In their recent article The Criterion of Truth the World People’s Resistance Movement ( Britain ) (WPRM) draw attention to the serious problems faced by the British capitalist ruling class as a result of the banking crisis and the war in Afghanistan . They point out that these developments have brought about a weakening of people’s confidence in the capitalist system and that this provides a good opportunity for developing a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) political movement in Britain .
How is this to be done? The WPRM write:
“… there are several serious subjective problems that we communists need to address in order to build a proletarian-led revolutionary movement in Britain . The first and most important problem is grasping the ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.”
The view of the WPRM expressed here and on previous occasions is that it is not possible to begin to build a MLM political movement in Britain until MLM has been thoroughly grasped. This is the reason they have put forward to justify their refusal to help form a MLM political organization in Britain which could lead on to the establishment of a MLM revolutionary party. This position is confused and incorrect.
The conception of MLM held by the WPRM is essentially an idealist one and not a materialist one. For them MLM is a fixed, unchanging body of ideas which can be grasped by assiduous study of the theory and practice of the international communist movement in the past. If this ideational construct is understood and applied to revolutionary struggle then success is assured but if MLM is misunderstood then failure in the struggle is certain. In criticizing the Revolutionary Communist Party , USA ( RCP , USA ) they write:
“.. the RCP has grossly failed to grasp the science of revolution, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, because after decades of political activities, the Party has been unable to apply the proletarian ideology to the concrete conditions of the US . … the central task of a Communist party is to develop a revolutionary movement in that country, and therefore, the RCP’s failure is the proof of its wrong ideological-political line.”
This assessment of the RCP’s performance is both undialectical and idealist. The fact of the matter is that the objective conditions in the USA and other imperialist countries during the last few decades have not been very favourable for the development of significant revolutionary movements. Although a new world economic depression developed from the mid-nineteen seventies onwards it was not as severe as the one during the nineteen thirties, after the end of the Vietnam War anti-imperialist struggles diminished and the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and China undermined people’s confidence in the possibility of building socialism. It was not only in the USA that Maoists failed to develop a significant revolutionary party but this was the case throughout the imperialist countries. Of course, it could be argued that in all these imperialist countries the Maoists had failed to grasp MLM ideology and this explains the absence of developed revolutionary parties.
The WPRM’s assessment of the failure of the RCP, USA to become a significant revolutionary force is idealist because it denies the importance of objective material conditions in determining whether or not revolutionary struggle can develop. It is quite possible for a revolutionary organisation to have correctly assessed the objective conditions of its society and to take appropriate practical actions but the large scale societal factors favourable to the opening up of revolutionary possibilities do not develop despite the efforts of dedicated, disciplined comrades. This is not to argue that the political line of the RCP, USA throughout the last thirty five years has always been correct. Indeed, they have always had a tendency to dismiss much involvement in the day-to-day class struggle as “economist” and their idealist tendencies have now become manifest in putting forward Bob Avakian’s “New Synthesis” – not a product of the practice of the RCP but Bob’s own unique creation - as the answer to the problems of the ICM. Even so, it seems likely that the principal factor preventing the RCP, USA or any other organization developing an effective revolutionary party in the USA has been unfavourable objective material conditions and not the shortcomings of communists in America . The same is the case of the other imperialist countries.
In Britain during the nineteen seventies there were two main Maoist organizations: the Communist Party of Britain (ML) and the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain. Both found it difficult to deal with the counter-revolution in China and had largely faded away by the early nineteen eighties. The present writer has been one of the few comrades who have tried to keep the revolutionary struggle going since that time but without much success. So have we failed to build a revolutionary movement because of our failure to adequately grasp MLM ideology? My assessment is that if back in the nineteen seventies our political level had developed to a higher stage than was the in fact the case then it would have been possible to sustain a small MLM party in Britain , rather as happened in the USA . However given the relatively stable objective conditions of capitalism in Britain revolutionary breakthroughs would have been unlikely during the last thirty years.
The WPRM quote Mao as saying “The correctness or incorrectness of the ideological and political line decides everything.” (10th. National Congress of the Communist Party of China ). WPRM, and others, frequently mention this quotation to support their idealist position of how to engage in revolutionary struggle. In fact this quotation is not directly from Mao but is what the author of the main report to this congress, Chou En-lai, claims that he said. (I cannot find this expression in any of Mao’s writings.) The WPRM article also quotes Mao from On Practice:
… it [dialectical materialism] emphasizes the dependence of theory on practice, emphasizes that theory is based on practice and in turn serves practice. The truth of any knowledge or theory is not determined by subjective feelings, but by objective results in social practice. Only social practice can be the criterion of truth. The standpoint of practice is the primary and basic standpoint in the materialist theory of knowledge.”
WPRM praise the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (UCPN(M)) for applying this approach in developing its political line but WPRM fails to take the same approach in Britain .
The point is that the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism develops out of practical political struggle. It is not a fixed Platonic form floating around in heaven. Rather if MLM is to be of any use in the revolutionary struggle it has to be a continually changing body of ideas which arise dialectically out of the practical struggle to make revolution. The starting point of revolutionary struggle in Britain today is to apply the lessons from the past of the ICM to the objective situation we face now. The ideas we start out with will quickly change and develop as we engage with the people to investigate and take up the serious practical problems they face. This is the mass line, from the masses to the masses.
In Britain today the antagonistic contradictions of capitalism are sharpening. The principal contradiction at present is that between the mode of production and the mode of exchange, i.e. the economic problems brought about by the banking crisis of two years ago and the austerity measures being taken by the new Tory-Lib coalition government. These are and will have a direct impact on living conditions of the working class and middle strata. The Trotskyites and revisionists can only bleat that the trade unions must take action. We have to develop a better line. Also the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations is particularly sharp in the case of the war in Afghanistan. It is clear that NATO forces are not prevailing there and this war is deeply unpopular with people in Britain . Yet the Stop the War Coalition has completely failed to combat the rising tide of militarist propaganda coming from the government and media. We must take the lead in doing so. Today in Britain objective conditions are becoming increasingly favourable for bringing about a rise in political class consciousness. But nothing will happen if the Maoists spend their time in closed groups introspectively trying to grasp “a correct ideological-political line”. In recent months Revolutionary Praxis has been out on the streets of Nottingham and Sheffield putting forward revolutionary lines on these issues and we have been getting very positive responses from people. Also we have learnt a lot from discussion and argument from people who disagree with our political positions. It is through this sort of practical activity that we can reach out to people and begin to attract radically-inclined people towards our revolutionary Maoist politics.
The WPRM write that:
“… building a powerful support for the Nepalese revolution in this country is not only essential, showing a true internationalist spirit, but also highly desirable for developing a proletarian-led revolutionary movement in Britain .”
Past experience in Britain in trying to build support for revolutionary movements led by our comrades in Peru , Nepal and India has had very limited success. Indeed, in the absence of a real revolutionary movement in Britain there is not a lot we can do to give real help to these struggles. Certainly, as internationalists we should strive to interest people in these revolutionary upsurges in order to interest them in MLM. (Revolutionary Praxis has been campaigning on the struggle in India under the slogan ‘Oppose Operation Greenhunt’.) However we are not in a position to give concrete practical support to these struggles as the old Communist Party of Great Britain did in the case of the defence of the Spanish Republic when it sent personnel, food aid and medical supplies. Experience has shown that a Maoist revolutionary organization in Britain cannot emerge from international solidarity work alone.
The best way in which we can render international solidarity to revolutionary struggles is to build a revolutionary movement here in Britain . This will not be done by small, closed meetings in London to debate the correctness or otherwise of the line of the UCPN(M) or the validity of the Thoughts of Chairman Bob. No, the Maoists in Britain , including WPRM, must go to the people, learn about their problems, develop policies to deal with them, and provide leadership in fighting back at our oppressive ruling class and their government.
SEIZE THE DAY!
Harry Powell
July 2010
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