On October 25 of this year, the Peru People’s Movement organized a conference in Hamburg, Germany to discuss a variety of issues on Maoism and the present trends in the Maoist oriented Revolutionary International Movement or RIM. It’s hard to say what came out of this, since I didn’t attend, but this is the message of the Peru People’s Movement:
Greetings message to the International Conference in HamburgComrades:
We wish to transmit our “red greetings” to all the participants in the International Conference in Hamburg organised by the People’s Movement in Peru. We welcome the actions taken by the EPL-PCP in the last days in the VRAE. The issues programmed for the Conference are of great importance for the International Communist Movement (ICM) and for the World Proletarian Revolution and the way they are addressed is a big responsibility for all communists.In the same way that in year 92 after President Gonzalo’s arrest we denounced and fought against all the plots set up by the bourgeoise and the renegades of the LOD, today the revolutionary forces in Nepal have to confront an important crossroads as some comrades in the executive of the CPN (M) are being influenced by the bourgeoise. There is a big struggle to carry on against opportunism.
It is not our objective in this document to analyse in depth the contradictions of the revolutionary process in Nepal but it is so to point out its elements. Today we know according to the documents and articles written by the members of the Central Comitee of the CPN (M) that there is a struggle between lines that is confronting the real Maoists with those who pretend to end the revolutionary character of the Party and to turn it into an appendix of the democratic bourgeoise. We hear arguments as the theory of “the development of productive forces”, calling it “economic revolution”.
They have powerful friends: the Indian and Chinese imperialists.We must adopt a decisive position as communists in favour of the revolutionary line supported by important leaders in the Party and the masses. It would be a great mistake not to support them. Our position which was established 2 years ago follows four points:
ü The CPN (M) under the direction of President Prachanda has put forward a powerful revolutionary and democratic movement among the People which has accomplished many victories but has not yet concluded.
ü Within the Party as we know by dialectics there are two positions according to the classes that are in society and this means many mistakes can happen. There can be a struggle between two lines if mistakes are not corrected in Nepal or in any other place.
ü The position of communists at an international level should be to support the CPN (M). We must also study the development of the revolutionary process using criticism as an instrument of unity and struggle in favour of revolutionaries in Nepal. We must be careful not to judgetoo quickly or support reactionaries and provokers.
ü The ways of revolution are very diverse and some of them we still do not know. We should oppose the dogmatic unilateralism which is a metaphysical enemy amongst our people.
We believe it necessary that the RIM and its Comité take a public position regarding these events, the same as it did in 1993 about the situation in Peru.We know the comrades of the PPM criticize the positions of the CoRIM but we consider it necessary to work for the unity and not for the separation of the RIM. Criticism must lead to a greater unity and to make our people better.
Today when the great imperialist crisis is opening new battle fronts it is more important to unite the maoists internationally with our successes and our failures to fight for the World Proletarian Revolution.We wish great success to the work of this International Conference. We are sure the dabates will be deep and that decisions will be made in order to advance through th bright path to Revolution.
All the best to the International Conference!
Galiza, October 2008
correovermello noticias esta para servir a las masas populares en el conocimiento de las noticias de la Revolucion Proletaria Mundial saudos vermellos / saludos rojos
otto's war room banner
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Seven police killed in mine by Maoists
Nov 25, 2008
KOLKATA, India, Nov 25 - Maoist rebels set off a landmine on Tuesday in a remote central Indian jungle, killing at least seven policemen, officials said.
Tuesday's attack happened when the policemen were crossing a culvert near Jagdalpur, in Chhattisgarh, after returning a patrol during local elections, Amarnath Upadhyaya, a senior police official, told Reuters.
Chhattisgarh is among a dozen Indian states where Maoists control large swathes of mineral-rich forests and mountains, from where they attack government buildings and security forces.
Landmine blasts triggered by suspected Maoist insurgents during state assembly elections on Nov. 14 in Chhattisgarh killed a policeman and an air force official.
The Maoists had called for a poll boycott.
Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers, an insurgency Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the gravest threat to India's internal security.
Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency, which began in the late 1960s.
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
KOLKATA, India, Nov 25 - Maoist rebels set off a landmine on Tuesday in a remote central Indian jungle, killing at least seven policemen, officials said.
Tuesday's attack happened when the policemen were crossing a culvert near Jagdalpur, in Chhattisgarh, after returning a patrol during local elections, Amarnath Upadhyaya, a senior police official, told Reuters.
Chhattisgarh is among a dozen Indian states where Maoists control large swathes of mineral-rich forests and mountains, from where they attack government buildings and security forces.
Landmine blasts triggered by suspected Maoist insurgents during state assembly elections on Nov. 14 in Chhattisgarh killed a policeman and an air force official.
The Maoists had called for a poll boycott.
Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers, an insurgency Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the gravest threat to India's internal security.
Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency, which began in the late 1960s.
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
On the cult of personality – We don’t need them.
By -史蒂夫 奥托
Pol Pot is considered by most leftist to have led a failed revolution. He and his comrades made serious errors and they led to up to a million unnecessary deaths. Yet no one is always wrong and a few things done under his government of the short lived Democratic Kampuchea were actually good ideas.
One of them was to avoid the cult of personality. Even today there are those Maoist who openly support building up a leader who they believe will deserve the kind of admiration, if he (or she) has lead a people’s revolution.
I would argue that such cults detract from important issues and are a throw back to the days of God-heads and divine persons. I consider myself a Maoist because I believe Mao (毛泽东) developed some of the most important political philosophy of the 20th century. I identify with his Ideology. Just as a Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, a Maoist is a follower of the teachings of Mao Zedong. The difference is that I believe Mao was a human, with flaws as everyone else and now that he is dead, his importance is in his writings which he has left us. He is not a divine god-man who can fly around and do magical things. One mistake he made was to allow a cult of personality to be built around him. Aledgedly at the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for the idea of personality cults if they venerated figures who were genuinely worthy of adulation:
“There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analyzed and blind worship.” [1]
In this instance, he was wrong and Pol Pot was right, in creating a faceless government with no personality. It was simply called the Angkar Padevoat or Revolutionary Organization. It was quickly shortened to the Angkar (organization). For the first year this was the leadership and all frazes and slogans were attributed to the Angkar. Later the Communist Party of Kampuchea was introduced and some quotes were attributed to the party. There was no person and God-head to worship and idolize. Towards then end of the regime, after Pol noticed that his government was going badly and did not have the needed popular support, he took advice from his allies, mostly the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and China, and began to build a cult around himself. It was too late to create such a cult and it didn’t make any difference or make his regime stronger.
There is little doubt that Pol was influenced by the French Revolution. After the first government of the French Revolution fell, in 1794, an Executive Directory, or simply the Directory was set up, composed of five people. It lasted only five years, then was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte and the revolution came to an end. But it did prove that it is possible to avoid a single dictator to run a country through a cult of personality.
Cults of personality are not
Before coming to power in Nicaragua, in 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front set up a National Directorate to lead their party. They wanted to avoid the personality cult that developed in Cuba. They didn’t want a one-man dictatorship.
The cult of personality is not limited to one party states, such as Joseph Stalin, in the USSR, or right-wing fascist, such as Adolf Hitler. They can also be elected to office as was President Ronald Reagan, in the US.
This is an era I lived through and it was hard to get people to focus on what this man did, rather than who he was. He was, as the press kept saying, “overwhelmingly popular.” Liberals and other opponents found it was necessary to focus on issues without criticizing the great leader. Opponents found themselves on the defensive if they dared to criticise this cult of personality. Even the working class, who he harmed greatly, like him because he told jokes and was witty. He was a song and dance man and was charismatic. This is probably the same for John F. Kennedy. These personalities distracted the public from serious discussion of issues and political direction.
It is fine to have heroes, such as Karl Marx, VI Lenin, and Mao as we see on the mastheads of many Maoist sites. These are the main theoreticians of the ideology and they are not living people we idolise as gods. Che Guevara’s face is on a lot of T-shirts and banners. But he is more a symbol than a god-like figure. He is also dead and not running a country. It is living leaders that cause problems when we make them into god-like figures.
I didn’t like living under a bourgeois cult of personality and I don’t want to live under any kind. We must be the masters of our own destiny and that means we need collective rulers.
To learn more about Pol Pot, my latest book, The Pol Pot Journals, is available on Lu Lu press. To order one, click here.
[1] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong.
Pol Pot is considered by most leftist to have led a failed revolution. He and his comrades made serious errors and they led to up to a million unnecessary deaths. Yet no one is always wrong and a few things done under his government of the short lived Democratic Kampuchea were actually good ideas.
One of them was to avoid the cult of personality. Even today there are those Maoist who openly support building up a leader who they believe will deserve the kind of admiration, if he (or she) has lead a people’s revolution.
I would argue that such cults detract from important issues and are a throw back to the days of God-heads and divine persons. I consider myself a Maoist because I believe Mao (毛泽东) developed some of the most important political philosophy of the 20th century. I identify with his Ideology. Just as a Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, a Maoist is a follower of the teachings of Mao Zedong. The difference is that I believe Mao was a human, with flaws as everyone else and now that he is dead, his importance is in his writings which he has left us. He is not a divine god-man who can fly around and do magical things. One mistake he made was to allow a cult of personality to be built around him. Aledgedly at the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for the idea of personality cults if they venerated figures who were genuinely worthy of adulation:
“There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analyzed and blind worship.” [1]
In this instance, he was wrong and Pol Pot was right, in creating a faceless government with no personality. It was simply called the Angkar Padevoat or Revolutionary Organization. It was quickly shortened to the Angkar (organization). For the first year this was the leadership and all frazes and slogans were attributed to the Angkar. Later the Communist Party of Kampuchea was introduced and some quotes were attributed to the party. There was no person and God-head to worship and idolize. Towards then end of the regime, after Pol noticed that his government was going badly and did not have the needed popular support, he took advice from his allies, mostly the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and China, and began to build a cult around himself. It was too late to create such a cult and it didn’t make any difference or make his regime stronger.
There is little doubt that Pol was influenced by the French Revolution. After the first government of the French Revolution fell, in 1794, an Executive Directory, or simply the Directory was set up, composed of five people. It lasted only five years, then was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte and the revolution came to an end. But it did prove that it is possible to avoid a single dictator to run a country through a cult of personality.
Cults of personality are not
Before coming to power in Nicaragua, in 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front set up a National Directorate to lead their party. They wanted to avoid the personality cult that developed in Cuba. They didn’t want a one-man dictatorship.
The cult of personality is not limited to one party states, such as Joseph Stalin, in the USSR, or right-wing fascist, such as Adolf Hitler. They can also be elected to office as was President Ronald Reagan, in the US.
This is an era I lived through and it was hard to get people to focus on what this man did, rather than who he was. He was, as the press kept saying, “overwhelmingly popular.” Liberals and other opponents found it was necessary to focus on issues without criticizing the great leader. Opponents found themselves on the defensive if they dared to criticise this cult of personality. Even the working class, who he harmed greatly, like him because he told jokes and was witty. He was a song and dance man and was charismatic. This is probably the same for John F. Kennedy. These personalities distracted the public from serious discussion of issues and political direction.
It is fine to have heroes, such as Karl Marx, VI Lenin, and Mao as we see on the mastheads of many Maoist sites. These are the main theoreticians of the ideology and they are not living people we idolise as gods. Che Guevara’s face is on a lot of T-shirts and banners. But he is more a symbol than a god-like figure. He is also dead and not running a country. It is living leaders that cause problems when we make them into god-like figures.
I didn’t like living under a bourgeois cult of personality and I don’t want to live under any kind. We must be the masters of our own destiny and that means we need collective rulers.
To learn more about Pol Pot, my latest book, The Pol Pot Journals, is available on Lu Lu press. To order one, click here.
[1] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The DPR Korea cuts rail ties with the south
The AP reported that North (Democratic People's Republic of) Korea has cut off rail ties and some historical monuments to the South:
N. Korea stops train service from S. Korea AP
The Korean News agency from the DPRK also reported on this incident:
KPA Notifies S. Korean Puppet Authorities of Crucial Measure to Be Enforced by It
군사분계선통행차단실시를 통고-군사회담 북측단장
N. Korea stops train service from S. Korea AP
The Korean News agency from the DPRK also reported on this incident:
KPA Notifies S. Korean Puppet Authorities of Crucial Measure to Be Enforced by It
Pyongyang, November 24 (KCNA) -- The head of the north side delegation to the inter-Korean general-level military talks on Nov. 12 officially informed the south side that the Korean People's Army would put into force the crucial measure of strictly restricting and cutting off all the overland passages through the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) from December 1 as the first step to be taken in connection with the evermore undisguised anti-DPRK confrontational racket of the south Korean puppet authorities.
Nevertheless, the south Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and anti-reunification confrontational racket.
Even the present chief executive of south Korea openly blustered in the heart of the U.S. that "his ultimate goal is to unify the country under the system of liberal democracy" in utter disregard of the historic June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration.
The reality clearly proves that the "respect" for the above-said declarations and the "resumption of the dialogue" for honoring them touted by the south Korean puppet authorities so far are nothing but sheer hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, the south Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and anti-reunification confrontational racket.
Even the present chief executive of south Korea openly blustered in the heart of the U.S. that "his ultimate goal is to unify the country under the system of liberal democracy" in utter disregard of the historic June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration.
The reality clearly proves that the "respect" for the above-said declarations and the "resumption of the dialogue" for honoring them touted by the south Korean puppet authorities so far are nothing but sheer hypocrisy.
For more click here.
군사분계선통행차단실시를 통고-군사회담 북측단장
(평양 11월 24일발 조선중앙통신)지난 12일 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 날로 악랄해지고있는 남조선괴뢰당국의 반공화국대결책동에 대처하여 우리 군대가 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 군사분계선을 통한 모든 륙로통행을 엄격히 제한, 차단하는 중대조치를 취할것이라고 남조선괴뢰당국에 정식으로 통고한바 있다.
그러나 남조선괴뢰들은 의연히 반민족적이고 반통일적인 대결소동에 열을 올리고있다.
지어 현 집권자까지 미국 한복판에서 력사적인 6.15공동선언과 10.4선언은 안중에도 없이 《자유민주주의체제하에서 통일하는것이 최후목표》라고 공공연히 줴쳐댔다.
현실은 남조선괴뢰당국이 지금까지 떠들어온 두 선언에 대한 《존중》과 그 리행을 위한 《대화재개》가 한갖 위선에 지나지 않는다는것을 그대로 확증해주고있다.
조성된 엄중한 사태와 관련하여 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 위임에 따라 24일 남조선괴뢰당국에 이미 통고한대로 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 다음과 같은 중대조치를 취하게 될것이라고 통고하였다.
개성공업지구와 금강산관광지구의 당국관련기관들과 기업들의 상주인원 및 차량들을 선별추방하고 그들의 군사분계선륙로통행을 차단할것이다.
군사분계선통행차단실시를 통고-군사회담 북측단장
(평양 11월 24일발 조선중앙통신)지난 12일 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 날로 악랄해지고있는 남조선괴뢰당국의 반공화국대결책동에 대처하여 우리 군대가 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 군사분계선을 통한 모든 륙로통행을 엄격히 제한, 차단하는 중대조치를 취할것이라고 남조선괴뢰당국에 정식으로 통고한바 있다.
그러나 남조선괴뢰들은 의연히 반민족적이고 반통일적인 대결소동에 열을 올리고있다.
지어 현 집권자까지 미국 한복판에서 력사적인 6.15공동선언과 10.4선언은 안중에도 없이 《자유민주주의체제하에서 통일하는것이 최후목표》라고 공공연히 줴쳐댔다.
현실은 남조선괴뢰당국이 지금까지 떠들어온 두 선언에 대한 《존중》과 그 리행을 위한 《대화재개》가 한갖 위선에 지나지 않는다는것을 그대로 확증해주고있다.
조성된 엄중한 사태와 관련하여 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 위임에 따라 24일 남조선괴뢰당국에 이미 통고한대로 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 다음과 같은 중대조치를 취하게 될것이라고 통고하였다.
개성공업지구와 금강산관광지구의 당국관련기관들과 기업들의 상주인원 및 차량들을 선별추방하고 그들의 군사분계선륙로통행을 차단할것이다.
그러나 남조선괴뢰들은 의연히 반민족적이고 반통일적인 대결소동에 열을 올리고있다.
지어 현 집권자까지 미국 한복판에서 력사적인 6.15공동선언과 10.4선언은 안중에도 없이 《자유민주주의체제하에서 통일하는것이 최후목표》라고 공공연히 줴쳐댔다.
현실은 남조선괴뢰당국이 지금까지 떠들어온 두 선언에 대한 《존중》과 그 리행을 위한 《대화재개》가 한갖 위선에 지나지 않는다는것을 그대로 확증해주고있다.
조성된 엄중한 사태와 관련하여 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 위임에 따라 24일 남조선괴뢰당국에 이미 통고한대로 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 다음과 같은 중대조치를 취하게 될것이라고 통고하였다.
개성공업지구와 금강산관광지구의 당국관련기관들과 기업들의 상주인원 및 차량들을 선별추방하고 그들의 군사분계선륙로통행을 차단할것이다.
군사분계선통행차단실시를 통고-군사회담 북측단장
(평양 11월 24일발 조선중앙통신)지난 12일 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 날로 악랄해지고있는 남조선괴뢰당국의 반공화국대결책동에 대처하여 우리 군대가 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 군사분계선을 통한 모든 륙로통행을 엄격히 제한, 차단하는 중대조치를 취할것이라고 남조선괴뢰당국에 정식으로 통고한바 있다.
그러나 남조선괴뢰들은 의연히 반민족적이고 반통일적인 대결소동에 열을 올리고있다.
지어 현 집권자까지 미국 한복판에서 력사적인 6.15공동선언과 10.4선언은 안중에도 없이 《자유민주주의체제하에서 통일하는것이 최후목표》라고 공공연히 줴쳐댔다.
현실은 남조선괴뢰당국이 지금까지 떠들어온 두 선언에 대한 《존중》과 그 리행을 위한 《대화재개》가 한갖 위선에 지나지 않는다는것을 그대로 확증해주고있다.
조성된 엄중한 사태와 관련하여 북남장령급군사회담 우리측대표단 단장은 위임에 따라 24일 남조선괴뢰당국에 이미 통고한대로 12월 1일부터 1차적으로 다음과 같은 중대조치를 취하게 될것이라고 통고하였다.
개성공업지구와 금강산관광지구의 당국관련기관들과 기업들의 상주인원 및 차량들을 선별추방하고 그들의 군사분계선륙로통행을 차단할것이다.
For the rest of the article click here.
North Korea may not be a real workers paradise but it is not to the lefts advantage to see it destroyed or swallowed up by the South Korean government, which really is a puppet of the US. That last statement can’t be denied. It is always possible for change to come to the North, but no change from the US or its puppets can bring anything but reaction. -史蒂夫 奥托
Monday, November 24, 2008
Peruvian Sendero supporters are at odds with the Revolutionary Communist Party USA
The Revolutionary Communist Party USA, was once one of the Communist Party of Peru’s (known as Sendero Luminoso in the press) main supporters. That is no longer the case. In an article from the Red Sun, a group that supports the Peruvian Maoist, here in the US, known as
New Peru Friendship Association, United States of America, has criticized the RCP and outlined some differences between them and the Sendero movement in Peru.
From the Red Sun:
COMMENT ON THE DRAMA OF THE AVAKIANISTS
June 2008It is well known that the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States (RCP) has an incredible capacity to intervene in the matters of the different parties of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) in particular, and of the International Communist Movement (ICM) in general. They have curious detachments in different places on the international level, and they never get tired of fomenting situations in which they would have the possibility of such intervention. It is a party that, presumptuously, all over the world, tries to find different positions (that they call "lines") inside the Parties and organizations, in order to try to divide them and get their own dividends, thus aiming against the leadership of these supposedly fraternal Parties and organizations. That is why now, when a noteworthy member of the RCP leadership, a Mike Ely, along with a group of important Party cadres, have taken with them one of the principal bases of the RCP and have split from their party, many have been inclined to state: "what goes around comes around" - to use an expression that the friends from the United States can easily understand. Even so, we are not going to ask the comrades of the RCP to explain how it can be that noteworthy members of their leadership capitulate, or how many cadres, Party members and masses they have lost, or what are the roots of this in the history of the RCP and the ideological conception that has permitted the emergence of this "line within the Party"; or to which internal documents Ely is referring. Neither are we going to ask what his post was, nor are we even going to ask why all their Party members in New York are new faces or why they have had to close their library in that city and open a new one etc. To be nice, we are not even going to demand a meeting with comrade Avakian for him to explain and argue for his position. We are not going to ask, because of the simple fact that we are not the RCP. Instead, we are going to put forward a few short points concerning the ideological and political positions exposed in the quarrel between the Cain and Abel of avakianism (the reference is made in order to be understandable among those who believe in the visions of Avakian - they love to discuss the Bible)….
Most important are their differences:
“The matter could have remained a curiosity, a simple indication of the ideological crisis of those who follow Avakian's positions, if it were not for the dirty laundry that is being brought to light. For Avakian, what hurts the most is being accused - wrongfully, on that we agree completely with RCP's answer - of having something in common with Chairman Gonzalo. After having put forward that there was a "negative resolution (…) of the revolutionary struggle in Peru" (the question is which: are they upset because the people's war continues?), they rush to state that "that there is a very real, and decisive, difference between what the RCP is actually saying about the role of Bob Avakian and what is embodied in the PCP's line on 'jefatura.'" It is obviously correct that the PCP bases itself on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo thought, principally Gonzalo thought, and the foundation of Chairman Gonzalo's Great leadership is his thought, proven in theory and practice in the process of reconstituting the PCP and in 28 years of people's war, while the RCP bases itself on Avakian's "new synthesis" that has no foundation in practice whatsoever. The PCR-ians emphasize that not only is Avakian not a Great leadership, but that their Party is totally against the thesis of Great leadership, which comes from Lenin - who they, by the way, consider to be a Mafioso - and that "the RCP's line not only does not agree with, and does not apply to Bob Avakian, but which once more Bob Avakian has argued and polemicized against.". What is interesting is not that the RCP and its little chief are against Great leadership - the whole world knows this - what is interesting is that it is the first time they dare to say it publicly. So, where does that leave their hypocritical game of "not making the criticisms public", when they have always been arguing against the just and correct positions of the PCP? Where does that leave their false calls to "not making the differences public"? It leaves them where we all knew, a trick of the hegemonists to try to silent the left while they lose control of the right. Avakian has always argued against the line of the PCP, and now he and his own people have said it.”
For the rest of the article click here.
New Peru Friendship Association, United States of America, has criticized the RCP and outlined some differences between them and the Sendero movement in Peru.
From the Red Sun:
COMMENT ON THE DRAMA OF THE AVAKIANISTS
June 2008It is well known that the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States (RCP) has an incredible capacity to intervene in the matters of the different parties of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) in particular, and of the International Communist Movement (ICM) in general. They have curious detachments in different places on the international level, and they never get tired of fomenting situations in which they would have the possibility of such intervention. It is a party that, presumptuously, all over the world, tries to find different positions (that they call "lines") inside the Parties and organizations, in order to try to divide them and get their own dividends, thus aiming against the leadership of these supposedly fraternal Parties and organizations. That is why now, when a noteworthy member of the RCP leadership, a Mike Ely, along with a group of important Party cadres, have taken with them one of the principal bases of the RCP and have split from their party, many have been inclined to state: "what goes around comes around" - to use an expression that the friends from the United States can easily understand. Even so, we are not going to ask the comrades of the RCP to explain how it can be that noteworthy members of their leadership capitulate, or how many cadres, Party members and masses they have lost, or what are the roots of this in the history of the RCP and the ideological conception that has permitted the emergence of this "line within the Party"; or to which internal documents Ely is referring. Neither are we going to ask what his post was, nor are we even going to ask why all their Party members in New York are new faces or why they have had to close their library in that city and open a new one etc. To be nice, we are not even going to demand a meeting with comrade Avakian for him to explain and argue for his position. We are not going to ask, because of the simple fact that we are not the RCP. Instead, we are going to put forward a few short points concerning the ideological and political positions exposed in the quarrel between the Cain and Abel of avakianism (the reference is made in order to be understandable among those who believe in the visions of Avakian - they love to discuss the Bible)….
Most important are their differences:
“The matter could have remained a curiosity, a simple indication of the ideological crisis of those who follow Avakian's positions, if it were not for the dirty laundry that is being brought to light. For Avakian, what hurts the most is being accused - wrongfully, on that we agree completely with RCP's answer - of having something in common with Chairman Gonzalo. After having put forward that there was a "negative resolution (…) of the revolutionary struggle in Peru" (the question is which: are they upset because the people's war continues?), they rush to state that "that there is a very real, and decisive, difference between what the RCP is actually saying about the role of Bob Avakian and what is embodied in the PCP's line on 'jefatura.'" It is obviously correct that the PCP bases itself on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo thought, principally Gonzalo thought, and the foundation of Chairman Gonzalo's Great leadership is his thought, proven in theory and practice in the process of reconstituting the PCP and in 28 years of people's war, while the RCP bases itself on Avakian's "new synthesis" that has no foundation in practice whatsoever. The PCR-ians emphasize that not only is Avakian not a Great leadership, but that their Party is totally against the thesis of Great leadership, which comes from Lenin - who they, by the way, consider to be a Mafioso - and that "the RCP's line not only does not agree with, and does not apply to Bob Avakian, but which once more Bob Avakian has argued and polemicized against.". What is interesting is not that the RCP and its little chief are against Great leadership - the whole world knows this - what is interesting is that it is the first time they dare to say it publicly. So, where does that leave their hypocritical game of "not making the criticisms public", when they have always been arguing against the just and correct positions of the PCP? Where does that leave their false calls to "not making the differences public"? It leaves them where we all knew, a trick of the hegemonists to try to silent the left while they lose control of the right. Avakian has always argued against the line of the PCP, and now he and his own people have said it.”
For the rest of the article click here.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Trip can’t change a failed presidency
In a last ditch attempt to save the reputation of one of the worst presidents in the history of the US, George Bush has gone on a world trip to try and look “presidential” and supposedly has won great achievements. It looks more like PR on closer examination than any real substance. In the article from
The Wichita Eagle:
“Bush wins support on economy, North Korea
BY BEN FELLER
Associated Press
LIMA, Peru - President Bush snared fresh international support Saturday on the economy and North Korea, emerging from his final world gathering with modest wins and growing nostalgia about his turbulent tenure.
Dogged by a collapsing economy late in his presidency, Bush came away with the commitment he wanted from Asia's Pacific nations: a pledge to keep trade flowing and shun protectionism.”
For more on this click here.
And what all did he win on this trip. Better relations with North (Democratic People's Republic of) Korea?
I wouldn’t know that by reading the news agency of that country
News From KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK(Democratic People's Republic of Korea):
"Imperialists' Despicable Scheme to Lead DPRK to "Reform" and "Opening" Flailed
For more click here.
“Barring a surprise trip to Iraq or Afghanistan, Bush's foreign travel as president is ending with this Pacific Rim economic summit in Peru.”
I’ve been running a lot of articles about the resurgence of Maoist guerrillas in Peru and some of the other countries he mentioned are also not so stable. It’s easy to make agreements with those who sit on a house of cards. And this trip proves nothing and does nothing to alter the failure of the Bush Presidency.
-史蒂夫 奥托
The Wichita Eagle:
“Bush wins support on economy, North Korea
BY BEN FELLER
Associated Press
LIMA, Peru - President Bush snared fresh international support Saturday on the economy and North Korea, emerging from his final world gathering with modest wins and growing nostalgia about his turbulent tenure.
Dogged by a collapsing economy late in his presidency, Bush came away with the commitment he wanted from Asia's Pacific nations: a pledge to keep trade flowing and shun protectionism.”
For more on this click here.
And what all did he win on this trip. Better relations with North (Democratic People's Republic of) Korea?I wouldn’t know that by reading the news agency of that country
News From KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK(Democratic People's Republic of Korea):
"Imperialists' Despicable Scheme to Lead DPRK to "Reform" and "Opening" Flailed
Pyongyang, November 21 (KCNA) -- "Reform" and "opening" touted by the imperialists are a reactionary plot to block social progress and stem the trend of history and a sinister move to destabilize and undermine other countries under the signboard of "globalization" in a bid to attain their hegemonic purpose, says Rodong Sinmun Friday in a signed article.
The article says: The imperialists are using "reform" and "opening" as pretexts for political pressure, economic sanctions and blockade, while putting them up as preconditions. They have gone the lengths of crying out for "reform" and "opening" when dealing with humanitarian issues in a bid to make humanitarianism a plaything for their political bargaining. What should not be overlooked is the pressure put by them upon the DPRK to accept "reform" and "opening" despite its firm adherence to the socialist principle.They are groundlessly accusing the DPRK of opting for "isolation" and "closure", not "reform" and "opening". This is nothing but sheer sophism which can be uttered by those who distort reality and make profound confusion of right and wrong."
The article says: The imperialists are using "reform" and "opening" as pretexts for political pressure, economic sanctions and blockade, while putting them up as preconditions. They have gone the lengths of crying out for "reform" and "opening" when dealing with humanitarian issues in a bid to make humanitarianism a plaything for their political bargaining. What should not be overlooked is the pressure put by them upon the DPRK to accept "reform" and "opening" despite its firm adherence to the socialist principle.They are groundlessly accusing the DPRK of opting for "isolation" and "closure", not "reform" and "opening". This is nothing but sheer sophism which can be uttered by those who distort reality and make profound confusion of right and wrong."
To see more, click here.
Similar sentiments are in this article in Korean:
"잡지 《백두-한나》 11월호 발행
(평양 11월 22일발 조선중앙통신)재중조선인총련합회가 잡지 《백두-한나》 11월호를 발행하였다.
잡지는 첫 페지에 위대한 령도자 김정일동지의 사진을 모시고 그이께 조선로동당창건 63돐에 즈음하여 재중조선인총련합회가 드린 편지를 실었다."
"잡지 《백두-한나》 11월호 발행
(평양 11월 22일발 조선중앙통신)재중조선인총련합회가 잡지 《백두-한나》 11월호를 발행하였다.
잡지는 첫 페지에 위대한 령도자 김정일동지의 사진을 모시고 그이께 조선로동당창건 63돐에 즈음하여 재중조선인총련합회가 드린 편지를 실었다."
For more click here.
Again in the Eagle:
“Barring a surprise trip to Iraq or Afghanistan, Bush's foreign travel as president is ending with this Pacific Rim economic summit in Peru.”
I’ve been running a lot of articles about the resurgence of Maoist guerrillas in Peru and some of the other countries he mentioned are also not so stable. It’s easy to make agreements with those who sit on a house of cards. And this trip proves nothing and does nothing to alter the failure of the Bush Presidency.
-史蒂夫 奥托
Saturday, November 22, 2008
When it comes to national news - this is Phelps country- unfortunately
It's an unfortunate coincident that Kansas is known for kooky churches, organizations and personalities. Our state was recently in the news for a sign by one of the rightwing Chritian kook churches for putting up a sign insisting that Barack Obama is really a Moslem. But our most prized idiot is the Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. His main enemy is homosexuals and he has condemned the entire nation for tolerating a single gay person. He pickets funerals of people he thinks are gay or gay sympathisers. He had been pickiting the funeral of dead service men because they fought for a guy country.
If this doesn't make much sense, it doesn't with most of us in Kansas either. We wish the press would find someone else to use for news. But that hasn't happened yet and we still get lots of Fred Phelps coverage. -史蒂夫 奥托
From the Omaha World Herald:
"Westboro protest draws student counter protest
ANDREW J. NELSON AND KATIE FRETLAND
Members of a Kansas church that protests funerals of slain service members fled the grounds of Omaha's Central High School today after police said they could not protect them from student counterprotesters.Students threw hamburgers and bottles of lemonade and milk at members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., according to several students interviewed.Police said no one was injured. They made no arrests.Westboro protesters had demonstrated at two other locations in Omaha earlier in the day before heading to Central High.
They were standing outside the school, near the corner of 20th and Dodge Streets, when school was dismissed at 2:50 p.m. and students began leaving.Witnesses said the protesters held up signs that criticized homosexuality and characterized U.S. President-elect Barack Obama as the antichrist."Unfortunately, it got out of hand with students throwing objects at the protesters and at police," Police Sgt. Cathy Martinec said.
These are typical Phelpites
If this doesn't make much sense, it doesn't with most of us in Kansas either. We wish the press would find someone else to use for news. But that hasn't happened yet and we still get lots of Fred Phelps coverage. -史蒂夫 奥托
From the Omaha World Herald:
"Westboro protest draws student counter protest
ANDREW J. NELSON AND KATIE FRETLAND
Members of a Kansas church that protests funerals of slain service members fled the grounds of Omaha's Central High School today after police said they could not protect them from student counterprotesters.Students threw hamburgers and bottles of lemonade and milk at members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., according to several students interviewed.Police said no one was injured. They made no arrests.Westboro protesters had demonstrated at two other locations in Omaha earlier in the day before heading to Central High.
They were standing outside the school, near the corner of 20th and Dodge Streets, when school was dismissed at 2:50 p.m. and students began leaving.Witnesses said the protesters held up signs that criticized homosexuality and characterized U.S. President-elect Barack Obama as the antichrist."Unfortunately, it got out of hand with students throwing objects at the protesters and at police," Police Sgt. Cathy Martinec said.
These are typical PhelpitesFriday, November 21, 2008
PERÚ: More troops killed and helicopter ambushed in Maoist attack
Lima, 18.11.08Maoist Guerrilla Attacks Wound 4 Soldiers in Peru3 Police Officers Killed in Earlier AmbushLIMA -- Two Peruvian soldiers were wounded Wednesday when their helicopter came under fire while coming to the rescue of an army patrol targeted in an earlier rebel attack that left two troops injured.The chopper was headed to the southeastern zone of Vizcatan, scene of Tuesday's attack by Maoist guerrillas, when the shooting occurred.False military sources told local radio that the helicopter made an emergency landing because of so called engine problems.The confrontation in Vizcatan came days after three highway patrol officers were killed and one wounded in an ambush apparently carried out by Maoists in Lurichoca, also in the Ayacucho region.The reactionary troops were on patrol when the Maoists opened fire from both sides of the road on Saturday night.On Oct. 9th, Maoist guerrillas attacked a convoy in Huancavelica province, killing 13 soldiers, and wounding 14 other soldiers.The guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, announcing that it was mounted to mark the 80th anniversary of the Peruvian Communist Party's founding.Since August, the armed forces have been making a failed 'aggressive push' in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene rivers, known as the VRAE region, against the Communist Party of Peru (PCP).The Maoist guerrillas are operating mainly in the VRAE, an important area for growing coca where they defend and mobilise the oppressed peasant masses.
El diario El Correo en su edicción de Ayacucho informa de un nuevo ataque del maoísta Ejercito Popular de Liberación en la zona del Vizcatan.Dos efectivos militares fueron alcanzados por disparos de francotiradores con armas de precisión, cuando participaban en una patrulla en la zona de Bidón. Los heridos fueron trasladados a la base militar de Vizcatan.
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
correovermello noticias esta para servir a las masas populares en el conocimiento de las noticias de la Revolucion Proletaria Mundial saudos vermellos / saludos rojos
El diario El Correo en su edicción de Ayacucho informa de un nuevo ataque del maoísta Ejercito Popular de Liberación en la zona del Vizcatan.Dos efectivos militares fueron alcanzados por disparos de francotiradores con armas de precisión, cuando participaban en una patrulla en la zona de Bidón. Los heridos fueron trasladados a la base militar de Vizcatan.
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
correovermello noticias esta para servir a las masas populares en el conocimiento de las noticias de la Revolucion Proletaria Mundial saudos vermellos / saludos rojosThursday, November 20, 2008
LAM - America's a fucking disease
What’s happened in the country the last decade has made radicals of many bands, such as London After Midnight.
Kline:The parasite that just won’t go away!
For abortion Dr. George Tiller, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has become a parasite that just won’t go away.
Kline never had any qualifications to be an attorney general. He used his background to get elected district attorney in North-East Kansas, but neglected to do his job and got elected of a district that he really didn’t live in. Most of Kline’s career has been built on fabrications. He was elected attorney general with the backing of pro-choice groups so he could use the office just to harass Tiller, who provides rare late term abortions.
The case now in question involves a ten year old rape victum who got an abortion at Tiller’s clinic. According the The Wichita Eagle: ‘Kline told a Topeka judge in 2006 -- and a crime that abortion provider George Tiller didn't report, as required by law.’
Origionally Kline had served up at least nine criminal charges against Tiller, of which only one is being investigated today.
Also, according to the Eagle;
“10-year-old's abortion is center of Tiller hearing
BY RON SYLVESTER
A 10-year-old girl who
Here was a possible child-rape victim, officers for then-Attorney General Phill Kline told a Topeka judge in 2006 -- and a crime that abortion provider George Tiller didn't report, as required by law.
They wanted to find out whether Tiller hadn't reported other crimes, and they needed his records to do that.
But their claims about Tiller weren't true, his attorneys argued Wednesday in Wichita.
Tiller's lawyers are in Sedgwick County District Court this week arguing that 19 misdemeanor charges he faces should be dismissed. They contend the charges are based on evidence obtained by Kline and his officers through false pretenses and abuses of power.”
For the whole story click here. 
If Kline and his followers get their way, this will be the future for many Kansas women.
Kline never had any qualifications to be an attorney general. He used his background to get elected district attorney in North-East Kansas, but neglected to do his job and got elected of a district that he really didn’t live in. Most of Kline’s career has been built on fabrications. He was elected attorney general with the backing of pro-choice groups so he could use the office just to harass Tiller, who provides rare late term abortions.
The case now in question involves a ten year old rape victum who got an abortion at Tiller’s clinic. According the The Wichita Eagle: ‘Kline told a Topeka judge in 2006 -- and a crime that abortion provider George Tiller didn't report, as required by law.’
Origionally Kline had served up at least nine criminal charges against Tiller, of which only one is being investigated today.
Also, according to the Eagle;
“10-year-old's abortion is center of Tiller hearing
BY RON SYLVESTER
A 10-year-old girl who
Here was a possible child-rape victim, officers for then-Attorney General Phill Kline told a Topeka judge in 2006 -- and a crime that abortion provider George Tiller didn't report, as required by law.
They wanted to find out whether Tiller hadn't reported other crimes, and they needed his records to do that.
But their claims about Tiller weren't true, his attorneys argued Wednesday in Wichita.
Tiller's lawyers are in Sedgwick County District Court this week arguing that 19 misdemeanor charges he faces should be dismissed. They contend the charges are based on evidence obtained by Kline and his officers through false pretenses and abuses of power.”
For the whole story click here.
If Kline and his followers get their way, this will be the future for many Kansas women.Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Auto industry goes glub glub!
By史蒂夫・奥多
With the big three auto companies in big trouble, no one poses the question why? Could it be that big gas guzzlers pushed to make the more money would backfire when the peak oil scare hit us? Did they know this would happen or did they care?
I hear people all the time saying the economy is a bigger issue than the war. Well, they are related. Wars take a lot of resources, money materials and human lives. This country faces a war on two fronts and the next president Barack Obama is probably not going to just “cut and run.”
Bush in his warped thinking, may have believed these wars would ease the strain of peak oil. But it had just the opposite effect. Now this country has to face a recession. As a nation we’ve collectively let the pigs feed at the trough until they are gorged and there’s nothing left for the rest of us. As the rest of us go under and parish, so goes the rest of the bloated corporate hacks that have bled us dry.
Now the big three auto companies want a government handout (corporate welfare). And we had to bail out several banks. If it weren’t for borrowed tax money, our whole economy would have gone down the drain. It may go anyway. The bailouts are just a temporary fix. This is the worst recession since the great depression and it may get worse before it gets better.
Some of our other so called allies may be looking to empire build themselves now that this country has over extended itself both militarily and economically.
And we can all thank that idiot president George Bush and the morons of the Republikkkan Party in the US Congress today.
With the big three auto companies in big trouble, no one poses the question why? Could it be that big gas guzzlers pushed to make the more money would backfire when the peak oil scare hit us? Did they know this would happen or did they care?
I hear people all the time saying the economy is a bigger issue than the war. Well, they are related. Wars take a lot of resources, money materials and human lives. This country faces a war on two fronts and the next president Barack Obama is probably not going to just “cut and run.”
Bush in his warped thinking, may have believed these wars would ease the strain of peak oil. But it had just the opposite effect. Now this country has to face a recession. As a nation we’ve collectively let the pigs feed at the trough until they are gorged and there’s nothing left for the rest of us. As the rest of us go under and parish, so goes the rest of the bloated corporate hacks that have bled us dry.
Now the big three auto companies want a government handout (corporate welfare). And we had to bail out several banks. If it weren’t for borrowed tax money, our whole economy would have gone down the drain. It may go anyway. The bailouts are just a temporary fix. This is the worst recession since the great depression and it may get worse before it gets better.
Some of our other so called allies may be looking to empire build themselves now that this country has over extended itself both militarily and economically.
And we can all thank that idiot president George Bush and the morons of the Republikkkan Party in the US Congress today.
Interview: An Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
Interview: An Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India
This is an interview with G.N. Saibaba, the Deputy Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an All Indian Federation of Revolutionary People's Organisations. He is 40 years old and was born in Andhra Pradesh, a state in southern India. The new Norwegian party Rødt [Red!] conducted this interview.
Red!: If someone said to you that the Maoist movement in India is a marginal movement that is mainly operating in very backward, lowly populated areas, and it has been doing so for over thirty-five years without getting anywhere, what would be your answer?
Saibaba: The Maoist movement in India is not confined to the backward areas. It's a vast movement, and includes the "developed" areas. Maoists work both in the countryside and the cities. The government says that the Maoists are active in 15 out of 28 states. And these include the major states. The Union Home Ministry says that 167 districts out total 600 districts in the country are covered by Maoists. This is a little less than 1/3 of India.
The Maoists in India follow the New Democratic Revolutionary method proved successful in China under the leadership of Mao. This method follows that the revolutionary movement must put priority on working in the areas where the state is weak. The Maoists work in the backward regions to smash the local reactionaries' power and establish people's power. They build revolutionary mass bases in these backward areas. This doesn't mean that they don't also work in the cities. In fact, in the Congress of the CPI (Maoist) held in January/February 2007, they decided to increase their work in the urban areas. They have produced a new document concerning work in the urban areas that analyses the work done in the last thirty years. This document sets out a strategy for developing the work in the urban areas.
The backward regions in the country are essentially semi-feudal and there is not much capitalistic development. The Maoist Party selected these areas for guerrilla warfare. The armed struggle is considered as the main form of struggle. In order to develop the main form of struggle the Maoists concentrate their work in the backward areas. The struggle in urban areas is secondary and complimentary. The work of the party among the working class in the urban areas helps develop proletarian leadership for the struggle in the backward areas.
At the same time the Maoists participate in developing a huge movement in the urban areas among the intelligentsia, students, women and the middle classes. Maoist cadres and leaders who have been working in the urban areas also are arrested, harassed and killed.
Maoists also work among the coal miners in a big way. There are vast coal mines in many regions in India. You can see, the Maoists work in many industrial areas all over the country, though their concentration of work proceeds from the rural areas.
In fact the CPI (Maoist) leads the single largest mass movement in India. The Central and local governments' response is an indicator to the vastness of the movement. The Central Government has formed a Coordination Centre together with 14 state governments. They are cooperating to mobilise security forces and to gather intelligence about the movements of the Maoists. They have armed a huge military network. They have monthly meetings of this Centre. A large number of military forces are engaged against the Maoist movement. This also indicates the strength of the Maoist movement.
The Naxalbari uprising in 1967 that beckoned in the new revolutionary wave ended with splits into many groups. The splitting up of revolutionary communist forces lasted from 1972 to 1997. It is only after 1997 that the revolutionary communists started uniting. Two major parties who were waging armed struggle united in 1998 and the final unity took place in 2004 when the CPI (Maoist) was formed with the merger of MCCI and CPI (People's War). Because of the splits the movement couldn't grow faster before 2004.
(See notes for more on these trends)
Red!: How do the Maoists respond to accusations of being dogmatists, and not being willing to learn from the defeats of socialism in the 20th century?
Saibaba: The Maoists are creatively and in a genuine way implementing the Marxist principles to the concrete conditions of India. They don't blindly copy from China or Russia. At the same time they are aware that the socialist projects in China and Russia were defeated by the capitalist roaders. They apply Marxism-Leninism- Maoism in a practical way for India. If one calls carrying armed struggle dogmatism, then one is moving away from class struggle in an impoverished country like India. Armed peasant struggle is the basic struggle, because 70% of the masses have been forced to remain with and depend on agriculture and backward relations of production. In such a situation where a vast majority don't have a public democratic space, they will not be able to fight the fascistic ruling classes without arms. But armed struggle is also being waged creatively and practically. Armed struggle doesn't mean the annihilation of the class enemy. Armed struggle is a form of class struggle where the oppressed classes assert their power and organise themselves by taking away power from the feudal and pro-imperialist comprador capitalists.
Armed struggle under the leadership of Maoists also means re-appropriation of the sources of livelihood by the wretched of the earth from the dominant and powerful classes. It also means building alternative institutions the people's power. So in this way the armed struggle is redefined and practiced with Bolshevik spirit of giving all power to the soviets. Without armed struggle no resistance can be built in countries like India and the resistance that has been built up in the previous years cannot be retained. The armed actions against the state forces and feudal forces are carried out to protect the movement and in self-defence and self-assertion of the exploited classes.
The Maoists believe that the demise of socialist construction in Russia and China was mainly due to the revisionist line that developed within the respective Communist Parties of those countries. The capitalist-roaders in Russia and China captured power back from the working class because those parties could not guard against the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the proletarian parties. The failure of the socialist projects have taught important lessons to the international proletariat in carrying forward the class struggle against the bourgeoisie in various countries and the monopoly bourgeoisie at the international level. In no country in the world has class struggle succeeded without armed struggle.
Red!: How many soldiers do the Maoists have approximately?
Saibaba: The Indian Government says 28,000, but the number may be much higher. The areas of their influence look much wider than what the Government estimations indicate. Also there is a vast people's militia working at the village level. The militia is basic and primary in relation to the People's Liberation Army as per the strategy of the CPI (Maoist).
Red!: Have there been any peace talks between the Maoists and the authorities anywhere?
Saibaba: There were peace talks in 2004. The Government of Andhra Pradesh invited the Maoists for peace negotiations. The Maoist Party always maintains that they are never averse to political negotiations with their opponents on the issues of people's struggles, but no negotiations are possible on their central political line in terms of strategy. One round of peace talks were conducted in Hyderabad for about a month. This was facilitated and supported by the prominent intellectuals of the region. The Maoists said in the negotiations that if the government was willing to solve the problems of the people for which they had been fighting in the last thirty five years, they would welcome the change. They discussed the basic problems of the people. A ceasefire agreement was signed by both sides before the political negotiations began. The government said that they wanted to close the first phase of the negotiations and also said that it would implement the agreed upon points. And the Maoist leaders who negotiated went back underground. They waited for the implementation of the agreed points. The Government violated the ceasefire, started hostilities on the Maoists and killed several hundred Maoists, including leading cadres. This process revealed before the eyes the people how the reactionary rulers are not ready to solve the problems of the people.
Red! : Do the Maoists have any base areas?
Saibaba: The People's War has not reached to the level of base areas yet. But it has almost reached this level in several places. In these areas where base areas are under construction, people's governments at local level are functioning. The People's governments are functioning in several hundred villages.
Red!: There is news that the Central and State Governments launched attacks against the Maoist positions in Andhra Pradesh, and that they have been driven out of most of the areas. Doesn't this show that when the ruling classes want to, they can defeat the Maoists militarily, and that it is only a question of tactics from the enemy's part, when it decides to smash the Maoists?
Saibaba: In the last decade more than two thousand Maoist cadres have been brutally murdered in Andhra Pradesh. There was a concentrated attack particularly after the peace negotiations. When the Maoists saw that they were facing larger losses of forces, they retreated from certain areas, and deployed them in other areas. There is a temporary setback in some areas in Andhra Pradesh for the Maoist movement, but they are trying to revive these areas. The Central and State governments use vigilante groups in a huge way to infiltrate the Maoist areas and smash them. The vigilante groups worked more effectively for the governments in breaking the Maoist resistance in some areas of Andhra Pradesh.
The movement is not merely a military movement. It is a political movement involving the masses. So the Maoists are not facing and confronting the Indian military forces just militarily but more politically so they have a vast mass base. It is not possible for the government to smash the movement because of massive popular support. The temporary setbacks are not uncommon in revolutionary movements. But the mature revolutionary movements could recover from such setbacks quickly from time to time.
Red!: Are there any revolutionary forces that are trying another strategy than protracted people's war in India?
Saibaba: Yes, for example CPI (ML) New Democracy and a few other CPI (ML) groups. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections (elections to the Union legislature i.e. the Parliament) in 2004, CPI(ML) Red Flag and a few other CPI (ML) groups took the initiative to form a united front of revolutionary communists basically to fight elections.
The Maoists consider them to be the right deviationists but not revisionist. They are progressive, but not on the right revolutionary path as per the Maoists. But Maoists are not averse to work with them in mass work.
Red!: India is a big country. In some areas there are civil wars, in other areas there is not much unrest. At the same time most parties are regional, not national. Are there revolutionary organisations in all the states of India?
Saibaba: The unrest is everywhere. Take for example Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These two areas are poverty-stricken areas. But there is not a single revolutionary party exists in these regions. The unrest takes place in these regions many shapes. Sometimes mass militant movements arise. But the major problem is that the revolutionary subjective forces are not working there. These are two large states, but there is no history of revolutionary communist parties in these areas, mostly NGOs work in these areas. They are often foreign funded. But the objective situation is very much ripe for armed struggle in these areas as well. It is simply the question of spread of revolutionary forces to these regions that is awaited.
Red!: What is the percentage of people living in the cities? How many of these have employment?
Saibaba:30 percent of Indian population live in urban and semi-urban areas and 70 percent in the countryside. Overall, about 77% of the people live on less than 20 rupees a day–i.e. half a US dollar a day on an average. Unemployment is rampant in every part of India.
Red!: Officially India is growing at a GDP growth-rate of almost 10%. You contest this figure. Why?
Saibaba: At the moment the growth rate is around 9% as per the Government's declaration. Only 0.5% percent of the workforce, which is engaged in the service-sector, is contributing 55% to the GDP. And 70% of the workforce, which is in the rural agriculture sector, is contributing with only 19% to the GDP. And 3% of the work force is engaged in the manufacturing sector. These figures from the government tell us that the vast majority of the people's share in the GDP is very minute. Right now the growth rate figures are based to a large degree on speculative capital, which includes foreign investment. So the growth rate is both illusive and fragile. The calculations for the growth rate are also based on falsehoods. If these figures indicate anything, we understand that the top 10% is amassing the wealth with crudest exploitative methods.
Red!: In the Philippines there is a combination of People's War and at the same time the party supports people's parties that stand for elections, in Nepal the Maoists stood for elections to parliament in 1993, then they boycotted the elections and started a people's war, and now they are in parliament. Isn't it possible to combine people's war and parliamentary work in such a vast and diverse country as India?
Saibaba: The history of the development of the Communist Movement in India in the last 40 years shows us that those Communist Revolutionary Parties that did not choose the strategy of People's War, but chose the theory of people's resistance first, before the initiation of People's War or that chose to combine people's resistance and parliamentary politics, gradually slipped into either right deviationist or neo-revisionist path.
People's War is the main strategy, whereas standing for elections of the Parliament is a tactical question. The Maoists are not in principle against the elections, but doing this must facilitate the strategy of People's War. The Maoists consider the question of participation in Parliamentary elections as part of the tactics which has a strategic importance. So they don't see any immediate possibility of participating in elections. The Parliamentary institutions are highly discredited ones among the people in India. In the imagination of people at large, if one is participating in elections one is the enemy of the people who comes to rob them. The Maoists boycott elections and concentrate on building alternative people's power and people's institutions. In India the Maoists have no immediate plans of using this tactic.
Red!: Isn't it possible to develop both legal struggle and underground struggle in the cities and larger urban areas, also including working in the Parliamentary organisations?
Saibaba: The Maoists do work in the urban areas among the working classes and the middle classes. This has secondary importance in relation to the main strategy of the revolutionary line. The primary importance is to develop the armed struggle in the villages among the peasants as the main force, and with the working class ideology in the leadership. This means not just the physical workers but those of the people who acquired the proletarian ideology and without property of their own. Maoists do combine legal and the illegal struggles as far as the struggles create space to operate and basically understand that more and more militant struggles create this space. Whatever there is any democratic space, it's being used to the maximum extent possible. But the ruling classes don't allow the use of legal means and different institutions of democracy always. Participating in elections is not the only way to participate in legal and urban spaces. Even boycotting elections is a highly political activity, which is another way of participating politically within the given democratic space that exists in India.
First of all, the Maoists are concentrating on gaining power for the people to build people's democratic revolutionary institutions. When this is achieved in large areas, they will get more space in the urban centres.
Red!: Is employment growing?
Saibaba: The employment rate is not growing, it is standing still. But the real employment rate has declined very much, for several reasons. The economic surveys tell us that one million small industries were closed in the last few years, and this made a huge loss of jobs. Then land being acquired from the farmers is also responsible for unemployment. The small peasants and landless peasants have lost their jobs in a big way.
Only IT-industry and some service industry are growing. But these are sectors where a miniscule number of people are employed. Employment in manufacture sector is on decline. The government doesn't show these figures. The independent intelligentsia produce alternative figures on both the growth rate and unemployment. There is a huge controversy about the official figures about employment situation in India. On the whole, there is a decline in the employment growth rate, side by side there is decline in real wages of workers.
Red!: Is India an imperialist country or a semi-feudal, semi colonial country?
Saibaba: India is not an imperialist country. The reason is that India is under the clutches of the imperialist powers. India's ruling classes exert little amount of power in international politics. To a great extent, it is acting under the dictates of the US imperialists. At the same time India has expansionist designs. Imperialist powers can control other countries, while expansionism is a desire to expand without the ability, to the neighbouring countries and try to exploit them and bully them.
But even these imperialist designs are not according to the wishes of the ruling classes of India, but according to the wishes of the imperialists. India exercises its expansionist desires by becoming an instrument in the hands of the USA at present. The USA is manoeuvring India to get control over the neighbouring smaller countries for an overall control over the geopolitical interests of the USA in South Asia. Examples are Sri Lanka and Nepal. India is being used to suppress the LTTE's just struggle for Tamil national liberation in Sri Lanka. The relationship between the USA and India can be compared with the hegemony of Israel in the Middle East. Now the US wants to use India to suppress the Maoist movement in Nepal though at present clandestinely. India has occupied Kashmir and North-Eastern national territories like Naga and others peoples by brute military force.
Red!: Is the class struggle in India more intense now than 20 years ago?
Saibaba: The poverty levels in India have increased. In 1947 there were no suicide deaths of farmers. From 1990s onwards the suicide deaths of farmers have started in a big way. Why did they start in the 1990s? It's because agriculture, which employs the largest section of the population has been neglected drastically. The poor peasantry is not able survive in this sector largely depending on the highly exploitative private credit system. About 150 000 farmers committed suicide in the last ten years. There are hunger deaths in many areas. People are eating wild roots and leaves in vast areas of deliberately underdeveloped areas. In fact we can see that we have several areas at the same level as the sub-Saharan African countries in India today. All this is happening particularly after the aggressive pro-imperialist globalisation started at a large-scale in India.
The working class is the most beleaguered class in our country. They have lost their rights. The fresh sections of workers emerging from the peasantry classes cannot join the labour aristocratic class. The organised sector very small compared to the unorganised sector, where collective agreements and labour laws are followed to an extent is fast diminishing.
But also ordinary people are more conscious of the already existing struggles in other areas. The class contradictions are sharpened because the resources are going into the hands of fewer and fewer after the globalisation process started around 1990. This process amasses of wealth in a very few hands.
Some welfare reforms introduced by the ruling classes in the decades of sixties and seventies were dropped and the government is leaving everything to the market that is led by the imperialist forces directly allied by the subservient domestic capitalists. This also increases the intensity of the struggles.
Red!: Since the beginning of the 1990s the ruling classes in India have pursued a neo- liberalistic policy of deregulation and privatisation and globalisation. How do these changes effect the situation for women?
Saibaba: There is nothing liberal about the neoliberal policies. These policies have been implanted since the time of Nehru in India. The so-called Nehru socialism is full of pro- imperialist globalisation policies. But then of course there is a marked difference between the earlier phase and the phase started since the 1990s. The difference is that globalisation is the aggressive phase of imperialist onslaught. Globalisation is the globalisation of aggressive monopoly capital in the absence of socialist block in the world, and also because of imperialism' s own in depth crisis. More and more, the burden of this crisis is being shifted on to the shoulders of the third world countries. As a result of the extreme exploitative conditions under the process of globalisation, the first section of the people who are facing severe difficulties are the Adivasis, the landless and poor peasants, the workers, the religious minorities particularly the Muslims an overwhelming majority of whom are among the country's poorest and in all these sections and classes the women are affected first of all.
Women are of course affected hardest. When workers are retrenched the women go first. Second, in the dwindling conditions of employment, women don't get new jobs as the job market is rabidly patriarchal. The extreme patriarchal oppression that exists in India is a result of both deviant capitalism and semi-feudalism. Women are forced to look after the families, particularly the children, when sources of livelihood decline. As a result, women eat less now, feed their children and look after their households. Today, there is more malnutrition among women, working in hard conditions both at home and outside. They get lower wages than men. Though equal wages is the law in the country, nobody follows it.
The sex ratio in the country is fast becoming a gulf, with the actual number of women decreasing in compared the numbers of men. Female foeticide is a growing phenomenon. Hundreds of cases of female foeticide are recorded in the hospitals. So now women are the biggest section joining the struggles, standing at the forefront and joining all struggles. More than 30 percent of the members in the Maoist party are women. Even the biggest bourgeois party in the country will not have such number of women. In some areas like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand the percentage is higher.
Red!: You say that displacement is the major issue in India. That there are six different kinds of displacement: Special Economic Zones, mining, new industry, new big dams, beautification of urban spaces and infrastructural corridor projects and others. You say that the forced displacement is based on expropriating approximately 12% of the land. Most of this land is also very fertile. Can you explain why displacement is the main issue, and not poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and so on?
Saibaba: 70% of the people depend on land or agriculture directly or indirectly. The major source of employment is agriculture. When land is taken away for these projects the people have no other source of income. So, one of the major ways that people are becoming unemployed is through dispossession of land. This in fact renders both the landed people and landless poor jobless. The rehabilitation packages announced by the government for those who lose land, never work. The rehabilitation is never implemented. So all the problems like malnutrition, poverty, unemployment and so on, are rooted in the process of dispossession of people of their sources of livelihood, by displacing them from their land, forests and other habitats.
Red!: Why can't the displaced peasants get new jobs in the modern sector?
Saibaba: The displaced are from those sections that are silently forced to remain illiterate. They don't have the necessary skills for industrial work - - particularly the kind of industry that is being set up with high imperialist technology. On the other hand, even if a small section is eligible for industrial work, they don't get jobs because the industries being set up are technology-intensiv e and they don't employ many people. The machines are brought from the imperialist countries. These machines require highly skilled labour. So there is no space for the disposed to get jobs in the industrial sector that is supposed to be growing. Then there is a small possibility of employment in the IT-sector or services sector, but not the manufacturing industry. In the urban areas there is already a huge section of educated unemployed, who will get a small number of jobs in these industries, but not the rural displaced.
Red!: What do the Maoists in India consider to be the main lessons to be learnt from the defeat of socialism in the last century, when it comes to the question of the relationship between the communist party and the rest of society?
Saibaba: The Indian Maoists feel that what happened in Russia and China still has to be analysed further. They think that in future the international Communist Revolutionaries have to come together and study the failures more concretely. One of the reasons for the failure of the socialist construction projects could be that the parties had not been able to devise mechanisms to check the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the Communist Parties. But of course in China the Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Mao was developed to check the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the Communist Parties. But it remained at an experimental level at that time after the death of Mao. More and more devices, political and ideological have to be developed within the revolutionary Communist Parties to check the extraneous class ideologies from creeping into the Communist Parties. Each of the countries of the world today needs to establish firm proletarian parties.
Unfortunately in many of the European countries as well as in some of the third world countries today, extraneous class ideologies have been creeping in, in the name of "21st century democracy," "liberal organising principles" and acceptance of a "multiparty system." Even within the policies of the Communist Parties, the need today is to drive them towards Bolshevisation, Leninist Parties which can lead the proletariat to victories in the process of which lessons can be drawn from the earlier failures which should be understood as temporary setback for the world proletariat in the long historical onward march.
Red!: What is the root-cause for differences among the Communist forces in India?
Saibaba: Within India the differences among the Communist Revolutionaries are not simply differences among their leadership. They reflect the different class bases of these parties, the nature of their petty-bourgeois leadership, their attempts to take their parties into non-proletarian class ideologies by leading mostly legalistic struggles. The sharp class struggles simply cannot depend on legalistic means of struggles and survive in the face of the highly fascistic reactionary classes. In India, some such parties have made their bases among the rich and middle peasantry which mostly has petty-bourgeois and liberal attitudes by which they try to protect their legal space. Some others have built a party simply with urban petty-bourgeois sections. Others who have been building parties with the propertyless poor and landless peasantry including Adivasis and working class are able to go ahead in developing formidable class struggle.
So the differences are based on concrete physical conditions in the classes they root in their struggles. There is a need today for the coming together of all these small sections of such Communist Parties to ally with the Maoists, but unity is only possible if they change their orientation towards genuine proletarian line and base their work among the working class, the poor and the landless peasantry.
Red!: Are there any lessons to be learnt on the question of women's' liberation from the defeat of socialism?
Saibaba: If we look at the present situation of the emancipation of women, the patriarchal structures are to be studied in depth by the practicing Marxists in the movements. Now in India more and more concentration is paid on the patriarchal structures from the women cadres of the Maoist Party. One is the institution of reproduction itself, which is highly discriminating against women. Within the Maoist revolutionary practice this has become a major question along with other specific problems for women. These problems have not been completely grasped. Not enough mechanisms have been found to check the discrimination of women within the revolutionary process. One major thing is that women continue to be under patriarchal structures just because they are women. So the new revolution must pay attention to the specificities of this special oppression. The second important point is that complete emancipation of women is not possible within the capitalist system.
But we should also be aware of the fact that if the proletariat takes over power the patriarchal structures would not automatically disappear. This is a major problem. One must have specific attention to the institutions and structures that remain. Women have to fight a revolution within the revolution. In India there will be many more revolutions within the revolution as we have a peculiar oppressive form called caste. One example we have before us for the revolution within revolution is the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China under the leadership of Mao. But India has to tread a more torturous path. Mao called for a thousand revolutions to completely root out the bourgeois ideology. I understand all such attempts of revolution within the revolution are complimentary and patriarchy and caste system or say, racism has to be looked at from this angle. A quick and simple solution is not possible. A revolutionary has to be patient.
But this doesn't mean these revolutions should wait till the proletariat captures power. In India we think that Cultural Revolution has to start now even before the success of the New Democratic Revolution. But such an attempt taken unmindfully will degenerate into a Post-modernist ruse, like most liberal humanist projects relapse into Post-structuralist obscurantism. This task is possible only in the hands of a firm proletariat Party after it acquires confidence of the revolutionary masses in a country. Otherwise, such attempts will end up in mere anarchism.
The women have their own structures and organisations within the CPI (Maoist). They have their own conferences and committees. They are part of the general conferences and have separate meetings in connection with these.
The rule is that if a woman and a man are equally competent then a woman is given priority in leading any particular revolutionary committee. There is also special education for women so that they develop faster, special camps and special trainings are devised. In the Maoist Party most women that are party members do not have children on their own choice, but if particular women want to have, she can have a child and the party will help her. The period her child-bearing not be discriminated against. There are well developed policies about these questions in the Maoist Party of India.
Red!: Is there are revolutionary situation in India today? What about the rest of the world?
Saibaba: There is an extremely favourable revolutionary situation in India and also in all the "third world" countries. In each of these countries, the domestic crisis is growing while international crisis is also growing. The "third world" countries need not wait for any third world war to accomplish their revolutions. There may not be a Third World War in the classical sense, even though Bush promises one. The conditions of war exist in different ways.
The world is already in a type of war, but its shape is different now. For example, the US is fighting a military war against the people of Iraq and an economic war on the people of India, and both varieties of wars kill the people in the same magnitude. So why does the US need to declare war on India when the Indian ruling classes are willing to facilitate everything for the imperialists? The growing contradictions among the imperialist forces can quickly change from collusion to conflicts. The background is already prepared and the revolutionary situation is already ripe. It is the subjective forces of the communists that have to take advantage of the situation and strengthen their forces.
The ruling class hegemony will be crushed in no time if the imperialists don't come to their rescue in each of these countries when the revolutionary masses organise themselves. Similarly, a break in the imperialist chain anywhere will catch like wildfire and the irreversible collapses of the imperialist/ monopoly bourgeois rule in the West will follow the suit. The proletarian parties in Europe and other parts of the West should prepare the ground before for this impending and indispensable eventuality soon.
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
Interview: An Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India
This is an interview with G.N. Saibaba, the Deputy Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an All Indian Federation of Revolutionary People's Organisations. He is 40 years old and was born in Andhra Pradesh, a state in southern India. The new Norwegian party Rødt [Red!] conducted this interview.
Red!: If someone said to you that the Maoist movement in India is a marginal movement that is mainly operating in very backward, lowly populated areas, and it has been doing so for over thirty-five years without getting anywhere, what would be your answer?
Saibaba: The Maoist movement in India is not confined to the backward areas. It's a vast movement, and includes the "developed" areas. Maoists work both in the countryside and the cities. The government says that the Maoists are active in 15 out of 28 states. And these include the major states. The Union Home Ministry says that 167 districts out total 600 districts in the country are covered by Maoists. This is a little less than 1/3 of India.
The Maoists in India follow the New Democratic Revolutionary method proved successful in China under the leadership of Mao. This method follows that the revolutionary movement must put priority on working in the areas where the state is weak. The Maoists work in the backward regions to smash the local reactionaries' power and establish people's power. They build revolutionary mass bases in these backward areas. This doesn't mean that they don't also work in the cities. In fact, in the Congress of the CPI (Maoist) held in January/February 2007, they decided to increase their work in the urban areas. They have produced a new document concerning work in the urban areas that analyses the work done in the last thirty years. This document sets out a strategy for developing the work in the urban areas.
The backward regions in the country are essentially semi-feudal and there is not much capitalistic development. The Maoist Party selected these areas for guerrilla warfare. The armed struggle is considered as the main form of struggle. In order to develop the main form of struggle the Maoists concentrate their work in the backward areas. The struggle in urban areas is secondary and complimentary. The work of the party among the working class in the urban areas helps develop proletarian leadership for the struggle in the backward areas.
At the same time the Maoists participate in developing a huge movement in the urban areas among the intelligentsia, students, women and the middle classes. Maoist cadres and leaders who have been working in the urban areas also are arrested, harassed and killed.
Maoists also work among the coal miners in a big way. There are vast coal mines in many regions in India. You can see, the Maoists work in many industrial areas all over the country, though their concentration of work proceeds from the rural areas.
In fact the CPI (Maoist) leads the single largest mass movement in India. The Central and local governments' response is an indicator to the vastness of the movement. The Central Government has formed a Coordination Centre together with 14 state governments. They are cooperating to mobilise security forces and to gather intelligence about the movements of the Maoists. They have armed a huge military network. They have monthly meetings of this Centre. A large number of military forces are engaged against the Maoist movement. This also indicates the strength of the Maoist movement.
The Naxalbari uprising in 1967 that beckoned in the new revolutionary wave ended with splits into many groups. The splitting up of revolutionary communist forces lasted from 1972 to 1997. It is only after 1997 that the revolutionary communists started uniting. Two major parties who were waging armed struggle united in 1998 and the final unity took place in 2004 when the CPI (Maoist) was formed with the merger of MCCI and CPI (People's War). Because of the splits the movement couldn't grow faster before 2004.
(See notes for more on these trends)
Red!: How do the Maoists respond to accusations of being dogmatists, and not being willing to learn from the defeats of socialism in the 20th century?
Saibaba: The Maoists are creatively and in a genuine way implementing the Marxist principles to the concrete conditions of India. They don't blindly copy from China or Russia. At the same time they are aware that the socialist projects in China and Russia were defeated by the capitalist roaders. They apply Marxism-Leninism- Maoism in a practical way for India. If one calls carrying armed struggle dogmatism, then one is moving away from class struggle in an impoverished country like India. Armed peasant struggle is the basic struggle, because 70% of the masses have been forced to remain with and depend on agriculture and backward relations of production. In such a situation where a vast majority don't have a public democratic space, they will not be able to fight the fascistic ruling classes without arms. But armed struggle is also being waged creatively and practically. Armed struggle doesn't mean the annihilation of the class enemy. Armed struggle is a form of class struggle where the oppressed classes assert their power and organise themselves by taking away power from the feudal and pro-imperialist comprador capitalists.
Armed struggle under the leadership of Maoists also means re-appropriation of the sources of livelihood by the wretched of the earth from the dominant and powerful classes. It also means building alternative institutions the people's power. So in this way the armed struggle is redefined and practiced with Bolshevik spirit of giving all power to the soviets. Without armed struggle no resistance can be built in countries like India and the resistance that has been built up in the previous years cannot be retained. The armed actions against the state forces and feudal forces are carried out to protect the movement and in self-defence and self-assertion of the exploited classes.
The Maoists believe that the demise of socialist construction in Russia and China was mainly due to the revisionist line that developed within the respective Communist Parties of those countries. The capitalist-roaders in Russia and China captured power back from the working class because those parties could not guard against the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the proletarian parties. The failure of the socialist projects have taught important lessons to the international proletariat in carrying forward the class struggle against the bourgeoisie in various countries and the monopoly bourgeoisie at the international level. In no country in the world has class struggle succeeded without armed struggle.
Red!: How many soldiers do the Maoists have approximately?
Saibaba: The Indian Government says 28,000, but the number may be much higher. The areas of their influence look much wider than what the Government estimations indicate. Also there is a vast people's militia working at the village level. The militia is basic and primary in relation to the People's Liberation Army as per the strategy of the CPI (Maoist).
Red!: Have there been any peace talks between the Maoists and the authorities anywhere?
Saibaba: There were peace talks in 2004. The Government of Andhra Pradesh invited the Maoists for peace negotiations. The Maoist Party always maintains that they are never averse to political negotiations with their opponents on the issues of people's struggles, but no negotiations are possible on their central political line in terms of strategy. One round of peace talks were conducted in Hyderabad for about a month. This was facilitated and supported by the prominent intellectuals of the region. The Maoists said in the negotiations that if the government was willing to solve the problems of the people for which they had been fighting in the last thirty five years, they would welcome the change. They discussed the basic problems of the people. A ceasefire agreement was signed by both sides before the political negotiations began. The government said that they wanted to close the first phase of the negotiations and also said that it would implement the agreed upon points. And the Maoist leaders who negotiated went back underground. They waited for the implementation of the agreed points. The Government violated the ceasefire, started hostilities on the Maoists and killed several hundred Maoists, including leading cadres. This process revealed before the eyes the people how the reactionary rulers are not ready to solve the problems of the people.
Red! : Do the Maoists have any base areas?
Saibaba: The People's War has not reached to the level of base areas yet. But it has almost reached this level in several places. In these areas where base areas are under construction, people's governments at local level are functioning. The People's governments are functioning in several hundred villages.
Red!: There is news that the Central and State Governments launched attacks against the Maoist positions in Andhra Pradesh, and that they have been driven out of most of the areas. Doesn't this show that when the ruling classes want to, they can defeat the Maoists militarily, and that it is only a question of tactics from the enemy's part, when it decides to smash the Maoists?
Saibaba: In the last decade more than two thousand Maoist cadres have been brutally murdered in Andhra Pradesh. There was a concentrated attack particularly after the peace negotiations. When the Maoists saw that they were facing larger losses of forces, they retreated from certain areas, and deployed them in other areas. There is a temporary setback in some areas in Andhra Pradesh for the Maoist movement, but they are trying to revive these areas. The Central and State governments use vigilante groups in a huge way to infiltrate the Maoist areas and smash them. The vigilante groups worked more effectively for the governments in breaking the Maoist resistance in some areas of Andhra Pradesh.
The movement is not merely a military movement. It is a political movement involving the masses. So the Maoists are not facing and confronting the Indian military forces just militarily but more politically so they have a vast mass base. It is not possible for the government to smash the movement because of massive popular support. The temporary setbacks are not uncommon in revolutionary movements. But the mature revolutionary movements could recover from such setbacks quickly from time to time.
Red!: Are there any revolutionary forces that are trying another strategy than protracted people's war in India?
Saibaba: Yes, for example CPI (ML) New Democracy and a few other CPI (ML) groups. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections (elections to the Union legislature i.e. the Parliament) in 2004, CPI(ML) Red Flag and a few other CPI (ML) groups took the initiative to form a united front of revolutionary communists basically to fight elections.
The Maoists consider them to be the right deviationists but not revisionist. They are progressive, but not on the right revolutionary path as per the Maoists. But Maoists are not averse to work with them in mass work.
Red!: India is a big country. In some areas there are civil wars, in other areas there is not much unrest. At the same time most parties are regional, not national. Are there revolutionary organisations in all the states of India?
Saibaba: The unrest is everywhere. Take for example Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These two areas are poverty-stricken areas. But there is not a single revolutionary party exists in these regions. The unrest takes place in these regions many shapes. Sometimes mass militant movements arise. But the major problem is that the revolutionary subjective forces are not working there. These are two large states, but there is no history of revolutionary communist parties in these areas, mostly NGOs work in these areas. They are often foreign funded. But the objective situation is very much ripe for armed struggle in these areas as well. It is simply the question of spread of revolutionary forces to these regions that is awaited.
Red!: What is the percentage of people living in the cities? How many of these have employment?
Saibaba:30 percent of Indian population live in urban and semi-urban areas and 70 percent in the countryside. Overall, about 77% of the people live on less than 20 rupees a day–i.e. half a US dollar a day on an average. Unemployment is rampant in every part of India.
Red!: Officially India is growing at a GDP growth-rate of almost 10%. You contest this figure. Why?
Saibaba: At the moment the growth rate is around 9% as per the Government's declaration. Only 0.5% percent of the workforce, which is engaged in the service-sector, is contributing 55% to the GDP. And 70% of the workforce, which is in the rural agriculture sector, is contributing with only 19% to the GDP. And 3% of the work force is engaged in the manufacturing sector. These figures from the government tell us that the vast majority of the people's share in the GDP is very minute. Right now the growth rate figures are based to a large degree on speculative capital, which includes foreign investment. So the growth rate is both illusive and fragile. The calculations for the growth rate are also based on falsehoods. If these figures indicate anything, we understand that the top 10% is amassing the wealth with crudest exploitative methods.
Red!: In the Philippines there is a combination of People's War and at the same time the party supports people's parties that stand for elections, in Nepal the Maoists stood for elections to parliament in 1993, then they boycotted the elections and started a people's war, and now they are in parliament. Isn't it possible to combine people's war and parliamentary work in such a vast and diverse country as India?
Saibaba: The history of the development of the Communist Movement in India in the last 40 years shows us that those Communist Revolutionary Parties that did not choose the strategy of People's War, but chose the theory of people's resistance first, before the initiation of People's War or that chose to combine people's resistance and parliamentary politics, gradually slipped into either right deviationist or neo-revisionist path.
People's War is the main strategy, whereas standing for elections of the Parliament is a tactical question. The Maoists are not in principle against the elections, but doing this must facilitate the strategy of People's War. The Maoists consider the question of participation in Parliamentary elections as part of the tactics which has a strategic importance. So they don't see any immediate possibility of participating in elections. The Parliamentary institutions are highly discredited ones among the people in India. In the imagination of people at large, if one is participating in elections one is the enemy of the people who comes to rob them. The Maoists boycott elections and concentrate on building alternative people's power and people's institutions. In India the Maoists have no immediate plans of using this tactic.
Red!: Isn't it possible to develop both legal struggle and underground struggle in the cities and larger urban areas, also including working in the Parliamentary organisations?
Saibaba: The Maoists do work in the urban areas among the working classes and the middle classes. This has secondary importance in relation to the main strategy of the revolutionary line. The primary importance is to develop the armed struggle in the villages among the peasants as the main force, and with the working class ideology in the leadership. This means not just the physical workers but those of the people who acquired the proletarian ideology and without property of their own. Maoists do combine legal and the illegal struggles as far as the struggles create space to operate and basically understand that more and more militant struggles create this space. Whatever there is any democratic space, it's being used to the maximum extent possible. But the ruling classes don't allow the use of legal means and different institutions of democracy always. Participating in elections is not the only way to participate in legal and urban spaces. Even boycotting elections is a highly political activity, which is another way of participating politically within the given democratic space that exists in India.
First of all, the Maoists are concentrating on gaining power for the people to build people's democratic revolutionary institutions. When this is achieved in large areas, they will get more space in the urban centres.
Red!: Is employment growing?
Saibaba: The employment rate is not growing, it is standing still. But the real employment rate has declined very much, for several reasons. The economic surveys tell us that one million small industries were closed in the last few years, and this made a huge loss of jobs. Then land being acquired from the farmers is also responsible for unemployment. The small peasants and landless peasants have lost their jobs in a big way.
Only IT-industry and some service industry are growing. But these are sectors where a miniscule number of people are employed. Employment in manufacture sector is on decline. The government doesn't show these figures. The independent intelligentsia produce alternative figures on both the growth rate and unemployment. There is a huge controversy about the official figures about employment situation in India. On the whole, there is a decline in the employment growth rate, side by side there is decline in real wages of workers.
Red!: Is India an imperialist country or a semi-feudal, semi colonial country?
Saibaba: India is not an imperialist country. The reason is that India is under the clutches of the imperialist powers. India's ruling classes exert little amount of power in international politics. To a great extent, it is acting under the dictates of the US imperialists. At the same time India has expansionist designs. Imperialist powers can control other countries, while expansionism is a desire to expand without the ability, to the neighbouring countries and try to exploit them and bully them.
But even these imperialist designs are not according to the wishes of the ruling classes of India, but according to the wishes of the imperialists. India exercises its expansionist desires by becoming an instrument in the hands of the USA at present. The USA is manoeuvring India to get control over the neighbouring smaller countries for an overall control over the geopolitical interests of the USA in South Asia. Examples are Sri Lanka and Nepal. India is being used to suppress the LTTE's just struggle for Tamil national liberation in Sri Lanka. The relationship between the USA and India can be compared with the hegemony of Israel in the Middle East. Now the US wants to use India to suppress the Maoist movement in Nepal though at present clandestinely. India has occupied Kashmir and North-Eastern national territories like Naga and others peoples by brute military force.
Red!: Is the class struggle in India more intense now than 20 years ago?
Saibaba: The poverty levels in India have increased. In 1947 there were no suicide deaths of farmers. From 1990s onwards the suicide deaths of farmers have started in a big way. Why did they start in the 1990s? It's because agriculture, which employs the largest section of the population has been neglected drastically. The poor peasantry is not able survive in this sector largely depending on the highly exploitative private credit system. About 150 000 farmers committed suicide in the last ten years. There are hunger deaths in many areas. People are eating wild roots and leaves in vast areas of deliberately underdeveloped areas. In fact we can see that we have several areas at the same level as the sub-Saharan African countries in India today. All this is happening particularly after the aggressive pro-imperialist globalisation started at a large-scale in India.
The working class is the most beleaguered class in our country. They have lost their rights. The fresh sections of workers emerging from the peasantry classes cannot join the labour aristocratic class. The organised sector very small compared to the unorganised sector, where collective agreements and labour laws are followed to an extent is fast diminishing.
But also ordinary people are more conscious of the already existing struggles in other areas. The class contradictions are sharpened because the resources are going into the hands of fewer and fewer after the globalisation process started around 1990. This process amasses of wealth in a very few hands.
Some welfare reforms introduced by the ruling classes in the decades of sixties and seventies were dropped and the government is leaving everything to the market that is led by the imperialist forces directly allied by the subservient domestic capitalists. This also increases the intensity of the struggles.
Red!: Since the beginning of the 1990s the ruling classes in India have pursued a neo- liberalistic policy of deregulation and privatisation and globalisation. How do these changes effect the situation for women?
Saibaba: There is nothing liberal about the neoliberal policies. These policies have been implanted since the time of Nehru in India. The so-called Nehru socialism is full of pro- imperialist globalisation policies. But then of course there is a marked difference between the earlier phase and the phase started since the 1990s. The difference is that globalisation is the aggressive phase of imperialist onslaught. Globalisation is the globalisation of aggressive monopoly capital in the absence of socialist block in the world, and also because of imperialism' s own in depth crisis. More and more, the burden of this crisis is being shifted on to the shoulders of the third world countries. As a result of the extreme exploitative conditions under the process of globalisation, the first section of the people who are facing severe difficulties are the Adivasis, the landless and poor peasants, the workers, the religious minorities particularly the Muslims an overwhelming majority of whom are among the country's poorest and in all these sections and classes the women are affected first of all.
Women are of course affected hardest. When workers are retrenched the women go first. Second, in the dwindling conditions of employment, women don't get new jobs as the job market is rabidly patriarchal. The extreme patriarchal oppression that exists in India is a result of both deviant capitalism and semi-feudalism. Women are forced to look after the families, particularly the children, when sources of livelihood decline. As a result, women eat less now, feed their children and look after their households. Today, there is more malnutrition among women, working in hard conditions both at home and outside. They get lower wages than men. Though equal wages is the law in the country, nobody follows it.
The sex ratio in the country is fast becoming a gulf, with the actual number of women decreasing in compared the numbers of men. Female foeticide is a growing phenomenon. Hundreds of cases of female foeticide are recorded in the hospitals. So now women are the biggest section joining the struggles, standing at the forefront and joining all struggles. More than 30 percent of the members in the Maoist party are women. Even the biggest bourgeois party in the country will not have such number of women. In some areas like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand the percentage is higher.
Red!: You say that displacement is the major issue in India. That there are six different kinds of displacement: Special Economic Zones, mining, new industry, new big dams, beautification of urban spaces and infrastructural corridor projects and others. You say that the forced displacement is based on expropriating approximately 12% of the land. Most of this land is also very fertile. Can you explain why displacement is the main issue, and not poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and so on?
Saibaba: 70% of the people depend on land or agriculture directly or indirectly. The major source of employment is agriculture. When land is taken away for these projects the people have no other source of income. So, one of the major ways that people are becoming unemployed is through dispossession of land. This in fact renders both the landed people and landless poor jobless. The rehabilitation packages announced by the government for those who lose land, never work. The rehabilitation is never implemented. So all the problems like malnutrition, poverty, unemployment and so on, are rooted in the process of dispossession of people of their sources of livelihood, by displacing them from their land, forests and other habitats.
Red!: Why can't the displaced peasants get new jobs in the modern sector?
Saibaba: The displaced are from those sections that are silently forced to remain illiterate. They don't have the necessary skills for industrial work - - particularly the kind of industry that is being set up with high imperialist technology. On the other hand, even if a small section is eligible for industrial work, they don't get jobs because the industries being set up are technology-intensiv e and they don't employ many people. The machines are brought from the imperialist countries. These machines require highly skilled labour. So there is no space for the disposed to get jobs in the industrial sector that is supposed to be growing. Then there is a small possibility of employment in the IT-sector or services sector, but not the manufacturing industry. In the urban areas there is already a huge section of educated unemployed, who will get a small number of jobs in these industries, but not the rural displaced.
Red!: What do the Maoists in India consider to be the main lessons to be learnt from the defeat of socialism in the last century, when it comes to the question of the relationship between the communist party and the rest of society?
Saibaba: The Indian Maoists feel that what happened in Russia and China still has to be analysed further. They think that in future the international Communist Revolutionaries have to come together and study the failures more concretely. One of the reasons for the failure of the socialist construction projects could be that the parties had not been able to devise mechanisms to check the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the Communist Parties. But of course in China the Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Mao was developed to check the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the Communist Parties. But it remained at an experimental level at that time after the death of Mao. More and more devices, political and ideological have to be developed within the revolutionary Communist Parties to check the extraneous class ideologies from creeping into the Communist Parties. Each of the countries of the world today needs to establish firm proletarian parties.
Unfortunately in many of the European countries as well as in some of the third world countries today, extraneous class ideologies have been creeping in, in the name of "21st century democracy," "liberal organising principles" and acceptance of a "multiparty system." Even within the policies of the Communist Parties, the need today is to drive them towards Bolshevisation, Leninist Parties which can lead the proletariat to victories in the process of which lessons can be drawn from the earlier failures which should be understood as temporary setback for the world proletariat in the long historical onward march.
Red!: What is the root-cause for differences among the Communist forces in India?
Saibaba: Within India the differences among the Communist Revolutionaries are not simply differences among their leadership. They reflect the different class bases of these parties, the nature of their petty-bourgeois leadership, their attempts to take their parties into non-proletarian class ideologies by leading mostly legalistic struggles. The sharp class struggles simply cannot depend on legalistic means of struggles and survive in the face of the highly fascistic reactionary classes. In India, some such parties have made their bases among the rich and middle peasantry which mostly has petty-bourgeois and liberal attitudes by which they try to protect their legal space. Some others have built a party simply with urban petty-bourgeois sections. Others who have been building parties with the propertyless poor and landless peasantry including Adivasis and working class are able to go ahead in developing formidable class struggle.
So the differences are based on concrete physical conditions in the classes they root in their struggles. There is a need today for the coming together of all these small sections of such Communist Parties to ally with the Maoists, but unity is only possible if they change their orientation towards genuine proletarian line and base their work among the working class, the poor and the landless peasantry.
Red!: Are there any lessons to be learnt on the question of women's' liberation from the defeat of socialism?
Saibaba: If we look at the present situation of the emancipation of women, the patriarchal structures are to be studied in depth by the practicing Marxists in the movements. Now in India more and more concentration is paid on the patriarchal structures from the women cadres of the Maoist Party. One is the institution of reproduction itself, which is highly discriminating against women. Within the Maoist revolutionary practice this has become a major question along with other specific problems for women. These problems have not been completely grasped. Not enough mechanisms have been found to check the discrimination of women within the revolutionary process. One major thing is that women continue to be under patriarchal structures just because they are women. So the new revolution must pay attention to the specificities of this special oppression. The second important point is that complete emancipation of women is not possible within the capitalist system.
But we should also be aware of the fact that if the proletariat takes over power the patriarchal structures would not automatically disappear. This is a major problem. One must have specific attention to the institutions and structures that remain. Women have to fight a revolution within the revolution. In India there will be many more revolutions within the revolution as we have a peculiar oppressive form called caste. One example we have before us for the revolution within revolution is the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China under the leadership of Mao. But India has to tread a more torturous path. Mao called for a thousand revolutions to completely root out the bourgeois ideology. I understand all such attempts of revolution within the revolution are complimentary and patriarchy and caste system or say, racism has to be looked at from this angle. A quick and simple solution is not possible. A revolutionary has to be patient.
But this doesn't mean these revolutions should wait till the proletariat captures power. In India we think that Cultural Revolution has to start now even before the success of the New Democratic Revolution. But such an attempt taken unmindfully will degenerate into a Post-modernist ruse, like most liberal humanist projects relapse into Post-structuralist obscurantism. This task is possible only in the hands of a firm proletariat Party after it acquires confidence of the revolutionary masses in a country. Otherwise, such attempts will end up in mere anarchism.
The women have their own structures and organisations within the CPI (Maoist). They have their own conferences and committees. They are part of the general conferences and have separate meetings in connection with these.
The rule is that if a woman and a man are equally competent then a woman is given priority in leading any particular revolutionary committee. There is also special education for women so that they develop faster, special camps and special trainings are devised. In the Maoist Party most women that are party members do not have children on their own choice, but if particular women want to have, she can have a child and the party will help her. The period her child-bearing not be discriminated against. There are well developed policies about these questions in the Maoist Party of India.
Red!: Is there are revolutionary situation in India today? What about the rest of the world?
Saibaba: There is an extremely favourable revolutionary situation in India and also in all the "third world" countries. In each of these countries, the domestic crisis is growing while international crisis is also growing. The "third world" countries need not wait for any third world war to accomplish their revolutions. There may not be a Third World War in the classical sense, even though Bush promises one. The conditions of war exist in different ways.
The world is already in a type of war, but its shape is different now. For example, the US is fighting a military war against the people of Iraq and an economic war on the people of India, and both varieties of wars kill the people in the same magnitude. So why does the US need to declare war on India when the Indian ruling classes are willing to facilitate everything for the imperialists? The growing contradictions among the imperialist forces can quickly change from collusion to conflicts. The background is already prepared and the revolutionary situation is already ripe. It is the subjective forces of the communists that have to take advantage of the situation and strengthen their forces.
The ruling class hegemony will be crushed in no time if the imperialists don't come to their rescue in each of these countries when the revolutionary masses organise themselves. Similarly, a break in the imperialist chain anywhere will catch like wildfire and the irreversible collapses of the imperialist/ monopoly bourgeois rule in the West will follow the suit. The proletarian parties in Europe and other parts of the West should prepare the ground before for this impending and indispensable eventuality soon.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Women won’t be left out in Nepal
The women of Nepal are not going to just sit around and wait for men to give them their rights. As was see here, they are already demanding to be heard:
Opinion
Women participation in state power
- Satya Pahadi
The history does not repeat in the some way. But the history can not be falsified. The stories written in the pages of history can not be justified falsely. The story of the women bravery has a live connection with the whole story of the movements of the people. Women have taken part unprecedently in all the movements from 1951 and especially in decade long people's war (PW).
Nepalese people's movement has to take its bends in each decade. There has been a mentionable participation of women in every movement. Women themselves have made a social status in a way of emancipation.
However, there are some questions about the capacity and efficiency of women. These questions are directly related to the question of women leadership in the decision making place. One of them is the question about whether they are in Constituent Assembly and in council of the ministers only according to the policy of inclusive and proportionate. Is the capacity and efficiency only obstruction for women leadership?
1. Women's problems and the question of ideology:
First of all, the emancipation of women is only possible due to the correct and revolutionary political line. Here, the question rose on women emancipation and the question raised by feminists differs greatly.
The feminists argue that the discriminations over women can be solved even remaining far from the politics and ideology. They always suggest that the movement should be one of politics. This is because men can not understand their problems. The woman questions are only practical question and are not related with theories. If we see it superficially, it seems correct. But, it is incorrect if we see the whole aspects of the lives of women. Misbehaves and exploitations are done against women by women. To reach into depth, we should be aware of the two extremist ideas:
a. The idea to understand women problems as a specific problem and minimize them.
b. The idea to separate women from the entire society and the common problems.
The women problems are related with the problems of castes, region and the different communities. They are solved through the common effort of all. Some of the problems are distinguished ones. Women themselves should take initiative for their solution.
However, the reason behind these especial problems is the feudalistic characteristics of production and feudalistic productive relationship. No ownership in property and culturally put into 2nd sex are the feudal discrimination. Therefore, the real emancipation of women is through the ideology and class ideology.
2. The question of women participation in all the sectors
The question of inclusiveness and the proportionate has become the debated issue today. This awareness has been possible only through a decade long people's war. More than 40% women representatives from different castes and ethnicity are nominated by the Maoist Party. Many women candidates have become victorious in the election first-past-the- post system. Other political parties have hardly trying to follow CPN-Maoist.
Along with the historical participation of women, we have had to answer about the capacity of women whether they are able to run the state power or not. Here, what is the measurement of the women capacity to run the state power? All have accepted the vital role of women in all the movements and wars. It means the capacity of women is heartily accepted in this period. Then, why is there a question about women capacity in this new situation?
3. The question on the development of women capacity
Actually the question has been raised about those women representatives who have been successful to be in the state power by leading and addressing the ambitions and aspirations of the poor and marginalized. Now, the principal cause of the repression of women, the unitarily feudal monarchy, has been ended and the Federal Democratic Republic has been established.
The women consciousness is revolutionary in Nepal. The revolutionary consciousness differs from evolutionary consciousness. If this consciousness is accepted as the measurement of ideology, then, it is not an exaggerated thing that Nepalese women representatives have real capacity to run the state power.
We can not even imagine that the discrimination against women can not be exterminated without the violent struggle because of the patriarchal system, boldly founded over the brutal repression of women since thousands of years ago. Therefore, we, first of all, should be clear from all the illusions that women are not efficient and capable. Simultaneously, we should be aware about the fake argument that the women are made weak by the nature itself.
If we talk about the valor of women is people's war, we comments see a live history from the women of Kalikot, the far western Nepal where only the civil women had seized guns from armed police force with the help of sticks and stones to the jail broken by women in Gurkha district. There are the unprecedented examples of women bravery and capacity.
Responsibility develops capacity. Responsibility itself is both opportunity and challenge. Nevertheless, the main problem is suspicion over the trust in the capacity of women. Some special efficiencies need in some especial jobs: like pilot, doctor, lawyer and scientist. Here, the distinguished capacity is equally necessary both to men and women. Politically, Nepalese women are capable to lead and run the government. Women educated by the political consciousness are capable to lead the society and country any where in the world.
The Red Star
Opinion
Women participation in state power
- Satya Pahadi
The history does not repeat in the some way. But the history can not be falsified. The stories written in the pages of history can not be justified falsely. The story of the women bravery has a live connection with the whole story of the movements of the people. Women have taken part unprecedently in all the movements from 1951 and especially in decade long people's war (PW).
Nepalese people's movement has to take its bends in each decade. There has been a mentionable participation of women in every movement. Women themselves have made a social status in a way of emancipation.
However, there are some questions about the capacity and efficiency of women. These questions are directly related to the question of women leadership in the decision making place. One of them is the question about whether they are in Constituent Assembly and in council of the ministers only according to the policy of inclusive and proportionate. Is the capacity and efficiency only obstruction for women leadership?
1. Women's problems and the question of ideology:
First of all, the emancipation of women is only possible due to the correct and revolutionary political line. Here, the question rose on women emancipation and the question raised by feminists differs greatly.
The feminists argue that the discriminations over women can be solved even remaining far from the politics and ideology. They always suggest that the movement should be one of politics. This is because men can not understand their problems. The woman questions are only practical question and are not related with theories. If we see it superficially, it seems correct. But, it is incorrect if we see the whole aspects of the lives of women. Misbehaves and exploitations are done against women by women. To reach into depth, we should be aware of the two extremist ideas:
a. The idea to understand women problems as a specific problem and minimize them.
b. The idea to separate women from the entire society and the common problems.
The women problems are related with the problems of castes, region and the different communities. They are solved through the common effort of all. Some of the problems are distinguished ones. Women themselves should take initiative for their solution.
However, the reason behind these especial problems is the feudalistic characteristics of production and feudalistic productive relationship. No ownership in property and culturally put into 2nd sex are the feudal discrimination. Therefore, the real emancipation of women is through the ideology and class ideology.
2. The question of women participation in all the sectors
The question of inclusiveness and the proportionate has become the debated issue today. This awareness has been possible only through a decade long people's war. More than 40% women representatives from different castes and ethnicity are nominated by the Maoist Party. Many women candidates have become victorious in the election first-past-the- post system. Other political parties have hardly trying to follow CPN-Maoist.
Along with the historical participation of women, we have had to answer about the capacity of women whether they are able to run the state power or not. Here, what is the measurement of the women capacity to run the state power? All have accepted the vital role of women in all the movements and wars. It means the capacity of women is heartily accepted in this period. Then, why is there a question about women capacity in this new situation?
3. The question on the development of women capacity
Actually the question has been raised about those women representatives who have been successful to be in the state power by leading and addressing the ambitions and aspirations of the poor and marginalized. Now, the principal cause of the repression of women, the unitarily feudal monarchy, has been ended and the Federal Democratic Republic has been established.
The women consciousness is revolutionary in Nepal. The revolutionary consciousness differs from evolutionary consciousness. If this consciousness is accepted as the measurement of ideology, then, it is not an exaggerated thing that Nepalese women representatives have real capacity to run the state power.
We can not even imagine that the discrimination against women can not be exterminated without the violent struggle because of the patriarchal system, boldly founded over the brutal repression of women since thousands of years ago. Therefore, we, first of all, should be clear from all the illusions that women are not efficient and capable. Simultaneously, we should be aware about the fake argument that the women are made weak by the nature itself.
If we talk about the valor of women is people's war, we comments see a live history from the women of Kalikot, the far western Nepal where only the civil women had seized guns from armed police force with the help of sticks and stones to the jail broken by women in Gurkha district. There are the unprecedented examples of women bravery and capacity.
Responsibility develops capacity. Responsibility itself is both opportunity and challenge. Nevertheless, the main problem is suspicion over the trust in the capacity of women. Some special efficiencies need in some especial jobs: like pilot, doctor, lawyer and scientist. Here, the distinguished capacity is equally necessary both to men and women. Politically, Nepalese women are capable to lead and run the government. Women educated by the political consciousness are capable to lead the society and country any where in the world.
The Red Star
Monday, November 17, 2008
Birth control is NOT abortion
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA
Tell the Bush administration: Keep your word. Stop the attack on women's health.
This summer, the Bush administration tried to keep secret aproposed federal regulation that would allow health careproviders to redefine abortion to include birth control. Withyour help, we forced Secretary of Health and Human Services MikeLeavitt to make the plans public.
The exam room is no place to play political games. We need every person who believes in reproductive freedom to join us in pushing back against the Bush administration's proposed rule. Access to basic health information and care for millions of rural, low-income, and uninsured people hangs in the balance. Please spread the word to your friends and family. Ask them to join you in signing the petition — we'll deliver all the signatures to President Bush and his administration.
Click here.
Click here.
3 policemen killed in ambush in Peru
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
2008-11-17 LIMA, Nov. 16th -- A Peruvian road patrol was ambushed by Maoist Rebels, leaving three policemen dead and one injured in the locality of Lurico, in Huanta province, southeast of Lima, local police said on Sunday.The attack took place Saturday night on the highway of Ayacucho, 70 km southeast of Lima. The Maoists attacked the policemen from both sides of the highway. The Maoists also took away from the policemen four AKM rifles and three guns. The injured policeman, who was in "grave" conditions, has been taken to the General Hospital of Ayacucho, according to local press.
Lima, 17.11.08 La prensa capitalina recoge las declaraciones del Ministro de Interior en las que informa de una nueva emboscada victoriosa de la guerrilla comunista en Ayacucho aunque rechaza que haya un rebrote subversivo.La acción tuvo lugar, el sabado, a tres kilometros de la ciudad de Huanta, en la carretera Huanta- Ayacucho a la altura de Seqllas Baja, cuando un vehiculo todoterreno de la policia fue emboscado por una columna del EPL. Dejando muertos a tres efectivos policiales, entre ellos un brigada, y herido gravemente a un tercero. Los guerrilleros, que se retirarón sin bajas conocidas, capturaron fusiles de asalto AKM y pistolas de la dotación policial.Un gran numero de unidades policiales y militares han sido desplazadas a la zona para efecturar rastreos.
Correovermello noticias esta para servir a las masas populares en el conocimiento de las noticias de la Revolucion Proletaria Mundial saudos vermellos / saludos rojos
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
2008-11-17 LIMA, Nov. 16th -- A Peruvian road patrol was ambushed by Maoist Rebels, leaving three policemen dead and one injured in the locality of Lurico, in Huanta province, southeast of Lima, local police said on Sunday.The attack took place Saturday night on the highway of Ayacucho, 70 km southeast of Lima. The Maoists attacked the policemen from both sides of the highway. The Maoists also took away from the policemen four AKM rifles and three guns. The injured policeman, who was in "grave" conditions, has been taken to the General Hospital of Ayacucho, according to local press.
Lima, 17.11.08 La prensa capitalina recoge las declaraciones del Ministro de Interior en las que informa de una nueva emboscada victoriosa de la guerrilla comunista en Ayacucho aunque rechaza que haya un rebrote subversivo.La acción tuvo lugar, el sabado, a tres kilometros de la ciudad de Huanta, en la carretera Huanta- Ayacucho a la altura de Seqllas Baja, cuando un vehiculo todoterreno de la policia fue emboscado por una columna del EPL. Dejando muertos a tres efectivos policiales, entre ellos un brigada, y herido gravemente a un tercero. Los guerrilleros, que se retirarón sin bajas conocidas, capturaron fusiles de asalto AKM y pistolas de la dotación policial.Un gran numero de unidades policiales y militares han sido desplazadas a la zona para efecturar rastreos.Correovermello noticias esta para servir a las masas populares en el conocimiento de las noticias de la Revolucion Proletaria Mundial saudos vermellos / saludos rojos
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Local news weighs in on Obama
In our very own The Wichita Eagle, local newspaper, people’s expectations are being looked at for the new Barack Obama government. Some examples are:
“Leen Bakdash is proud of her new president-elect.
"I like that he had the courage to actually run for president even though he looks different than other people," said Bakdash, 10, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Syria.
"He just felt he wanted to be president," Bakdash said, "and he didn't let how he looks stop him."
With Barack Obama, an African-American, headed to the White House, people of color in Wichita and across the nation are examining their own opportunities and possibilities.
For some, there's now no excuse for minorities to fail. But others caution that it will take more than Obama's election to negate the legacy of discrimination in America.
The idea of "playing the race card" -- blaming personal failures on racial or ethnic discrimination -- is now ineffective, said the Rev. Kevass Harding, pastor of Dellrose United Methodist Church.
"I think our young people should see this election... as a time to say now, regardless of who you are or where you come from, you have an opportunity to be better than what you are today.
"With that, you have no excuses," said Harding, who is black..
Cathy J. Cohen, a University of Chicago professor of political science, counters that Obama's win doesn't automatically erase the effects of discrimination.
"It's not the end of racism, but it is a promising moment," said Cohen, who is African-American and the principal investigator for the Black Youth Project, which examines black youths' attitudes on politics and other subjects.”
Also:
“Obama beat the odds many minorities face, said Vanessa Martinez, an assistant principal at Horace Mann Dual Language Magnet School, where students in its K-8 classes overwhelmingly voted for Obama in mock elections.
"Many times, it's hard to break barriers with poverty, or not having an education, or even not having someone in your family who's a good example for you to follow," Martinez said.”.
For the rest of the article; click here.
We see a variety of opinions of what is possible or not possible. According to the newspaper Revolutlion:
The Morning After the Elections:
The Promise of Change…and the Change We Need
You couldn’t miss it on Election Night. People actually pouring into the streets to celebrate the election of a president. Emotions ran high, and tears flowed.
And in the days after: people talking to friends and strangers alike of hope. Hope for a coming era of change from the horrors of the Bush years. Hope for overcoming racism. Hope for a new era of service to the common good.
Hope—hope that is founded on the real possibilities for fundamental change in this world—is indeed precious. Dedicating your life to something higher than the ethic of “I-want-mine” is so vital that the future of humanity actually depends on it. And overcoming—truly overcoming—the divisions of society based on inequality and oppression must be at the heart of any real movement for social change.
But now, in the dawn of the morning after, one must ask and honestly grapple with some basic and very serious questions.
Hope for what?
Service to what?
Unity around what goals and what values?
And victory for whom?
For the rest of the article click here.
“Leen Bakdash is proud of her new president-elect.
"I like that he had the courage to actually run for president even though he looks different than other people," said Bakdash, 10, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Syria.
"He just felt he wanted to be president," Bakdash said, "and he didn't let how he looks stop him."
With Barack Obama, an African-American, headed to the White House, people of color in Wichita and across the nation are examining their own opportunities and possibilities.
For some, there's now no excuse for minorities to fail. But others caution that it will take more than Obama's election to negate the legacy of discrimination in America.
The idea of "playing the race card" -- blaming personal failures on racial or ethnic discrimination -- is now ineffective, said the Rev. Kevass Harding, pastor of Dellrose United Methodist Church.
"I think our young people should see this election... as a time to say now, regardless of who you are or where you come from, you have an opportunity to be better than what you are today.
"With that, you have no excuses," said Harding, who is black..
Cathy J. Cohen, a University of Chicago professor of political science, counters that Obama's win doesn't automatically erase the effects of discrimination.
"It's not the end of racism, but it is a promising moment," said Cohen, who is African-American and the principal investigator for the Black Youth Project, which examines black youths' attitudes on politics and other subjects.”
Also:
“Obama beat the odds many minorities face, said Vanessa Martinez, an assistant principal at Horace Mann Dual Language Magnet School, where students in its K-8 classes overwhelmingly voted for Obama in mock elections.
"Many times, it's hard to break barriers with poverty, or not having an education, or even not having someone in your family who's a good example for you to follow," Martinez said.”.
For the rest of the article; click here.
We see a variety of opinions of what is possible or not possible. According to the newspaper Revolutlion:The Morning After the Elections:
The Promise of Change…and the Change We Need
You couldn’t miss it on Election Night. People actually pouring into the streets to celebrate the election of a president. Emotions ran high, and tears flowed.
And in the days after: people talking to friends and strangers alike of hope. Hope for a coming era of change from the horrors of the Bush years. Hope for overcoming racism. Hope for a new era of service to the common good.
Hope—hope that is founded on the real possibilities for fundamental change in this world—is indeed precious. Dedicating your life to something higher than the ethic of “I-want-mine” is so vital that the future of humanity actually depends on it. And overcoming—truly overcoming—the divisions of society based on inequality and oppression must be at the heart of any real movement for social change.
But now, in the dawn of the morning after, one must ask and honestly grapple with some basic and very serious questions.
Hope for what?
Service to what?
Unity around what goals and what values?
And victory for whom?
For the rest of the article click here.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
English version of earlier Italian view of Obama
Here is the actual translation from the Maoist Communist Party of Italy which we already printed below. It is more accurate than the Google translation I used. -史蒂夫・奥多:
Obama A president for USA imperialism in crisis
Obama's election represents the answer of the US ruling classes to the economic crisis (financial crack-recession but also a long and prolonged crisis of the country discharged on the poor masses within and outside), to the political-military crisis - the blows suffered by the people's anti-imperialist resistance like Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. - which bear inside the qualifying element of the people's wars - to the crisis of geo-strategic hegemony toward old and new imperialisms, Europe, Russia, China, to the moral and cultural crisis within the country: the crisis of the American dream, the impoverishment of the middle classes, the profound departing and hostility of popular classes.
But this election won't have a future, and that's sure if the proletarians and peoples of the world won't permit to be cheated or involved in it, and will understand the weak, not the stark, element that this election expresses, making harder their liberation anti-imperialist fight for a world free from imperialism and war.
Obama's election is not a peace factor, because old and new imperialisms, Europe, Russia, Japan and China in collusion-competiti on will try to take advantage in putting forward their interests in the multipolar structure of the global imperialist system.
In the USA the depth of the crisis requires radical solutions and Obama, like other politics of the same, is not able to satisfy the need of the masses, but is sufficiently capable, and that's why he is perceived as an enemy by a part of the US establishment and by the reactionary sections of the medium/petty bourgeoisie, workers elite, so he has to expect not the social peace, but, on the contrary, the political and social struggle, a class struggle that will be a melting pot and arena for the construction of the proletarian, revolutionary, multinational and internationalist party in the USA.
Maoist Communist Party of Italy
proletari comunisti-PCm- Italy
November 2008
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
This is not from PCm -Italy:
By T.I. What Ever
Obama A president for USA imperialism in crisis
Obama's election represents the answer of the US ruling classes to the economic crisis (financial crack-recession but also a long and prolonged crisis of the country discharged on the poor masses within and outside), to the political-military crisis - the blows suffered by the people's anti-imperialist resistance like Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. - which bear inside the qualifying element of the people's wars - to the crisis of geo-strategic hegemony toward old and new imperialisms, Europe, Russia, China, to the moral and cultural crisis within the country: the crisis of the American dream, the impoverishment of the middle classes, the profound departing and hostility of popular classes.
But this election won't have a future, and that's sure if the proletarians and peoples of the world won't permit to be cheated or involved in it, and will understand the weak, not the stark, element that this election expresses, making harder their liberation anti-imperialist fight for a world free from imperialism and war.
Obama's election is not a peace factor, because old and new imperialisms, Europe, Russia, Japan and China in collusion-competiti on will try to take advantage in putting forward their interests in the multipolar structure of the global imperialist system.
In the USA the depth of the crisis requires radical solutions and Obama, like other politics of the same, is not able to satisfy the need of the masses, but is sufficiently capable, and that's why he is perceived as an enemy by a part of the US establishment and by the reactionary sections of the medium/petty bourgeoisie, workers elite, so he has to expect not the social peace, but, on the contrary, the political and social struggle, a class struggle that will be a melting pot and arena for the construction of the proletarian, revolutionary, multinational and internationalist party in the USA.
Maoist Communist Party of Italy
proletari comunisti-PCm- Italy
November 2008
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
This is not from PCm -Italy:
By T.I. What Ever
News from the War in the Philippines
Three Killed in NPA ambush vs. 3rd Special Forces Bn in ComVal;
one M60 machine gun seized
Ka Aris Francisco
Alejandro Lanaja Command
Front 3 Operations Command
New Peoples Army-Southern Mindanao
November 09, 2008
The Red fighters of the Alejandro Lanaja Command- Front 3 Operations Command of the New People's Army- Southern Mindanao ambushed the notorious forces of the 3rd Special Forces Battalion- AFP (3rd SF Bn), Friday morning, November 7, in sitio Anagasse, Barangay Casoon, Monkayo, Compostela Valley Province.
Three were instantly killed and others wounded on the enemy side. One (1) M60 machine gun, two (2) M16 rifles and one (1) M14 were seized from the enemy. The ambushed troops of the 3rd SF BN was on combat patrol as part of the enemy's Reengineered Special Operations Team (RSOT).
The NPA tactical offensive serves as a punitive action against the 3rd SF Bn who had been responsible for the series of violations to human rights, protocols of war and international humanitarian law in Comval, to wit:
The 3rd SF Bn masterminded the bombing that wounded young civilians in Poblacion, Nabunturan town last June; the bombing was a desperate and fascist attack in response to the sparrow operations of the NPA which killed two of their soldiers at that time.
Second, the 3rd SF Bn operatives killed farmer leader and barangay councilor Noli Llanos of Barangay Mipangi, Nabunturan last June. This occurred after NPA sparrow operations killed three AFP troops; two of whom died on the spot.
Third, they also killed farmer leader Diego Encarnacion of Barangay Linda, Nabunturan last July following an NPA raid disarming the 72nd Infantry Battalion-AFP detachment in that village.
Fourth, the 3rd SF Bn mauled a farmer known as Pascual who hails from sitio Cebuli, Barangay Kapatagan, Laak. This occurred after three members of the 3rd SF Bn were killed and two others wounded during an encounter with the NPA last September.
Fifth, as part of the Oplan Bantay Laya II, the 3rd SF Bn conducted continuous and vicious military operations in Monkayo. Suffering defeat upon defeat from NPA tactical operations, the 3rd SF Bn turns to hapless civilians, in complete violation to the protocols of war.
Indeed, the 3rd Special Forces Bn--this so-called elite AFP unit-- is further isolated from the people. Clearly, Oplan Bantay Laya II of the US-Arroyo regime has no where to go but to doom.
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
one M60 machine gun seized
Ka Aris Francisco
Alejandro Lanaja Command
Front 3 Operations Command
New Peoples Army-Southern Mindanao
November 09, 2008
The Red fighters of the Alejandro Lanaja Command- Front 3 Operations Command of the New People's Army- Southern Mindanao ambushed the notorious forces of the 3rd Special Forces Battalion- AFP (3rd SF Bn), Friday morning, November 7, in sitio Anagasse, Barangay Casoon, Monkayo, Compostela Valley Province.
Three were instantly killed and others wounded on the enemy side. One (1) M60 machine gun, two (2) M16 rifles and one (1) M14 were seized from the enemy. The ambushed troops of the 3rd SF BN was on combat patrol as part of the enemy's Reengineered Special Operations Team (RSOT).
The NPA tactical offensive serves as a punitive action against the 3rd SF Bn who had been responsible for the series of violations to human rights, protocols of war and international humanitarian law in Comval, to wit:
The 3rd SF Bn masterminded the bombing that wounded young civilians in Poblacion, Nabunturan town last June; the bombing was a desperate and fascist attack in response to the sparrow operations of the NPA which killed two of their soldiers at that time.
Second, the 3rd SF Bn operatives killed farmer leader and barangay councilor Noli Llanos of Barangay Mipangi, Nabunturan last June. This occurred after NPA sparrow operations killed three AFP troops; two of whom died on the spot.
Third, they also killed farmer leader Diego Encarnacion of Barangay Linda, Nabunturan last July following an NPA raid disarming the 72nd Infantry Battalion-AFP detachment in that village.
Fourth, the 3rd SF Bn mauled a farmer known as Pascual who hails from sitio Cebuli, Barangay Kapatagan, Laak. This occurred after three members of the 3rd SF Bn were killed and two others wounded during an encounter with the NPA last September.
Fifth, as part of the Oplan Bantay Laya II, the 3rd SF Bn conducted continuous and vicious military operations in Monkayo. Suffering defeat upon defeat from NPA tactical operations, the 3rd SF Bn turns to hapless civilians, in complete violation to the protocols of war.
Indeed, the 3rd Special Forces Bn--this so-called elite AFP unit-- is further isolated from the people. Clearly, Oplan Bantay Laya II of the US-Arroyo regime has no where to go but to doom.
From:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/MAOIST_REVOLUTION
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