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Anti-RIM Critics from the Cyberswamp
"Virtual
Maoism" and Real Opportunism
By R. Voina
*
As explained in the Introduction to this section of AWTW
on the two-line struggle in Peru, some forces who claim to support
the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and the People's War there have
not only opposed the struggle against the Right Opportunist Line
but have recently launched a campaign of vicious attacks against
the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) and especially
the Committee of RIM (CoRIM). As we go to press, the hard core of
this anti-RIM cabal includes Luis Arce Borja, a Peruvian exile who
edits El Diario Internacional, published in Belgium; Adolfo
Olaechea, a close ally of Arce, who distributes his publications
on the Internet and usually signs himself as the Committee Sol Peru,
London; New Flag, an occasional magazine also edited by a
Peruvian exile, which comes out in New York City; and a small group
in the US called the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), which,
despite its name, has nothing to do with RIM. There are a few other
groups and individuals scattered around Western Europe and North
America who are more loosely associated with this hard core.
It would
be an overstatement to say that these forces actually constitute
a trend. While trying to wrap themselves in the mantle of the PCP
and Maoism, they have a long history of standing aloof from RIM
and from the PCP itself, with each of them jealously guarding their
independence. Even while joining forces to attack RIM, they savagely
turn on each other from time to time like crabs scrabbling to be
top of the heap.
They
say that they have no interests other than defending the PCP Central
Committee and the People's War, but their denunciation of the fight
against the Right Opportunist Line (ROL) is a disservice to the
PCP and to all those who support the cause of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Their opposition to fighting the Right Opportunist Line inexorably
pushes them in the direction of liquidating the struggle against
revisionism more generally. Common political discussions among these
forces include such themes as whether "RIM is too opportunist to
be saved", and they regularly welcome into their ranks almost anyone
who denies the two-line struggle and is opposed to CoRIM, including
pro-Chinese revisionists, old-style pro-Soviet revisionists and
the like. Indeed, their opposition to fighting the Right Opportunist
Line in Peru is the leading edge of a platform of refusing to fight
opportunism at all, and ultimately converges with a programme of
liquidating key dividing lines between Marxism and revisionism in
the international communist movement more generally.
False Representatives
of the PCP
Arce,
New Flag and Olaechea claim that in attacking RIM they are
acting as true representatives of the PCP, or at least of its line.
This has no basis in fact. The PCP has been a participant in RIM
since it was founded 12 years ago, and in statements since the arrest
of Chairman Gonzalo has continued to firmly uphold RIM.1 Faced with
this incontrovertible reality, Arce, New Flag and the rest
are forced into a dizzying display of half-truths and insinuations
to try to give some legitimacy to their anti-RIM project. Arce,
for example, tries to create the impression that he is a "PCP representative",
but has always refrained from doing so explicitly in print where
this might more easily come to the attention of those who know better,
not least of all the PCP itself.2 There are in fact no PCP representatives
abroad at this time.3
Lately,
the efforts of these forces to adopt the mantle of the PCP have
focused on presenting themselves as "unconditional" champions of
Chairman Gonzalo. A brief look at this claim shows not only how
hollow it too is, but also reveals some fundamental features of
their method.
The least
that can be said is that immediately following the capture of Chairman
Gonzalo, these "unconditional" champions seriously minimized the
struggle to defend his life. Arce's El Diario Internacional
headlined its cover not with a call to defend the life of Chairman
Gonzalo, as had been put out by CoRIM, the PCP and the International
Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr Abimael Guzman (IEC),
but with "Gonzalo Thought Is Still Free"; Arce then refused to play
almost any role at all in the IEC campaign. An explanation for this
boycott came out from Olaechea, in an interview with the British
journalist Colin Harding. Olaechea, it should be pointed out, often
plays the role of "point man" for these forces, especially Arce,
saying out loud what is more hidden in their own line. In regards
to the capture of Chairman Gonzalo, Olaechea explained to Harding
that it "...is more of a problem for Fujimori's regime than for
us, really. They have relieved the Party of the responsibility of
looking after the Chairman."4 The disdain for Maoist leadership
expressed in this statement, not to mention Olaechea's attempt to
pass his opinion off as that of the PCP by equating "us" and "the
Party", should wake up anyone who still has the slightest illusion
about the "Maoism" of Olaechea, or of his credibility as a "PCP
representative".
A year
later, when Fujimori attributed the call for peace negotiations
to Chairman Gonzalo, and CoRIM was urging the need to carry out
serious investigation and study of the two-line struggle while continuing
to support the People's War, Olaechea made the following argument:
"Today we have received confirmation that the letters and videos
attributed by the regime to Dr Abimael Guzman were obtained through
psychological torture.... It is completely clear that what has been
said and written by Dr Guzman has been done under force through
continuous psy war' carried out by professional torturers. Far
from being an insult, we should be proud that he resisted for so
long a period.... Psy warfare in this case is no more than the imposition
of violence ... under which the victim has no choice but to surrender."5
Arce likewise advances the argument that once Chairman Gonzalo was
arrested, the only real choice facing him was "death or capitulation".6
How astonishing
it is that these same characters who so quickly and lightly spoke
of Chairman Gonzalo's "capitulation" are now presenting themselves
as his "unconditional" champions and denouncing as "traitors"
and "Fujimori agents" anyone who even considers the possibility
that Chairman Gonzalo might be advocating the Right Opportunist
Line. If their words were taken seriously, they themselves would
be the biggest "agents" of all!
It is
apparent here that what is driving Arce & Co's attacks on RIM
is not some excess of zeal in defence of Chairman Gonzalo, or, for
that matter, of the PCP, however much they might like to protest
otherwise. Their recent donning of the mantle of "unconditional
champions" of Chairman Gonzalo is as shallow and opportunist as
their previous casual acceptance of what they saw as his "capitulation",
and it is no more trustworthy.
The "Usefulness"
of Truth
The way
Arce, Olaechea and New Flag handle the possible involvement
of Chairman Gonzalo in the Right Opportunist Line, along with their
countless other half-truths, distortions and outright falsifications,
reveals a strikingly cavalier approach to the question of truth.7
Furthermore, in a line of argument characteristic of these forces,
Arce holds that this approach is not only justified but necessary,
in order to avoid "demoralization" in the face of "any setbacks
to the revolution and even imperialist propaganda itself".8 Because
of this, he claims that to speak of two-line struggle "confuses
and spreads doubt among the less advanced sections of the people".
In other words, in the interest of supposedly avoiding "confusion"
and "demoralization", Arce thinks it is appropriate to distort,
exaggerate, conceal and even invent important elements of the actual
situation.
Maoists
energetically seek the truth; unlike the bourgeoisie, which is rooted
in class exploitation, and hence has much to hide, the proletariat
has nothing to lose, no special interests to defend in class society
- hence, as Mao said, "thoroughgoing materialists are fearless".
Whether to seek the truth unflinchingly is ultimately a matter of
class stand.
The approach
of Arce & Co to the truth frees them to say whatever they feel
is immediately expedient "for the revolution" at a given moment,
which is then interpreted to mean whatever is expendient to their
own narrow interests. Thus to slander RIM's line on the two-line
struggle and avoid actual line struggle itself, they now baldly
assert that RIM supports the line of peace negotiations!9 As for
the possible involvement of Chairman Gonzalo in the Right Opportunist
Line, regardless of the actual situation Arce & Co are going
to assert whatever suits them at that particular moment. This is
a great disservice, for revolutionary communists can only advance
by facing the truth squarely, however bitter it may be.
The Internet
Café
Another
point on which the views of these forces converge is their criticism
of CoRIM for its "hidden methods of functioning". This is associated
with a more or less general demand by these forces that RIM functions
in a more "open", "democratic" fashion. One group, for instance,
has demanded that CoRIM reveal its internal functioning, while another
one ridiculed CoRIM's members for their "anonymity".
These
complaints against RIM's "hidden functioning" echo longstanding
social-democratic critiques of Leninist organizations for being
"too conspiratorial" and "too secretive". The first question communists
must ask is, "hidden" from whom? Do they really want CoRIM
to "reveal RIM's functioning" publicly, which can only mean to the
imperialist political police as well, when for instance, in the
case of Chairman Gonzalo the whole world has just seen to what lengths
the political police will go to hunt down and "neutralize" revolutionary
leaders? Are these people so numbed by the routine functioning of
Western bourgeois democracies that they do not even consider that
members and leaders of many RIM parties and organizations could
be arrested, tortured and even executed merely for being identified
as being members of their group?!
One of
the great victories represented by the formation of RIM was to provide
a means by which the Maoist parties and organizations around the
world could learn from each other's experience and understanding,
so as to accelerate and strengthen the revolutionary process. The
social-democratic complaints of these forces only undermine these
hard-won gains. Maoists must hope and indeed firmly insist that
CoRIM and RIM do everything possible to function along true Leninist
lines and protect the core of the Movement's internal functioning
from the secret police, even if this offends the "democratic sensibilities"
of some intellectuals.
Given
this kind of bourgeois-democratic critique of RIM, it is not too
surprising that the main forum for the organizing efforts of these
anti-RIM forces has been the international computer network called
the Internet. The Internet enables those who can afford a computer,
a telephone, and a device called a modem (which links the computer
with the telephone system) to subscribe to a service through which
they can send electronic mail to anyone else on the Internet, access
other Internet computers and post messages instantly on what are
called forums, or electronic bulletin boards. Anyone else on the
Internet can then read the messages and respond immediately. In
this electronic world of the Internet, often called a "virtual world"
or "cyberspace", these forces can generate hundreds of pages weekly
on the forum where they regularly carry out their political attacks
on RIM and each other. The atmosphere is like nothing so much as
a non-stop university coffee house political discussion, only the
debate takes place in the electronic world of "virtual reality".
Because
the Internet makes it possible for millions of people from around
the world to be connected electronically with one another with unprecedented
speed and ease, it has been hailed in the media as a great instrument
for "breaking down the barriers" between people of different nations
and promoting an unfettered "global democracy". The "virtual reality"
of Internet "cyberspace" is said to have turned the world into an
"electronic global village".
The anti-RIM
"virtual revolutionaries" openly conduct their activities on the
Internet as if all this were real. They are blinded by their bourgeois-democratic
outlook to some hard truths of life in virtual reality, not least
of all that Big Brother is on the Net. In 1994, a spokesman for
the US FBI acknowledged that they had twenty- five "net literate"
agents for Internet operations, a figure which in the fast changing
world of the Internet has undoubtedly multiplied several times since
then. And this does not include the CIA, National Security Agency
(NSA), and other political police operations in the US alone.10
The UK has at least seven intelligence agencies monitoring the Net,
including MI5, MI6 and GCHQ in Cheltenham.11
The "virtual
revolutionaries" conduct the core of their affairs openly on the
Internet and taunt CoRIM, demanding, for instance, how "in the age
of the Internet" it could possibly "take so long" to come to a public
position on the two-line struggle, as if-leaving aside the question
of taking seriously the two-line struggle-RIM could simply carry
out its most important affairs over the Internet itself. Suffice
it to say that, having fought so hard against the political police
in ordinary reality, Maoists should not just turn themselves over
to the virtual reality snoops on the Net.
This
Internet-centred approach on the part of the "virtual revolutionaries",
besides being legalistic, is also inherently Eurocentric. Maoists
must of course be present and active wherever there are masses,
including on the Internet, so as to do the most possible to advance
the cause of revolution. However, the way this is done must conform
to the principle of Mao's dictum that "you fight your way and I'll
fight mine". Most RIM parties and organizations, for instance, do
not have modems and Internet addresses. This is not only because
many groups are functioning in conditions of severe repression,
but also because of the marked inequality underpinning the structure
of the Internet itself. Whatever the potential of the Internet,
it has arisen under imperialism and reflects and indeed reinforces
the inequalities in the imperialist world. Whereas almost all university
students in the US have Internet access, most people in the oppressed
countries do not have access to a telephone, and half the world's
people have never even made a phone call. The way the "virtual revolutionaries"
function, the loudest voices are inevitably those of the relatively
privileged, whereas whole sections of the world, including revolutionary
parties from the poorest countries, are silent and forgotten. And
the PCP itself is unable to take an active part in these debates,
only to be misrepresented by a host of conflicting "spokesmen",
each with their own modem and their own political line. In such
an unequal world, virtual and real, all modems cannot and must not
be treated as equal. Building organization around a structure that
is so inherently unequal and lopsided will give rise to an irresistible
pull towards imperialist chauvinism.
But even
if somehow everyone on earth had a modem and somehow there were
no imperialist political police in virtual reality, it would still
not be correct to carry on RIM's affairs openly on the Internet,
for it would go against the Marxist theory of knowledge and its
organizational corollary, democratic centralism. RIM is made up
of organizations that have been forged in the various countries
through the protracted, difficult process of going among the masses,
waging revolutionary struggle, finding and bringing forward the
advanced, working out the basic strategy and tactics of revolution
in the country, welding together a vanguard, and throughout this
process, developing and sharpening the understanding and practice
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), in the back-and-forth dialectic
of "from the masses, to the masses", together with and as part of
the international communist movement. Although it is not the same
as a communist party in a single country, RIM is based on MLM organizational
principles. The process of knowing and changing the world must inevitably
respect the Marxist theory of knowledge and the mass line. Democratic
centralism must be applied in a way appropriate to RIM at this time,
which will necessarily be different to how this functions in a party
in a single country. Furthermore, while this general principle of
democratic centralism is publically proclaimed, RIM does not have
to and indeed must not publicly reveal its principles of functioning,
its methods of work, and so on.12
As for
the efforts of these forces to speculate on differences within RIM:
of course there are differences within RIM-and the discussion and
debate that goes on in RIM is part of the process of unity-struggle-unity
through which the whole Movement advances. For example, the adoption
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism by RIM was illustrative of this very
process. Some of this takes place in public, whereas other parts
of it are and should remain internal to the Movement itself. As
is usually the case, those who claim to "be in the know" about communists'
internal functioning know the least!
Reducing Line Struggle
to Police Plots
The stubborn
insistence of the virtual world revolutionaries on reducing the
two-line struggle in Peru to a police plot has inexorably pushed
them in the direction of reducing all line struggle to police
plots. Their turning away from major questions to become absorbed
in speculation about police conspiracies, intrigue, spying, backstabbing
and treachery has contributed to developing a spectacularly sick
atmosphere on the Internet forum where these forces regularly congregate.
Their initial unity against CoRIM and against waging the two-line
struggle has given way to a wave of vicious infighting, where people
whom a few months ago were being hailed as "comrades" and whose
documents were being reprinted and circulated are now denounced
as "frauds", "sects" and "police agents" (this happened for instance
with MIM, which turned on New Flag, and New Flag,
which turned on Olaechea).13 In an ominous development, with Olaechea's
support one North American journalist even gave out physical descriptions
and what he claimed were the home addresses of some New Flag supporters
over the Internet.
This
is the bitter fruit of these forces' anti-Maoist insistence on reducing
line struggle to a police plot and their general departure from
the Maoist approach to handling contradictions. They ridiculed CoRIM
for insisting from the beginning of the outbreak of the two-line
struggle in Peru on the need to do serious investigation and focus
on major questions of line, and now they are wading waist-high in
a perilous swamp. The point is that real unity can only be based
on a deep understanding of major questions of line. These people
either do not understand this or oppose it and so are left uniting
and splitting based on the infinitude of chops and changes that
invariably arise over secondary matters, so that a mere harsh word
suffices to turn yesterday's "comrade" into today's "cop". Indeed,
it would hardly be surprising if the Arce-Olaechea duo itself were
to explode in mutual recrimination.
Furthermore,
for revolutionaries, the battle against the political police is
a life-and-death affair, and labelling someone a "police agent"
is a matter of great seriousness. It is only to be done after solid
evidence is gathered, not simply because someone has raised incorrect
ideas or even been dishonest. Yet for these forces, labelling opponents
"police agents" has become a casual, almost everyday affair.14
The situation
has now degenerated to such an extent that activity that would raise
the darkest suspicions to any outside observer has now become routine
on the Internet forum. All this has provided an atmosphere which
the real political police are no doubt applauding with glee and
laughter. One active supporter of Arce & Co, castigating the
"secrecy" in which CoRIM functions, likened CoRIM members to Fujimori's
"hooded judges", and even demanded that they "step forward" to "reveal"
themselves.15 He went on to say that he was virtually sure that
"the CIA was running the IEC founding conference". Olaechea attacked
CoRIM, the IEC and the RCP,USA, especially its Chairman Bob Avakian,
as a "three-headed hydra" that are "dumb tools of Fujimori", and
he has repeatedly singled out Comrade Avakian for especially savage
attack.16 Likewise, New Flag routinely labels CoRIM and Comrade
Avakian "revisionist", "Trotskyite", "opportunist", etc, calls for
"overthrowing CoRIM" and recently circulated a scurrilous cartoon
portraying Comrade Avakian as an "agent" and called for forming
"an emergency task force" to "separate and isolate" him.
Maoists
understand only too well from bitter experience that treating revolutionary
leaders as "police agents" only makes it easier for genuine
police agents to hatch physical attacks on them and their organizations.
These unprincipled attacks on CoRIM, Comrade Avakian or any revolutionary
leader will not be tolerated by genuine Maoists: New Flag,
Arce, Olaechea and others who have taken part in this unprincipled
activity should cease their attacks, and those who have gone part
of the way with these people and tolerated this kind of climate
should dissociate themselves from it and draw appropriate conclusions.
The main
object of their attacks on CoRIM, Bob Avakian, the IEC, etc, is
the Maoist line of RIM itself. Olaechea, for instance, has attacked
RIM's Declaration as "opportunist" from the moment RIM
was formed, despite the PCP's signature on that document, and has
long considered RIM (and PCP) too Maoist and pushed for alliances
with anti-Maoist forces. One way the opposition of these forces
to Mao's line sometimes finds expression is in their denigration
of his closest comrades in the revolutionary left of the Communist
Party of China, especially Chiang Ching. Olaechea argues that "the
question of the character of Madame Mao is not a dogma nor has it
been settled in the international communist movement". He goes on
to say that, "One of the features of Avakianist' theory is to hold
forth that mistakes are not unavoidable' and that there is a magic
potion of pure theory to resolve every problem. Madame Mao was in
fact also an upholder of such views."17 Here Olaechea's efforts
to caricature the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and mock its
power, and to link this with Comrades Avakian and Chiang Ching,
whom he disparagingly refers to as "Madame Mao", reflect that the
real source of his problems is the Maoist line forged in the Cultural
Revolution.
Indeed,
what these forces really hold against Comrade Avakian is that for
years now he has been associated with a stalwart defence of Mao
and his revolutionary development of Marxism-Leninism, particularly
in the crucible of the Cultural Revolution, and with a penetrating
criticism of revisionism. Comrade Avakian is the leader of the RCP,USA,
which, together with other Maoist parties and organizations around
the world, notably the PCP itself, has been associated with the
development of RIM and its line.18
MIM,
New Flag and the rest of these "virtual revolutionaries"
oppose basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, but rather than
reveal their own line and risk actual line struggle, they try to
hide their opposition beneath unprincipled personal attacks on a
few Maoist leaders. Furthermore, one of the problems they have in
maintaining their fragile alliance against RIM is that they are
in serious disagreement with each other over just about everything
else. The shallowness of their personal attacks on Comrade Avakian
and CoRIM reflect the shallowness of their own unity, which turns
on opposition to Maoism. So in a feeble attempt to maintain what
little unity they have, and also because they do not consider line
all that important in the first place, they avoid any real substantive
critique of RIM's basic line-for instance, not one of them has said
a word about the most important RIM document in the past few years,
Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!, perhaps in part because
the PCP CC they repeatedly claim to speak for in opposing RIM has
hailed its adoption. Similarly, these forces have had nothing
to say about the important article "It's Right to Rebel" by
the Union of Communists of Iran (Sarbedaran), written at CoRIM's
request, which thoroughly dissects and criticizes the Right Opportunist
Line, a task which Arce & Co has never even attempted-nothing
that is, except a pathetic attack by Arce on a single footnote
in the UIC text, which furthermore, in typical Arce fashion, he
dishonestly truncated.
The virtual
revolutionaries also repeatedly assert that "Avakian is running
RIM", that "RIM is nothing but an Avakian front", and the like.
Ironically, RIM is often slandered by reactionaries as the "Senderista
International". This kind of anti-communist slander is exactly like
the anti-communist hysteria of the bourgeoisie themselves, with
their talk of "Stalinist dupes", "communist manipulation", etc,
all contemptuous of the conscious unity and understanding of the
revolutionaries. One variant of this attack is that "Avakian's domination
of RIM" mirrors US imperialism's domination of the oppressed countries.19
This particular slander reeks of imperialist chauvinism and disrespect
for the RIM parties and organizations in the oppressed countries,
including the PCP itself. The unity of RIM parties and organizations
on basic principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is open for all to
see, including in the pages of AWTW, in the numerous documents
of the various RIM parties and organizations, as well as in the
Declaration of RIM and Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!,
both adopted by all the parties and organizations participating
in RIM.
"Reform" RIM, or Try to Smash It?
- A Debate Fit for "Virtual Revolutionaries"
Having
launched their virtual reality adventure, Arce, Olaechea, New
Flag, and MIM maintained a steady stream of attacks on CoRIM
and sometimes on RIM itself over a period of several months. They
were puffed up by their new found unity, and there were even claims
that most RIM parties really opposed CoRIM and supported their line
instead. Thus the expectation was planted that soon most RIM parties
would come out in open support of them, and there was similar talk
about other groups identified with Mao internationally.20
Their
attacks sometimes take the form of open calls to do away with RIM,
and sometimes of calls to "overthrow CoRIM"-either way, the heart
of this opposition is to RIM's line. New Flag, for instance,
advanced the "virtual reality" slogan of "Long Live RIM, Down with
CoRIM". Maoists know that the nature of a political organization
or movement is determined by its line. In the real world, calls
to "overthrow CoRIM" mean opposition to RIM's Declaration
and to Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! and other major
elaborations of RIM's line. The real reason New Flag advances
its slogan is that, since the PCP is part of RIM, they do not want
to be seen as attacking RIM itself, and so try to disguise their
attack as an attack on CoRIM. Their real agenda slips out when New
Flag argues that, "The PCP did not pull out of RIM as yet [!].
A mobilization of figure-heads' cannot change this, but only a
mobilization of masses could."21 In other words, New Flag
is setting itself the actual task of mobilizing "masses" not only
against RIM but against the line of the PCP itself, which is clearly
established as a RIM participant!
Buoyed
up by the bubble of lies, hype and self-deception these forces generated,
in the spring of 1996 Arce issued a Call to create a World Mobilisation
Commission (WMC), whose purpose was "to lead all the support
work" [emphasis added] for the People's War in Peru. The WMC Call
also proposed uniting around "Gonzalo Thought", accepting "Maoism
as the third and superior stage of Marxism", and fighting revisionism
and opportunism, which is clearly identified in the Call as meaning,
above all, CoRIM.22
At this
stage, some of the anti-RIM forces stopped short. They pointed out
that setting up a support group for the People's War with this platform
of unity would cut out large sections of potential supporters of
the People's War by explicitly limiting it to those who already
embrace MLM. This criticism is of course true. As a "Support the
People's War" platform, the WMC Call sounds "left", but would isolate
and weaken the vanguard forces as well as narrow support for the
People's War. However, this criticism misses the key point that
the WMC is seen by its organizers not only as a support organization
for the People's War, but also as an organization to undermine RIM
as the emerging centre of MLM forces internationally.
The Call
for the WMC states that "the revisionists and opportunists were
represented-and still are-by the leadership of the international
Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (CoRIM)
and by the heads of the IEC. This current, isolated and despised
by the true friends of the People's War and the PCP, are crawling
like snakes, loudly hissing their support for the people's war'
and even screaming that their red flag is flying over Peru'. Adopting
this phoney revolutionary position, they are attempting to continue
to profit from the People's War. This is precisely what must be
stopped.... The opportunist leadership of CoRIM is the main cause
of immobilism in the international movement in support of the People's
War in Peru." The subsequent call in the WMC to "fight opportunism
through to the end" is thus an open call to battle against RIM's
chosen leadership.
Taken
at face value, this enterprise seems most puzzling. A core of the
world's Maoists, including the PCP in particular, have been voluntarily
united in RIM around the banners of Marx, Lenin and Mao for more
than 12 years, have chosen RIM's leadership, and are waging an international
campaign to defend the PCP and the People's War it is leading. And
now Arce & Co want to set up a group also claiming to be based
on MLM and also to defend the PCP and the People's War.
So what
are Arce & Co really up to? They are in fact attempting to use
their anti-RIM, anti-two line struggle banners as rallying points
for the liquidation of the actual content of Maoism and for forming
a group that pays lip service to MLM and the PCP, but more closely
resembles a sort of international "United Left" of pro-Soviet and
pro-Deng Xiao-ping revisionists, social democrats, Hoxhaites, and
some genuine revolutionaries.
Arce
has already made clear in previous issues of El Diario Internacional
just what kind of line-up he envisages for a "restructured" international
communist movement. In the January 1996 issue of EDI, Arce
divides up a large number of groups active in the international
revolutionary movement, based on his analysis of the correctness
of their support for the PCP and the People's War. While the "bad"
group includes a few RIM groups he particularly opposes, the "good"
group-"political organizations that are fighting against the Fujimori
hoax and against capitulation"-includes such groups as the Party
of Labour of Belgium (known as the PTB), which is quite active in
international left circles in Europe.
The role
of the PTB is of special interest. El Diario Internacional
is published from Belgium, where Arce himself has close connections
to the PTB, making many personal appearances at PTB functions. The
PTB's role is further elaborated on by Olaechea, who was the first
signatory besides Arce on the WMC Call. Pointing to "positive" developments
in the international communist movement, Olaechea emphasizes the
centrality of the role seen for groups like the PTB in the WMC:
"...there is already clear indication that the medium- sized parties,
such as the Party of Labour of Belgium, have already undergone quite
a good change.... Such parties, in addition to the traditional Maoist
parties of the last two decades (excluding the RCP-style phonies),
are precisely the backbone around which the WMC is starting to
develop."23 Actually, the PTB has not endorsed the WMC
and would not do so since it openly opposes recognizing "Maoism"
as a "higher stage of Marxism". But Olaechea's comments make clear
that Maoism is not the real basis of the WMC, and what that basis
really is, as a look at the PTB's line will show.
Perhaps
the "good changes" Olaechea sees include the PTB's widely circulated
"Proposal for the Unification of the International Communist Movement".24
Here the PTB argues that "the former divisions between Marxist-Leninist
parties can be overcome". Principal among these "former divisions"
is Mao's opposition to Soviet revisionism. Indeed, the PTB has openly
upheld the Deng Xiao-ping regime for many years, including hailing
the Chinese state's repression of the Tiananmen rebellion in 1989.
As for "good changes" being made by the PTB, its Chairman Ludo Martens
recently made a public self-criticism for having opposed the 1979
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan! Raising organizations like the PTB
that oppose MLM and uphold revisionists like Brezhnev and the Communist
Party of China under the leadership of Deng Xiao-ping over RIM parties
and organizations and CoRIM, as Arce & Co does, shows how far
they have sunk into the swamp of opportunism.
Just
as Arce & Co have turned aside from using Maoist teachings to
deal with the cardinal questions of political and ideological line
raised in the two-line struggle which emerged in the PCP and reduced
this to a police plot, so in their approach to the international
communist movement they throw away the lines that divide genuine
MLM from revisionism and set up other, narrower criteria.
Olaechea
goes on to argue that RIM as a whole is beyond saving. Calls to
overthrow the RIM Committee, he says, are as "illusory and hopeless"
as calls for "overthrowing Fujimori from his own party".25 However,
in Olaechea's view there are better prospects out there anyway,
notably the remnants of the long-established pro-Soviet parties,
which he says are from "the European tradition of the Third International"
[sic]. Olaechea argues that these are much "bigger" parties than
the RIM groups, and he specifically points to what he calls the
"left wing" of the old Communist Party of Italy (PCI), the "left
wing" of the CPUSA, and other such groupings: "...the development
of a left within the traditional parties of the Third International,
which is aware of the importance of the People's War in Peru for
their own aims of giving their respective parties a new direction
capable of serving the class interests of the proletariat and the
people really holds promise, while the CoRIM strategy... has been
proven kaput!"26
Does
Olaechea really expect anyone to believe that these die-hard revisionists,
who have been props for imperialism for decades, are changing their
spots and are now "trying to serve the class interests of the proletariat"?
Is it not really the case that such parties are merely repositioning
themselves in the bourgeois arena to deal with the collapse of their
Soviet imperialist godfather?!
What
does all this show about the WMC Call's platform of uniting around
Maoism as "a third and superior stage"? That it is mere sugar coating,
designed to lure the naïve, and to protect the cynical who want
their retreat from Maoism to be carefully hidden.
Furthermore,
it is revealing that those giving support for Arce & Co are
found not in the hard core of the Maoist camp, but in parties that
have for years fought the Maoists tooth and nail: pro-Deng Xiao-ping
forces like the PTB, old-style pro-Soviet revisionists from the
diehard revisionist CPUSA and PCI, etc. No wonder Arce & Co's
supporters unite with them in liquidating the struggle against the
Right Opportunist Line. They uphold out-and-out capitalist roaders
like Deng Xiao-ping, why should they be bothered by some right opportunists
in Peru?!
Arce
& Co are dangling promises of "getting rich quick" by hooking
up with the "left" of the big old revisionist parties, but the more
likely prospect is that any genuine revolutionaries suckered into
the WMC will be used as nothing more than pawns with Maoist labels
to legitimize the attacks by these established revisionist forces
on the Maoists' international line and organization. These revisionists
are already salivating in anticipation, urging Arce & Co onwards.
One Mr Godenas, a leading figure in a small group in Rhode Island,
USA that is a WMC signatory, and whom Olaechea and MIM repeatedly
defend, has the following to say: "Since its inception, RIM' has
been a ghost entity, wholly innocent of any party or group (other
than the PCP) that amounts to a hill of beans.... Why do a few supporters
of the PCP and the People's War jib at endorsing the Call for a
World Mobilisation Commission, a Call that fully embodies the principles
of a cause to which we are all friendly, and to which we have all
sworn varying degrees of support? Comrades Olaechea and Arce Borja
have proven themselves to be as courageous and principled opponents
of the fascist Fujimori as can be found anywhere. They are as an
implacable enemy of Peruvian reaction abroad as the PCP itself....
It is time, my friends, to junk Avakian,... RIM, the RCP, World
to Win, etc. Having done so, we can move forward with the Call for
a World Mobilisation, with comrades Olaechea and Arce Borja and
the many thousands of others who stand ready to rebuild the communist
international on a sound ideological and political basis...." Godenas
also says that, "The Nepalese People's War' as such is a fiction",
and he then refers to "petit-bourgeois adventurism", to make his
point perfectly clear.27
It turns
out that "Comrade Godenas", as Olaechea calls him, has run several
times as a CPUSA representative for the United States Congress.28
This is what Adolfo calls the "proletarian left" in the CPUSA-a
die-hard revisionist who seethes with hatred for the world's genuine
Maoists and oozes honeyed flattery for those who might help against
them. The "sound ideological and political basis" on which Arce
& Co are building their WMC is nothing but a revisionist-fueled
fantasy of trying to wreck RIM.29
Similarly,
other groups in this swamp, such as the Maoist Internationalist
Movement (MIM), are also extending their connections to the hardcore
revisionists. MIM recently reprinted what they called "an extremely
sensible" article by a CPUSA member that extensively promotes this
same "Comrade Godenas". MIM justified this by arguing that "as the
fighting of cops [referring to New Flag] in the movement
to support the People's War in Peru is extremely urgent, MIM puts
aside its differences with the CPUSA here momentarily."30 They made
a similar call to the PTB for unity against "cops". They think that
in the interests of fighting a small journal in New York City, it
is fine to unite with the principal revisionist party in the US.
Arce
& Co seem to be seeking some kind of devil's deal with some
of the revisionists, whereby they will gain recognition from revisionist
forces as "worldwide heads of People's War support", in return for
which Arce & Co will lend their "Maoist" reputations to the
revisionists to try and help "wreck" RIM. Or perhaps Arce &
Co actually believe their own boasts that they will be the ones
riding these dinosaurs-in which case they will undoubtedly be swallowed
alive, not least of all because they are bereft of any Maoism with
which to defend themselves, and are moving increasingly onto the
revisionists' own turf.
In this
regard, it is worth noting that Arce & Co, while stubbornly
repudiating the need to wage line struggle against the Right Opportunist
Line, are headed in a direction that is increasingly similar to
the position of the Right Opportunist Line itself on many points.
Not only are they liquidating key points of Maoist principle, as
does the Right Opportunist Line, but they are even bandying about
some of the same catchphrases. Aren't they, like the Right Opportunist
Line, beginning to denounce RIM as nothing but "paper parties",
"not amounting to a hill of beans"? Aren't they increasingly in
the company of groups, like the PTB, Communist Party of Nepal(UML),
Communist Party of India (Marxist) and others that promote participation
in elections and long periods of peaceful political struggle in
the oppressed countries instead of Maoist people's war? They denounce
CoRIM for supposedly censoring the PCP CC and opposing its line,
and pretend to be unreserved upholders of the CC, yet they go against
MLM and the PCP's clearly established line on the most fundamental
principles of the international communist movement. What do they
think the PCP was talking about when it proclaimed the need to sweep
away "mountains of revisionist garbage"?! Now when it is more urgent
than ever to fight the Right Opportunist Line, not only are Arce
& Co refusing to contribute to this fight but they are even
focusing all their efforts on attacking those who are. The spectacle
of these "virtual Maoists" from the cyberswamp lashing out at RIM
and each other provides a distasteful example of where negating
political and ideological line can lead.
[Notes:]
1 The 1
May 1996 Statement of the Movimiento Popular Peru quotes a letter
from the PCP to CoRIM, stating:
"We extend
to you our most ardent communist greetings and express our deep
joy because RIM has approved the adoption of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
as a new, third and higher stage. Maoism is a vital point and of
immense significance and even more, today, this will help so that
Maoism will be taken up by the peoples of the world and come to
command the new great wave of the world proletarian revolution that
is looming.' Also, it has served the magnificent development of
the Celebration of the Centenary of Chairman Mao Tse-tung...."
2 For instance,
a "Report from the Belgium bureau of El Diario Internactional"
posted on the Internet by the Committee Sol Peru, London, refers
to the "PCP representative" at a conference in Brussels at which
the only Peruvian speaker was Arce. (2 May 1996).
3 Having
tried to make a career out of pretending to be representatives of
the PCP, these forces now try to pass themselves off as representatives
of other RIM parties as well. New Flag, for instance, recently
tried to pretend that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was
in their cabal by alleging that the CPN(M) "sharply criticize the
revisionist leadership of CoRIM".
4 Quoted
in the Foreword to the book Peru: Time of Fear. The prolific
Olachea has never repudiated this quotation and has even confirmed
it in meetings. Moreover, this same contempt for vanguard leadership
can be seen in the way Olachea deals with the man said to be leading
the PCP CC today: "The Fujimori regime has long been spinning this
fairy tale and for that purpose the name of Mr Ramirez Durand-
who no one has seen or heard of for years-has been bandied around
and given the flashy name of Chairman Feliciano'." (Internet posting,
5 August 1996, Committee Sol Peru, London).
5 In a
public Declaration dated 14 October 1993 and signed by the Committee
Sol Peru, London.
6 See "An
Initial Reply to Arce Borja" in this issue for more on this point.
For its part, New Flag works the same ground, arguing that
"leading cadres are in particular subject to reverse-memory techniques
and alterations of the brain's electro-chemistry (drugs, etc.) in
order to reprogram behaviour patterns and manipulate their consciousness
of existing reality, in short, brainwashing." (Internet posting,
26 May 1996).
7 This light-handedness
with truth is the operative approach for all these forces: New
Flag gave attendance figures of a demonstration in Berlin it
wanted to associate itself with when the demonstration was actually
cancelled and never took place-no clarification appeared in
subsequent issues. They also quoted from a personal letter written
by Heriberto Ocasio, the spokesman for the US Committee to Support
the Revolution in Peru, falsifying the contents of the letter and
then claiming it was a document of the RCP,USA. They ignored a public
demand for retraction. Arce's current no.1 ally Olachea reports
on his public debate in London with someone he says was "a CoRIM
leader". (Internet posting, 6 August 1996, "RCP/CoRIM/Sol Rojo Expose
Their Hatred towards Chairman Gonzalo and the Revolution in Peru")
The person was of course not at all a "CoRIM leader", but an AWTW
supporter, as was made clear at the time of the debate. The list
goes on and on.
8 See the
section "Two-Line Struggle or Counter-Revolutionary Fraud", in "A
Response to the Investigators' of RIM", by Arce, in this issue.
9 Arce's
El Diario Internacional No 36 compares the Revolutionary
Worker, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP,USA),
a participating party of RIM, to the pro-Right Opportunist Line
edition of El Diario (Lima), saying that they play "the same
counter-revolutionary role".
10 See the
Revolutionary Worker, 16 June 1996, for an extensive analysis
of the political police and the Internet.
11 Big
Brother: Britain's Web of Surveillance, Simon Davies (London
1996).
12 See the
Declaration of RIM, section "On the Ideological, Political
and Organisational Unity of Marxist-Leninists".
13 MIM even
announced at one point that it was stopping all support work for
the People's War in Peru, because... Olaechea told them to!
14 The Maoist
Internationalist Movement (MIM), for instance, shows how casually
it takes the struggle against the political police when it uses
the following logic: "[The New Flag editor] argues that because
someone is someone else's brother, he must be a revolutionary. This
thoroughly reactionary line was crushed during the Cultural Revolution
of Mao Tsetung. The prestige of one revolutionary does not convert
to the family members. The fact that [the New Flag editor] argues
this way shows that he is a cop...." (Maoist Sojourner,
June 96) Just as these forces reduce the two-line struggle in Peru
to a "police plot", now they want to reduce virtually all
political struggle to struggle against cops. With this approach,
they see cops everywhere, while at the same time they have trivialized
the struggle against the political police into a children's game
of name-calling. This makes it impossible to carry out this most
serious battle which, as Lenin never tired of explaining, is an
area where revolutionaries must exert themselves to the utmost to
break with amateurism and develop professional methods. And, like
children playing with a loaded gun that they do not understand can
actually kill, they casually aim everywhere and nowhere, never knowing
when it will go off. For if saying something wrong is grounds to
be labelled a cop, then all of these forces are targets. Arce himself,
currently one of MIM's champions, used exactly the same argument
as did New Flag above, in the August 1996 issue of El Diario
Internactional. He cast suspicion on a member of the Peru People's
Movement (MPP) because of this comrade's purported family connection
with the Right Opportunist Line! In other words, as above, family
connections determine political colour. We would like to ask MIM
just what Arce's method of arguing shows about him?!
15 Internet
posting, 12 August 1994, "Why Does the RIM Help US Imperialism Encircle
the PCP?", by RM.
16 For its
part, MIM argues that: "apology for RIM = apology for CoRIM = apology
for the Canto Grande authors = apology for capitulation = embrace
of Fujimori and his Yankee puppeteers". (Internet posting, 23 May
1996, MIM).
17 Internet
posting, 10 June 1996, "Gang of Five is Avakian's Theory and an
Obvious Smokescreen".
18 See, among
other works, Comrade Avakian's Mao's Immortal Contributions,
The Loss in China and the Revolutionary Legacy of Mao Tsetung;
more recently, he contributioned to RIM with his defence of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
against the liquidiationist attacks of K Venu, in AWTW 1992/17.
19 Internet
posting, 12 March 1996, "Avakianism is Yankee Revisionism", by the
Detroit Peru Support Committee.
20 Olaechea,
for instance, claims that "the Nepalese Party are against
CoRIM and for a World Mobilisation Commission", a claim for which
he can offer no reference since he has invented it himself. (Internet
posting, 3 May 1996, "After Vomiting, Now Diarrhea").
21 Internet
posting, 3 May 1996, "Is Olaechea a Plant of the Intelligence Services?".
22 World Mobilisation
Commission, Call for Mobilising for Struggle, Brussels, 10 March
1996, El Diario Internacional et al.
23 Internet
posting, 28 June 1996.
24 This version,
the latest of several, is dated 4 May 1995.
25 Internet
posting, 28 June 1996, "US Imperialism Seeks to Expand its Fascist
Dictatorship".
26
Ibid.
27 Internet
postings, 5 May 1996, "Avakian & Co Should Go Quietly"; 7 May
1996, "Re Maoist Revolution in Nepal".
28 According
to an article by "a CPUSA member" reprinted by MIM in Maoist
Sojourner, June 1996.
29 Arce emphatically
shares the vehemence of Godenas' attacks on RIM. This comes out
firstly in his polemics. In the more vitriolic "Trappist Monks Turn
into Village Charlatans: Another Somersault of the Circus Tumblers
of RIM", he states that: "CoRIM went on to act in complicity with
the enemies of the Peruvian Revolution"; "they openly side with
Fujimori's agents and the capitulationist gang"; they are being
"led to the side of counter-revolution"; CoRIM are "vulgar metaphysicians";
CoRIM's "Call is an old trick of rotten revisionists and opportunists";
etc. He carries this out in practice too. At the 1996 PTB May Day
Conference, an AWTW representative sent to distribute Maoist
literature was physically expelled by the PTB. A "report from the
Brussels bureau" of Arce's EDI reports this as follows: "alert
comrades from the [Arce-generated] MPP in Belgium assisted the security
people of the PTB and ordered the AWTW representative out
into the street". Arce cannot be reproached for lack of consistency
in this case. While hailing the pro-Deng PTB for physically expelling
a Maoist AWTW representative, Arce himself was sharing the
podium with revisionist gangsters like the Communist Party of India
(Marxist)-which heads the state government in West Bengal, India,
where thousands of Maoist "Naxalites" have been killed or imprisoned-and
the CPN (United Marxist-Leninist), which was the former governing
party in Nepal and has lent support to ronda-style militias
against the People's War there. Arce should be filled with shame
for trying to attach the name of the PCP and the People's War to
his outrageous antics.
30 Maoist
Sojourner, June 1996.
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