parent! Ah! A son in his embrace Is happy always, everywhere!”

Depictions of the masses as forever infantile alongside depictions of the Leader as an intuitive caregiver has little in common with the official ideologies and state-promoted myths that existed in true communist-led regimes. Although the care-giver aspect may exist to various degrees in Marxist cults, the masses are regard as the true heroes and leaders, not as children.  The reality of northern Korea’s ideology is also very different than what is professed, in a very poor style, by the sham ideology of Juche.

The author speculates that this may protect the regime:

“This has much to do with the far greater psychological appeal of nationalism itself, but Kim Il Sung’s peculiarly androgynous or hermaphroditic image also seems to exert a far more emotional attraction than any of the unambiguously paternal leaders of Eastern Europe were able to… This may explain why Jesus and Buddha are far more feminine and maternal figures in the popular imagination than in the original scriptures of Christianity and Buddhism. The North Koreans’ race theory gives them extra reason to want a leader who is both mother enough to indulge their unique childlikeness and father enough to protect them from the evil world… Interestingly enough, the absence of a patriarchal authority figure may also have helped the regime preserve stability by depriving people of a target to rebel against. C. Fred Alford has written, ‘In ‘society without the father’ … everything just is, nature-like in its givenness, so that it does not even occur to one to rebel, just as one does not rebel against the mist.’ Perhaps it is no wonder that the propaganda apparatus decided to make the country’s next leader even more of a mother than Kim Il Sung had been.”

In a patriarchal world, it may be more difficult for the masses to direct their displeasure at an androgynous or even motherly leader than a fatherly one. In such a world, it is harder to think of a mother as an adversary, especially a worthy adversary. There may be a tendency to write off the problems of the regime as beyond mother’s control. Mom cannot be blamed after all. The “que sera sera”-style  comments of Kim Jong-Il only reinforce the author’s point.

The Cultural Revolution in China

People all over the world were looking toward China for inspiration. A quarter of humanity was standing up to embark on a radical social course to try to eliminate all oppression, end all exploitation, end all class, to reach communism. The Cultural Revolution was a storm. Chinese students began criticizing Kim Il-Sung as a revisionist just across the border. The northern regime sought to protect itself.  Propagandists in northern Korea further inflated the cult to out pace Mao’s. Northern Korea sought to insulate itself from any potential storms inspired by China. Mao, of course, had a much more genuinely impressive resume than Kim Il-Sung:

“The personality cult also played a vital role in garnering support for the regime. With the young Kim Jong Il at its helm, the propaganda apparatus made sure that the cult kept pace with its Chinese counterpart. Mao’s renown as a poet, for example, inspired the DPRK’s cultural apparatus to ‘revive’ revolutionary plays, hitherto unmentioned, which Kim Il Sung had allegedly written during his youth. It was also ‘remembered’ that in the 1930s the General had taken his partisans on an Arduous March every bit as heroic as Mao’s Long March. And if Mao had routed the Japanese without foreign help, then by golly, so had Kim. This last claim necessitated the withdrawal of countless reference works and school books that had paid fawning tribute to the Soviet Red Army.”

It was in this context that the sham of Juche was born. One of Kim Il-Sung’s advisers, a self-styled philosopher named Kwang Chang-yop, persuaded the leader to entrust him the task of creating a philosophy. In September, 1972, Juche was revealed to Japanese journalists:

“Establishing the subject/juche means approaching revolution and construction with the attitude of a revolution and construction with the attitude of a master. Because the masses are the master of revolution and construction, they must assume a master’s attitude in regard to revolution and construction. A master’s attitude is expressed in an independent position and a creative position. Revolution and construction are endeavors for the sake of the masses, and endeavors that the masses themselves must carry out. Therefore, in reshaping nature and society an independent position and a creative position are called for.”

The author comments:

“Only when talking of Juche Thought does the regime express itself in this peculiar style, which is far too repetitive and dull not to be so by design. It recalls a college student trying both to stretch a term paper to a respectable length and to discourage anyone from reading it through. Far more concise and stirring language is used to espouse the true ruling ideology of paranoid nationalism. Though Juche Thought is enshrined in the constitution as one of the country’s guiding principles, the regime has never shown any indication of subscribing to its universal-humanist bromides: ‘man is the master of all things,’ ‘people are born with creativity and autonomy,’ etc. I do not mean to imply that if an ideology is not lived up to, it is ipso facto a sham. (Judged by that standard, no ideology will ‘scape whipping.) But Juche is not even professed in earnest, and no wonder; its central notion of the masses’ mastery of their fate runs counter to the sacrosanct notion of a uniquely vulnerable child race in the Leader’s protective care. Koreans must thank him, after all, even for what they earn by their own labor.”

The author continues:

“The pseudo-doctrine of Juche continues to serve its purpose all the same. It enables the regime to lionize Kim Il Sung as a great thinker, provides an impressive label for whatever policies it considers expedient, and prevents dissidents from judging policy on the government’s own ostensible terms. Just as importantly, it decoys outsiders away from the true dominant ideology. Instead of an implacably xenophobic, race-based worldview derived largely from fascist Japanese myth, the world sees a reassuringly dull state-nationalism conceived by post-colonial Koreans, rooted in humanist nationalism conceived by post-colonial Koreans, rooted in humanist principles, and evincing an understandable if unfortunate preoccupation with autonomy and self-reliance.”

Mao was a genuine man of the people. Mao was a genuine intellect. It was said of Mao that, while not a technical thinker, he is a deep thinker. People all over the world who seek a revolutionary, new world, read Mao’s works, the questions and approaches, found in them. By contrast, Juche was not designed to be read, but designed to convince — by way of book spines and verbosity — the childlike population of the regime (and naive onlookers) that its leader was as great as Mao. In part, this is the origin of the sham of Juche.

In orientalist style, enemies and friends alike stand stupefied before Juche:

“But how could foreign scholars read the English-language versions of the official Juche discourse without realizing how empty it is? One answer is that by the time those texts started appearing in the 1970s, North Korea’s allegiance to the mysterious doctrine was already accepted overseas as fact. Another answer is that the very incoherence, dullness and evasiveness of Juche convey to the postmodern Western reader an impressive difficulty. Now this, he thinks, is what an ideology should look like, as opposed to the race-based nationalism espoused in the DPRK’s schoolbooks, films and paintings, which is too crude and direct to be taken seriously. Even scholars aware of the triteness of the Juche discourse assume there has to be more to it than meets the eye. The historian Bruce Cumings, in apologetic desperation, concludes that it is ‘inaccessible to the non-Korean.’ As if North Koreans were not as baffled by it as everyone else! The regime’s decision not to publish a comprehensive Juche treatise under Kim Il Sung’s name turns out to have been a stroke of genius. Whatever one reads, one is always left thinking the profound stuff must be somewhere else.”

The emperor has no clothes.

Despite superficial similarities, the Maoist outlook in China was very different than that of the northern Korean regime. Both regimes put on extravagant displays that involved masses of people. Both regimes elevated personality cults. While both emphasize collectivism, the collectivism are of two very different varieties. Even in those years where the personality cult was the greatest in China, the collectivism was never a kind of narrow, racial nationalism witnessed in northern Korea. The Chinese leadership made an effort to show China’s ethnic diversity. Mao and the Chinese leadership took a humble stance toward their foreign guests. Mao would extend his hand to the smallest of communist parties in the world. Just as Black-leader Robert F. Williams was honored by standing alongside with Mao and Lin Biao from Tiananmen, the Chinese leaders were also honored to have met the emissary of North American revolution. The Chinese press was very worldly, always emphasizing the importance of struggles all over the world. By contrast, the northern Korean regime often portrays foreigners as coming to pay tribute to the Leader. The Maoist personality cult was much more in the Marxist tradition of leader as teacher. Mao himself once remarked that he only wanted to be remembered as a teacher. The goal of communists is to raise the people up, to elevate the best in them, to help them become capable of leading. Eliminating the division of labor between leadership and led is an important part of reaching classless society. By contrast, the northern Korean cult is there to protect the purity and innocence of a child race. The Marxist personality cult seeks to empower the masses to make them masters of their own destiny, the northern Korean cult, says the author, seeks to preserve their ethnic identity as an innocent, child race. The author comments:

“Believing that ‘the people is an eternal child,’ as the French revolutionary Saint-Just famously remarked, Lenin saw the communist party’s raison d’être in forcing it to grow up. The Soviet party posed as an educating father, as did the dictator who so famously talked of the need to “re-engineer” the human soul. A leading American scholar of Stalinist culture has shown that the so- called spontaneity-consciousness dialectic forms the master plot of socialist realist fiction. Nikolai Ostrovsky’s How the Steel Was Tempered (Kak zakalyalas’ stal’, 1936), for example, tells how a party cadre, armed with the teachings of Lenin and Stalin, educates a headstrong youth into a politically conscious ‘positive hero.’

In contrast, the DPRK’s propaganda is notably averse to scenes of intellectual discipline. Because Koreans are born pure and selfless, they can and should heed their instincts. Often they are shown breaking out of intellectual constraints in a mad spree of violence against the foreign or land-owning enemy. Cadres are expected to nurture, not teach, and bookworms are negative characters. In short: where Stalinism put the intellect over the instincts, North Korean culture does the opposite. When a sympathetic British documentary about life in the DPRK entitled A State of Mind (2004) was shown in Pyongyang, the authorities changed the title to ‘Maŭm ŭi nara’” or The Country of Heart.”

Rather than seeking to overcome the contradiction, the division of labor, between between leader and led, northern Korea propaganda codifies the importance of the leader over the masses. Even at the highest point of Mao’s cult, there was the promotion of the theories of Maoism that spoke of overcoming traditional divisions between intellectual and manual labor, between cadre and masses, between leader and led. Even at the height of the cult in China, the Maoists sought to remain in touch with the masses through calls for “big debates” and “mass line.”

“The following excerpt, which is strikingly reminiscent of the imagery of Japanese wartime propaganda, puts the cult of the ‘military-first’ leader in a nutshell.

Held together not by a mere bond between a leader and his warriors but by the family tie between a mother and her children, who share the same blood and breath, Korea will prosper forever. Let the imperialist enemies come at us with their nuclear weapons, for there is no power on earth that can defeat our strength and love and the power of our belief, which thanks to the blood bond between mother and child create a fortress of bond between mother and child create a fortress of single-heartedness. Our Great Mother, General Kim Jong Il”

Again:

“An enormous sign held up in a recent parade, footage of which was shown on the television news in 2009 whenever ‘The Song of General Kim Jong Il’ was played, bore the slogan, ‘We Cannot Live Away From His Breast.’

This is no empty rhetoric; the masses are reminded with increasing frequency that because the nation cannot survive without the leader who constitutes both its heart and its head, they must be ready to die to defend him. As if the logic were not in itself reminiscent of fascist Japan, the regime makes increasingly bold use of the very same terms—such as “resolve to die” (kyŏlsa) and “human bombs” (yukt’an)—that were so common in imperial Japanese and colonial Korean propaganda during the Pacific War. In the summer of 2009 the evening news periodically played a stirring anthem entitled “We Will Give Our Lives to Defend the Head of the Revolution.” The text runs, “Ten million will become as guns and bombs … to give one’s life for the General is a soldier’s greatest honor.”

The people are there for the leader, not the other way around. Such sentiments are more inline with Hirohito’s cult than Mao’s or Stalin’s or Lenin’s.

The Cultural Revolution was unleashed in China in order to further propel society toward communism. According to Mao, antagonistic contradictions continue to exist throughout the socialist period. Therefore, it is necessary to continually make revolution. Otherwise society slides back toward capitalism. Communist art of the Maoist era sought to depict these life-and-death struggles within society in very exaggerated, vivid ways. The art and outlook in northern Korea is fundamentally different than the communist view. Although northern Korean art depicts conflict with the outside world, especially the US, it downplays conflict within northern Korea. Although some minor conflicts are portrayed in northern Korean art, they are not seen as antagonistic ones.

“While the party does not explicitly deny the existence of conflict inside the republic, it contends that conflict is not ‘typical’ of North Korean life and therefore unworthy of depiction. There are few of the harsh clashes between rural and urban values, older and younger generations, chauvinist husbands and progressive wives, etc, that were so common in Soviet propaganda.”

Communists aim at communism. The northern Korean regime does not. The northern regime depicts itself as having already reached a harmonious state where class is dissolved into racial unity.

Depiction of foreigners

The racial ideology is revealed in the regime’s depiction of foreigners. There is little effort to depict proletarian internationalism in Korean propaganda. During the Korean War, Americans as a whole are condemned. Little effort is made to distinguish between the US government and its citizens as both the Soviet Union and China did, rightly or wrongly. There is little effort to draw the kind of distinctions the Soviets did when they, rightly or wrongly, distinguished between the Nazi state and the average German. No effort was made to distinguish between the US state and women and children, for example. Even if the demarcation between friends and enemies regarding the First World may be slightly more correct than that of First Worldists who failed to recognize the bourgeois nature of First World peoples as a whole, the northern Korean demarcation is made for all the wrong reasons. In this sense, it can be compared to some Islamists that point their spear at the West as a whole. During the Korean War, some northern writers celebrated abuses heaped on captured prisoners of war. The Caucasian features were depicted in racist, exaggerated ways in the northern Korean press. One author asserted that such features reflected an inner “idiotization.” They are also portrayed as stinky and unkempt. Americans are sometimes depicted with Caucasian and African features to get across the point that the American bloodline is polluted.

“While the Text strongly implies that all foreigners are inferior, and occasionally criticizes the Jews’ influence on world affairs, it subjects only the Japanese and Americans to routine vituperation. As might be expected, the ‘Japs’ (oenom) feature mainly in accounts of the colonial era. In contrast to Soviet depictions of the Germans in World War II, the Text does not distinguish between colonial-era Japanese according to class; all are inherently rapacious. It follows that they have no right to humane treatment. In this scene from a classic novel of the 1950s, one of Kim Il Sung’s guerrillas exacts retribution on an unarmed prisoner.”

And:

“Like the ‘Japs,’ the Yankees are condemned as an inherently evil race that can never change, a race with which Koreans must forever be on hostile terms. Readers should therefore not be misled by the Marxist jargon so common in the KCNA’s English-language rhetoric. In propaganda meant only for the domestic audience, the terms ‘US imperialism’ (mije) and ‘America’ (miguk) are used interchangeably, and Americans referred to routinely as ‘nom’ or bastards. In a recent picture printed in the monthly art magazine, a child with a toy machine gun stands before a battered snowman. The caption reads, ‘The American bastard I killed.’ The DPRK’s dictionaries and schoolbooks encourage citizens to speak of Yankees as having ‘muzzles,’ ‘snouts’ and ‘paws’; as ‘croaking’ instead of ‘dying,’ and so on.”

Racial animalization of other peoples has a long history. Historically, the imperialists have been experts at it. Some might argue that such racist and nationalist hate is justified or acceptable given the history of imperialist aggression against Korea. To a limited extent this would be true, hating the enemy is better than capitulating to him. However, such a tone that plays to the lowest instincts of the masses is hardly compatible with trying to reach communism in the longterm. While hate can be the beginning of liberation, it cannot be the end. Such small-minded racism and nationalism when put toward the anti-imperialist struggle quickly reveals its limits. Such a racial outlook not only makes racial enemies of the imperialists, but all outsiders. The regime’s allies and other oppressed peoples become racial enemies too. Even during the Korean War, northern Koreans regarded their Chinese allies with hostility. This disdain for friendly foreigners is depicted in the culture, according to the author:

“Typical of the disdain shown even to the friendliest foreigners is a panoramic painting of a procession of exultant visitors to 1989’s Pyongyang World Youth Games. Whatever direction they happen to be looking in, their faces are all partly obscured by a sinister shadow. A fat Caucasian woman wears a low-cut blouse, while a few African women sport what appear to be halter-tops: even in today’s DPRK such clothing is considered indecent. Here and there, unsavory-looking men show long sideburns and denim, more signs of Western decadence. The only well-groomed and attractive person in view, and the only one whose face is evenly lit, is the Korean guide—a girl, naturally—who leads the way in traditional dress. There are no Koreans in the procession proper; the pure race must be kept apart. On the rare occasions in the Text when foreigners and locals meet, the former employ highly respectful, sometimes obsequious Korean, while the latter respond informally as if to subordinates. Real fraternity between the pure and the impure is impossible; the DPRK’s so-called Friendship Museum contains only gifts given by foreigners— ‘offered up,’ as the Text always puts it— to the Leaders.”

This was reported by diplomats too:

“East European diplomats had, however, already begun reporting home about the xenophobia in Pyongyang. Some were cursed and pelted with rocks by children on the street. Koreans who had married Europeans were pressured to divorce or banished from the capital. (Internally the East German embassy compared these practices to Nazi Germany.) One Soviet wife of a Korean citizen was beaten unconscious by provincial police when she attempted to travel to Pyongyang. In 1965, the Cuban ambassador to the DPRK, a black man, was squiring his wife and some Cuban doctors around the city when locals surrounded their car, pounding it and shouting racial epithets. Police called to the scene had to beat the mob back with truncheons. ‘The level of training of the masses is extremely low,’ a high-ranking official later told the shaken diplomat. ‘They cannot distinguish between friends and foes.’ This was precisely the mindset that the regime sought to instill.”

As late as 2006, a northern Korean general criticized the southern regime for welcoming an American football star, only one of whose parents had been Korean. The southern delegate had mentioned that people in his half of the peninsula were now marrying those from other countries. The northern general responded: “Our nation has always considered its pure lineage to be of great importance… I am concerned that our singularity will disappear.” When the southerner rebutted him that such miscegenation was merely a “drop of ink in the Han River,” the northern general stated that “since ancient times our land has been one of abundant natural beauty. Not even one drop of ink must be allowed.”

Only a few weeks earlier, similar views were echoed in the northern media:

“Mono-ethnicity [tanilsŏng] is something that our nation and no other on earth can pride itself on … There is no suppressing the nation’s shame and anger at the talk of ‘a multi-ethnic, multi-racial society’… which would dilute even the bloodline of our people.”

Along with the such racist depictions, homosexuality too is attacked as a distinctly American or Western perversion. Stories based on the capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968 contrast the purity of the Koreans to the depraved Americans. One retelling of story:

“One crew member, it is claimed, felt so disillusioned by the incestuous goings on in his family that he ‘began sleeping with whatever women came his way. Tiring of that, he became gay.’ The Text regards homosexuality as a characteristically American ‘perversion.’ Here one of the Pueblo’s crew pleads for the right to indulge it in captivity.

‘Captain, sir, homosexuality is how I fulfill myself as a person. Since it does no harm to your esteemed government or esteemed nation, it is unfair for Jonathan and me to be prevented from doing something that is part of our private life.’

[The North Korean soldier responds,] ‘This is the territory of our republic, where people enjoy lives befitting human beings. On this soil none of that sort of activity will be tolerated.’”

According to the author, one of the regime’s main anti-American books, The Jackals (1951), continues to be published to this day. Its story of American missionaries injecting Korean children with malicious germs has far more in common with fascist propaganda than propaganda of Marxist regimes. It seems less designed to raise the understanding of the masses about the real enemy, about power or class. Instead it seems closer to anti-Semitic tales about Jews who eat babies during the witching hour. The author remarks that the book, as popular as it is, has “one obvious root in nineteenth-century peasant rumor and another in fascist Japan’s anti-Christianity campaign.”

The book is an important piece of a larger puzzle

For a long time, efforts have been made by the northern regime to liberalize aspects of its economy. There have even been attempts at creating Special Economic Zones. The northern Korean website even boasts of the “lowest labor costs in Asia.” Chinese capitalists are heavily invested there.

“Nor did they consider their entrepreneurial activities to be at odds with the official ideology. ‘Making money is patriotic’ was said to be a popular if informal slogan. In short, the spread of capitalism did not appear to be eroding support for the regime.”

The author points out that exposure to more and more Western culture may not lead to a quick downfall of the regime as the imperialists hope. He makes the point that the fascist regimes of World War 2 that had based themselves on race incorporated many of the consumer goods, styles and fashions from more liberal societies. Whatever the future of the regime, the author makes the point that it will not commit suicide. To abandon its ideology and military means doing just that. The regime needs to maintain some reason for its existence vis-a-vis the South.

Leading Lights have long recognized that the northern Korean state is not socialist. It is not heading toward communism, it is not communist-led. The book implies that northern Korean was never socialist. Its Party and state were never communist-led, according to the author. Rather, from the beginning, the state was a regime of patriotic-national development that legitimated itself using the idea, language, cultural forms of a Korean-version of Japanese-fascist ideology. It is not as simple as all this. Or course there is more to the story. In order to prop themselves up, the regime wedded itself to its powerful socialist neighbors: the Soviet Union and China. When those neighbors went revisionist, northern Korea continued to maintain the relationships. As a result of the years of interaction with the socialist camp, no doubt, northern Korea adopted some of the models, some of the language, and ritual of their neighbors, even if it was often superficial. As the new century progresses, northern Korea mentions “socialism” less and less. Despite the author’s claim that the state is not a strictly Confucian one, surely there are some Confucian influences — even if they are sometimes eclipsed or muted by others. Despite its talk about self-sufficiency, northern Korea makes unequal deals with its capitalist Chinese neighbors. Northern Korea long received aid from the Soviets until the demise of the Soviet Bloc. Northern Korea has strong-armed much aid out of the United States, becoming one of the top aid recipients at times. At the same time, northern Korea has continued to build up its military program, especially its nuclear and missile capabilities. The regime makes defiant shows to drum up domestic support, but also to keep the imperialists negotiating. The regime has come into numerous conflicts with the US over its military. Although the regime produces vivid propaganda posters, a favorite of the state’s internet groupies, video-game enthusiasts, and nostalgists, its anti-imperialist practice lags behind other states like Iran and Venezuela that are more engaged with the world. Northern Korea is not at the forefront in the construction of institutions like ALBA to challenge First World hegemony in the global market. Northern Korea is not fanning up regional Bolivarian or Islamist movements to weaken imperialism’s hold over its neighbors. There is no northern Korean-aligned Hezbollah or Hamas. Although northern Korea has reportedly sold its ballistic technology to other oppressed countries, the racial and xenophobic nature of the regime tends to run counter to such internationalist sentiments. In this sense, northern Korean, in its best moments, should be seen as junior, lesser partner in the united front. Northern Korea should be defended against imperialism, yet we do not do anyone any favors by removing our brains and pretending northern Korea is a good society or even “the last Stalinist state.” It isn’t. One doesn’t build convincing anti-interventionist solidarity by slobbering all over internet forums in praise of northern Korean leaders or by pretending Juche is some deep idea when it plainly isn’t. Pretending northern Korea is a workers’ paradise is absurd. The KFA can’t even convince its own tourists of this, it sure isn’t going to convince anyone else. Such cheerleading does not help the Korean people. (1)

Real solidarity involves building a credible anti-interventionist movement. It involves educating people around the history of US imperialism in Asia, and Korea. It means exposing real warcrimes and atrocities committed by Americans and other imperialists, not adopting the internal language of a monarchy that whips up anti-Americanism with ghoulish tales of Christian missionaries. Real solidarity means building anti-interventionist alliances with humanists, people of good conscience and other bourgeois liberals. Real solidarity means defending the regime in a way that does not lie to the global proletariat. Despite what the weird circles of self-styled internet Juche-ists, third positionists, fascists, nationalists, nostalgists, “Marxist-Leninists” and video game enthusiasts who latch onto northern Korea think, nobody, except Koreans, outside those circles will ever be inspired by the regime. And Koreans are inspired by it for many of the wrong reasons, as the author demonstrates. The global proletariat may lag, but it does not lag that much. You will not con your way to revolution on the back of the Kim dynasty or other crackpotism. Proletarian revolutions are not con games. Real revolutions are the result of proletarian social forces armed with the highest revolutionary science, organization, and leadership in command. The people’s movement may be in disarray, revisionism is widespread, but the situation is not to the point where northern Korea’s ideology will ever be confused with genuine liberation by the broad masses globally. In this time of confusion, it is absolutely necessary for real communists, Leading Lights, to come forward, to blaze a trail, to lead. It is imperative that people understand the real revolutionary science, organization, and leadership from the shams out there. Leading Lights do not tail. Fight  for Leading Light science, organization, and leadership within in the united front. Uphold the broad united front against imperialism! Hold the Red Flag high!

Notes

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-43MB5_QKQ

To see a video lecture by the author visit here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/292562-1

]]> http://llco.org/book-review-the-cleanest-race-2010-by-b-r-myers/feed/ 4 Leading Light 4 Out Now! http://llco.org/leading-light-4-out-now/ http://llco.org/leading-light-4-out-now/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:52:46 +0000 Red Robespierre http://llco.org/?p=1964 Make studying and distributing this excellent free booklet part of your New Year’s resolutions!   (Click cover image to download PDF.)

]]> http://llco.org/leading-light-4-out-now/feed/ 0 Female Chauvinist Pigs : Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture http://llco.org/female-chauvinist-pigs-women-and-the-rise-of-raunch-culture/ http://llco.org/female-chauvinist-pigs-women-and-the-rise-of-raunch-culture/#comments Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:37:19 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=1665 Female Chauvinist Pigs : Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

Freepress, New York, 2005, 240 pp. hc.

Originally reviewed by Prairie Fire in 2006, review revised April 2007

(llco.org)

Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs documents the rise of what she calls “raunch culture” and the roles that women in the United States play in that culture. The book documents something very real. However, it is not just a sociological report. It is also a polemic of sorts against the now-popular camp of bourgeois feminists known as “sex-positive feminism.” Levy shares more in common with the Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin side of second wave bourgeois feminism. The book represents one kind of bourgeois feminism arguing against another. The book never overcomes the limits of bourgeois thought and bourgeois conceptions of gender. The book does not cover how its topic intersects with global class and nation. Instead of following the data on raunch culture to the correct conclusion that First World women are overall beneficiaries of global systems of power, including patriarchy, that First World women occupy oppressive-social roles in a way similar to their male counterparts, Levy dogmatically implies that First World women are all oppressed victims of patriarchy.  She sees all women, in the First and Third Worlds, as part of a great sisterhood. Why do women in the United States partake in raunch? Levy’s answer is that First World women suffer from a kind of false consciousness. Levy implies that the reason that there is no revolutionary-feminist movement in the United States is because women don’t understand that they are oppressed. While it may be true First World women suffer from various forms of false consciousness, the reason that they do not pursue their gender interests by joining the revolutionary struggle is not due to lack of education. It is because their gender interests and other interests, in important ways, stand in opposition to the goals of real revolution. In other words, what Levy fails to fully understand is that women in the First World support the system because they benefit from it on the whole. Women in the First World do not seek to abolish gender oppression entirely because they have an interest in maintaining it.

Levy gives many examples of the pornified and mass-media-driven raunch culture. Examples range from Playboy, “Girls Gone Wild,” the stripper and porn-star craze, Sex in the City, Britney Spears. Raunch culture is not limited to heterosexual males. Female Chauvinist Pigs is about the queer and heterosexual women who are increasingly a part of raunch culture. Levy sums up the female chauvinist pig:

“We decided long ago that the Male Chauvinist Pig was an unenlightened rube, but the Female Chauvinist Pig (FCP) has risen to a kind of exalted status. She is post-feminist. She is funny. She gets it. She doesn’t mind the cartoonish stereotypes of female sexuality, and she doesn’t mind a cartoonishly macho response to them. The FCP asks: Why throw your boyfriend’s Playboy in a freedom trash can when you could be partying at the Mansion? Why worry about disgusting or degrading when you could be giving — or getting — a lap dance yourself? Why beat them when you can join them.” (p. 93)

Many First World women go to great lengths to make themselves sexually appealing. They parade around in gogo boots. Some compete at clubs and parties to take off their tops or do sex acts for the camera. There are spokesmen for raunch who declare, like some “sex-positive” feminists, that these things are signs or even acts of liberation. In a culture where attractive “sexually open-minded” women are valued more than athletes and educators under most circumstances, as Levy observes, taking your top off can be an act of individual empowerment, albeit empowerment on the terms of patriarchy. Even though it is an act of empowerment, this is not empowerment as conceived by “sex-positive” feminists who Levy argues against.

Levy argues that the promotion of the raunch culture by women is an attempt to elevate themselves in a hierarchy of masculine sexuality while degrading their fellow sisters:

“So to really be like men, FCPs have to enjoy looking at those women, too. At the same time, they wouldn’t mind being looked at a little bit themselves. The task here is to simultaneously show that you are not the same as the girly-girls in the videos and the Victoria’s Secret cataloguers, but that you approve of men’s appreciation of them, and the possibility you too have some of that same sexy energy and underwear underneath all your aggression and wit. A passion for raunch covers all the bases.” (p. 99)

Women don’t just partake of raunch. In ever greater numbers, they have a hand in producing raunch culture. There are different roles. Some women stand apart and above it; they engage in and consume raunch culture like men. There are different ways in which women in the United States engage with raunch. In a way, Howard Stern’s world is a microcosm of this dynamic between different kinds of female chauvinist pigs. Howard Stern’s female-sidekick Robin Quivers and her relation to the parade of bimbos on the show is a good example. Some of these savvy, powerful “female chauvinist pigs” include those who run parts of the sex industry. Others go to strip clubs to watch the girly girls alongside the boys. They too buy Playboy products. They  become “one of the boys” at workplaces by adopting the male raunch culture directed toward bimbos. Levy compares these women to Uncle Toms.  In some cases, they literally are the bosses in the sex industry like Christie Hefner, Hugh Hefner’s daughter. However, Levy implies, their price of admission is that they partake in the oppression of their fellow sisters who are lower in the First World gender hierarchy.

The Uncle Tom analogy doesn’t fit exactly. Levy seems pretty clear that she thinks those at the bottom of the raunch culture hierarchy — the Hooters waitresses of the world — are oppressed and have some mistaken ideas about empowerment. Levy even mentions Gloria Steinem’s exposé, “A Bunny’s Tale,” on the trials of Playboy Bunnies. However, Levy seems to think that those women at the top of the raunch culture hierarchy are also oppressed in some sense. That she compares those female chauvinist pigs at the top to Uncle Toms is revealing. Such a comparison doesn’t fit. It isn’t a case of the house slave being oppressed less than the field slave. Tom never owned the plantation, whereas Christie Hefner is running the Playboy empire. Hefner benefits in very real ways from patriarchy.

“Tomming, then, is conforming to someone else’s — someone more powerful’s — distorted notion of what you represent. In so doing, you may be getting ahead in some way — getting paid to dance in blackface in a Tom show, or gaining favor with Mas’r as Stowe’s hero did in literature — but you are simultaneously reifying the system that traps you.” (p. 106)

This passage says a lot about Levy’s view. Despite all the evidence she herself presents, Levy simply assumes that women in the First World do represent something else deep down and are being deceived. First World women are deceived in some ways, particularly when it comes to their relatively less-powerful positions compared with their male counterparts. However, women in the First World are not being deceived about the fact that they benefit from the system. They benefit and many know it at some level.

Levy’s conclusions are not entirely clear. She feels that raunch culture is ultimately not empowering for the individuals involved. She argues against “sex-positive” feminists that raunch is not a way to fight patriarchy. She is correct that it is no way to fight patriarchy. However, to claim that it isn’t empowering is not altogether true. In some cases it clearly is empowering, especially for those women who own or make huge profits off the raunch and sex industry. And we should not forget that the raunch in First World is only made possible by the super-exploitation of the Third World. Raunch culture is a sign of the gender privilege for First World women and men. However, for Third World women, raunch culture is part of a whole industry that turns them into sex slaves. It undermines replaces indigenous culture with a pornified Western one. It commodifies them in a way that strips them of their power and humanity. It undermines the struggle against imperialism.

Levy describes looking at porno magazines:

“[T]hey gave me a big stack of magazines to flip through and the only variety I saw was the kind of variety you get when you look at a wall of Barbie Dolls. Some have darker hair (but most are blond), some have an ethnic- or professional themed costume, but they all look very distinctly poured from the same mold.” (p. 43)

Even First World women who adopt the bimbo role are empowered by raunch in various ways. This is because, through raunch culture, First World women are granted a near (not total — Asian fetishes and others do exist) monopoly on what society considers to be desirable. Raunch culture is setting the standards for desirability globally. However, it is mainly First World women that have the wealth and ability to meet these standards while still retaining any leisure time and control over their lives. In contrast, a Third World woman is typically less desirable by the standards of raunch, except when she conforms to a narrow set of fetishes or is a slave in the sex industry. Also, lighter-skinned women benefit more from raunch as it now exists than darker-skinned women because raunch culture has contributed to making the European features the pinnacle of physical attraction. Therefore, lighter-skinned women have access to more and a higher quality of leisure time than darker-skinned women who are considered generally less desirable by raunch. This translates into less dating and life opportunities for darker-skinned women. This further increases the national oppression and White supremacy. Issues such as these, related to nation and class, are absent from Levy’s work.

Levy is clearly in the bourgeois-feminist camp. Levy thinks all the women who actively participate in raunch culture are suffering from a false consciousness regarding their own oppression. She is holding out for a First World liberation from patriarchy while not overthrowing imperialism. So, she is confused when First World women take empowerment the same way men do, on patriarchy’s terms. Like men in the First World, women in the First World are gender oppressors in an overall sense. Although First World women generally have less power than their male counterparts. It is no surprise that many take on the sexual psychology and raunch culture of men.

This passage sums up Levy’s perspective:

“Even if you are a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will still always be a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of as something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too.” (p. 112)

For Levy, oppression is a thought. At bottom, Levy advocates the bourgeois position that gender interest must be tied to biological sex. Although making some worthy observations, Levy avoids the conclusion that most First World peoples are gender oppressors, be they male or female. Most adults in the First World share the same sexual and leisure culture, the same psychology and outlook. They all accrue benefits from gender oppression in the Third World. After all, expanded life options in the First World are almost always connected to the restriction of life options in the Third World. Gender oppression in the Third World is part of the system of control that guarantees the smooth transfer of wealth from the Third World to the First. The liberalism of the First World is propped up by terrible gender oppression — be it in its raunchy liberal or semi-feudal variety — in the Third World. Levy sees women globally in terms of some kind of sisterhood. She sees all women as, more or less, the same in terms of gender interests. Except, Levy thinks, that some women are unenlightened. For Levy, they do not realize that and suffer from false consciousness. Hence, they participate in raunch. Levy implies that a female chauvinist pig is similar to an Uncle Tom because she is a person “who deliberately upholds the stereotypes assigned to his or her marginalized group in the interest of getting ahead with the dominant group.” (p. 105) Levy’s First Worldist feminism just assumes that these gender aristocrats in the First World are oppressed by patriarchy in a way that allows them to be potentially mobilized against it en masse. Levy writes, “FCPs have relinquished any sense of themselves as a collective group with a linked fate” (p. 101), as though female chauvinist pigs do have a collective fate with all females globally. Levy simply assumes there is a collective fate to be lost. In reality, the fate of female chauvinist pigs is not linked with the majority of the world’s women the Third World. First World peoples, both men and women, are more similarly situated in terms of the global patriarchy.

]]> http://llco.org/female-chauvinist-pigs-women-and-the-rise-of-raunch-culture/feed/ 1 Revolutionary history: initial summations http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/ http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:42:19 +0000 Leading Light http://llco.org/?p=1632 Revolutionary history: initial summations

(llco.org)

“One of the most common misconceptions out there is that socialism should be understood simply as a mode of production characterized by a large state sector, nationalization of industry or large welfare programs. All of these characteristics have been part of socialism in the past, but they are not exclusive to socialism. Fascist states, European social democracy, the liberal welfare state in the United States, the state capitalism of the revisionist-era Soviet Union and China, and the bourgeois-nationalist states of Venezuela, Libya, Cuba, and the Islamic Republic of Iran have shared these characteristics to one degree or another, but they are not truly socialist. Socialism must understood through the lenses of power, of class struggle. Socialism must be understood as a transition to communism. Socialism is after the proletariat has seized control of society. The proletariat plays a leading role. The proletariat has taken and built state power. In other words, socialism is when society has been reorganized to serve the long-term interests of the proletariat. This means that society has been reorganized to advance to communism, the end of all oppression. Socialism means we have not arrived at the final goal of communism. Socialism is a transitional stage where class struggle still needs to be waged by the proletariat against reactionary classes. Socialism is when there are still class enemies that need to be defeated. There still are antagonistic contradictions that need to be resolved even though the proletariat has seized state power. Socialism can exist in one country, communism must be worldwide. The North Korean and Cuban states are not socialist for the same reason that Obama’s regime and Sweden are not. None of these regimes are headed for communism. None of them are out to radically reorganize society in order to eliminate all oppression. Socialism can only be understood as a transition to communism — to be advancing toward communism is what it means for society to be organized around the most farsighted and long-term interests of the proletariat.

Communism is the final goal of our revolution. The end of all oppression. The end of exploitation. No rich. No poor. No racism. No national oppression. No sexism. No gender oppression. No more oppression of the youth. Communism is total liberation. No groups have power over others. As Marx and Lenin taught, the state is a weapon for one group to oppress another. Since no group has power over another, there is no need for a state in communism. Communism is equality. A society organized around human need. No greed. No individualism. No longer will people see themselves merely as individuals under communism. Communism is collectivism. The common good. Sharing. Private property is eliminated under communism. Communism is altruism. As Marx said, ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ The ethic of ‘serve the people’ will govern all human interactions. The people will be one under communism. No more me, me, me. Communism is sustainability. No longer will people destroy the earth, our common home. We have  an obligation to future generations. Antagonistic contradictions no longer exist under communism. Communism is peace. Under communism, the revolution is self-perpetuating. Total communism has never existed.” — Leading Light

“After we have conquered state power, if a revolution is not going forward toward communism, it is going backward toward reaction. When a revolution ceases to move forward, when there is no more forward momentum, then the new bourgeoisie have seized power, the proletarian line, communist science, is no longer in command. Revisionism is then victorious.” –Leading Light

“The bourgeois media lies about the world all the time. Why would bourgeois history be any different? Anti-communists practice the big lie — the bigger, the better  We must open up our minds. Apply revolutionary science. We must look past the lies. We must learn history over. We must learn true history. We have made mistakes, but even our mistakes are better than their successes. We must dare to defend the real history of revolution.” — Leading Light

“Making revolution in the real world is not a collective house or commune in the middle of the First World. It is very easy to build a little utopian island in the middle of a sea of value stolen from the Third World. It is very easy to build a little commune on stolen indigenous land, under the protection of imperialist armies. Building a little, perfect life in the bubble of the First World is hardly an accomplishment. To be able to embark on such a project is a sign of extreme privilege in the global picture. Revolution is not a dinner party. It is class war. Imagine if your collective house in the First World was being bombed by NATO. Imagine if you had fascists shooting at you from the kitchen into the living room of your collective house. Imagine if the police were on all sides about to raid your collective house. While all of this is going on, as you fight for your survival, you have to carry out social revolution. You must try to satisfy everyone’s basic needs. You must try to educate everyone. You must try to empower everyone. You must try to eliminate oppressive divisions of labor and hierarchy. You must try to be sustainable. You must try to liberate everyone. You must try to advance science. All of this must be done, as you are attacked on all sides. The lives of real human beings are on the line. Tough decisions have to be made in an instant. This is a more accurate picture of what revolution looks like in the real world. Revolutions are born and sustained in crisis. They must be defended. Real revolutions will not look like the dream world that utopians imagine. They will have to fight to survive. They will become militarized to survive. The will need science and leadership. They need Leading Lights.” — Leading Light

“Greats have come before us. We must learn from them. We must absorb their lessons. We are a link in a long chain of heroes and martyrs. We must rise to the occasion. Shine brightly. Head up. Follow the Leading Light. Be the Leading Light.” — Leading Light

“Real revolution is a long and hard road. We are on our own long march. We must go among the exploited and oppressed. We must expand globally. We must use mass line. We must infiltrate. We must subvert. We build New Power. Global people’s war.  We live and die for a better world. Never surrender. All the way to Leading Light Communism, by any means necessary.” — Leading Light

Science prevents us from rowing in circles

Stalin once stated incorrectly that the proletariat will eventually row the boat to the shore of communism even without communist leadership. This kind of statement is an expression of a very teleological and metaphysical conception of progress and revolution. However, when we look at the past, we see that socialism did exist, yet it has been lost. There was a time when socialism existed in the Soviet Union and China. What is to prevent the proletariat’s boat, the revolution, from rowing in circles forever? This is why it is important to understand that Marxism is one thing and one thing only: revolutionary science. The most advanced form of revolutionary science is the new breakthrough of Leading Light Communism. Science learns. Even though socialism has been lost everywhere, the knowledge of that experience survives in the form of the highest stage of revolutionary science, Leading Light Communism. Even though we lost the Soviet Union, China and other other progressive experiments, Leading Light Communism has preserved the lessons of the revolutionary experience of the last century. The next time we take power, the proletariat will be able to march further toward communism. This is one reason it is so important to struggle against revisionism, especially First Worldism. This is why it is so important to elevate the highest revolutionary science. The last two  big, sustained revolutionary waves were defeated. The Bolshevik revolution was defeated after World War 2 and the Maoist revolution in China was defeated in the 1970s. We stand like Lenin before 1917. There are no socialist states. We stand before the next upsurge, the next wave of revolution. We need to continue the breakthrough of the Leading Light. If we do not understand history, we will be condemned to repeat it because we will face many of the same issues that past revolutionaries faced. We will face many of the same difficulties and problems. We must adapt, learn, find new solutions, and go further. Leading Light Communism upholds what was correct about past revolutions, but drops what was wrong. Leading Light looks backward, but also forward. All Leading Lights should familiarize themselves with the quick history lessons. This issue of Leading Light is not the last word, but it is the beginning of knowledge.

The Soviet Wave: summations and accomplishments

The Soviet Union and those revolutions and movements that flowed from it represent the first great wave of truly sustained revolution into socialism and toward communism. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, along with other forces helped overthrow the corrupt, Czarist monarchy. They then overthrew the social-democratic, social-imperialist regime of the Mensheviks. Soviet socialism’s birth was Red October in 1917. This revolution occurred during a capitalist crisis, in the middle of World War 1. German forces  had invaded part of the Russian empire on the “Eastern Front.” After overthrowing the reactionary Czar and Mensheviks from state power, the communists had to fight to survive. The reactionary forces regrouped and launched a civil war (1917 to 1923) against the new socialist regime. The imperialists invaded parts of the country to aid the reactionary “white” armies. The Red Army, with the power of the people, beat back the reactionary forces. However, the country was left in ruin. World War 1, the revolutionary insurrection,  and the civil war had taken their toll. In addition, the reactionaries forces made a conscious effort to loot, plunder, and destroy the country’s wealth and productive forces. Reactionaries consciously sought to destroy the country rather than allow the revolution to succeed.

The Bolsheviks inherited a devastated country. They were surrounded on all sides. In order to rebuild the country, Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy, which lasted from 1921 to 1928. This was a limited retreat from communist ideals. It was a policy that allowed  limited markets and small-scale private production alongside socialization of major industry. However, problems arose. New capitalist groups were forming. Grain was being exported and sold on international markets while the cities went hungry. In addition, there was not enough grain being sent to the cities to go forward with industrialization. Originally, the Soviets hoped their revolution would spark a worldwide revolution. When the Soviet revolution did not immediately spread, some advocated capitulation to capitalism. By contrast, Stalin, following Lenin, advocated going forward to build “socialism in one country” instead of capitulating. As a result of the push to construct socialism, agriculture was collectivized. Stalin famously said that they would be crushed by the imperialists if the Soviet Union did not go forward to modernize. The grain crisis and the problem of modernization were solved together. The First Five Year Plan, a massive plan to rapidly industrialize, was implemented. This involved a massive social dislocation. In the countryside, the remaining capitalists and rich peasants resisted. They slaughtered their animals and destroyed fields rather than hand them to the collectives. They sabotaged production. They physically fought against the communists. The result of this struggle was crisis and death. Eventually, collectivization was completed. Industrialization rapidly advanced. However, the process could be harsh at times. The human toll was high. Mao later criticized Stalin’s approach as too hard on the peasants. However, it is hard to see how Stalin could have done otherwise. Domestic enemies within. Imperialists and fascists waiting to invade. Stalin needed to industrialize rapidly to give the Soviet Union the ability to defend itself. The Red Army needed tanks and arms. Tanks require industry. In order to create industry, they needed austerity measures. When the Nazis invaded, Stalin was proven right. Over 27 million Soviet peoples died as a result of the terrible war. The Nazis planned to exterminate and enslave all the Soviet peoples in order to clear land for their racist, fascist empire. Stalin’s regime, and the austerity and sacrifice that it entailed, saved the Soviet peoples and the world from fascism. Sometimes there is no perfect choice. Stalin represents the hard choice. He did what was necessary to survive.

The Soviet Union emerged victorious. The Red Army had liberated most of Eastern Europe from fascism. “People’s Democracies” were established in most of Eastern Europe. Germany was divided. Eastern Germany became a client state of the Soviet Union. Stalin had spread the Soviet reach far beyond “one country” by the end of the war. However, even though the Soviet Union had been devastated again by a world war, it emerged as a modern superpower. Under the leadership of Lenin, then Stalin, the country went from a backwater with feudal characteristics, with little industrialization, to being a modern, industrial, atomic superpower with a healthy standard of living. Socialism had created public education for all, literacy, doubled life expectancy, gave women political rights, gave workers and the poor political power, gave power to national populations that had been traditionally discriminated against and oppressed. All of this social revolution and technological revolution was carried out in a crisis situation, under very harsh conditions. It was carried out during and in the middle of two of the worst wars the world had ever seen. It took the West about 200 years to industrialize and emerge as major powers. The West’s development was accomplished, in part, by plundering indigenous civilizations and enslaving Africans. By contrast, the Soviet Union developed into a modern power in only a few decades without plundering or exploiting any other countries as the imperialists had. And the Soviets accomplished this while they were under siege on all sides by imperialists and fascists. All in all, socialism proved a better modernizer than capitalism.

Even with all these accomplishments, Soviet socialism did not last. Social revolution had to be scaled back in order to wage war. Survival during the war meant that social experiment and revolution was pulled back. This turn continued through reconstruction after World War 2 up until Stalin’s death in 1953. Many mark the death of Stalin in 1953 or the rise of Khrushchev in 1956 as the final blow to Soviet socialism. Others trace it to the end of the World War 2. The exact date is not important. It was in this general period that the Soviet revolution stagnated and failed to reinvent itself to advance. It began to revert to state capitalism and social imperialism. Stalin’s support of Zionist Israel in 1947 is an example of the Soviet Union no longer behaving as a revolutionary state, but as a self-serving one. Although Stalin backed the Zionists in an effort to set up another “people’s democracy” that would break up the imperial encirclement on the Soviet southern flank, such a move reflects a lack of trust in the Arab masses to depose imperialism and the lackey, comprador Arab regimes by themselves. Trying to establish a settler, puppet state on Arab land is a betrayal of the Arab peoples and the proletariat. Even so, Stalin is still seen as a great hero in the ex-Soviet countries. Even so, Stalin was a communist leader.

The Soviet approach to socialism was influenced by the Theory of Productive Forces. It overemphasized the role of technology. It tended to see society as a kind of machine to be organized according to a strict central plan. This approach was too “top-down” and vertical. This machine paradigm tends to discount spontaneity, locality, and the human factor. Along with this, they failed to understand the problem of counter-revolution scientifically. They saw the problem through the police paradigm. When the system ran into problems, they did not blame the social machine. The problem wasn’t socialism as a transition, but, rather, the problem, in their view, came from outside. They saw preventing counter-revolution as mainly an issue of better policing. They saw problems as the result of old class enemies, agents and wreckers. They failed to fully understand that society should not be organized as a machine. They failed to realize that socialism itself, as a transitional period,  generates new inequalities in privilege. These inequalities can crystallize and result in the emergence of a new bourgeoisie that will turn back socialism. This new bourgeoisie came into being before the Soviet system could reinvent itself and correct these problems. The Maoist model and the  Cultural Revolution in China was an attempt to reinvent socialism to avoid these problems. After World War 2, the Soviet Union began behaving as an imperialist power to an extent. In the post-Stalin era, all hope was lost. The Soviet Union had become just another capitalist and imperialist power. However, before its degeneration, the Soviet Union had inspired the world. It was a red beacon of hope to the oppressed everywhere.

How long did the Soviet Union’s revolutionary phase last?

It began in October, 1917. Its end can be marked around the end of World War 2, Stalin’s death in 1953, or the consolidation of Khrushchev’s power in 1956. Basically, we can say the revolutionary period was the Lenin and most or all of the Stalin era.

What were Soviet socialism’s accomplishments?

1. The first proletarian state. Lenin said that without state power, all is illusion. For the first time in history our class was able to consolidate its hold on state power. Rather than being a tool of the reactionaries to oppress the people, the state was used to suppress the counter-revolutionaries and advance the revolution. From the commanding heights of state power, we were able to begin to remake all of society.

2. First successful planned economy. The Soviet Union was the first attempt by the proletariat to create an economy organized to serve the people. It was the first attempt to create an economy where the oppressed were not at the mercy of cold market forces. The proletariat and the oppressed escaped the anarchy of production that is capitalism. Instead, production was brought under the control of the state and the party of the proletariat.

3. Great leap. Under proletarian leadership, the Soviet Union went from an undeveloped backwater to a modern superpower able to challenge imperialism on the world stage. Under the Czar, only a few cities were industrialized. Under the leadership of our class, a whole country was modernized. Even the atom was conquered. The Soviet Union became the second most powerful country on Earth.

4. Defeat of fascism. During World War 2, the Soviet peoples suffered over 27 million deaths, more casualties than all other countries combined. The Great Patriotic War against fascism was a people’s war against fascism. It was the Soviet people who were the front line fighters in this struggle against Hitler and his vile racist ideology. Had the Soviet Union not existed, Hitler’s troops would have marched to the Pacific ocean. They would have won World War 2 and done to Eastern Europe and Asia what the United States did to its Indigenous peoples. In fact, Hitler took the genocide and “Manifest Destiny” carried out by the United States as his model. The Soviet Union, its Red Army, our Party led by Stalin stopped Hitler’s genocidal armies in their tracks.

5. New proletarian culture. The old culture was one that promoted racism, chauvinism, sexism, privileges, and inequality. For the first time in history, the oppressed and exploited were in control of art and media. A new proletarian culture was born to promote the values of peace, equality and self-determination. Our art and our song were seen and heard across the world.

6. Advancing and spreading revolutionary science. The Bolshevik revolution advanced our understanding of revolutionary science. It was out of the Bolshevik revolutionary experience that Lenin developed his theory of the state, of dual power, of the vanguard party, of the self-determination of nations. Lenin’s contributions have become a key part of Marxism today,  Leading Light Communism. A country spanning one sixth of the world’s land mass was now liberated, serving as a base area to spread our science and revolution around the world. It was through the Bolshevik experience that Marxism became Marxism-Leninism. Revolutionary science was advanced to a whole new stage. Marxism-Leninism was the second stage of revolutionary science. The revolution spread revolutionary science across the globe; it spread Marxism-Leninism.

7. A higher standard of living. Soviet peoples lived under terrible conditions under the Czarist empire.  Terrible starvation. Terrible poverty. Terrible oppression. Under the socialist regime, the standard of living  increased. Although there were some problems, eventually the food problem was solved. Everyone had food, shelter, and healthcare. Everyone received the right to an education. The Soviet Union went from a backwater to being a modern, atomic power. Life expectancy doubled. Child mortality rates fell. The Soviet people were grateful to socialism, and to their leaders, especially Lenin and Stalin, for the improvements in their everyday life. Even today, opinion polls consistently rank Lenin and Stalin as two of historic leaders most admired in Russia.

The Soviet Union was not perfect. Our revolution in the Soviet Union was lost to counter-revolution. A new capitalist class emerged and reversed our great accomplishments; they finally  consolidated their counter-revolution after World War 2. All was not lost. The first great wave of sustained revolution inspired a second. Under Maoist leadership, the Chinese revolution advanced even further. We must learn and improve on the past, so we can do better next time. Even with its errors, the Soviet experience has much to teach us today.

What were the problems of Soviet socialism?

There were several interconnected problems. Soviet socialism was too influenced by the Theory of Productive Forces. It put too much emphasis on the role of technology in creating socialism. Along with this, economic development and society itself was seen through a kind of machine paradigm. When problems occurred, it was not the fault of the model, but too often attributed to foreign agents and wreckers. Thus they tended to see problems, including the problem of counter-revolution, through the police paradigm rather than a material, structural paradigm or power paradigm. The result was a Soviet regime that erred on the side of commandism at times. It was too commandist, especially with regard to the peasants. A large police and prison apparatus emerged. These features affected the whole tone of the regime. The regime was also workerist. It failed to adequately understand other forms of oppression. Soviet socialism failed to fully understand the relationship between humanity and the ecosystem scientifically. Many of these criticisms were made by the Maoists who later tried to correct these tendencies during their own socialist experiment. However, the Maoists did not go far enough in their critiques. They ended up repeating some of the errors. This summation of the Soviet experience is one of the advances of the Leading Light. Another error was that they never broke with First Worldism. This deformed their socialism by measuring it against the imperialist, Western economies. Leading Light Communism has repudiated and corrected this error.

Did the Bolsheviks and Stalin kill millions?

Anti-communists make all kinds of outrageous claims about the deaths caused by communism. There is no consensus on the number. Estimates vary greatly. Many did surely die in the Soviet experiment unnecessarily — social experiments are not perfect, errors get made.  It is very difficult to say how many of these deaths were avoidable or unavoidable. However, almost all of those who died unnecessarily would have been victims of famine. Famines had existed long before the Bolsheviks. These deaths were not intentional. In fact, the intention was to increase life, not exterminate it. We need to look at the good along with the bad. Life expectancy was doubled. The child-mortality rate dropped. Literacy spread. Woman and workers gained power over their lives.  Stalin’s regime was far from the ideal in terms of its harshness. At the same time, it was that quality that produced the organization, discipline, and ideological unity to defeat the Nazis. And the Nazi’s stated goal was to enslave and exterminate all of the Soviet peoples. Stalin’s regime foiled the fascist plan. Overall, the Soviet peoples did far better under socialism than capitalism.

We have to remember that capitalism kills far more than socialism ever did. Looting of the Americas greased the wheels of early capitalism. Genocide and plunder of the Americas helped kickstart capitalism. An entire continent was exterminated. Millions of Africans were killed and enslaved in plantations resembling concentration camps. Even today, capitalism kills millions every year around the world in the poor countries. American imperialism wages wars all over the globe. Capitalism is leading us toward an ecological catastrophe that will kill everyone. The victims of capitalism are far greater. Socialism and communism are the only real solutions. To not fight for socialism and communism perpetuates the current murderous system.

What about the Gulag?

Not all prisons were gulags in the Soviet Union. Gulags were camps in the Soviet Union for hardened criminals (rapists, murderers, etc.) and hardened political enemies (spies, saboteurs, die-hard enemies, fascists, etc.). They were camps where people were forced to do hard labor under difficult conditions. In certain periods and locations, mortality rates in the camps were especially high. Living conditions in the camps got worse as conditions worsened for society as a whole. Prisoners in gulags were hit hard by famines in the country and by World War 2. The limited resources were directed to those who were laboring outside in the factories and fields  or to the front lines.

The gulags were another symptom of the same harshness and commandism of the Stalin era. Although we should not overstate the horrors of the gulag, we should not dismiss them either. The Maoist approach in China was one that put much more emphasis on ideological education through labor and less emphasis on  squeezing labor out of prisoners. We should, as much as possible, find ways of winning over and neutralizing class enemies so that we do not have to rely on incarceration.

Let’s look at this in perspective. The United States incarcerates more people than the Soviet Union or China. And, the United States also forces them to work. In addition, non-whites are disproportionately incarcerated in the United States. In addition, within the imperial system, prisons exist, forced labor exists, which is far worse than the gulags. The US economy was built on the extermination of indigenous peoples and on the slavery of Africans. Slavery was not abolished in the US economy, it was just moved halfway around the world to Third World factories where child and slave labor produces goods for First World costumers. These prisons, plantations, and factories are part of what keeps the current, capitalist system operating. Many of the criticisms of the Soviet system are hypocritical. However, we should avoid this error, of harshness and commandism, in the future.

What about the purges?

The role of the Communist Party is to guide society to communism. If there is a line within the Communist Party that is leading society back to capitalism, then it should be eliminated. Either the line should be corrected or the faction should be purged. If a group within the Communist Party is destroying the revolution from within, then it has to be rectified or purged — they should be kicked out. Purging, when done correctly, strengthens the Communist Party.

The Soviets over-relied on purges as a way to fight counter-revolution. By contrast, Maoists adopted a more  “bottom up,” mass approach. Maoists encouraged more education, debate, mass mobilization, and reform through labor. Maoists always gave people who had made mistakes more chances if they came to admit and understand their mistakes.  Purging should be one tool in the tool box. It should be used as a last resort. Correction through education is always preferable. Purging is not the only way to address the problem of counter-revolution.

What about the “Moscow Trials”?

The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials in the Soviet Union during the 1930s that were used for propaganda purposes. Many powerful leaders fell in these high-profile trials, including Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. The trails were the outcome of a bloody power struggle between  the Communist Party represented by Stalin and their opponents. While many of the fallen leaders were guilty of various crimes, the sensational claims of the trials seem far-fetched to many. Some of the confessions were probably based on coercion of the defendants. These kinds of trials are a symptom of the police paradigm approach to line struggle and counter-revolution. The revisionists in China later tried the Maoists in a show trial.

What about the Hitler-Stalin Pact?

As World War 2 approached, the Soviets had tried to make an alliance with the West against Hitler early on. The West refused. Stalin knew the Nazis were going to go to war. The question was whether they would go west or east first. Stalin needed time to build up his industry, his tank and arms production. Stalin entered into a temporary pact with Hitler as a tactical move to get the Nazis to attack the West first. This gave Stalin more time to build up his defenses. Stalin made the hard choice needed to win. The Soviet forces did the bulk of the fighting against the Nazis. The Soviet Union saved the world from fascist night.

What about Lysenko?

What about him? Lysenko was a Soviet biologist who rejected Darwinism. It is widely held today that he was a hack whose ideas were advanced for their political merit within Soviet biology, not their scientific merit. Pseudo-science can exist in socialism just as it does in capitalism. All things considered, there is probably more pseudo-science passing itself off as legitimate under capitalism than there was under socialism. Capitalism promotes all kinds of ridiculous pseudo-science: astrology, phrenology, pop psychology, numerology, and on and on. In any case, Lysenko’s rise represents a real problem. Let’s look at the context though. Darwinism, at the time, was associated with racism and imperialism. It was associated closely with fascism and the rise of the Nazis. It was associated with Social Darwinism and racist eugenics. The Soviets sought another alternative that was politically compatible with socialism and communism. Unfortunately, the Soviets threw out the baby with the bathwater. The problem wasn’t Darwinism, but the reactionary political forces who were appropriating it. Marx was a fan of Darwin. In other words, although Darwinism was true, it was being misused to justify the worst forms of racism and genocide at the time. The Soviets made a mistake, but an understandable one.

What about Stalin’s cult?

The times required strong leadership. People admire strong leaders. While elevating individual leaders runs contrary to the ultimate goals of communism, it is necessary to elevate outstanding leaders under certain circumstances. People project their hopes and dreams onto leaders.  Leaders can empower. Focus on the leader is a pre-scientific way of showing support for socialism by the masses. The rule with any cult is that if the cult is helping the revolution go forward, it is a good thing. If it is hindering it, it is a bad thing. The cult of Stalin was part of forging discipline in society. This discipline was necessary to carry out development at a breakneck pace and it was necessary in order to defeat the fascists. There is nothing wrong with elevating outstanding people who make outstanding contributions.

Criticism of the cult was a tool used by the revisionists to implement a capitalist overhaul of the system. We should try to elevate as many leaders as possible. We should not be afraid to give credit where credit is due. Great revolutionary heroes, great revolutionary leaders, great revolutionary geniuses deserve praise. Nobody is perfect. Even our best have flaws. We are works in progress. However, we should not be afraid to extol and emulate the best among our ranks. Today, the Leading Light represents our best.

We should also point out that it is better for people to latch onto a communist leader than a Paris Hilton or Obama. Capitalism produces cults of personality that are totally destructive. Far better to latch onto a leader who is leading us to communism than a party girl or imperialist war criminal.

What about abortion?

Abortion was outlawed in the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. This is for several reasons. First off, they had population issues. They expected a cycle of world wars to continue, as it did when the Nazis invaded. They needed population to fight Nazi Germany. They later needed to replace the 27 million who were killed as a result of the World War 2. Plus they expected more wars. Secondly, at the time, we have to remember that abortion was associated with racist eugenics. It was associated with national oppression and racism. Historically, the medical and political establishment used abortion to lower birth rates of oppressed peoples. Margaret Sanger, a famous bourgeois-feminist advocate for abortion, for example, used to go on speaking tours with racist ideologues and eugenicists. Bourgeois feminism has often been a tool used by imperialism against the most oppressed and the revolution. Abortionists advocated its practice as a way to reduce the Black, Indigenous, Latino, and other populations deemed undesirable in the United States. Russia was historically a racist and chauvinist empire. Stalin was from a people who had been historically oppressed by the Russian empire. Abortion was seen as a tool of national oppression at the time. Even today, abortion is used as a tool to lower birthrates of oppressed peoples — especially in parts of the Third World.  Thirdly, Soviet socialism lagged on certain gender issues. Leading Light Communism addresses this lag. The Leading Light supports the right to abortion in general, but Leading Light also recognizes how abortion can be used as a weapon of genocide. Leading Light recognizes there might be times when it is correct to oppose abortion.

What about homosexuality?

Homosexuality was originally legalized in the Soviet Union under Lenin. The Soviet Union was originally one of the most advanced states in its outlook toward queers. However, they later re-criminalized homosexuality under Stalin’s regime. Homosexuality was incorrectly associated exclusively with bourgeois decadence and fascism. It was perceived as part of Western cultural corruption. It was seen as  the concern of a very bourgeois, individualistic, and privileged strata. Homosexual culture was seen as decadent, individualistic, self-centered and contrary to the collectivist values of the revolution. The criminalization of homosexuality in Stalin’s Soviet Union was a mistake. Elsewhere in the world, however, the Communist movement was a refuge for homosexuals. For example, it is well-known that the Communist Party USA, in its revolutionary days, was a safe haven for queers. Many homosexual artists flocked to communist fronts at the height of the Communist Party’s influence in the United States.

Communists of the past did not address gender and sexuality adequately. There was the problem of guilt by association. Bourgeois feminists and gender activists have positioned themselves as part of the imperialist system and set themselves up against the most oppressed. Bourgeois  feminists and gender activists represent some of the most privileged strata globally. They have often attacked the revolutionary movement   while pretending to be progressive. Past communists mistakenly threw out the baby with the bathwater. However, some of the predecessor movements to Leading Light were on the forefront of the queer rights struggle. Leading Light stands for the rights of all. Leading Light repudiates the mistakes of the past by communists regarding gender and sexuality. Leading Light says nobody is free until everyone is free.

We also have to realize that all sexuality in the First World is marked by class. First World gender and sexual struggles usually take on imperialist forms. Heterosexuals and queers in the First World want more life options often at the expense of others in the Third World. Even though we should support the rights of all, we need to understand that gender and sexual struggles in the First World can adversely affect Third World peoples, including Third World queers and women. We need to be aware of this. The link between feminist, gender and sexual movements in the First World and imperialism is not simply the overactive imagination of communists.

Maoist Wave in China: summations and accomplishments

The Maoist revolution in China was part of the second great wave of sustained revolution. This revolutionary wave occurred during an economic crisis and after World War 2. The European imperialist powers had weakened each other by going to war with each other. This created an opening for making revolution in the colonies and neocolonies. National liberation movements seeking independence from European and American imperialism popped up all over the world. Often, social revolution, including communist-led social revolution, piggybacked on top of these national liberation movements. Of all of these, the Maoist revolution in China was the most significant. It involved a quarter of the world’s population. And its social revolution was the most radical. The Maoists sought to reorganize society at the deepest levels in order to actually reach communism. The Maoist revolution in China was a long and bloody one with many twists and turns. It lasted over half a century. At its peak, during the Cultural Revolutionary years, the Maoist revolution represented the furthest advance toward communism in human history.

In the early part of the twentieth century, China was in chaos. Semi-feudalism was the dominant mode of production. Poverty was everywhere. The majority of Chinese were destitute, impoverished peasants. Slavery was still practiced. Many Chinese lived as European serfs once had. Famines were common. Epidemics swept the country. There was little or no healthcare for the majority of Chinese. Women were treated as property. Women’s feet were often crippled in order to make them more easily controlled by men. China was in a dark age. China’s coast had been carved up by competing imperialist powers who had occupied its ports. The central government was weak. Warlords and opium traffickers were in constant civil war with each other. The imperialists fueled these wars in order to divide and conquer. In 1937, imperial Japan invaded and occupied China. The Chinese communists were attacked on all sides. They were attacked by the anti-communist state. They were attacked by the warlords and feudalists. They were attacked by the imperialists, especially the Japanese. It was by taking up the national banner that the communists were able to rally the people to their cause. The communists raised the national banner against the “two mountains” of imperialism and feudalism. The communists organized a people’s army and seized power in the countryside. They created New Power. They created their own society and state in the remote countrysides and mountains. They created red zones. The communists fought the imperialists. They fought the feudal warlords. The communists carried out land reform.  They began the liberation of women. They carried out New Democratic revolution, the first stage of China’s revolution. They created a new system everywhere they went. They slowly expanded their New Power. The people’s war went from the countryside to surround China’s cities. It was in 1949 that the communists drove the imperialists and their lackeys from the mainland. It was on October 1st, 1949 that Mao declared “China has stood up” at Tiananmen. Mao declared the birth of the People’s Republic of China.

China’s revolution went through many phases. The first phase was the New Democratic revolution. This phase aimed at getting rid of the “two mountains” of feudalism and imperialism. It focused on land reform, national development, national unity, creating a functioning society, creating the beginnings of  democratic control, creating a central state, beginning the liberation of women, public education, healthcare, literacy, etc. Limited capitalism, as a method of national development, still existed during New Democracy. The New Democratic Revolution laid the groundwork for further, socialist social transformation. The New Democratic Revolution began to phase into socialist construction after 1949, into the 1950s. Socialist construction meant even greater collectivization of the productive forces. It meant collectivizing agriculture and industry. It meant putting the workers in command. It meant creating more and more revolutionary culture in place of old culture. It means more class struggle. It means trying to move toward communism. The two major efforts at trying to push to a higher level of socialism were the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.

The Maoists sought to reorganize Chinese society at the deepest level. They saw the mistakes that the Soviets had made by putting too much emphasis on technology, the productive forces. Maoists saw revolution as a train on two tracks: development of the productive forces and reorganization of power. Of these, the latter was principal for the Maoists. They adopted a more “bottom up,” people-power approach. They sought to unleash the masses to build socialism by using mass campaigns and mass line. The Maoist model was one that allowed for more mass spontaneity and more creativity. They sought to reorganize all of society into people’s communes. These communes would be the basic unit of society, eventually replacing the central state apparatus. These communes were to be as self-sufficient and as sustainable as possible. They would produce their own food and they would have their own industry. Housework and traditional women’s work was to be phased out. For example, the people’s communes sought to have  community meals in public dining halls, thus shifting “women’s work” onto the collective. In the communes, people strove to be equals. Even most teens could participate politically in communes.  Thus the communes sought to encourage youth liberation and youth participation in politics. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, even young teens and children participated in politics at various levels. Education was combined with work in the communes just as the People’s Liberation Army combined its training with economic work and ideological work. These communes were created during the Great Leap, but they ran into problems due to opposition, sabotage and mismanagement. A food crisis resulted from human errors and natural disasters. This resulted in a temporary defeat for the Maoists.  After the Great Leap, Maoist power waned. A new capitalist class, a revisionist group, began to rise to displace the Maoists. They sought to reverse socialist construction and dismantle the people’s communes. As a result, the Maoists launched the Cultural Revolution in 1965. Mao’s general Lin Biao took control of the People’s Liberation Army and turned it into a bastion of communist thought. Lin Biao advocated a global people’s war from the global countryside to surround the global cities, from poor to rich countries. Mao then called on the students to rise up and rebel against their teachers and overthrow those in the Communist Party and state who were betraying the revolution. Red guard students and rebel workers took to the streets. They took over whole cities. They formed huge armies to protect socialism. For a moment, they were able to consolidate socialist power at even a higher level with the help of Lin Biao’s People’s Liberation Army. The communes were defended. More collectivization occurred. A whole new culture of revolution was promoted. Big philosophical debates were carried out in the streets and in the media. All of society was aspiring to reach communism. Unfortunately, it did not last. Mao shifted rightward and allowed the revisionists to launch their offensive against the left. Mao, who was old and sick, began slipping ever rightward. The revisionists struck back hard. The revisionists were able to kill and discredit Lin Biao, who had been the voice and face of the Cultural Revolution and global people’s war. The revisionists seized command of the People’s Liberation Army. Throughout the 1970s, Mao presided over a regime that systematically moved toward the restoration of capitalism. The regime in the 1970s even began aligning with the United States in world affairs. Mao hoped to have a negotiated settlement between the revisionists and the remaining Maoists, but the revisionists were easily able to sweep away the remaining Maoists, the so-called “Gang of Four,” shortly after Mao died in September of 1976.

Today’s capitalism in China was born when the right and revisionists struck against Lin Biao. Today’s China is thoroughly capitalist. The economies of China and the Unites States are intertwined. The China of today puts its children in sweatshops to produce toys for children in the United States. It guns down its striking workers so that value continues to flow out of China to the United States and the First World. It guns down its students who stand up to question its course. The Chinese state is an integral part of the capitalist-imperialist system. The so-called Chinese Communist Party recently made a pronouncement that it is no longer a “revolutionary party,” but a “ruling party.” Mao said that it will take many revolutions to reach communism in China. He is correct. China needs revolution today.  China needs Leading Light Communism.

Why did Mao zig-zag at the end of his life?

Mao did not always uphold the revolutionary line in his last years. Even though he was a great revolutionary, even Mao began to slip into revisionism at times. This is why it is important to understand the importance of line. We need to follow revolutionary science, not simply a leader. Some leaders can come to embody revolutionary science in a concentrated way, but as soon as they deviate, they must be called out. Even Mao should have been called out when he rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping, for example.  We should also take into account that Mao was old. He was showing signs of deterioration. He should have considered stepping down earlier. Ultimately, we should focus on broader questions of social forces instead of individual leaders. Even though great leaders emerge who play pivotal roles, we always need to have an eye on the social forces. The defeat of the Chinese revolution cannot simply be that Mao turned rightward in the 1970s. Mao would not have been able to do that if the social forces weren’t there pulling him in that direction. The defeat cannot simply be that Mao died in 1976. The reasons for the defeat of the Chinese revolution are deeper than any individual.

What were the accomplishments of the Maoist revolution?

There were many accomplishments of the Maoist revolution in China. Think about it: A quarter of the world’s population was mobilized to build a new world. The Maoist revolution was vast and profound. The Maoist revolution sought to reorganize all of society to root out all oppression and exploitation, to actually reach communism. It was the greatest feminist movement of all time. A quarter of the world’s women stood up to say “we will no longer be property!” Patriarchal, feudal relations were ended across a quarter of the world. Even with the food crisis during the Great Leap, China solved its food problem overall. China went from a country with regular famines to a country that could feed itself. An illiterate population became literate. Life expectancy doubled. The infant-mortality rate declined. China became strong. Like the Soviet Union before it, China went from a feudal state to a modern atomic power. A whole new culture was developed. Egalitarianism was promoted. Altruism,  “serve the people,” was promoted. New socialist art and culture emerged to replace the old, reactionary art. The Chinese matched the accomplishments of the Soviets, but went even further. They created a more advanced model of socialism that was more mass oriented and “bottom up.” They sought to begin phasing out the state in order to actually reach communism. They began to understand the nature of counter-revolution and the need for continuous cultural revolution to fight it. The Chinese revolution went further than all previous attempts to reach communism.

What about Mao’s violence?

Revolution is no dinner party. Revolutions are acts of violence. To deny this is to deny revolution. The system is far more violent than revolution. We always have to remember this. The violence of the revolution pales in comparison to the violence of capitalism and imperialism. Mao said we wage war to end war. However, Mao also said that heads are not like leeks; when you cut them off, they do not grow back. Maoists have always tried to avoid bloodshed when possible. Instead, Maoists have emphasized persuasion and education of enemies. While there were executions, the Maoist regime tried to avoid violence by the state against its enemies. Most of the Maoist violence that did occur was spontaneous, Jacobin violence by red guard youth and rebel workers against gangs of revisionists. They had running-street battles with each other. However, the Maoists were often on the receiving end of the violence. Maoists were often the ones being put down by the revisionist wing of the security forces and local revisionist Party bosses. For example, according to one scholar, most of the deaths during the Cultural Revolution were Maoist red guards themselves, especially when they were put down by revisionists. As a rule, Maoists avoid violence. As Mao said, we wage war to end war. Leading Lights use persuasion and education as much as possible.

Did Mao kill millions? What about the famine?

Anti-communists claim that Mao killed millions. Most of the deaths attributed to Mao by anti-communists are deaths that resulted from the food crisis that occurred during the Great Leap. These critics ignore the fact that Mao doubled life expectancy. They ignore that, despite the single food crisis, famines were ended under Mao’s reign. They also fail to compare it to famines that occur under capitalism. They also fail to look at the context or details. China had always had periodic famines. Mao put an end to that, even though a food crisis occurred during the Great Leap. Under Mao, China finally solved its food problem. All of this is ignored by anti-communists. There was a food crisis during the Great Leap that in all probability killed some. The estimates of deaths are all over the place — some high, some low. Many of the numbers are pulled out of thin air. Whatever the numbers, remember that China accounted for a quarter of the world’s population at the time, probably over 800 million. A quarter of the world’s population lived in China. There are no accurate records from the time. The archives of the Communist Party were altered several times to suit political agendas. So nobody really knows how many died. Some people claim that there was a food crisis, but no real famine. Others claim there was a famine, but they disagree on its size. The famous Black revolutionary and communist W.E.B. Dubois reported not seeing famine conditions when he toured China. Joshua Horn, who lived there, reported seeing no famine. Australian economists Wheelwright and MacFarlane who toured China at that time, state that famine was averted in Great Leap period China only because of egalitarian food distribution. However, China is a big place. And there are many accounts that confirm the crisis also. The revisionists and the anti-communists have an interest in exaggerating the deaths in order to smear the communist project. We need to be very cautious here. The anti-communists have a long track record of lying and exaggeration. Even so, we can say “where there is smoke, there is probably fire.” We do not deny that there was a great food crisis during the Great Leap that probably killed many. The crisis was big enough to seriously reduce Mao’s position in the leadership. However, the question is what caused the crisis. The crisis was not mainly caused by communist policies, although there was mismanagement — sometimes extreme mismanagement. There were terrible natural disasters in that period that significantly affected the food supply. There was extreme Cointelpro-type sabotage by opponents of Mao. A US embargo meant China could not purchase grain from abroad. Also, the Soviets, in a conscious wrecking effort, withdrew their aid, thereby leaving projects stagnant and in disarray across China. The egalitarian policies saved lives overall, in the long-term. However, there was extreme mismanagement in cases. Maoists ended up saying the crisis was 70 percent natural disasters and 30 percent human error.

What we have to keep in mind is that these deaths were unintentional. They resulted from a crisis in the food supply. All over the world far more people die from the American-dominated capitalist-imperialist system than ever died from the crisis years during the Great Leap. The Maoists tried to save people, but they failed. They made mistakes in an effort to liberate. By contrast, the capitalist system itself is designed to starve millions every year. Every year, millions starve due to capitalism. There is always a crisis with the capitalist food supply. The capitalist system kills far more and there is no end in sight to the horror. We have to remember that reorganizing society is very difficult. We will not get everything right. The key is recognizing our errors and learning from them. The first big Maoist push toward communism, the Maoist side of the Great Leap, ran into difficulties. The second push, the Cultural Revolution, went much better. During the second big Maoist push, the Cultural Revolution, there was no food crisis. In fact, those years were some of the most productive. The point is that socialism may not be perfect, but because it is scientific, it learns. And even socialism’s errors are better than capitalism’s “successes.”

What about the backyard furnaces?

During the Great Leap, small steel blast furnaces were constructed in the backyards of the people’s communes. They used local materials in an attempt to produce steel. When they could not access iron ore, they melted down  tools to make steel. However, because of poor technique, the steel was mostly useless. This resulted in a loss of capital due to poor planning and implementation. This instance is often held up as an example of lofty socialist goals leading to ruin. The reality is that the entire program was not a disaster. The results varied from region to region. In some places, the steel was usable. The results were mixed.

The backyard furnaces were an effort to substitute large-scale industry concentrated in industrial centers with small and medium-sized industry distributed more evenly across the countryside. Traditionally, in China, the cities enjoyed a privileged status over the countryside. In many ways, the cities were parasitic centers of management and export. These were efforts to breakdown the traditional division between the countryside and city. In many other instances shifting production from large industrial centers to smaller and medium-sized industrial sites in the countryside proved a success. The overall strategy, especially in other industries, was successful even if the effort to relocate steel production failed. Anti-communists fail to see the forest for the trees. The critique of the backyard furnaces is a case of what Mao called “one finger against the many.”

What about the sparrows?

Today, it is commonplace for the bourgeoisie to mock anti-pest campaigns in China. The biggest target is the anti-sparrow campaign during the Great Leap Forward. In fact, the anti-sparrow campaign is rightly criticized. It backfired and resulted in very bad consequences because people did not adequately understand the role the sparrow played in the ecology. Sparrows killed pests that attacked crops. Lowering the numbers of sparrows hurt agricultural production. The anti-sparrow campaign is an example of poor planning and over-enthusiasm. However, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Mistakes will always be made on the long road to communism. To expect no mistakes is utopian. Unlike other pest campaigns, the anti-sparrow campaign was not scientific. It is wrong to dismiss the Maoist approach, to dismiss mass mobilizations, because of mistakes and excesses. The anti-snail fever campaign, for example, was another anti-pest campaign that greatly benefited the Chinese people. Snail fever is one of the world’s greatest scourges. At the time of the campaign, it affected 250 million people, almost all in the Third World. As late as 1955, there were 50 million sufferers in China alone. Among parasitic diseases in tropical and sub-tropical regions, it ranks only behind malaria it terms of socioeconomic and health importance. Even today it affects 200 million. Twenty thousand die from snail fever every year. Twenty million suffer serious consequences from the disease. An estimated 600 million people worldwide are at risk from the disease. China’s socialism launched a war against this scourge. Snail fever was all but eliminated in much of China. The Communists claimed an 85% to 95% cure rate among afflicted people. The disease was all but wiped out in areas that had been previously afflicted on an epidemic scale. The Communist Party declared that it could “cure what the powers above have failed to do.” However, when capitalism returned to China so too did schistosomiasis. Today, the epidemic is back. And, with global warming it could be worse than ever. The point is that the anti-sparrows campaign is not representative of the Maoist approach or even the anti-pest campaigns in general. It was a mistake that better science did correct. Leading Light Communism puts much more emphasis on the importance of ecology.

What about re-education? What about persecution of intellectuals?

For thousands of years, people have been taught that some are better than others. Inequality, hierarchy and privilege is ingrained in the culture. We all need ideological remolding. We are all works in progress. Nobody is perfect. We need the help of our comrades to perfect ourselves in order to better serve the people. However, some people will need more remolding than others. Communists, especially in China, always prefer using education and persuasion on people, even on class enemies and counter-revolutionaries. The Maoists tried to find the good in people, even in class enemies. The Maoists gave enemies a chance to redeem themselves.

Traditionally, in China, intellectuals were servants of the system. They were mostly a parasitic strata that served as functionaries of the feudalists and imperialists. Intellectuals thought of themselves as better than the people. Traditionally, intellectual work was valued over physical work. The communists in China sent many intellectuals, including Communist Party functionaries and state bureaucrats, to the countryside and factories to experience what real work was like. This was a method to fight corruption. They believed that if intellectuals, functionaries, and bureaucrats experienced life alongside the masses, then they would be less inclined to exploit and oppress them. In addition, the communists tried to promote the masses into positions of authority and into intellectual work. This was part of an effort to breakdown the traditional division between mental and manual labor. It was an effort to breakdown traditional hierarchy. Of course, many intellectuals opposed the attack on their traditional privilege. When the communist revolution was defeated, they wrote “horror stories” about how they were made to labor alongside the masses.

We see Maoist efforts to equalize society as a positive thing. Intellectual strata and technocrats should not exist over and above the masses. They should labor alongside them. Even leaders, even great leaders, should get their hands dirty. There is nothing wrong with education and re-education. Education is inherently good. We need to create as many educated leaders as possible. We need an educated population to reach communism. In China, in the revolutionary period, they spoke of society being a school of revolution. Leading Light Communism will transform all of society into a school of revolutionary science. We should aspire to this ideal.

What about the cult of Mao?

Mao was a great leader. Mao was the greatest revolutionary of the last wave of revolution. People project their hopes and dreams onto leaders. The focus on the leader is a pre-scientific way of showing support for socialism by the masses. The rule with any cult is that if the cult is helping the revolution go forward, it is a good thing. If it is hindering it, it is a bad thing. Mao’s cult was mostly used in progressive ways as a battering ram against the revisionists who wanted to restore capitalism. The cult was used as a way for the masses to knock down those with bureaucratic power. The cult was used against the revisionists concentrated in the Party and state apparatus.

Criticism of the cult was a tool used by the revisionists to implement a capitalist overhaul of the system. We should try to elevate as many leaders as possible. We should not be afraid to give credit where credit is due. Nobody is perfect. We are all works in progress. However, we should not be afraid to extol and emulate the best among our ranks. Great revolutionary heroes, great revolutionary leaders, great revolutionary geniuses deserve praise. They should be emulated. In these dark times, we are filled with  joy and hope since Leading Lights have risen to guide humanity back to the path of communism, to guide humanity out of the external night of exploitation and oppression.

Again we should also point out that it is better for people to latch onto a communist leader than a Paris Hilton or Obama. Capitalism produces cults of personality that are totally destructive. Far better to latch onto a leader who is trying to lead us to communism than a party girl or imperialist war criminal.

Why are they all dressed the same?

The Zhongshan suit (also known as “the Mao suit”) was not required dress. People embraced it as a style of dress because it reflected the spartan, egalitarian ideals of the revolution. Traditional Chinese society was a feudal one where dress reflected social rank. The Mao suit eliminated signs of outward difference. It also eliminated some of the traditional gender distinctions reflected in dress. Lin Biao eliminated outward displays of rank from the People’s Liberation Army. This was an effort to extend the revolution’s ideals even into the realm of dress. In a society  where great social hierarchies were reflected in dress, it makes perfect sense for revolutionaries to want to overcome those by adopting such an egalitarian style. As the revolution became more and more openly capitalist in the 1980s, the Mao suit fell from favor. Revolutions of the future may generate their own styles of dress that are very different from the past. We do not have to be limited by the past.

What about art and literature?

The Maoist regime tried to encourage those who produced art and literature to serve the people. Art, literature, and other culture is part of social programing. In China, traditional culture was used to justify gross inequalities within society. The traditional art served feudalism and imperialism. It taught the poor that they were not as good as the rich. It taught the rich that they were better than the poor. It encouraged racism by Han Chinese against other nationalities in China. It encouraged the oppression of women and the young. Lives are lost. People starve. People are enslaved because of inequality and the culture that encourages it. Artists who encourage injustice and inequality are not innocent victims. To really transform society, it is necessary to transform the social programming of people. It is necessary to transform culture. This was a big part of the Maoist Cultural Revolution. The Maoists sought to revolutionize the whole way people looked at the world. They encouraged the masses to take to the streets to strike out against those who were oppressing them. Some artists and intellectuals were made to answer before the oppressed. Some were made to labor with the peasants to experience what life was like for those they had oppressed. Revolutions are messy. Sometimes the Maoists and the masses overreacted. However,  their overall effort to make art serve the people was a righteous struggle.

In addition, there was another problem. The old culture, the old art forms, which were based on oppression had developed over thousands of years. The Maoist revolution was trying to replace all that social programming in a relatively short period. The Maoists tried to preserve as much of the old art as possible by “making the old serve the new.” However, much of it was too reactionary, classist, racist, sexist, etc. A void was left in the culture. This void had to be filled in a relatively short period. This is why  much of the communist art of this era, while very creative and stunning, sometimes looks the same. They were trying to replace thousands of years of reactionary art in a few decades.

What about Tibet?

Prior to the revolution, Tibet was a terrible place. It was a theocracy ruled by the Dalai Lama and an elite class of feudalist priests. Women were denied rights. Slavery was still permitted. Most of the people were impoverished. The monasteries, run by priests, owned all the land. The vast majority toiled away, barely surviving. When Mao led the revolution in China, Tibetan serfs and slaves began to rise up against their overlords. The Tibetan revolutionaries invited China to intervene to aid their struggle for equality and dignity. The Maoist revolution in Tibet brought social welfare, literacy, healthcare, modernization, political power for the poor, rights for women, the end of slavery, etc. Mao tried to strike a balance between allowing Tibet autonomy and allowing the social revolution to continue. The Dalai Lama and the old overlords wanted to turn back the clock. They opposed the Tibetan people. They opposed Chinese involvement. They even initiated a CIA-funded guerrilla war against the people and their Chinese allies. They based themselves in India, even enslaving local Indian peasants to work for their military efforts. The Dalai Lama’s CIA-backed forces were easily defeated. At times, the Maoists went too far in Tibet. And, under Deng Xiaoping, the Han Chinese began to colonize Tibet. Even so, the Tibetan revolution with Chinese help was a good thing for the Tibetan people. Whether or not the Tibet remains part of China today is something for Chinese and Tibetan Leading Lights to decide.

What were the problems of the Maoist revolution? Why did it fail?

If a revolution is not going forward to communism, then it is going backward toward the restoration of the reactionary social order: capitalism. If a revolution does not continually revolutionize culture and power, if it does not continually eliminate inequalities, then those reactionary ideas spread, inequalities solidify, a new ruling class, a new bourgeoisie arises and reverses the revolution. A new bourgeoisie rose within the organs of power in China because the revolution failed to continue to move forward. It failed to reinvent itself. It failed to stay creative. It stagnated. Unless inequality, privilege and hierarchy are continually reduced, revolutions reverse. Unless revolutions continue to reinvent themselves, stay creative, they perish. Part of this was connected to a return to overemphasis on the role of the productive forces. After the height of the Maoist period, the height of the Cultural Revolution years from 1965 to 1971, the revolution compromised and stagnated. The revisionists returned, in practice, back to the productionism — even though they continued to push Maoist rhetoric. They began tacitly adopting the Theory of Productive Forces again. They began reversing the Maoist gains in domestic policy. They ceased social experiment and ceased mobilizing the masses. They also began moving into the orbit of the imperialists as they began to de-emphasize power struggle and the masses in the 1970s. They began to put narrow Chinese interest above the global proletariat. They began to put nationalism above internationalism. They began to cut deals with the imperialists. In the end, the imperialists had the last laugh.

First Worldism also contributed to the reversal. Like the Soviet revolution, the Maoists never fully broke from the Theory of Productive Forces. They continued to measure socialism against the imperialist countries to an extent. Because they failed to see the true nature of the global class structure, they continued to aspire to surpass the West on the West’s terms. At times, they measured socialism against the imperialist countries because they failed to realize that the First World no longer contained a proletariat. They failed to realize that the West’s continued wealth was wholly dependent on continued imperialism, not on exploitation of Western workers. Thus it created an unattainable bar for socialism in the Third World to match. Thus capitalism became to look attractive to some. In addition, even though they critiqued the police paradigm in some ways, in other ways they never fully broke from it. Their practice lagged. They failed to carry the Cultural Revolution all the way through to the end. They failed to put the most advanced line fully in command of the revolution. Their understanding of the interaction between humans and the environment was inadequate. Their understanding of gender and other forms of oppression lagged. Their vision of communism and their science was not as advanced as the Leading Light’s. There were other errors also. They failed to reinvent the revolution, to continue the forward motion, to push the revolutionary wave forward on the global level as Lin Biao had advocated. They failed to stay creative. We must not repeat their errors.

A note on past revolution  and the environment

Past socialist experiments were not green enough. They sometimes saw nature as something to be conquered. In this respect, they inherited capitalist notions about modernization and the conquest of nature. Science now tells us that our planet is not an endless reservoir of resources. We must design a system that works with nature. We must see ourselves as part of nature, not something above it.

In the past, revolutionaries did not fully understand the role that environmental revolution played in socialist construction. Socialist societies have a mixed record on the environment. Socialist societies had successes as well as failures. Like capitalism, past attempts at socialism were dominated by a productionist outlook that pitted humanity against nature. This outlook saw greater and greater production, and the domination of nature, as the key to human happiness. This outlook is connected to the revisionist Theory of Productive Forces that sees socialism as mainly a matter of development of productive forces, particularly, advances in technology. The Theory of Productive Forces is also the theory behind First Worldism, the various theories that claim that there is a First World proletariat. Leading Light Communism rejects the Theory of Productive Forces, including the view that human happiness is connected to dominating the natural world. Instead, Leading Light Communism understands human society as a part of the natural world, not something that is separate, above and opposed to nature. Leading Light Communism understands that protecting natural systems, sustaining the natural world, will be a part of any future socialist construction. The dictatorship of the proletariat involves sustainable development, and protecting and preserving nature. After all, the survival of the human species, including the proletariat itself, is linked to sustaining our environment.

Introduction to leaders, misleaders, and others

Revolutions happen in waves. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lived as the modern communist movement was just beginning, mostly in the mid and late 1800s. At that time, Europe was filled with social contradictions waiting to explode. Cities erupted in revolution. The Paris Commune of 1871 is the best known. It was the first time the proletariat seized power, although it was not really sustained. It only lasted about two months. Marx and Engels were the first to really apply the methods of science in a rigorous way to the task of revolution and reaching communism. Many others around the same time rejected their scientific approach. There were utopians, anarchists, and social democrats competing to lead the movement for social justice. The next major breakthrough occurred with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 led by Lenin. This revolution was the first sustained, prolonged attempt to reach communism. Lenin studied past attempts at revolution. He studied the works of Marx and Engels. He adapted and went beyond their work. He studied the Paris Commune. Lenin’s scientific work led him to guide the first sustained revolution that aimed  for communism, the Soviet Union in its revolutionary phase. Other revolutions flowed from this one. Like  in Marx’s day,  some had rejected Marx, in Lenin’s day, some misleaders rejected Lenin’s course. They rejected the best science of the time, which was represented by the Marxist tradition as advanced by Lenin. Some of these misleaders became social democrats and social imperialists of various stripes, including Trotskyists and Khrushchevites. While, the Soviet revolution, Soviet socialism, began to decline after World War 2, capitalism was being restored there, especially after Stalin’s death.  Even so, World War 2 had weakened the imperialist system. A wave of national liberation and anti-imperialist movements had begun to sweep the world. Often social revolution, including communist-led revolutions, piggybacked on top of nationalist and anti-imperialist struggles. The most significant of these social revolutions was the Maoist revolution in China that encompassed almost a quarter of the world’s population. The People’s Republic of China was declared in 1949. This revolution went through many twists and turns. Just as in the Soviet Union, a new capitalist class arose within the state and ruling party in China. This new class of exploiters sought to reverse the revolution. The Maoists launched several offensives to try to eliminate the new exploiters and to take society even further toward communism. The most significant was the Cultural Revolution period, whose peak was from 1965 to 1971. Even though the Maoists sought to go further toward communism, they were defeated. Capitalism was restored. There is no socialism now. The last waves of revolution have ended, but a new wave is growing on the horizon. The Leading Light has elevated revolutionary science to a whole new stage in order to initiate the global people’s war to advance all the way to communism. The Leading Light points the way forward, to create the next great wave.

The history of the modern revolutionary movement is a long and complex one. Many great and important leaders have emerged from these struggles. These leaders, in one way or another, have come to represent the exploited and oppressed. They have been theorists who have helped the oppressed understand their world in order to change it. They have been women and men of action who have stepped up to put their lives on the line, to lead. They have embodied the hopes and dreams of the wretched and downtrodden. They were some of the best, the shining stars, the Leading Lights of their times. They sacrificed for a better day. On the other hand, there are also those who have emerged from within our movements who have, whether consciously or not, betrayed it in very destructive ways. These misleaders were people who did not just deviate, but turned into counter-revolutionaries. Just as there were great leaders, there have been great misleaders who have emerged within the movement. These are revisionists of various stripes. These misleaders may have been people of good conscience or they may have been liars, but they delivered and continue to deliver terrible blows to the oppressed in the name of revolution and progress. Some misleaders have played  a more mixed role, playing a progressive role at certain times and a reactionary role at other times. Others are completely reactionary. Others are petty egoists and wreckers. To make revolution today, it is important to know this history. We must not repeat the errors of the past. Knowledge is power.

This history mostly focuses on the development of revolutionary science from Marx’s day to the Soviet revolutionary wave to the Maoist revolution. Although other, more limited social revolutions have occurred, the Soviet and Chinese represent the most important ones. Just as they opened up new stages in the history of revolution, so to does the global revolution of the Leading Light.

Leaders in the revolutionary tradition

Who were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels?

Karl Marx (May 5th, 1818 to 14 March 1883) and  Friedrich Engels (November 28th, 1820 to August 5th, 1895) were both born in Germany, but lived in many countries throughout their lives. They were authors who collaborated on many works of philosophy, history and political economy. Most importantly, they were revolutionaries and the founders of “scientific communism.” They were the first to apply the methods of science to the project of reaching communism, total liberation. They wrote in the nineteenth century. They witnessed the rise of early capitalism. They examined how capitalism arose from feudalism. And they understood how capitalism was crisis ridden, that capitalism generated its own contradictions that would, eventually, lead to revolution, socialism, and communism. They began to understand how scientific laws govern society, social change and history. They experienced the early revolutionary movements against capitalism, including the Paris Commune of 1871, which Marx identified as the first instance of proletarian New Power. They advanced important theories of social transformation, value production, exploitation, alienation, class and revolution.

Marx wrote that the point of intellectual work is not simply to interpret the world, but to change it. Not only were they theorists, but also revolutionary organizers. They participated in the revolutionary movement of their day. They participated in the First International founded in 1864.  They understood that communist revolution is an internationalist revolution. They are giants. More than any other figures, they founded the modern revolutionary tradition.

Who was Lenin?

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was born in Russia on April 22nd, 1870. He died of natural causes on January 21st, 1924. In 1917, he led what was to become the first sustained socialist revolution, the Bolshevik revolution that created the Soviet Union. He expanded on Marx and Engels’ theories. At the time, revisionist social democrats had twisted Marx. The social democrats at the time advocated reformism, not revolution. Lenin  criticized these revisionists. Lenin said capitalism could not be reformed into its opposite. Capitalism must be destroyed. The old state, the Old Power, must be destroyed. Lenin supported revolution as the principal means of reorganizing society, not gradual, social evolution and reform. New Power must be created in its place. One of his main theoretical achievements was that he began to explain the rise of imperialism and how imperialism had transformed capitalism and the worker’s movement of his day. He saw that revolution would first happen in the weak links of the imperialist system, not the more modernized countries of Western Europe. He began to speak of a growing labor aristocracy in imperialist countries.  Lenin began to see that many workers in the imperialist countries had ceased to be proletarian. They ceased to be revolutionary. Instead, many were counter-revolutionary due to super-profits received by imperialism. His main contribution, however, was in practice. He advanced theories of communist organizing, the vanguard, democratic centralism, the party, dual power (i.e. New Power) and the state. He led the Soviet Union through a reconstruction period after 1917. The Soviet Union had been devastated from World War 1, imperialist incursions, famine, revolution and civil war. He led the first revolution that aimed for communism that really had a chance of winning. The Soviet Union became a beacon of hope to all the world’s peoples.

Who was Stalin?

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was born on December 18th, 1878 in Georgia, which was an oppressed nation within the Czarist empire at the time. He died on March  5th, 1953. Some people suspect that he was poisoned by his enemies. Stalin was a man of action. In his early years, he was a Robin Hood figure. He robbed banks to fund the revolution. Stalin was a union organizer and Communist Party leader. He wrote many articles which popularized the ideas of Marx and Lenin throughout the world. Stalin was a man of his times. It was under Stalin that the Soviet Union modernized at an incredible pace to become a modern superpower. Under Lenin’s, then Stalin’s, leadership, the Soviet Union went from a broken society to becoming one of the most powerful, healthy countries on Earth. At the same time, Stalin’s regime was heavy handed and ruthless because that is what the times called for. Hard times call for hard measures. Stalin represents the hard choice. He made the choices necessary to defeat the imperialists, especially the fascists. Had Stalin not gone forward as he did to build socialism in the Soviet Union, “in one country,” it is likely that Hitler would have won World War 2. Stalin’s rapid industrialization, with the austerity measures and social dislocation that resulted, was necessary so that the Soviet Union would have the resources, the weaponry, and the ideological unity to defeat the fascists. World War 2 claimed the lives of 27 million Soviet people. This number would have surely been higher without Stalin. Stalin came to represent the revolutionary anti-fascist movement globally. Even though Stalin existed in difficult times, he still still carried out social revolution. This social revolution included the emancipation of Soviet women. He fought against national chauvinism and Russo-centrism. Those who criticize Stalin need to ask themselves: what  would they  have done in his place? Enemies within. Fascists and imperialist invasions. Backward industry. A devastated economy. Surrounded on all sides. As Mao pointed out, Stalin made mistakes. Some of his mistakes included his conception of counter-revolution. Stalin saw the problem of counter-revolution through a police paradigm instead of the power paradigm. He overestimated the effects of agents and wreckers and underestimated the role of social forces in causing counter-revolution. Preventing counter-revolution is not simply a matter of better policing. His errors include his methods for dealing with counter-revolution, overestimation of the importance of the productive forces, putting narrow Soviet interest above the proletariat in foreign policy. As with all things, uphold the good, toss the bad. It is politically irresponsible to simply dismiss the Stalin era as one big mistake as anti-communists do.

Who was Mao?

Mao was born in China on December 26th, 1893. He died on September 9th, 1976. Mao was, in some ways, the greatest revolutionary leader of the past. Mao’s revolution was vast, encompassing a quarter of the world’s population. In October, 1949, Mao declared that China had stood up. A quarter of the world’s population, for a moment, dared to attempt to find a way out of the madness of feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism. Mao’s revolution ended poverty. Mao sought to reach communism, to end all oppression and exploitation. Mao was the greatest feminist of all time. A quarter of the world’s women went from existing in feudalist patriarchy to having real political power. He led the New Democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism in China. The two mountains were lifted off of the backs of a quarter of humanity. Later, he led the Chinese masses to socialist construction. Hundreds of millions of peasants and workers gained political power and a real say over their world. Mao learned much from the shortcomings of previous revolutions. He saw how the Soviet Union had deteriorated into another capitalist empire.  He foresaw that capitalism would be restored in China as it had in the Soviet Union after Stalin. Mao studied the counter-revolution there. In an effort to prevent counter-revolution and move closer to communism, Mao helped initiate the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao sought to unleashed the creative energy of the masses to try to create a new model of socialist transformation. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao helped initiate mass movements to attempt to reach communism. Later, Mao would turn against those very forces he had unleashed. Even so, Mao expanded Marxism to a new stage. He advanced theories of New Democracy, People’s War, the United Front, Mass Line, new economic development, and, most importantly, Cultural Revolution.

Who was Lin Biao?

Lin Biao was born on December 5th, 1907. He died on September 13th, 1971. Lin Biao played an important role in the people’s war that liberated China from the imperialists and their agents. He came to be known as “China’s greatest general,” Mao’s “closest comrade-in-arms,” and Mao’s “best student.” He, along with Chen Boda, systematized Maoism as a new stage of revolutionary science. Lin Biao popularized the idea that Mao’s theories constituted a new stage of Marxism. Many of the key documents of Maoism were attributed to him, such as Long Live the Victory of People’s War! and the Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. He was one of the main Maoist leaders during the Cultural Revolution. He pushed for Maoist economic policies, collectivization, and a barracks-style egalitarianism. He placed great emphasis on the transformation of culture and the creation of a new socialist humanity. All of society was seen as a school of revolutionary science. Lin Biao’s ideal socialist man was, in many ways, exemplified by the guerilla fighter or the people’s warrior. He pushed for an international line that advocated a global people’s war that advanced from the global countryside to the global city, from the Third World to the First World. He saw both the Western and Eastern bloc imperialists colluding against the Third World. Lin Biao, whose base was the central military, tried to knock down Zhou Enlai and the “adverse current” made up some of the provincial military, which, in some places,  was dominated by revisionists and rightists.  He had a falling out with Mao when Mao shifted to the right in both domestic and foreign policy. He was accused of plotting a coup against Mao. He died under mysterious circumstances. No real evidence was ever presented against him. He was framed as part of the police narrative of the Chinese state. The coup story is part of a police narrative to justify the purge of the Maoist left.

Who was Chen Boda?

Chen Boda was born in 1904 and died on September 20th, 1989. He was an academic and intellectual. He participated in academic debates in literature and history in his early political life. Eventually, he became Mao’s personal secretary and research assistant. He was one of those who advocated moving away from the dogmatic version of “Marxism” coming from Moscow at the time. Along with Mao, he was a major intellectual in the Communist Party who advocated the “Sinification” of Marxism, the adaptation of Marxism to Chinese conditions. He published the first collection of Mao’s writings as part of an official Communist Party history in 1937. He was one of the main architects of what would eventually become known as “Mao Zedong Thought” or, later, Maoism. He was one of the first to systematize Mao’s theories. His book Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Revolution is an important step toward the development of Maoism. Later, Lin Biao would declare that Mao’s theories represented a whole new stage in the development of Marxism.  Chen Boda was one of the main architects of the Maoist aspects of the Great Leap. He also headed up the Maoist Cultural Revolution Group that was charged with leading the Cultural Revolution. During the peak of the Cultural Revolution, the Cultural Revolution Group became the top arbitrer of power alongside Lin Biao’s People’s Liberation Army and Mao himself. He represented a line that advocated Maoist economic policies, especially communization. And he represented a line that advocated Jacobin, anarchistic mass action against the institutions of governance in order to solve the problems of bureaucratization, corruption, bourgeoisification and counter-revolution within the Party and state. He represented that trend in the Cultural Revolution that sought to unleash the masses as a solution to the problems facing the revolution. He was allied with Lin Biao against Zhou Enlai. Chen Boda also came into conflict with Zhang Chunqiao (a member of the “Gang of Four”) who had allied with the rightists and revisionists to remove him. His younger associates — Wang Li, Qi Benyu, and Guan Feng — had fallen at the end of 1967 and in 1968 as a purge of the so-called ultra-left. He fell in 1970 and was imprisoned. As an extended part of the same series of purges, Lin Biao would also fall in 1971. The post-Mao regime charged him with being a member of both the Lin Biao and Gang of Four cliques.

Who were Wang Li, Qi Benyu, and Guan Feng?

Wang Li, Qi Benyu, Guan Feng were a group of young radical Maoists in Beijing around Chen Boda and Jiang Qing. They represented the so-called “ultra-left” of the Maoist Cultural Revolution Group. They tended to support Lin Biao and attack Zhou Enlai.  Zhou Enlai represented the rightwing and revisionists. Wang Li, Qi Benyu, and Guan Feng also had conflicts with  some members of the Shanghai group that would come to be known as the “Gang of Four.”  Wang Li, Qi Benyu, and Guan Feng were part of the trend that sought to solve the problem of counter-revolution and revisionism by unleashing the masses, by unleashing a Jacobin “bottom-up” purge. They represented the more anarchic and Jacobin tendency of the Cultural Revolution. They represented the more spontaneous side of the Cultural Revolution. They fell from power at the end of 1967 and into 1968 as the red guard movement was ended. Their line was opposed not only by the right and revisionists, but also by other Maoists  as “too left”  at times.

Who were the so-called Gang of Four?

The so-called Gang of Four were Maoist radicals from Shanghai who rose to national politics during the Cultural Revolution. They became the main Maoist opposition after the fall of  Chen Boda’s group from 1967 to 1970 and Lin Biao in 1971. They were the last remaining top leaders of the Maoist left to fall. Jiang Qing (March 20th, 1914 – May 14th, 1991), Mao’s last wife, wielded the most power among the Four. She initiated the cultural battles against  conservative art. She revolutionized Peking Opera and other art forms.  Zhang Chunqiao (1917- April 21, 2005), Yao Wenyuan (1931- December 23rd, 2005), and Wang Hongwen (1935 – August 3, 1992) were other top Maoists after the fall of Lin Biao in 1971.They survived the purge of Maoists that resulted in Lin Biao and Chen Boda’s fall. They survived by opportunistically allying with the rightists and revisionists. Even so, it cannot be denied that they led the opposition to Deng Xiaoping in Mao’s last years. After Mao died in September 9th, 1976, the Gang was soon routed by a revisionist alliance of Hua Guofeng’s and Deng Xiaoping’s forces. The Four had little support among the masses at the  time they fell. They also had little institutional support. After the fall of Lin Biao and the restoration of the rightists and revisionists, the Four had only remained in power due to Mao’s prestige. As soon as Mao died, the Four were easily swept away by their enemies. They were imprisoned by the post-Mao regime.

Where does the Leading Light stand in relation to this history?

Leading Light Communist Organization (LLCO) has elevated revolutionary science to a whole new level. The Leading Light has advanced new theories of global class analysis, new theories of exploitation, the proletariat, New Power and global people’s war. Leading Light has expanded the understanding of the transitional period to communism, of New Democracy, socialism and New Socialism. The Leading Light has studied the past and summed up that history. As science, Leading Light Communism embraces what works and tosses what does not work. We must study the past so that we can go further toward communism next time. The Leading Light has expanded our understandings of epistemology and revolution as science. The Leading Light is re-organizing the international communist movement along true, elevated scientific lines to initiate the next great wave of communist revolution. Leading Light has created a global organization, a global New Power, and a global people’s war to go all the way to true communism, Leading Light Communism. All true communists today are Leading Light Communists.  Leading Light Communism is the future.

Misleaders

What about anarchists?

Anarchists have opposed scientific leadership of the revolutionary movement in various ways since Marx’s day. Their impact has been mixed. Historically, anarchists and communists have the same goal, but they differ on how to get there. There is a Leading Light saying: communists are anarchists with a plan. Anarchists often claim to oppose state power in general. But, they, like communists, usually agree with some kind of organized New Power when pressed. Anarchists are usually very vague about the shape it takes. They usually desire a more disorganized type of New Power. Their rhetoric often rejects any kind of transition period from capitalism to communism. They often reject scientific planning for emotion and intuition. They have sometimes, out of desperation and lack of strategic planning, turned to random, petty, pathetic acts of violence, which are mostly ignored by everyone but themselves. Many anarchists consider the breaking of windows a heroic act.  In these regards, they are infantile and utopian. They often want to go too far, too fast. They are irresponsible and unaccountable. Historically, they have not accomplished much. They have usually sat on the sidelines criticizing those forces that are more effective, including proletarian, communist forces and anti-imperialist forces. However, Lenin once wrote that he would rather ally with the anarchists than the revisionist social-democrats, the liberals of his day.

Today, anarchists are a mixed bag. There are First Worldist anarchists who narrowly emphasize “the workers.” There are First Worldists who fail to understand the reactionary nature of the First World as a whole.  There are those anarchists who emphasize community building and mutual aid. There are anarchists who emphasize returning to nature and tribalism. Even though many profess anarchism, most practice a kind of movementarianism that is indistinguishable from the First Worldist social-democratic forces around them. Many practice a paralyzing and unscientific identity politics as an incorrect answer to chauvinism. Some are more concerned with their personal lifestyles than with changing the world. Their politics come from a very privileged place where they are not accountable to the masses. Their politics tends to be individualist and egotistical at times — more than other trends. Anarchists are unable to understand the balance of social forces scientifically. So, they are unable to prioritize struggles. They fail to understand the need to unite against imperialism. They often do not uphold the united front. They are often anti-theoretical; they often demand blind action. Their politics are often based on emotion and individualism. Green and primitivist anarchists have some unity with the Leading Light on the critique of the global capitalist system, especially First World consumption. Some of them may be important allies in the First World. Some of them may be more open to advancing to Leading Light consciousness. Other anarchist trends tend to be First Worldist. Even so, many anarchists can still be good allies and friends at the level of front work, at the tactical level, and on the streets.

What about other utopians?

Anarchists are not the only utopians. There are plenty of people who have imagined a radically better world, but have proposed no serious way to get there. They refuse to address the issues of power and transition. They refuse to look at social forces. These utopians are a mixed bunch. There are technological utopians who imagine a world where all problems are simply solved by increasing the level of technology without concern for ideology, culture or reorganization of power. “Robots will save the day” is their mantra. This is a primitive version of the Theory of Productive Forces. There are also primitivist utopians, including some anarchists, who think that all problems are solved by returning to the ways of earlier, “primitive” societies. These people rarely state how the transitions are supposed to happen except in the vaguest ways. “Raising consciousness,” “education,” until reaching “a critical mass,” etc. are their empty mantras. They tend to have the Christian outlook that everyone can be reached so long as they hear the “Good News.”  Other utopians cease to focus on the world at all, they instead focus on simply creating their own little utopia in the here-and-now through co-ops and communes of various kinds — often based on and situated within the imperialist economy. “Tune in, turn on, drop out.” When it really comes down to it, these efforts do little to change anything by themselves. Endless feel-good  “community building,” without tying it to the global struggle,  is their manta.

What about social democrats? liberals? Democrats? the Labor Party?

Social democrats have various faces. Some advocate very mild social democracy; others advocate more extensive social democracy. Some call themselves socialist or democratic socialist. Some even call themselves communist. Some call themselves anarchists. Some call themselves liberals. Some call themselves Democrats. Some call themselves the Labor Party.  Social democrats think that capitalism can be gradually reformed toward so-called “socialism” (by which they mean welfare-state capitalism). Most think that the system can be transformed into their conceptions of “socialism” through legal means. Although most social democrats advocate legal means, some do not — armed revisionism in the Third World, for example. Social democrats are not out to reach communism. They want limited reform, a welfare state, a social safety net, some protections for the lower strata, etc.  In the First World, social democracy takes an imperialist form. They often support imperialism when it benefits their own populations at the expense of others. In the Third World, the patriotic pole of the national bourgeoisie can take on a social-democratic face as part of an alliance with the lower classes against imperialism and its comprador agents.

Around the time of World War 1, the social democrats of the various imperial countries voted to support the imperialist war. They reasoned that a victory for their country would help their people, their nation’s workers. In this respect, they were not unlike the Nazi regime in Germany that sought to benefit the German people as a whole, including the workers by plundering others through genocide and war. Similarly, social democrats in the First World often support imperialism against the Third World because it helps the people of the First World. They advocate for their imperialist populations at the expense of the vast majority of humanity. Almost all social democrats are First Worldist. Lenin opposed the social democrats in the Second International. Lenin refused to support imperialist war. Lenin advocated on behalf of the global proletariat, not the population of a single country or group of imperialist countries. Lenin held that those in imperialist countries ought work for the defeat of their own countries in order to transform such a defeat into a revolutionary situation, i.e. revolutionary defeatism. The split between the revolutionary Marxists, best represented by Lenin, and the social democrats was one of the major historic battles between revolution and revisionism. Lenin advocated a revolutionary road to power. The social democrats of his time advocated reformism.

Who was Trotsky? Who are Trotskyists?

Trotsky sought to lead the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin. He challenged Stalin’s leadership after Lenin’s death. He went into exile after he was defeated politically. He was later assassinated, probably by those loyal to Stalin. He came to be seen as a traitor because, as World War 2 approached,  he saw Stalin as the main danger in the world, not fascism. Thus Trotsky sought to destabilize the Soviet Union as it prepared for war against fascism. He toyed with the idea of using World War 2 to lift himself to power, which would have meant a de facto alliance with the Nazis. He was politically irresponsible. He urged his followers to oppose Stalin on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. In a time when it the world needed unity against fascism, Trotsky urged division. He became a wrecker and counter-revolutionary. He often sat on the sidelines sniping at those who were working to build the Soviet Union. Trotsky worked with imperialists against the communist movement. His followers sought to work with the imperialists to hunt down communists loyal to the Soviet Union. George Orwell, who was associated with Trotskyist tendencies, for example, snitched out communists to the British police. Trotsky changed positions many times during his lifetime. Trotsky was a big advocate of the Theory of Productive Forces, the idea that economic development is the main task to achieving socialism and communism. He was very metaphysical and teleological in his approach to revolutionary change. He thought that before socialist revolution could occur, capitalist society patterned on Western Europe had to already exist. Thus when revolution happened in the “backward” “weak link” of Russia, a problem was raised by Trotsky: how to go forward? Trotsky veered between poles. Sometimes he thought revolution could not go forward — that a gradualist social-democratic approach is the best that could be achieved in such an undeveloped country. Other times, he thought that because the Soviet Union was so backward, the best option was to go full-speed ahead, forcing austerity on the population and compelling development through militarization of all of society. At times, Trotsky advocated a more forceful and “top-down” approach than Stalin. Trotsky was, at times, for development at bayonet point. Thus Trotskyist criticisms of Stalin as an autocrat smack of hypocrisy.

There is also his Theory of Permanent Revolution. This was a theory that entailed the following: a revolution in a less developed  country (like  the Soviet Union) could only succeed if it spread into a more developed one (like Germany). Once a revolution occurred in Germany, the German revolution could then help the Soviet peoples overcome their backwardness. So the theory goes. Thus, for Trotsky, the key revolution is the revolution in the imperialist and more modern  countries, not in the colonies and less modern  of the time. Also, Trotsky, contrary to Lenin, predicted the world revolution would move toward the West. Lenin said the center of world revolution was heading eastward. Lenin proved to be correct. The next round of revolutions happened in the colonies, not the imperialist homelands. Trotsky’s theories are extreme First Worldism for various reasons. First, Trotskyists often rely on an outlook that simply assumes the First World is “more developed” and the Third World is “less developed.” The reality is that in today’s world both the First World and Third World are mal-developed. The First World has, in many places, become de-industrialized. So, it remains to be seen how the First World could simply come to the rescue of the Third World. Today the productive forces are more concentrated in the Third World, not the First World. Second, it also remains to be seen how First World revolution could come about first since the populations there have no material interest in socialism, at least not in the short and mid-term. Third, Trotskyists tend to be very Euro-centric. They tend to write off anti-imperialist struggles and progressive movements in the Third World as unimportant while elevating social-democratic and social-imperialist struggles of First World populations. Some Trotskyists openly support imperialism because they see imperialism as a modernizing force in the world. They think the imperialists help the poor peoples by modernizing them, thereby paving the way for the make-believe Trotskyist revolution. This is why some Trotskyists became neo-conservatives who supported US wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Many Trotskyists support efforts by the imperialists to depose the Islamic Republic of Iran. Trotskyists today are a mixed bunch. Some Trotskyists stick more to the letter of Trotsky’s works. Others are barely indistinguishable from run-of-the-mill social democrats and liberals. Other crypto-Trotskyists uphold Trotsky’s theories while claiming not to do so. All Trotskyists are social-imperialist and First Worldist.

Many people embrace Trotsky because the incorrectly perceive him as a less harsh, more democratic option than Stalin. The reality was very different. Even though criticisms of Soviet socialism can be made, as they were by Maoists, it is incorrect to see Trotskyism as the solution.

Who are other “Marxists”?

There are many claiming to uphold one form of Marxism or another. Some even claim Lenin or Mao. Those who hold First Worldist ideologies are moribund today, even if they uphold some aspects of the revolutionary tradition. At one point, some of these ideologies were leading the communist movement. Those who uphold these ideologies today are dogmatic fragments and echoes of the last great waves of revolution. Today, they have been surpassed by Leading Light Communism. While those holding these ideologies sometimes play a progressive role in the anti-imperialist struggle, just as other social democrats in the Third World can, these ideologies are not the ideological vanguard of the world communist movement. They are not the basis for the re-constitution of the communist movement nor for initiating the next great wave of revolution. They are ideological relics, even though they may sometimes have fighting strength. These movements still uncritically uphold the dogma of First Worldism. If a movement cannot understand the basic social dynamics shaping the world, then it will not have the scientific ability to advance us to communism. Those holding these kinds of ideologies have internalized many important lessons of the past. In some respect, they are more advanced than other misleaders. However, because they have not understood the advances of revolutionary science, of Leading Light Communism, they remain dogmatically stuck in the past. The Leading Light is the way forward.

Who was Khrushchev?

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was born on April 15th, 1894 and died on September 11th, 1971. After Stalin’s death, a power struggle ensued. Khrushchev was a revisionist, a social-imperialist, and new bourgeois who came to power in a coup against Beria, who many also consider a revisionist, on June 26th, 1953. Beria was an important police and intelligence chief under Stalin. He had consolidated power after Stalin’s death for a brief time. Beria was arrested at night by military men loyal to Khrushchev. Beria was then shot. Khrushchev had consolidated his position by 1956. It was during Khrushchev’s reign that it became very obvious that the Soviet Union had ceased being revolutionary. It was during this period that the Soviet Union openly acted like a big imperialist power. Khrushchev advocated the doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” with the Western imperialists. This doctrine divided the world into spheres of influence: the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc. Both the Western imperialists headed by the USA and the social imperialists headed by the Soviet revisionists worked together against the rising masses of the Third World. The Soviet Union advocated Moscow-centered economic policies within its sphere. They made their satellite countries and allies dependent on them just as Western imperialists did with their colonies and neocolonies. Khrushchev advocated a return to market mechanisms over collectivization. He favored technocracy over mass struggles and mass line. In addition, Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s legacy at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. While Stalin had made real errors, Khrushchev’s denunciation was a mix of lies, liberalism and anti-communism. Khrushchev’s regime pushed aside and deposed the remaining Stalinists. Mao criticized these turns. Mao came to the conclusion that a new bourgeoisie had arisen in the Soviet Union. Mao’s conclusion was that the Soviet Union under Khrushchev had become capitalist and social-imperialist: socialism in words, imperialism in deeds. Many people mark the end of socialism in the Soviet Union with the consolidation of Khrushchev’s power in 1956. However, others mark it with the death of Stalin in 1953. Others think that the fall of Soviet socialism, the end of the social revolution’s progress, can be traced  to the latter years of Stalin’s regime. In any case, Khrushchev was seen as too weak for some of his generals. Khrushchev was deposed by another group of revisionists led by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964. The Soviet Union was thoroughly revisionist, capitalist and imperialist during and after Khrushchev’s regime.

The so-called international communist movement split during Khrushchev’s regime. Most groups slavishly followed Moscow. These groups mostly morphed into social-democratic, revisionist groups, although some remained armed. In the United States, these forces integrated into the leftwing of the Democratic Party. They continued to take orders from Moscow until  the collapse of the Soviet state. However, an “anti-revisionist” movement arose to oppose the direction of the revisionist Soviet Union. These organizations often affiliated with Mao’s China or Hoxha’s Albania. They often called themselves “Marxist-Leninists” or followers of “Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong Thought” or “Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.” Some advocated Mao-inspired lines. Other advocated  “back to Stalin” and “Marxist-Leninist” approaches. This split between China and the Soviet revisionists is sometimes called the “Sino-Soviet split.” Today, the only real communism is Leading Light Communism.

Who was Brezhnev?

Leonid Brezhnev (December 19th, 1906 – November 10th, 1982) came to power in the Soviet Union after Khrushchev. He was a social-imperialist, new capitalist, and revisionist. He pushed to expand Soviet military power and influence. He was more aggressive in his policies against the Western imperialists, but also toward the Third World. Today there are some that exist in the political space of “Brezhnev.” These revisionist forces are usually good at opposing Western imperialism, but turn a blind eye to other imperialism. They uncritically tail after anti-Western regimes; they even call them “socialist.”

Who was Gorbachev?

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born March 2nd, 1931) was a social-imperialist, revisionist, and new capitalist. He was a follower of Khrushchev. Gorbachev was the person who presided over the official dismantling of Soviet state capitalism. Soviet socialism had been dead for decades. However, Gorbachev finally tossed the red flag. The Russia that emerged is an openly imperialist and capitalist one. He is still involved in social-democratic politics in Russia today.

Who was Liu Shaoqi?

Liu Shaoqi (November 24th, 1898 – November 12th, 1969) became a senior, revisionist leader within the Chinese communist movement, eventually becoming the Chinese head of state. He came into opposition with the Maoists during the Great Leap from 1958 to 1962. He opposed the efforts to communize, revolutionize culture, unleash the masses, eliminate material incentive,  eliminate the distinction between urban and rural, eliminate the distinction between intellectual and material labor, and so on. He opposed the Maoist attempts to move further toward communism during the Great Leap. After the problems of the Great Leap, his faction ascended while the Maoist faction waned in influence. Liu Shaoqi favored gradualism, use of market mechanisms, material incentives, emphasis on technological development over class struggle. He favored bureaucracy and technocracy over revolution.  Implicitly, Liu Shaoqi favored the reversal of socialism and restoration of capitalism. He was one of the proponents of the Theory of the Productive Forces, a theory that advocates technological development and technical expertise over re-organization of social forces and culture.  The Maoists saw him as “China’s Khrushchev,” “the top capitalist roader,” “a new bourgeoisie,” etc. The Maoists launched the Cultural Revolution to oppose the restoration of capitalism and to advance further toward communism. Liu Shaoqi was deposed in 1967, but his followers were able to regroup. After Lin Biao fell in 1971, Liu Shaoqi’s followers made a big comeback, which Mao enabled. Even though Liu Shaoqi died in 1969, his followers, led by Deng Xiaoping, were triumphant. They fully restored capitalism. Liu Shaoqi is the grandfather of the current capitalist system in China.  Liu Shaoqi was a revisionist and new bourgeoisie.

Who was Zhou Enlai?

Zhou Enlai (March 8th, 1898 – January 8th, 1976) was a rightest turned revisionist who remained loyal to Mao while at the same time protecting and enabling those who opposed the Maoist policies of the Cultural Revolution. He represented the right and revisionist wings of the Communist Party of China. His power was based in the institutions of the state, especially the Foreign Ministry and those parts of the People’s Liberation Army that opposed Lin Biao and the Cultural Revolution. He was part of the alliance that knocked down the red-guard leftwing and Lin Biao’s  People’s Liberation Army leftwing. He helped elevate Deng Xiaoping and his allies back into power in the 1970s. He also helped orchestrate China’s shift toward the West in the 1970s. Unlike Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai managed to stay in power throughout the entire last decade of Mao’s life. Mao never worked to depose Zhou Enlai.

Who was Deng Xiaoping?

Deng Xiaoping (August 22nd, 1904 – February 19, 1997) was part of Liu Shaoqi’s revisionist faction of the Communist Party of China. Deng Xiaoping emerged as the leader of the most counter-revolutionary wing of the Chinese Communist Party after Liu Shaoqi’s death. He was an important top leader under Liu Shaoqi. During the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping was identified as the second top capitalist roader. Mao  undermined Deng Xiaoping at times, but always intervened to protect him from being fully purged. In the 1970s, he led the most rightwing and revisionist grouping against the severely-weakened leftover Maoists known as the “Gang of Four.” After Mao’s death in 1976, the revisionists, Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping, orchestrated the arrest and imprisonment of the leftover Maoists. Deng Xiaoping then orchestrated the marginalization of Hua Guofeng. Deng Xiaoping became top leader in the late 1970s. He denounced the Cultural Revolution and Maoist economics. While still recognizing Mao as a national hero and military leader, he rejected Mao’s radicalism. Deng Xiaoping was an advocate of the Theory of the Productive Forces like Liu Shaoqi. He advocated a reversal of collectivization and a return to free markets. He also advocated an alliance with the West against the Soviet Union. It was under Deng Xiaoping that Liu Shaoqi’s plans were implemented. Socialism was dismantled. Capitalism went full speed ahead. China’s capitalism is Deng Xiaoping’s baby. Deng Xiaoping was a revisionist and new bourgeoisie.

Who was Hua Guofeng?

Hua Guofeng (February 16th, 1921 – August 20th, 2008) was a rightest turned revisionist and new bourgeoisie who briefly ruled as China’s top leader after Mao’s death in 1976. As Mao aged, a successor was needed. In Mao’s last years, a power struggle was brewing between the Gang of Four and the followers of Deng Xiaoping. Hua Guofeng was chosen by Mao as a compromise candidate. He, along with Deng Xiaoping’s forces, deposed the Gang of Four quickly after Mao’s death. Then Hua Guofeng was quickly outmaneuvered by Deng Xiaoping. During his short reign, Hua Guofeng advocated a return to retrograde, Soviet-style economics. Hua Guofeng’s policies were dropped in favor of Deng Xiaoping’s free market ones.

What about other progressive movements, other social experiments,  and historical figures?

There have been many social experiments, social revolutions, in the past century, especially after World War 2. There were many Eastern European “people’s democracies” that were put into power with the help of the Soviet Red Army. There were many national liberation struggles, many claiming to be socialist. Many of these struggles were progressive in some respects, even though they were not always properly socialist or communist led. Beside genuine communist movements, this century has seen anti-imperialist movements that were very diverse: Pan-Arabist, Pan-Africanist, Bolivarian, Islamist, and some revisionists. Note that this doesn’t mean all forces claiming these titles were or are anti-imperialist. When these forces are progressive, most of these forces represent an alliance of some part of the national bourgeoisie with the lower classes against other segments of the bourgeoisie, feudalists or imperialists. Most of these movements had a progressive element, even if they were not truly communist. Often, these are regimes of national development, social-democratic reform, and limited anti-imperialism. We cannot go through every movement and leader in the world here. However, we will focus on the more influential ones.

What about nationalists? National liberation?

Not all patriotism is the same. Patriotism of the oppressor is different than patriotism of the oppressed. Patriotism of imperialist countries is fascistic. Patriotism of the oppressed countries and nations is often a righteous expression of national liberation struggles. National liberation against imperialism is progressive whether it is led by communists or not. Supporting anti-imperialist, national-liberation struggles is part of upholding the broad united front against imperialism. However, national liberation by itself leads only back to imperialism. The only way to end imperialism once and for all is to defeat capitalism. The only way to defeat capitalism is with Leading Light Communism. National liberation struggles rose especially after World War 2, when European empires had weakened. Today, the trend is away from national liberation toward pan-Third Worldism, toward Leading Light Communism. Leading Light Communism, not limited nationalism, will create the ideological unity to make revolution in the coming epoch. Although, in some cases, national liberation can merge with Leading Light Communism.

Who is Ho Chi Minh? What about the Vietnamese revolution?

Ho Chi Minh (May 19th, 1890 to September 2nd, 1969) was the leader of the Vietnamese independence movement from 1941 onward. He led the Democratic Republic of Vietnam established in 1945. His forces defeated the French Union in 1954 at Đien Biên Phu France was forced to give up its empire in Southeast Asia. The Geneva Accords partitioned the country. Ho led the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the northern part of the country. The United States and other imperialists established a client state in the southern part of Vietnam. According to the accords, there was to be an election to reunify the country in 1956, but the imperialist-backed regime rejected it because most voters would have favored Ho in an election. A war of national liberation against imperialism followed. China and the Soviet Union supported the North. The United States and other imperialists supported the South. The United States invaded and occupied the South to prop up the unpopular regime there. In total, 3,403,100 United States military personnel served in the Southeast Asia theater (Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, and Thailand) over the course of the conflict. Against overwhelming technological superiority, the Vietnamese were able to defeat the imperialists and liberate their country. People power won out. The cost was high. Millions unnecessarily died from the conflict in Southeast Asia. “Uncle Ho” became a symbol of the righteous struggle against imperialism worldwide. However, the revolution in Vietnam was stillborn. Even though they defeated the Western imperialists, they came into a close relationship with the Soviet imperialists. Ho represented a more radical, communist, Maoist-leaning line in the Party. Ho’s more radical policies got sidelined by Le Duan’s revisionist group. Le Duan was a big proponent of the Theory of Productive Forces. This thwarted communist social revolution. Advancing the productive forces became the main aim to the detriment of social revolution. The regime also sought to establish its own dominance over the old French colonies in Indochina. Vietnam exerted influence over Laos and invaded and set up a client state in Kampuchea in 1978. The regime in Vietnam today is revisionist and capitalist and has integrated itself into the global economy. Even though the struggle of the Vietnamese people was heroic, the regime was neither communist-led nor socialist for very long after victory if at all. The regime was not out to reach communism, but, rather, like other leftist, anti-imperialist, patriotic-bourgeois regimes sought to establish a course of national development and negotiate a better partnership with imperialists (Soviet and later Western) to this end. At the same time, the regime carried out important democratic reforms, including education, social-democratic reform, the liberation of women, etc.

Who was Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge? What about Cambodia/Kampuchea?

Pol Pot (May 19th, 1925 to April 15th, 1998) was the leader of the “Khmer Rouge” from 1963 until shortly before his death in 1998. He led the forces that ousted the imperialists from Kampuchea (Cambodia). He was leader of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 to 1979, when his regime was ended by the invasion by Vietnam. Pol Pot’s forces ousted the imperialists out of Kampuchea. Then the Vietnamese invaded and deposed the Khmer Rouge in 1979. The Khmer Rouge continued to wage a guerrilla war, sometimes with American support, after they were ousted. In 1991, the pro-Vietnamese Kampuchean state and the rebel alliance, which included the Khmer Rouge, signed a treaty calling for elections and disarmament. However, conflict resumed. Factional strife led to Pol Pot’s arrest and trial by the Khmer Rouge. His former followers turned on him. He died under house arrest.

The history of Kampuchea is a bloody one. Like much of the Third World, Kampuchea was ravaged by a century of colonialism. It was and continues to be mal-developed. Extreme poverty was imposed on its people. This poverty was enforced with bayonets, bullets and bombs. Colonialism was replaced by neocolonialism in Kampuchea after World War 2. Direct imperialist rule was replaced by indirect rule. For a time, Norodom Sihanouk and more patriotic elements held power and tried to prevent the United States from using Kampuchean territory against Vietnam during the Vietnam war. For this, the United States deposed his regime and installed the puppet regime of Lon Nol. The United States began bombing Kampuchea “back to the stone age” when president Richard Nixon expanded the Vietnam War into Kampuchea. The carpet bombing of Kampuchea’s countryside caused massive death on a genocidal scale. It caused a major refugee crisis. It caused massive starvation and shortages as peasants were forced to cease producing and flee to cities to survive. The brutality of the imperialist policies led the people to flock to the Khmer Rouge who were waging a guerrilla struggle against Lon Nol and the imperialists. The Khmer Rouge were able to seize power fully in 1975.

The country they inherited had been ravaged by a century of imperialist exploitation. It was ravaged by the bombings and social dislocation caused by the United States. They inherited a country on the verge of total famine and social collapse in many areas. United States intelligence agencies predicted that no matter who came to power in the chaos that millions would die. Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge in an attempt to make some social revolution in the middle of a massive crisis. They dislodged the genocidal regime of the imperialists. The Khmer Rouge regime was a harsh and commandist one. Millions died. These deaths were mainly a result of imperialism and its aftereffects. But the  Khmer Rouge regime’s actions and mismanagement also contributed to the crisis. Sometimes, the Khmer Rouge claimed to be communist, even embracing communist slogans. Other times, they said they were not communist. They simply claimed to be nationalists. Their attempts to reorganize society were very radical in some respects, but not based on revolutionary science. They veered toward utopianism and narrow nationalism.  They were erratic.  They made alliances with all kinds of forces, including the United States after they were dislodged by the Vietnamese. They took up various ideological banners and slogans in a superficial way in an attempt to find patrons. They allied with the Chinese and United States in the 1970s in the geopolitical struggle against the Soviet imperialists and Vietnam. Even as the United States was funneling aid to the Khmer Rouge, the bourgeois media often sought to use the Khmer Rouge as way to try to discredit communism. Even though they were not real communists, their rhetoric emphasized the need for self-sufficiency. Yet they sought patronage from those who would offer it.

By the time they took power, the wave of social revolutions and national liberation that followed World War 2 was ending. The Khmer Rouge can be seen as the tail end or aftereffect of that wave of revolution that was best represented by the Maoists in China. The Khmer Rouge came to power as the Maoist revolution was ending China. They were more associated with the geopolitical outlook of the Chinese revisionists, not the global people’s war outlook of Lin Biao and the Maoists. The rise of the Khmer Rouge can be understood as the rise of various popular classes, not led by communist science, trying to find aid from a recently Maoist, now revisionist China in order to prop their regime up in an extreme crisis situation.

Who was Fidel Castro? What about the Cuban revolution?

Fidel Castro (born August 13th, 1926) is the leader of the Cuban revolution and continues to play an important role in Cuba’s affairs today. On the whole, he was a Cuban patriot and anti-imperialist who led Cuba’s struggle against United States imperialism. Although, at times, he capitulated to Soviet, and later, European imperialisms. He and a small group of guerrillas, the 26th of July Movement, finally toppled the corrupt, imperialist-backed Batista dictatorship in January of 1959. Castro’s regime began to implement social-democratic reforms. They also continued to heroically fight off United States aggression, such as the attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs. In response, the United States tried to isolate and destabilize Cuba’s power and economy. The United States placed an embargo on the island country that continues to this day.  Rather than building up an independent country, the Cuban regime turned toward the Soviet imperialists. They integrated themselves into the Soviet “international division of socialist [sic.] labor.” Sugar remained king in Cuba as in days when Western imperialism dominated the island. Thus the Cuban economy once again became dependent on imperialists. Even so, the regime always remained more independent than other Soviet-backed regimes during the Cold War. At times, they even went against the wishes of their Soviet patrons. Che Guevara opposed the drift in Cuba toward the Soviet imperialists.

Cuba was never socialist in a real sense. Cuba was never really aiming for communism. Fidel Castro himself has said he is not a communist. He has said the “age of armed struggle is over in Latin America.” He was also critical of the militancy of the Maoist movement, which represented the communist movement at the time.  Even though he was not a communist, he often represented the patriotic, progressive wing of the national bourgeoisie in Cuba. As the national bourgeoisie often does in the Third World, he sometimes veered toward the comprador pole, sometimes toward the more patriotic. Sometimes he was very progressive, even adopting Marxist rhetoric. He enacted many good programs that benefited Cubans. The Cuban healthcare system is known to be one of the best. However, other times, he was comprador to the Soviet imperialists. At times, Castro was their willing servant.

The Cuban revolution has been in decline for a long time. They want to integrate back into the capitalist world system. They have been dismantling their public sector in favor of markets. However, the United States and the Cuban fascists in Miami still have a grudge against Castro. Eventually, the Cuban regime will  dismantle what remains of its social-democratic and nationalist power. The imperialists will open up the world market to the Cuban regime. The regime is already trying to move into Europe’s orbit. Castro’s death will most likely allow Cuba to reconcile fully with the United States and imperialism generally.

Power in Cuba has passed along familial lines. As Fidel has become too old to rule, power has passed to his brother. This kind of monarchical, nepotistic transfer of power is typical of other revisionist regimes.

Who is “Che” Guevara?

Ernesto “Che” Guevara (June 14th, 1928 to October 9th, 1967) was originally from Argentina. He became a Latin American freedom fighter, an anti-imperialist and communist. He was trained as a medical doctor. He traveled Latin America as a medical student. He was radicalized by his travels. He witnessed the CIA overthrow of the social-democratic regime of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. He met Raul and Fidel Castro in Mexico. He joined the 26th of July Movement and became a prominent figure of the Cuban revolution. Although the Cuban revolution was not communist, it was still an important anti-imperialist and democratic revolution. For a time, Che became a top leader in Cuba. However, he wanted to see the anti-imperialist movement spread. He famously called for “two, three, many Vietnams” against imperialism. With Cuban support, he fought in the Congo against imperialism for a time. He returned to Cuba to regroup. His final expedition was to Bolivia. Che was going to use Bolivia as a starting  point for a war of liberation for all of Latin America against imperialism, especially US imperialism. Che organized a small guerrilla force in Bolivia. The Soviet imperialists and their revisionist clients in Bolivia worked to sabotage him. After many defeats, he was surrounded, captured, and executed on CIA orders. Che became a famous symbol of revolutionary struggle around the world. Che was a prolific writer, although his writings are not nearly as deep as those of Marx, Lenin or Mao. Che is known mostly as a man of action and for his bravery. Che straddled the split between the Maoists and the Soviet revisionists, although he expressed more sympathy for the Maoists. His writings are more consistent with the Maoist trend than with the revisionists of his day.  He died before the Cultural Revolution. However, Che once stated that the Chinese had a higher degree of socialist morality. He leaned toward China. Che has come to be associated with the erroneous military strategy of focoism — a military strategy that overemphasizes the role of small bands of guerrillas as opposed to one that emphasizes the construction of New Power. Focoism is rejected by Leading Lights. Leading Lights advocate global people’s war. Even so, Che was a heroic communist who lived and died for the people.

Who was Kim Il-sung? What about Juche? What about Korea?

Kim Il-sung (April 15th, 1912 to July 8th, 1994) was an anti-imperialist fighter who came to lead the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or “North Korea.” He was a guerrilla fighter against Japanese imperialism in the 1930s. He worked inside the Communist Party of China in those years. His military prowess gained him notoriety. Kim played an important role in the liberation of Korea from imperialism.  After World War 2, before elections could be held across Korea, the imperialist-backed regime in southern Korea canceled them and founded the imperialist-backed Republic of Korea. Kim would come to head the northern Korean state, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Provocations continued between the two states. Hostilities broke out again. This civil war and anti-imperialist, national liberation struggle became known as the “Korean War.” It lasted from June 25th, 1950 to the armistice signing on July 27th, 1953. Northern Korean forces would have won, but the imperialists invaded and turned back the Northern armies. The Soviets provided aid to northern Korea. The Chinese put troops on the ground to counter the imperialists. Eventually an armistice was signed. Millions died and the country remained divided by the imperialists.

Kim tried not take sides in the split between the Soviet imperialists and the Maoists in China. Kim straddled the division. His government sought aid from both the Soviet imperialists and Chinese. He sought a “Korean” path distinct from the Soviet or Maoist models. Over time, the regime dropped its pretense of Marxism, instead endorsing Kim’s ideology of Juche, self-reliance, as the nominal state ideology. Juche blended bourgeois and nationalist notions  of social unity with traditional, feudal, Confucian ones. Socialism and communism were replaced by nation and family, with Kim and his male heirs taking the roles of patriarchs/matriarchs of the nation-family. Power in Korea transfers from father to son. Power is inherited there.

The Maoist students criticized him as a revisionist during the Cultural Revolution. They criticized his regime for its failure to launch its own Cultural Revolution against the bureaucracy, against the new bourgeoisie. The regime is stagnant. The regime can be characterized, at best, as a patriotic and anti-imperialist one, but not socialist.

Who was Evner Hoxha? What about Albania under Hoxha?

Evner Hoxha (October 16th, 1908 to April 11th, 1985) was, at least for a time, a communist and anti-fascist fighter. Hoxha was one of the seven members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Albania, later named the “Albanian Party of Labour,” founded in 1941. When the Nazis and their allies occupied and controlled Albania, Hoxha and his party fought for national liberation against the fascists. Hoxha fought as a partisan against the Nazis and their allies throughout World War 2. Unlike “people’s democracies” of Eastern Europe, Albania was not  directly liberated by the Soviet forces, but rather by the partisans. Hoxha and his party came to lead Albania after World War 2. Hoxha modeled Albania on the Stalin-era Soviet Union. When Khrushchev openly broke with Stalin, Hoxha, like Mao, broke with the Soviets. Hoxha also criticized Soviet attempts to make Albania a dependent colony. Like Mao, Hoxha exposed the rise of Soviet social imperialism, revisionism, and capitalist restoration. Unlike Mao, the critique by Hoxha and his followers remained superficial. Instead of analyzing the material reasons for the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, Hoxha and his followers said the problem was that the Soviets had deviated from Stalin and failed to purge more people. Thus the answer, in the view of the Hoxhaists, was eternal return to Stalin and more purges. Hoxhaists see the world through the police paradigm. The Hoxhaist answer to counter-revolution is to elevate a dogmatized form of Stalin-era Marxist-Leninism to the level of religion. They are stuck in the past. By contrast, the Maoists began to look at the question scientifically. Rather than returning to the past, the Maoists of that era looked forward. They advocated class struggle, continuing the revolution, mass line and cultural revolution. The Maoists expanded the science of revolution. When Mao was alive, Hoxha allied with the Maoists. However, it was an alliance of convenience against the Soviet imperialists more than one of ideological unity. When he received aid from the Chinese, he opportunistically embraced them. After the revisionists in China began cutting support to Albania, Hoxha revealed that he thought the Maoists had been revisionists all along. After Hoxha’s death, Albania quickly began reversing its Stalin era policies. It began to integrate back into global capitalism.

Without constant innovation and revolution, capitalism is restored. Hoxha’s regime, even though part of or allied with the socialist bloc, did not show any dynamism. And once the Maoists had elevated the science, those who did not go forward with them became retrograde from the standpoint of reaching communism. If you are not going to communism, you can only be leading back to capitalism or other reactionary social systems. Hoxha’s regime stayed true to a course that had already been shown not to lead to communism on its own. He did not innovate as the Maoists did. At one point, Hoxha and his movement can be seen as proletarian, when they are pushing forward against the Nazis and when they are going forward. At a certain point though, we can see the regime as  simply representing  popular classes, but not proletarian-led nor communist-led, of Europe’s poorer areas, resisting both the Western and Soviet imperialists, but not really advancing to communism.

Other questions about leadership

Why aren’t there more women communist leaders in our history?

The communist movement has always been at the forefront in the struggle for women’s liberation. This draws many people, both women and men, who are interested in gender equality into our ranks. Mothers and daughters have been revolutionaries alongside fathers and sons. Women have fought on the front lines during the Paris Commune, during the Soviet revolution, the Maoist revolution in China, and many others. In the Soviet Union, women entered the workforce and gained the possibility of autonomy from their husbands for the first time. They made efforts to communize the domestic sphere. Women entered areas of work traditionally dominated by men. Whole genres of Soviet film glamorized tough women, women tractor drivers or partisans,  for example. Maoists in China followed the Soviet example, even going further at times. Maoists in China raised the slogan “women hold up half the sky.” The Maoist revolution was the greatest feminist movement of all time. A quarter of the world’s women went from being slaves to having power and rights. In a society marked by the profound inequalities of Chinese feudalism, Maoists raised the revolutionary slogan “men and women are the same! Whatever men can do women can do!” Traditional Chinese society, with its brutalization of women, was smashed. Brutal practices such as foot-binding were ended. A quarter of the world’s women gained power for the first time. Jiang Qing, a woman, ascended to almost lead China itself. Anti-communist propaganda has always accused communists of creating “dangerous women” or “terrorist women.”

There are many great communist and anti-imperialist women, including great communist intellectuals and leaders who were women. In the 1970s, as Mao degenerated, Jiang Qing was the best leader the communist movement had. Karl Marx’s wife, Jenny Marx, was a theorist in her own right who Leading Light has quoted. Although many of her theories were incorrect, Rosa Luxemberg stood with Lenin on some issues against the revisionist social democrats. Although incorrect on much, she was a first-class theorist in her day. Nadya Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife, was one of his trusted advisers, one of the most admired “Old Bolsheviks” and a revolutionary in her own right. She was a founder of Soviet education system. Clara Zetkin was a great revolutionary, communist, and feminist. Alexandra Kollontai was another famous communist and feminist. In World War 2, there were many Soviet war heroes who were women. They were snipers, pilots, and partisans. In the last fifty years, some of the leading anti-imperialists and communists have been women. Edith Lagos was a 13 year old girl who led a raid on a prison in Peru. Leila Khaled was a Palestinian anti-imperialist who led several high-profile attacks against Zionism and imperialism. The most advanced revolutionary organizations of today have always had women in their leadership. Some of the Leading Light’s most advanced leaders are women. Great women are emerging as Leading Lights. This is their time to boldly step forward and shine. To list all the outstanding women leaders of the revolutionary tradition would simply take too long. It is time for women to step up and lead the communist movement. Hold aloft the banner of the Leading Light.

Even so, we do recognize that many of the greatest leaders of the past were disproportionately men. Marx, Lenin, and Mao are examples. The reason for this is patriarchy, gender oppression. Gender oppression has created a  situation where men are given the opportunity to advance and lead in ways that are more difficult for women. The playing field is not level. This is an empirical fact about our world that we are trying to change. In any case, we will take great leaders from all genders and orientations. Eventually, all women and men in the communist future will be Leading Lights. Everyone will be equal and great. There is a revolutionary saying: “Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force of revolution!”

Why are so many of the great leaders of the past from intellectual, non-proletarian backgrounds?

This is because science arises among the leisure classes. Many of the greatest leaders of the past were people who had a foot in both worlds. They had a foot in the world of the bourgeois intelligentsia  and a foot in the world of the people. They became conduits for science to reach the people. It was through them that the methods of science, the tools of science, could be handed to the people to be wielded as weapons for revolution. Great leaders are conduits, but they also transform. Through their person, through their work, bourgeois science gets transformed into revolutionary, proletarian science. Today, this is the role of the Leading Light.

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