India : Punjabi Farmers Stop Trains : Punjab farmers protest against non procurement of grain by Food Corporation of India by Harsh Thakor

Protest against non procurement of grain by Food Corporation of India.

Classical example of impact of imperialism and a major protest.

Rail services in Punjab were severely hit on Monday after farmers led by BKU stopped trains at several places on New Delhi-Amritsar route to protest against tardy wheat procurement and demanded higher compensation for crops damaged due to inclement weather.

Rail authorities were forced to cancel some trains besides diverting a few and rescheduling one. "Railway section between Jalandhar and Amritsar was severely affected because of farmers' agitation for the last several hours, causing great inconvenience to passengers including women and children," Divisional Railway Manager of Ferozepur Division Anuj Prakash said.

Among the affected trains, Amritsar Mail (13005), Nangaldam-Amritsar Express (14506), New Delhi-Amritsar Swarna Shatabdi Express (12029) were stopped due to agitation at Butari, Dhilwan and Beas respectively while Saharsa- Amritsar(15531), Shane Punjab (12497), Saryuyamuna Express (14650) were stopped at Suranussi, Kartarpur and Jandiala Guru, officials said.

"We had forewarned the state government about the farmers' agitation," Prakash said, adding that maintaining law and order was the job of state authorities. Initially, farmers in small strength tried to disrupt the railway traffic in the morning but as the day progressed, the strength of protesters grew to more than thousand, affecting rail services, rail officials said.

Despite senior officials from Amritsar holding talks with the agitating farmers to allow the movement of trains, no headway could be made in persuading them till the evening, forcing the railway authorities to cancel some trains. Among the trains cancelled were Amritsar-Hazur Sahib Nanded (12422), Amritsar-Chandigarh Inter city (12412), Amritsar-Howrah (13050), Amritsar-Howrah mail (13006), Golden temple mail (12904), Amritsar Dehradun (14632) and Saryuyamuna Express (14650), DRM Ferozepur said.

He said eight trains were either short terminated or short originated. Prakash said the passengers whose trains were cancelled or short terminated will be refunded. Meanwhile, senior officials of Northern Railway will meet Punjab Chief Secretary tomorrow to take stock of the situation as the farmers have now planned not to allow train movement tomorrow as well.

Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta (Ugrahan) and Kisan Sangarsh Committee on Monday jointly organised "Rail Roko" agitation to highlight their demands for compensation over crop loss due to unseasonal rain and relaxation in procurement norms.

They have also been demanding a bonus of Rs 500 per quintal over and above MSP of wheat.

SEE:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1572685382997973&set=a.1385901911676322.1073741825.100007695793766&type=1&theater

William Morris speech on Whigs, Democrats and Socialists (1888)

Democracy and Class Struggle cannot better in 2015 the analysis of William Morris made of the British State in 1888 and Parliamentarianism.

His ability to see how so called socialists would fail in the structural transformation of the British State and Capitalism because of their adherence to practicality and abandonment  of the principles of Socialism.

Listen and reflect on William Morris and his profound understanding of the British State and capitalism as we go into the ritual of  yet another  "British" General Election.

Red Salute to William Morris and Smash British Capitalism and its State - Long Love Marxism Leninism Maoism.

                            William  Morris speech on Whigs, Democrats and Socialists (1888)

See Also :

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/david-lloyd-george-liberal-imperialist.html

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/tom-ellis-notes-of-evidence-to-royal.html

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/robert-owen-and-william-thompson-two.html

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/republicanism-and-democracy-by-allan.html

22nd April Lenin's Birthday : Remembering Lenin and his analysis of Imperialism “Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat.”

Lenin was born 22nd April 1870 - in his memory we remind people of his theoretical contribution analysing Imperialism.

Democracy and Class Struggle says Parasitic Imperialism is more transparent than ever has a new era of Land grabs shake the globe aided by NGO's.

 

Imperialism means War as much in 2015 as it did in 1916 when Lenin wrote his analysis of Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Marx’ analysis of the laws of motion of capitalism belongs to the stage of free competitive capitalism where a large number of capitalist producers competed in the market. He analysed to some extent the process of centralisation of capital.

He however did not live long enough to see the start of a new stage in capitalism — the stage of imperialism. This happened at the start of the 20th century and it was left to Lenin to analyse this process.

In 1897-98 Lenin made some initial analysis of the development of the capitalist world market but did not analyse in full the subject of imperialism.

 

However with the start of the World War I which was a war caused by imperialism it was necessary to do a full analysis of imperialism to understand the economic basis of the war and the political consequences for the proletariat.

This question became all the more urgent in 1915 when the opportunist and revisionist leader of the Second International, Karl Kautsky, wrote a book on imperialism where he argued that the world economic system was moving towards ‘ultra-imperialism’ where there would be stability and no risk of war.

His argument was similar to some people who analyse globalisation today and argue that, because of the growth of multinational groups and corporations and the spread of their capital to all countries, these multinationals will be opposed to war and there is therefore no danger of a world war.

 

This theory presented during the World War I gave a false picture of imperialism.

Since such a false theory was presented by Kautsky who was then recognised as the main theoretician of Marxism it was absolutely necessary to oppose this theory and present the correct understanding. It was necessary to clear the confusion created by the Second Internationalists and give the correct analysis and present the correct tactics before the international working class movement.

In order to do this Lenin, in 1916, did extensive research and produced his famous work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Besides this main work he also wrote many other articles linking this basic economic analysis to the tactics of the proletariat.

In the first place, Lenin tried to clear the confusion created by Kautsky and other opportunists as to ‘What is Imperialism?’

 

In order to answer this, he pointed out that imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is three-fold: imperialism is (1) monopoly capitalism; (2) parasitic, or decaying capitalism; (3) moribund capitalism or capitalism on its deathbed. The replacement of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the essence of imperialism.

Monopoly Capitalism manifests itself in five principal forms:

(1) Cartels, syndicates and trusts — The concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists who join together to crush other competitors. They fix prices, allot production among themselves and make other arrangements and agreements to prevent others from entering and succeeding in the market. They play a decisive role in economic life.

(2) The monopolistic position of the big banks and the creation of finance capital through the merger of monopoly industrial capital and bank capital – During Lenin’s time this had already reached the level where three, four or five giant banks manipulated the whole economic life in the main industrialised counties.

(3) The export of capital which gains particular importance – this feature that is different from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism is closely linked to the economic and political partition of the world.

(4) The economic partition of the world by the international cartels – At Lenin’s time there were already over one hundred such international cartels, which commanded the entire world market and divided it among themselves in a ‘friendly’ manner. Of course this ‘friendliness’ would only be temporary and would last until war took place for a redivision of markets.

(5) The territorial (political) partition of the world (colonies) among the biggest capitalist powers –This process of colonisation of all the backward countries of the world was basically completed at the time of the dawn of imperialism. Any further colonies could only be got through redivision of the world, through war.

On the basis of the above features, Lenin defines imperialism in the following way: “Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”

The fact that imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism is manifested first of all in the tendency to decay, which is characteristic of every monopoly under the system of private ownership of the means of production.

As compared the rapid expansion under free competition, there is a tendency for production as a whole to decline under monopoly. Technological progress is discouraged and new inventions and patents are deliberately suppressed.

Secondly, the decay of capitalism is manifested in the creation of a huge stratum of rentiers, capitalists who live without working but merely on the basis of the interest or dividend they earn on their investments.

Thirdly, export of capital is parasitism raised to a high pitch as it means the open exploitation of the cheap labour of the backward countries.

Fourthly, finance capital strives for domination, not freedom. Political reaction all along the line is a characteristic feature of imperialism. Corruption, bribery on a huge scale and all kinds of fraud become common.

Fifthly, the exploitation of oppressed nations and especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of “Great” Powers, increasingly transforms the imperialist world into a parasite on the body of hundreds of millions in the backward nations. It reaches the stage where a privileged upper stratum of the proletariat in the imperialist countries also lives partly at the expense of hundreds of millions in the colonies.

Imperialism is moribund capitalism, because it is capitalism in transition to socialism. Monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism.

The tremendous socialisation of labour by imperialism produces the same result. The basic contradiction of capitalism between the social character of production and the private character of ownership only gets further intensified under imperialism.

Thus Lenin says, “Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat.”

Source MLM Textbook from Indian Comrades

Long Live memory of legendary comrade Chang Chun Chiao (Zhang Chunqiao) on 10th death anniversary and the resurrection of Maoism in China ! by Harsh Thakor

 

Comrade Chang Chun Chiao

 

INTRODUCTION

Today on his 10^th death anniversary on April 21^st, 2015 we dip our blood in memory of Comrade Chang Chun  Chiao, the most prominent member of the gang of four who fought every inch to light the torch of Marxism Leninism –Maoism and illuminate it’s light in ever corner he traversed.

He engaged in a tooth and nail criticism of the capitalist roaders and revisionist line .Chang played an instrumental role in some of the greatest achievements of the Cultural Revolution. Although serious errors were made he stood like a rock to defend the proletarian revolutionary headquarters  and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought which is Maoism today.

Today when the world bourgeoisie are gloating over the advent of globalization and leaders in China are celebrating the triumph of the  bourgeoisie ,Zhang’s death anniversary has all the more significance.

He was a thorn in the flesh to those very forces.. Chang Chun Chiao’s  life is an example of a great Communist revolutionary who could withstand the most turbulent of tides  like a rock withstanding the  most powerful of gales.. He exhibited the very qualities needed in a leader to sustain a Socialist Society and continue a revolution within it. Few leaders exhibited such outstanding capability as Chang who could handle the most complex of situations.

His death radiated a red  flame in the hearts of all revolutionaries. No doubt Chang was one of the outstanding revolutionaries of the last century.

Zhang Chunqiao (张春桥, 1917-2005) was born in Juye County, Shandong Province. Zhang joined the Shanghai chapter of the League of Chinese Left-Wing Writers in 1936 and joined the Party around 1940. During the war against Japan, he was a cadre of communist guerillas operating behind enemy lines in north and east China. After the founding of the PRC, he started his carreer in literary and propaganda work.

He served as deputy director of the East China branch of the New China News Agency (1950), managing director of the PLA Daily [Jiefangjun bao] (1954), member of the Shanghai Party Secretariat (1958) and director of the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Party branch (1963) .

In October 1966, Zhang became deputy head of the Cultural Revolution Group, headed by Jiang Qing and Chen Boda, which directed the developments in the first half of the Cultural Revolution. Together with Jiang, Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan, Zhang would form what became know as the Gang of Four.

He was one of the initiators of the demonstrations that led to the founding of the Shanghai Commune, of which he was the chairman and Wang Hongwen the second-in-command. The organization was reorganized into a revolutionary committee on Mao's orders, but Zhang remained in charge.

He was arrested along with the other members of the Gang of Four in October 1976, as part of a conspiracy by Ye Jianying and newly anointed party leader Hua Guofeng.

Chang resisted the trial in 1980 with courage defending the revolutionary line like a boulder thwarting a bulldozer. Few comrades in world history could have faced a court trial with such tenacity and ideological commitment.

He virtually did not utter a word. Zhang was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, together with Jiang Qing, in 1984, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and in December 1997 the sentence was further reduced to eighteen years.

In 1998, Zhang was released from prison to undergo medical treatment. He then lived in obscurity in Shanghai for the remainder of his life. Zhang died from pancreatic cancer in April 2005.^[2]

 

ACHIEVEMENTS

 Zhang was one of the founding members and principal leaders of the Shanghai Peoples Commune formed in January 1967.Later it became known as the revolutionary committee. His guidance played a major role in it’s successful functioning in accordance with the Maoist line.-the 1^st experiment in copying the Paris Commune.

 

He balanced the role of the party leadership with the masses with mastery of Marxism –Leninism in the most innovative form of economic development  ever built in a Socialist Society and one of the most creative forms in the history of mankind.

Never had such depth of proletarian revolutionary control been ever developed. Chang displayed meticulous patience and endurance in holding joint discussions at great personal risk.

In  Shanghai in a suburb the rightist forces surrounded a train and Chang Chun Chiao went directly on the scene. He signed the demands of the rebels and demanded that the municipal committee hold a meeting.

 He then persuaded the workers on the train to return to Shanghai   to implement the struggle. Chang Chun Chiao stated “We used to hold joint discussions. We would ask the rebels to come to our meeting to discuss each problem. One day forty organizations may be represented, the next day hundred. Nobody knew anyone else.

Although we were very busy and in a state of chaos we thought that this kind of thing was liable to happen in a revolution, and this was the way of getting problems solved.”After the Shanghai revolutionary communes formation which later became a revolutionary committee, the building of revolutionary committees took place all over China.

His document on ‘The all round dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie’ was one of the most profound documents written by any Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and a must for any revolutionary cadre to read..

It made a most incisive analysis of the prevailing conditions and the root cause of revisionism.

Mass Psychology and the Mass Line: What is Class Consciousness? by Wilhelm Reich

 

Hitler Youth

 

Published from exile in Denmark in June of 1934 as a pamphlet; What is Class Consciousness? by Wilhelm Reich criticizes the politics of the Communist Party that had been smashed by Hitler’s National Socialism in 1933. 

 

In particular, he focuses on the Party’s lack of what Mao would call a mass line and mass perspective and it’s consequent inability to communicate with and win over the broad masses of Germans to the side of revolution, or as he puts it,

 “to achieve a joining of the consciousness of the revolutionary avant-garde with the consciousness of the average citizen.”

Source: http://ri-ir.org/2011/06/02/mass-psychology-and-the-mass-line-what-is-class-consciousness-by-wilhelm-reich/

PDF of What is Class Consciousness by Wilhelm Reich

https://revintcan.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/what-is-class-consciousness.pdf

Democracy and Class Struggle regard the Mass Psychology of Fascism and his later work What is Class Consciousness written in the immediate aftermath of Nazi success has penetrating revolutionary studies with valuable lessons for today.

We are not unsympathetic to his later scientific works but find his analysis in 1933 and 1934 profoundly valuable and this was his revolutionary communist time from which we can still learn today.

We of course reject Reich's later anti-Communism from 1946 in his work Listen, Little Man! which is nothing but anti political psychological reductionism.

He loses the social and economic vision of communism which he in 1947 called Red Fascism and becomes more paranoid.

SEE ALSO:

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-mass-line-soviet-union-stalin-and.html

Mao Zedong outlining the Mass Line in 1943

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/mao-zedong-some-questions-concerning.html



 

The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich Revisited

On August 23, 1956, six tons of the printed works of psychologist Wilhelm Reich were burned, by court order, in a New York incinerator. 

Reich, an Austrian, had fled to American after being put on Hitler's death list in the late 1930s.

One of the books burned in New York was The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Reich's psycho-social analysis of the rise of Hitler.

Ironically, stocks of this book had been burned in Nazi Germany as well.

                                                                 
                                                                   Wilhelm Reich

Where Progressives Go Wrong

Reich obviously believes the progressive message – economic and political freedom – is more innately appealing to the working class than what fascism has to offer.

 His only complaint is the way the left tries to deliver it.

What he advocates is that instead of educating low income workers about economic and political injustice, progressives ought to directly address the emotional baggage the working poor carry from authoritarian family and school experiences.

 He proposes that the best way to do this is to engage in politically enlightened social reform activities, primarily directed towards youth – to help them become resilient adults unhampered by their parents’ insecurities – and towards women.

During his lifetime, Reich himself was an outspoken champion of women’s rights – arguing that freeing women from authoritarian family structures was the best way to free their children from them.

He campaigned tirelessly for women’s ability to access (free) birth control and abortion – recognizing that many women are forced to raise their children in a paternalistic, authoritarian families for economic reasons – as well as for laws and programs promoting women’s economic independence.

He also advocated that progressives involve themselves in parent and teacher education (to specifically address authoritarian child rearing and teaching styles) and health and sex education.

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/08/06/wilhelm-reich-and-the-tea-party/


Democracy and Class Struggle publish a section of Wilhelm Reich's work on the Authoritarian Family.

Gender and Family figures strongly in the arsenal of the new Right and neo Fascism and Fascism in Europe.

The Revolutionary Left needs to learn from Reich  how to combat this rightist propaganda.

The Nazis struggle against Kultur Bolschewismus yesterday resonates with the Neo Fascist Rights struggle against Cultural Marxism Today and this requires us to revisit comrade Wilhelm Reich.



AUTHORITARIAN FAMILY IDEOLOGY AND THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM BY WILHELM REICH

1. FÜHRER AND MASS STRUCTURE

Future historians will be likely to conclude from Hitler's success that only the great man makes history, by firing the masses with "his idea." National Socialist propaganda was indeed built upon this "Führer ideology." The mechanism of their success was unknown to the propagandists of National Socialism, nor did they dare to comprehend the historical soil of the National Socialist movement. Quite in keeping with this, the National Socialist,
Wilhelm Stapel, wrote in his CHRISTENTUM UND NATIONALSOZIALISMUS:


"Because National Socialism is an elementary movement, it cannot be countered with arguments. Arguments could only be effective if the movement had grown by arguments." Speeches in National Socialist meetings were indeed characterized by very clever manipulations of the emotions of the mass individuals and by strict avoidance of objective argumentation.

Hitler, in MEIN KAMPF, emphasized repeatedly that the only correct mass-psychological technique was that of avoiding arguments and of keeping the "big final goal" before the masses. The true nature of the "final goal" after the seizure of power is demonstrated by Italian fascism. Similarly, Göring's edicts against middle-class economic organizations, the failure of the "second revolution" to materialize, the failure to keep the promises of Socialist measures, etc., all these clearly showed the reactionary function of fascism. How little Hitler himself knew the mechanism of his successes is shown by the following statement:

[29] This broadness of outline from which we must never depart, in combination with steady, consistent emphasis, allows our final success to mature. And then, to our amazement, we shall see what tremendous results such perseverance leads to—results that are almost beyond our understanding.

(MEIN KAMPF, p. 185)*

Thus, Hitler's success could by no means be explained by his reactionary role in the history of capitalism, for had this role been openly admitted in the propaganda, it would have had the opposite effect from that which was intended.

Investigation of Hitler's mass-psychological success must start from the fact that a Führer or the advocate of an idea can succeed only if his ideology or program is concordant with the average structure of the mass individual. This leads to the further question, What historical and sociological situation created this mass structure? With that, the problem of mass-psychology is no longer one of metaphysics but of actual social life.

Only if a Führer structure is concordant with the structure of the average mass individual can a "Führer" make history. Whether he makes history in a lasting sense or merely temporarily depends only on whether his program is in the direction of the progressive social process or against it. It is misleading to explain Hitler's success by National Socialist demagogy, the "obfuscation of the masses" or such meaningless terms as "Nazi psychosis."

For the question is precisely why the masses were accessible to demagogy, obfuscation and a psychotic situation. The answer to this question requires an exact knowledge of what goes on in the masses. To say that the Hitler movement had a reactionary function is insufficient. For the mass success of the NSDAP seems to be at variance with this reactionary function.

Millions of people affirmed their own subjugation. This contradiction cannot be explained on a political or economic basis, but only mass-psychologically.

________
* Translator's note: The quotations from MEIN KAMPF—with the exception of one, which is so marked—are taken from MEIN KAMPF, by Adolf Hitler,


Translated by Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1943. Permission to use these quotations was kindly granted by the Houghton Mifflin

Company and is hereby gratefully acknowledged.—T.P.W.

David Harvey in Brazil - Questions and Answers : (Interviewers speak in Portuguese, with answers in English.)

David Harvey is always worth listening to even if we do not always agree with him.

This interview in Brazil is David Harvey at his best.

Davis Harvey says Brazil has not confronted its capitalist class and corporations -  nominal anti liberal but under current of neo liberalism.

Capitalist class under current of neo liberalism and anti liberal rhetoric even in Venezuela.

Capitalist class biding its time.

Ukraine : No one is obliged to do impossible things by Victor Shapinov

 

                                                              Comrade Shapinov

 

 “It seems that war is inherent in the social nature of this Ukrainian regime, and lasting peace will be established only when a new leadership takes power in Kyiv”

There is a Latin proverb which says: «Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur» -- “No one is obliged to do impossible things.” It looks like the Kiev authorities are not familiar with this ancient wisdom. Or, conversely, too familiar. Turning the very meaning of the Minsk-2 Agreement on its head, the Kyiv side is trying to oblige the rebels of Donbass to do impossible things, putting the choice: either complete surrender on Kyiv's terms, or continuation of the fratricidal war.

This is the tug of war over implementation of the Minsk-2 agreements. the leadership of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) demanded that their representatives finally be included in the discussion of constitutional reform. “All matters relating to elections and constitutional reform, according to the terms of the agreement, should be agreed with us. As prescribed by the terms of the agreement, representatives of the DPR and LPR will necessarily participate in the decision-making in the tripartite contact group," DRP envoy Dennis Pushilin told Interfax.

Kiev's position on negotiations has led to the virtual collapse of the agreement. And it's not even about the 800 ceasefire violations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) recorded in the Donbass region. After another necessary respite following their military defeat, Kyiv is seeking to prevent the move to political dialogue by imposing unacceptable and inappropriate conditions, which contradict Minsk Agreement.

One such condition, of course, is holding local elections in the "special territories" under the existing laws of Ukraine. This formulation, in particular, means that the composition of election commissions will be formed in Kyiv, in large part by representatives of the parliamentary parties in the Verkhovna Rada [Parliament]. Can you imagine what supporters of Lyashko and Yatsenyuk will count in the "special territories"?

But this is a trifle. Because it's not just about how to better push the People's Republics into the legal sphere of Ukraine. Perhaps this is what Kyiv strategists saw as the outcome of the Minsk Agreement, but it's not what was agreed to.

In order to end the civil war – "hot" in Donetsk and Lugansk, "cold" in Odessa and Kharkov -- we need a national dialogue. Everyone understands that the leadership of the DPR and LPR is now in negotiations with Kiev not only on behalf of the residents of parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions called "special territories", but also to some extent for the good half of the Ukrainian population, which disagrees with what has happened in the country since the coup d' etat in February 2014.

And the Kyiv authorities disrupt the agreements precisely because it is afraid of this half of the population that has not accepted the Maidan and its results. After all, if you give "voice" to representatives of the victorious uprisings in the Donbass, then their "voice" would require the participation of those involved in the suppressed uprisings in Odessa and Kharkov. And something tells me that the "silent majority,” suffering from rising prices and tariffs, would not be on the side of the Kyiv authorities in this dialogue.

There is another important factor in the failure of the agreement.

This is the position of the United States. As we have seen in the conflict between Kolomoisky and Poroshenko, the United States decides internal conflicts of the Ukrainian authorities.

The USSR rightly called such relations "puppet regimes." And the U.S. administration is hardly interested in resolving the civil war at the moment, especially given the strong pressure on Obama from Republican (and not only Republican) "hawks" on the issue of Ukraine.

In general, you always want to be an optimist when it comes to war and peace, but it seems that war is inherent in the social nature of this Ukrainian regime, and lasting peace will be established only when a new leadership takes power in Kyiv.

Historic Struggles by China's Working People Against Confucius by Tien Kai

Democracy and Class Struggle continues its investigation into the anti Confucius Campaign in China in 1970's and its relevance to China Today.

The ad hominem attacks against Lu Xun (Lu Hsun) as well as Mao continue but both their understanding and deep critique of Confucianism is part of their immortal contributions to the liberation of mankind.


"I take it no other people in the world know Confucius as well as the so-called ignorant mob in
China do," said Lu Hsun.'


Indeed, while the reactionary ruling classes exalted Confucius to incredible heights by honouring him with the awe-inspiring title of "the sage" and calling Confucianism "the Way of the sage," the labouring people did quite the opposite - they called Confucius (whose given name was Chiu and family name Kung) "Chiu the Robber" and branded the Confucian canons as "demon books." These two different attitudes vividly reflect the fundamental "Confucius in Modern China." antagonism in ideology between the toiling masses and the reactionary ruling classes.

As a thinker who stubbornly upheld the slave system, Confucius in his words and deeds ran directly counter to the great historical current of the liberation of the slaves. No sooner had he appeared on the political stage and started his counter-revolutionary career than the slaves of his time waged a tit-for-tat struggle against him.

This situation shows through in the Analects, a collection of Confucius' words and deeds. Further more,"Chih the Robber," a chapter in the work Chuang Tzu, vividly describes a face-to-face struggle against Confucius by Chih, leader of the insurgent slaves.

 

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                        Tang dynasty Zhuangzi manuscript preserved in Japan (1930s replica)

Chih "had 9,000 followers assailing and doing violence to the nobles everywhere which struck terror into the hearts of the slave-owning aristocrats so that "wherever they (the insurgent slaves) passed through the country, in the larger states the city walls were guarded and in the smaller the strongholds they were manned.,, Using his ideas of "benevolence" and "morality,, as a tool, Confucius tried to dissuade Chih from raising revolts and offending the upper orders.

But Chih completely refuted him in debate, leaving him tongue-tied. Then, says the account, Confucius went out at the door and mounted his carriage. Thrice he missed the reins as he tried to take hold of them. His eyes were dazed, and he could not see"; his face was ashen and he made off in dire confusion'

The Analects records a dialogue between Tzu Lu,a disciple of Confucius, and an old man carrying a bamboo rake. "Tzu Lu said to him, 'Have you seen my master, Sir?'

The old man replied, 'Your four limbs do not toil and you people do not know the difference between the five grains - what kind of master is he anyway?'"

Hitting the nail squarely on the head, this critical remark exemplified the utter contempt of toilers for Confucius as an exploiter and parasite.

Since then it has come into China's common parlance to describe the exploiting classes and their intellectuals

The chapter "Chih the Robber" tells how, when Confucius sought a personal audience with Chih, the insurgent leader was filled with loathing at the very sight of such a creature, and, slamming the door, denounced him as a parasite who "gets his food without farming and his clothing without weaving."

To appropriate without working was in the very nature of Confucius and the slave-owning class he represented - and the existence of this non-labouring exploiter class was the root cause of the slaves' untold suffering.

Himself an exploiter who neither farmed nor wove, Yet wanted to eat and dress finely, Confucius concocted a whole series of reactionary arguments to justify exploitation and heap contempt upon manual labour. His ideal, was for the exploiters to do nothing and get everything while the labourers did everything and got nothing

He said: ,,If the ruler loves propriety, the common people will not dare to be irreverent. If he loves righteousness, they will not dare to disobey.

If he loves sincerity, they will not dare to hide what is in their minds. if he does all this, the common peopie will flock to him from all quarters, carrying their children on their backs.

What need has he to know farming ?

In the opinion of Confucius, no slave-owner need perform "menial" tasks such as farming because the people would submissively allow themselves to be exploited and oppressed provided that the slave    owners used "propriety,,, ,,righteousness,, and ,,sincerity" to preserve their own rule and social order.

The slaves, however, readily saw through this kind .of statecraft designed by Confucius for the exploiters. They countered it by projecting their own ideal society in which people farm to feed themselves, weave to clothe themselves and do not harm each other." Essentially, the slaves, opposition to Confucius was a reflection of their class demand: struggle against exploitation and oppression to win freedom and liberation.

Confucius' reactionary political stand - for restoration of the old order and retrogression to the past - also came under bitter attack by the slaves'

In his day, the collapse of the slave system was already the overpowering trend. Yet he ran everywhere, trying to save the slave system from ruin under the slogan: "Revive states that are extinct, restore families that have lost their positions, and call to office those who have fallen into obscurity'"

This attempt at retrogression by Confucius aroused strong dissatisfaction and indignation among the working people. A doorkeeper of the time castigated him as a diehard ignorant of the times,"who knows that the trend cannot be turned back and still wants to do so." He was also mocked by two farmers, Chang Chu and Chieh Ni. When his disciple Tzu Lu asked them, as they tilled the land, about where a river could be forded, they replied:" The flood is everywhere under the sun. Who can go against it?"

In other words, the collapse of the slave system was like a great flood, no one could change this tide of history and Confucius, in his vain effort to do so, was really overreaching himself.

Chih, the slave leader, was even more explicit when he angrily denounced Confucius for bragging about King Wen and King Wu, and pointed out that Confucius praised the past only for the reactionary purpose of condemning the present. In attempting to turn history backward and obstinately defend the evil slave system, Chih declared, Confucius was committing a heinous crime.

The slaves rejected the Confucian school of thought which had his concept of "benevolence" as
its core. Chih announced without hesitation:

"What Chiu says is what I mean to reject." Confucius saw filial piety and brotherly duty as the fundamentals of "benevolence," because if everybody held to them there could be no insubordination or rebellion.


And it was precisely for this that Chih criticized Confucius' idea of "benevolence"Relaying facts to demonstrate the many crimes of the ruling slave-owner aristocracy, he exposed Confucius' talk about filial piety and brotherly duty as sheer deception of the people.

Basing himself on the interests of the slave class, Chih presented his own view of morality, diametrically opposed to Confucius'. He maintained that the slave-owners' appropriation of things without work was utterly immoral, whereas the rebellion of the slaves against the slave-owners to seize back these ill-gotten gains was the height of morality.

While engaging in this just fight, he said: "It is brave to go in first, righteousness to withdraw last, wisdom to know the appropriate time, benevolence to be fair in distribution."

Thus Chih gave his own, new interpretations of the moral qualities of courage, righteousness, wisdom and benevolence. From the words and deeds of Confucius, the slaves clearly saw that his political character was completely despicable and they fully exposed and criticized it. Confucius kept mouthing "benevolence," "righteousness" and "morality" all the time, bragged that "Heaven has endowed me with virtue (to govern the world)" and had the impudence to consider himself "the sage." But in the view of the slaves, he was merely an "artful deceiver," mean and shameless.

Chih denounced Confucius as a reactionary politician "wagging his tongue to create trouble," "using lies and pretence to bewitch the rulers in order to seize wealth and position," a "crafty hypocrite" who "habitually praises people to their faces" and "also habitually abuses them behind their backs." These succinct words graphically portray his hideous true face' Confucius, indeed, left no fine words unsaid while stopping at no evil deed.

He talked abundantly about "love for man" and preached: a Lu Shih Chun Chiu (3rd century B.C.).

"What good is it to resort to killing in running a government?" But only three months after coming into office, he executed Shaocheng Mao, a minister of the State of Lu who advocated reform.

As for Chih, Confucius labelled him behind his back as a "scourge in the world." But to his face, Confucius said that Chih possessed the "three sterling qualities" of mankind (a taII handsome
figure, ability to understand the world and bravery

Morocco : Comrades Aziz Elkhalfaoui and Redouan Elâadimi freed from prison this morning - release our remaining comrades

Our comrades Aziz Elkhalfaoui and Redouan Elâadimi have been cleared yesterday by the court of Marrakech after 7 Months in prison.

Lal salam for all groups / activists / organization who participated has to communicate their fight!
Continue along the same path to release the other inmates!

Notice from Moroccan Comrades Today