Right-Wing Communism; A Privilaged Disorder

The elections are coming up soon, and it is time again for the right wing of the communist movement to brush off their copy of Lenin's "Left-Wing Communism an infantile disorder" and incorrectly quote it to the end of the earth to avoid having to support boycotts or any revolutionary action what so ever... again.

Why do they do this? What is there to gain from this tactic of participating in the system that keeps the people oppressed? It can't be because 'that's where the masses are' barely 40% vote in midterm elections and the last presidential election (the highest election turn out in the nations history) a little over 60% voted and look at the area's with the highest voter turn out. Its not hard to see that mainly the capitalist and upper bourgeoisie along with upper middle class are the voters. (I wonder why socialist do so bad in our elections)

They have this behavior simply because they are in a privileged position in the worlds order. They are not starving, they have clean running water, Probably had access to higher education. Most communist I hear spout this garbage of participating in the elections have had university educations and would be considered more intelligentsia than proletariat. I don't have running water where I live. Only one electric socket works where I live. I'm lucky enough to have a person nice enough to let me use their wireless internet. What I'm getting at is that people who constantly attack the left-wing (people like me) for wanting to boycott elections (the system that allows me to live in these situations) do so because they do not want to struggle. They have no need to struggle. They are fine with how their lives are under capitalism/imperialism.

I'm not saying that I am not happy that these right-wingers want communism eventually. I'm just saying it makes me upset when someone with an android Cellular phone and a 2009 model car tells me that I am a bad communist if I boycott the elections.

While I'm ranting about privilege of the US communist movement I'd like to bring up internationalism and imperialism. Using the elections as a way to 'further the goal of socialism' is a failed tactic that has been tried and true to failure for almost a century.  But why are people that are claiming to be socialist/communist still supporting running in elections that only decide what face will be the new poster child for imperialism? The reason we need to boycott is to show international solidarity with our brothers and sister in the third world nations that are struggling in a way us in the US and other imperialist nations could never dream of. These people needs socialism and self determination so they can make an increase in their living standards and stamp out malnutrition and poverty as a whole. As long as the US and other nations can imperialistically dominate the third world and the communist in those nations participate in the system that does this exploiting we can not count ourselves as true internationalist.

Simply repeating slogans such as "free Palestine" "no war on (insert current nation we are planning on invading here)" "out of Afghanistan now" does not make you an internationalist. Action makes you what you are. Boycotting the system that causes most of the world to live in mega slums and slave like conditions, that is showing international solidarity brothers and sisters. Fuck participating in elections as an end goal. Or even a long term goal. People are starving and working for nothing and have nothing in most of the world. Those people need to know that the communist living in the belly of the beast are not counting on the system that is causing their misery to destroy the system that is causing their misery.   





 

US Communist Parties and Internationalism.

The definition of internationalism is easy. It can be summed up in "Workers of the world unite!". At its basic meaning internationalist means someone who see's all peoples struggles in the world are one in the same. They aim to build a world without borders where all people from all the nations are equal and united. But that is what an internationalist wants as the end result but what does a internationalist do and how do they act in today's world?



First of all let me be clear that while there are individuals who are internationalist within "communist" groups within the United States there are few actual internationalist groups. I will tip my hat to the FRSO as they have proven to be true internationalist by helping the people of less fortunate nations. Since there is currently an on going trail against some of its members for alleged ties to certain groups I will not comment further but recognize their true commitment to internationalism. Also groups like the IWW and the RSU are true internationalist because instead of simply talking about international situations they sent material supplies to Cuba, Palestine etc



Some groups claim they are internationalist simply because they have different party branches in different countries. This alone does not make a group internationalist. Writing articles in a parties news paper about things happening in other countries also does not count as being an internationalist.



For example, how can a groups here claim to be internationalist when they constantly fight for only the betterment of conditions in this nation? A few groups advocate for a 30 hour work week with out a decreasing wage. And while I admit that would be nice how can they call themselves internationalist? They advocate for better pay in the USA while not giving any material aid or real support to less fortunate nations? Other than offering "solidarity" (usually for opportunist reasons) and having liberal slogans such as "hands off _____" or "out of ____ now!" very few groups in the US are really doing anything to help the global proletariat.



The international situation outside of the US and most other imperialist nations is one of great poverty and hunger and hardships. No one in the US has an excuse to be complaining of their living situation if they are not sending any kind of material aid to less fortunate peoples around the world. Organizers can help train people online in the poorer nations so that they can train people in their own country. People are a lot more likely to rebel in a third world nation then they are in a country like India or Nigeria etc etc where there are larger wealth gaps than here in the states. More than 300 million people in India live on less than 0.80 cents a day. We communist should be trying to help people in these countries who's living conditions are mostly beyond our comprehension not trying to make our lives more comfy so we can have more free time.



I have decided that I personally will not carry any slogans calling for a better life here in the US until the proletarian of the world holds and average income of 10-15 thousand dollars a year. I think it is selfish to demand a better life when people are starving because they can not afford food. The average American has a car, a computer, heat, AC, running clean water and hot water. The average person in the world has maybe one of these things. How bad do we really have it compared to the rest of the world?

My Views on Maoist Third Worldism.

There are many reasons why I am inspired to write a blog post about Maoist Third Worldism (MTWist). One main reason is the high amount of chauvinism and xenophobia shown by first worldist communist toward the MTW movement. Another few reasons is their theory of what a proletariat is, their ideas of international proletarian revolution, and their attitude towards the present conditions in imperialist countries and finally just the heavy amount of myths that surround this ideology are some reasons why I am writing this blog post.


Let me start by saying as a Marxist it is important to take a scientific approach to all ideas, situations and circumstances. Please keep this in mind while reading this. This post is not meant a promotion nor a condemnation of Maoist Third Worldism (MTW).


One thing I find very interesting about MTW is their idea that not everyone who is part of the working class is a proletariat. While most communist refer to all workers or anyone who sells their labor as a proletarian the MTWist see this as incorrect as did Marx. The proletarian is someone who has nothing to lose but their chains, who has nothing to sell but his labor. The proletarian is also someone who produces value or engages in productive labor. Now this hardly applies to many people in the united states let alone anyone in the first world. As the LLCO correctly point out in one of their blogs "This effect is magnified even more by the relative ease with which First World peoples gain access to large amounts of credit. Significantly, First World workers also receive a share of imperialist super profits extracted from the Third World–just because they are from the First World. Furthermore, First World workers are generally not involved in productive labor as Marx’s model proletarian is. Rather, First World people are employed in non-value-creating positions such as management, merchant capital enterprises, white-collar work, distribution, the service industry, etc. They are often employed in positions that are purely parasitic and drain value. Also, they are often employed in work that may be necessary to realize value, but is not itself value creating."(1)


"global median is about $2.50 a day. There are more people in India earning less than $0.80 a day than people living in the USA." These are staggering numbers that knock me to the floor. It is hard to believe that anyone thinks a revolution will happen in a place where the minimum wage is $5.50 higher then what the average worker in the rest of the world makes. A person making $10,000 a year is in the top 13.3% of the worlds wealthiest people annual income wise. The average American home brings in around $50,000 dollars a year that would put you in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world. Now try to imagine you were given only $3,000 dollars to live off of for a whole year, just $3,000 you would still be in the top 15% of wealthiest people on earth annual income wise. The MTWist actually make more sense the more of the ideas I explore.



Their idea of international revolution is easy to follow and makes a lot of sense. They basically follow the ideas of Lin Biao set out in the book "Long Live the Victory of People's War". In the book Lin Biao puts forward that in an international revolution the smaller third world countries would act as the rural areas and that imperialist first world countries would be the cities, and in order to win the international revolution the proletarian army would have to first gain control of the rural country sides (poor, third world countries). After they gained control of the international country sides then the people's army would have to encircle and take over the cities of the world (the first world imperialist nations).



This takes me into one of the myths Ive heard over and over not just about MTWist but Maoist in general. That they are nationalist. I have no clue where this notion came from and I don't care. As a Maoist I can say that not only are we not nationalist but we are the strongest internationalist in the world ideologically. Every Maoist has called for international proletarian revolution. From Mao in China to Fred Hampton in the US we have always called for the start of an international revolution. MTW are no different in fact they are more internationalist than most people claiming to be communist because those who even live in the first world call for the freedom and empowerment of the third world before focusing on their own-selves. That is real internationalism, they call on themselves to uphold the need to lower their living standards so that the people of the world can live more equally. In my opinion that is about as far away from nationalism as possible.



Ive heard so many myths swirling around this ideology that it is hard to chose one to talk about. One time some one said they had heard that MTWist want to "enslave the first world workers" not only is this silly but this is a case of one "socialist" party trying to cause xenophobia towards MTWism. After reading through the LLCO/MSH material I think where the idea of this came from is that the LLCO (correctly) asserts that in order for socialist redistribution to work the workers in the first world imperialist nations would have to lower their standards of living in order for the standards of living in the third world to go up. I agree because we can not pull random nonexistent value from no where. The earth can only produce so much value at a time and in order for everyone on earth to live up to the living standards of the US we would need like 2-3 earths.


Last thing I wanna touch on is what the MTWist mean by "first worldist". A first worldist is someone who thinks that workers in the first world imperialist nations are more advanced than workers in the second and third worlds. Advanced meaning they think the first world workers have more revolutionary potential and that the first world worker is more class conscious. This is mainly just childish chauvinism but where it is dangerous is that it is anti-dialectal. It instills a false sense into the "communist" of the first world that a revolution is not only possible in their country but that if one happens that it will happen in a advanced first world nation. Now lets be clear that with Russia being the one exception (and it is debated rather they were even a first world nation during 1917) there has never been a successful proletarian/communist revolution in a first world country. All great proletarian revolutions took place in third world countries. So it is anti-dialects if a leader of you party/ORG tells you otherwise.


Other times they refer to FWist as people who fight for gains for the first world workers but the MTWist warn that these gains are not free and that the gains won by these struggles come on the backs of third world proletarians. And the MTWist claim that first world worker gain from their nations imperialist exploitation. The counter argument Ive heard to this is that "No imperialist CORP is going to share its profits with the people of their nation" on this issue I am torn. I think we in the first world do slightly benefit from the exploitation of the third world by our government. But I also think that most of the profits stolen from the third world end up in the banks or the big CORP's pockets for the most part.



I think MTWism is something that is a hint of fresh air to a rather stale and old movement. They have a lot to contribute to the movement and I believe their use of Marxism as a science is as good as anybodies. I would encourage my reader to check out their site and read some for themselves before turning their nose up at the Maoist third worldist. You can find the link to the Leading Light Communist Organization at the side of this page I invite you to go and read their material you might like what you see.


By: Dustin Slagle










(1)http://llco.org/archives/4911, FEB, 1, 2010