Comrades,
It's heartening to see activity resume on the Marxist-Leninist List after a
lull. Unfortunately, some messages get held up for moderation due to
"suspiscious header," so I have to ask members to bear with not seeing their
message appear right away.
Now turning to what George Gruenthal wrote:-
Dear comrades,
>
> I would like to propose this as a subject of discussion on this list, and
> hope that we can have some exchange of experiences. I direct questions
> particularly to other comrades from the major capitalist countries, and in
> particular also to the comrades in Britain, since the situation there is
> somewhat closer to that of the United States. (This is not by any means to
> downplay the experience of comrades in the dependent countries - the
> contradictions there are in general on a much higher level, and even among
> the imperialist countries the U.S. is still relatively more backwards,
> despite some movement.)
This would be a good subject of discussion and I hope that it will take into
account new developments in the relationship between the bourgeoise and
proletariat in the imperialist countries, in the developing countries and
the inter-relationship between the two worlds today.
While the basic fact that the bourgeoise in the imperialist countries
exploit their own proletariat, as well as the proletariat in the developing
countries remains the same, the nature of this exploitative relationship and
the relationship of the developing countries and the relationship of the
developing countries to the imperialist countries has changed since the
times of Lenin and Mao.
For example, at the time of Lenin, the major imperialist powers had their
own sets of colonies which were more or less their exclusive domain for
extra-territorial exploitation of land, labour, resources and markets. Their
colonies provided them with the raw materials for their industries and a
market for their manufactured goods.
In the time of Mao, especially after World War II, when the granting of
formal independence to their colonies left their former colonies in the
hands of comprador bourgeoise which protected the respective imperialists'
economic interests by oppressed their workers and peasants on the
imperialists' and their own (the compradors') behalf.
Just as in Lenin's time, during Mao's time the former collonies still
provided their former colonial masters with raw materials for their
industries and served as markets for their finished goods.
Today however, the former colonies have opened up to inviting foreign direct
investment from various imperialist countries and thus no imperialist
country exclusively dominates the economies of the former colonies, nor
exploits their land, labour, resources and capital.
Also, some of the former colonies such as Malaysia have effectively
nationalised their utilities, generation, telecommunications, plantations,
petroleum, mining, airline, banking and other such strategic industries,
while allowing the imperialists to set up manufacturing, marketing,
equipment supply, service and retail industries.
At the same time, home-grown industries have also been set up in the
developing countries and combined with the output from the imperialist-owned
industries, they have more or less reversed the flow of manufactured goods
between the imperialist and developing countries, though the imeprialists
still gain from the cheaper labour in these countries and thr profits
generated therefrom.
This reversal has to an extent affected the ability of the bourgeoise in the
imperialist countries to continue giving their bourgeoise the concessions
they could give them during Lenin's and Mao's time, while at the same time,
it has provided employment and income to the proletariat of the developing
countries such as Malaysia which is something Malaysia could not provide on
its own.
Malaysia opened up it's market to foreign direct investment from various
imperialist countries, especially after the ruling comprador capitalist
coalition government suffered an electoral setback in the May 10, 1969
elections and the racial conflict which followed on May 13, 1969, as the
reason for this frustration was the lack of employment opportunities.
As a result, American, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, German and other factories
are a common sight in these countries today, apart from the Kentucky Fried
Chicken, McDonalds, 7-11, Pizza Hut and other such franchises and more
recently an invasion of Carrefour, Makro, Tesco and Jusco megastores.
As a result, this has created a mindset of economic dependency in the minds
of not only the comprador bourgeoise but also in the minds of the
petty-bourgeoise, white-collar workers, professionals and also the
increasing numbers of the proletariat not only in Malaysia but also in other
developing countries in the region -- all of which are competing like
prostitutes for the imperialists' investment.
Of course, Malaysia is one of the handful of third-world countries which
have managed to become fairly wealthy and in some ways, the relationship to
the imperialist industrial countries described above is not much different
from that which I saw in Australia and New Zealand -- which have near
exclusive control over the land, resources and agricultural but which very
much still import or locally assemble manufactured goods in factories owned
by the companies in the imperialist heartlands.
The Communist Party of Malaya signed an armistice agreement with the
Malaysian Government in southern Thailand in 1989 and I've subsequently
heard that some of it's leaders conceded that the Malaysian government's
development efforts had raised the living standard of the people, thus
taking the wind out of their sails.
This in fact might be one of the possible drawbacks of the two-stage new
democratric and socialist struggle, when once people have achieved the first
stage, they lose interest in continuing with the second stage and want to
get on with their lives instead.
Today, the best Malaysia has in terms of a radical left party is the Parti
Sosialis Malaysia which follows in the tradition of the legal left parties
like the Socialist Front and subsequently the Malaysian Peoples' Socialist
Party which professed Marxism-Leninism and waged legal and militant struggle
especially among workers in the urban and rural areas.
Still a very small party, the PSM is involved mainly with plantation workers
to organise them to legally fight for their rights against encroaching
property developers and against exploitation.
Unfortunately, they seem to have relationships with Trotskyite organisations
in Britain, Australia and the United States and its leader, Dr. Mohd Nasir
Hashim is anti-Stalin and he professes as kind of ecletic of
Marxism-Leninism with religion and spirituality.
> In particular, the Marxist-Leninist movement in the major imperialist
> countries has been rather weak for the last several decades, mainly
because
> it has very weak ties with the working class. (There are many historical
> reasons for this, in the US in particular the role of US imperialism as
the
> dominant imperialist country since World War II, its driving out the great
> majority of revolutionaries from the trade unions in the McCarthy period
of
> the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the fact that the CPUSA succumbed to
> revisionism and has acted mainly as a tail of the Democratic Party and the
> union bureaucrats within the working class.)
>
> What I would like to learn from other comrades is any examples (positive
or
> negative) of the experience of MLs working in the workers movements in
their
> countries. I am partly inspired on this question by a short discussion I
had
> with Harpal Brar from Britain a few years ago, during which I asked him
why
> they were spending so much of their effort in the Socialist Labor Party.
His
> reply was: "In Britain, everything outside of the SLP is just a sect." I
> readily understood his point, as I was then working in a miniscule ML
group
> (which I am still in and which does irregularly put out fairly good
> agitation and propaganda), and I replied: "If we (my group) worked very
hard
> over the next few years, we might be able to become big enough to be
called
> a sect."
You should have also asked Brar whether the SLP would become a revolutionary
Marxist-Leninist party once it has built up major support base within the
working class.
As a starting point in terms of its integration and linkage with the British
working class, I'd say that the SLP has the right approach (and also the
right legacy) which Marxist-Leninists can learn from to be able to link into
the day-to-day struggles and concerns of the working class, even if it
concerns reformist or economic struggle over housing, the closure of a
public facility, a strike, racism and sexism.
The party must not tail social democratic parties like the Labour Party or
bourgeois parties like the Democratic Party but should stand on its own as a
workers' party which will eventually lead them to emancipation from
capitalism and to socialism but at the same time, it must be able to work
with the more progressive members of these organisations in joint struggles
over such issues, hopefully to win them over.
> I have been spending a considerable amount of time since then trying to do
> some work in the workers movement as such, which I will try to describe in
> future posts when I get a chance. But I am interested in hearing from
other
> comrades about this. I would remind comrades of what both Lenin and the
> History of the CPSU(B) said, talking of the period before Iskra, that at
> that time the workers movement and the Marxist movement were separated
from
> each other, and that this served to the weakening of both of them. (IF
> anyone wants the exact quote, I will look it up - I think the point is
very
> relevant to those of us in the major imperialist countries.)
>
> Fraternally,
> George
It would be interesting to read your experiences on this matter too,
especially since making inroads into the working class is a major problem
facing Marxist-Leninists in the imperialist countries today, especially with
having to break the domination the Labour Party in Britain and the
Democratic Party in the US have on the proletariat's consciousness and
loyalties.
Fraternally
Charles
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