---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sukla Sen <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:52:00 +0530 Subject: What Is Maoism?
Quote Marxism has to be judged by the fruits of its project of taking humanity along the road towards equality, cooperation, community, and solidarity. Unquote In case it is applied to Maoism in particular, what can in no way be brushed aside is the huge monstrosities of Pol Pot ruling "Kampuchea" - the brutal genocide that it committed - or for that matter the insurgent Shining Path in Peru. Of course all in the name of the dispossessed. Even in India, by far the best known Maoist leader Charu Mazumdar's “line” of "annihilation of class enemies" has been strongly derided even by his own leading comrades for senseless brutalities and its counterproductive nature. (Just to clarify, anybody and everybody was good enough to qualify as a “class enemy” and “annihilation” means murder, pure and simple. And the (unarmed) traffic constables on the streets of Calcutta and elsewhere were the most frequent targets.) In the recent decades, since "Kampuchea", Nepal is the best and only success story for the Maoists. Success in terms of capturing power. And there the Nepali Maoists have forsworn ten-year long "people's war" in order to join the "democratic mainstream" in the hunt for state power. And in the process has been derided by other sections of Maoists. So much so that the Indian Maoists have issued a call to their Nepali comrades to rebel against their party leadership. In Mao's China, during the Great Leap Forward (58-61), an estimated 30 million people perished because of economic turmoil that it caused. No one in China squeaked! This mind-boggling disaster would be deciphered by foreign experts years thereafter by digging into demographic data. The apologists would quibble over the precise figure of extra death. For a moment, let's forget about the number of deaths, however stupefying. But just think of, no one in China as much squeaked! What a demonic order! The celebrated Communist Manifesto, authored by Marx and Engels, lays down in evocative terms: In socialism "free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". Evidently such demonic orders are completely antithetical to such sublime dreams. It is time to go back to the roots and salvage the original dream. Invest the slogan of "Socialism for the Twenty-First Century" with new meanings informed with new experiences - the recent developments in the Latin America in particular. Quote So far, all revolutions inspired by Marx have only enjoyed the support or participation of a significant minority. Can the commitment to radical democracy up the tide to get the help of the majority? Will the means then be carefully chosen so that they never come to overwhelm the socialist aspiration? Unquote That's the concluding paragraph. Quite a departure from a run of the mill Marxist/Maoist position. This well-researched and well-written article, regardless of historical debates and wide divergences in assessment of Maoism, should become a starting point for the exploration of the "Socialism for the Twenty-First Century". Covering both the "end" and the "means". Sukla by Bernard D'Mello http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/dmello021109.html -- You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole. -AMBEDKAR http://venukm.blogspot.com http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
