MSH: Mao Declassified (2006) reviewed by Prairie Fire

Mao Declassified (2006) reviewed by Prairie Fire

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

This is a trashy, sensationalist documentary from the History Channel. The documentary does not even attempt to understand its subject. Instead, it relies on the orientalist and bourgeois prejudices of its audience to fill in the blanks. The film portrays Mao as a power-mad Asian despot, blindly worshiped by mindless hordes. Rather than a scientific approach, the narrative of the documentary is informed by the great man theory. According to the narrative of the film, history is not a function of the conflict of social forces, instead, history is a series of great men who leave their imprints on our world. The opening narration says, “This is the story of the leader who will unleash terrible destruction on his own people. It is the story of a man who will end up a god in this godless country.” Even by bourgeois standards, this documentary is not up to par. Mao Declassified is far inferior to both Morning Sun (2003) and Mao’s Bloody Revolution Revealed (2007).

Commentators include, among others: Henry Kissinger, war criminal; James Lilley, U$ Ambassador to China from 1989 to 1991; Ross Terrill, author of Mao: A Life; Anchee Min, author of Red Azalea; Ji-li Jiang author of Red Scarf Girl; Jan Wong, foreign correspondent, Globe and Mail. In addition, Mao’s physician Dr. Li Zhisui’s sensationalist, gossipy account of Mao’s personal life is quoted: “Mao contracts a venereal disease but women are proud to be infected as proof of their relationship with him.“ The list of commentators is itself revealing. It is, literally, a meeting of the U$ State Department’s account overlapping with Chinese “victim/victimizer,” dark-age narratives, a genre that is sanctioned by the post-Maoist, revisionist state. 

The first fifteen minutes focus on Mao’s life up to the Cultural Revolution. The remainder focuses on the Cultural Revolution through Mao’s death (1965 to 1976). The timeline portrayed in the documentary is roughly accurate, but sometimes misleading. The following topics are covered: the Great Leap, Mao’s loss of power to Liu Shaoqi, the opening cultural battles of the early Cultural Revolution, the mass movement period, the rise and fall of Lin Biao, the meetings between Mao and Nixon, the return of Deng Xiaoping, the death of Mao and the arrest of the Gang of Four. One misleading element is that the Cultural Revolution is simply portrayed as Mao and the red guards versus the old Communist Party. In reality, the power struggles were much more complicated. 

True to the movie’s method, Jiang Qing’s role in the Cultural Revolution is portrayed as a function of her psychology. She is said to be “very vain,” “cold,” “vindictive,” “humorless,” “ferocious” and “merciless.” She is Mao’s cat’s paw: “When Mao said bite, I bit.” She is “the red empress” who “brainwashes children” with her Maoist propaganda to elevate herself and Mao to back to absolute power. The narrative elevates peripheral events as though they are the key to unlocking the orientalist mystery of the “murderous” regime. For example, the film focuses on the outwardly puritanical Jiang Qing’s alleged persecution of those who knew her from her Shanghai days when she was an actress. She is said to have persecuted those who knew her past sexual reputation. Even if all of this is true, it is not the best way to understand Jiang Qing’s role in the Cultural Revolution. The best way to examine her role is to examine her politics, her social program, the power blocs that she was a part of. Instead of examining this, the film crafts a story of Jiang Qing as though she were a character in a romance novel. 

Similarly Lin Biao is portrayed as a “military genius,” “ambitious,” “unhappy,” “he feels he has not been granted enough power.” Lin Biao’s wife “like madame Mao is ambitious and plots an assassination attempt against Mao.” Rather than focusing on political differences that led to Lin Biao’s fall, the documentary focuses on the sensational, official, police narrative that Lin Biao was involved in a palace coup and an attempt to bomb Mao. The fallout between Mao and Lin Biao is portrayed as one of court politics, merely as a cynical power struggle. There was a power struggle between Mao and Lin Biao. However, it was not merely over personal power. 

After the years of acute class struggle, there was an emphasis on returning to economic development. Despite the radical language of the Ninth Congress in April of 1969, after the end of the independent mass movements in 1968, the wind blew toward normalcy and economic development. This backlash occurred as the independent mass movements were ended and as those cadres who were deposed returned to power. As the power seizure phase of Cultural Revolution winds down after 1968, Lin Biao sought to preserve some of the gains of the early Cultural Revolution. He also sought continued radicalization in the countryside. The Flying Leap from 1968 to 1970 was accompanied by the continued prominent role played by the military in politics. It is probable that Mao did not want to embark on another radical social reorganization so soon; Mao opted for stabilization and normalcy. After the end of the independent mass movements and the purges of the alleged “May 16th Corps,” Lin Biao probably represented the single strongest Maoist power bloc beside Mao himself.

The fall of Lin Biao meant victory to the opponents of the Cultural Revolution known as the “adverse current” of 1967. It meant the ascent of Zhou Enlai and the right wing, provincial PLA commanders. Some of whom (Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping), incidentally, were the architects of the shift in foreign relations toward the U$ that naturally evolved into the U$-leaning policies in the 1970s and 1980s. Henry Kissinger comments, “Here is a man [Mao Zedong] who killed millions of peoples in pursuit of his fanatical ideology. And what he did was he’d separate his fanatical ideology for domestic reasons from foreign policy where he was a cold blooded Machiavellian.” This power bloc bought its time and easily overthrew the remainder of the Maoist forces, the Gang of Four, after Mao’s death in 1976. 

In line with its trashy, sensationalist tone, the film focuses on the alleged coup against Mao. This is part of the police narrative generated against Lin Biao by the regime after his death. Whether Lin Biao launched a coup or not will probably never be known for sure. However, the narrative generated after Lin Biao’s fall has little credibility. Part of the police paradigm, the continual re-writing of history to suit the current needs of the leadership inevitably casts doubt on the credibility of any regime. This is not only true when looking at the official Lin Biao or Gang of Four narratives, which are almost identical, it is also true when looking at the narratives of the fall of revisionists. The film correctly points out that the fall of Lin Biao cast doubt on the Cultural Revolution itself. 

In line with Chinese revisionist and Western, anti-communist narratives, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping are portrayed as the moderates who save the day after the chaos caused during the height of the Cultural Revolution. Nixon’s arrival in 1972 was “the beginning of a new era for China.” The film correctly portrays Mao Zedong as supporting the Zhou-Deng group and the Gang of Four in the 1970s even as those two power blocs fought each other. The film states that by the time of their overthrow, the Gang of Four were not very popular. This reflects that the Chinese masses had grown depoliticized and demoralized by their fall.

Mao Declassified commits every typical error found in bourgeois narratives of the Cultural Revolution within the first few minutes. From there, it goes downhill. Informed by the great man theory, the account is orientalist, sensationalist and gossipy. Watching it has the feel of reading a romance novel. Typical for the History Channel.

*

MSH: The other 9/11, brief thoughts on Chile, Amerika and China

The other 9/11, brief thoughts on Chile, Amerika and China

by Prairie Fire

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

 

9/11 is a day that will live in infamy, but not because of the attacks on the US that killed over 3,000 people. It is less well known is that September 11th is the anniversary of the overthrow of the elected government of Salvador Allende by general Agusto Pinochet’s CIA-backed forces in Chile. The coup in Chile led to a bloody US-sponsored dictatorship that lasted from 1973 until, roughly, 1990. Like the Pinochet period, the post-Pinochet period is characterized by comprador politics. However, comprador rule in Chile today is not as heavy handed, crass and overt as it was under Pinochet. Certainly more people died at the hands of Pinochet, as a result of US policy in Chile, than died in the attacks against the US in 2001. Certainly more died at the hands of the brutal military and police dictatorship, died at the hands of death squads, and died by the structural violence of capitalism-imperialism than died in the New York attacks. Yet Amerikans get teary eyed over the latter, not the former. Amerika’s reaction to 9/11, once again reflects that Amerikans, generally speaking, do not value the lives of people in the Third World. The coup in Chile was just one more crime in a century of crimes perpetuated against the peoples of Latin America and the Third World by the US. The death toll of US imperialism runs into the billions. By comparison, the few thousand who died in the 2001 attacks are a drop in the ocean. 

 

Even though the government of Salvador Allende leaned toward the Soviet Union, having pro-Soviet regimes in Latin America was preferable to the traditional domination by Western imperialism, especially US imperialism. In addition, some of the Soviet-leaning forces in Latin America had a popular and progressive character. Since Europe destroyed itself in World War 2, Europe could no longer hold onto its colonies in the Third World. The US largely took over the management of Europe’s colonies. Thus the old European colonialism was replaced by US neocolonialism. The US reached such imperial heights that nearly the entire US population, including the US working class, became exploiters of the Third World. For almost all of the post-World War 2 period, overall Soviet strength never really matched US strength.

 

At the time of the 1973 coup in Chile, China was headed down the road of restoring capitalism. When Mao was moving toward the US and meeting with Henry Kissinger, Lin Biao’s generals were turning up the rhetorical heat on the US. Thus there seems to have been  a two-line struggle within the Chinese Communist Party. Lin Biao’s policy dominated the Communist Party from 1965 to 1970. Lin Biao’s policy of fighting imperialism as a whole and supporting national liberation struggles began being criticized in Zhou Enlai’s Foreign Ministry as ultra-left. What replaced Lin Biao’s line was an incorrect line that targeted the Soviet Union as the supposed main threat to the world. The new line mainly sought allies against the Soviet Union amongst the comprador states of the Third World as opposed to national liberation and revolutionary forces. Thus China moved away from supporting local people’s war as part of a global people’s war. Even worse, the new line identified Europe and other Western imperialists as potential allies, middle forces, in China’s struggle against the Soviet Union. And, eventually, the US itself became a de facto ally of China — although this fact was left unspoken, even if it was hinted at, in the Chinese press. This new line was reflected in China’s response to Chile’s 9/11. China went from being a base area of the global people’s war in the late 1960s to being one of the first regimes to recognize the CIA-backed Pinochet dictatorship. China’s new line had devastating effects on the proletarian movement worldwide, sending the world revolution into confusion and demoralization. Ironically, one of the reasons that China broke from Khrushchev decades earlier was that Khrushchev was too pro-US. And, decades later, the China of the post-Lin Biao period would become even more accommodating to Western imperialism. The architects of this new Mao-supported line had been people like Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping, both capitalist roaders. Anti-Maoists like Deng would complete the restoration of capitalism after Mao’s death and the defeat of the Gang of Four in 1976. It is a failing of the Maoist movement that it never had the political courage to confront the errors of the Mao era, including the errors of Mao and the errors surrounding the power struggles involving Lin Biao. The communist movement still has lessons to be learned from the other 9/11.

Pigs deny Ward Churchill job and damages

Pigs deny Ward Churchill job and damages

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

 

In a recent ruling Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves ruled against Ward Churchill’s request to be reinstated to Colorado University and against financial damages. This ruling is a contrast to the jury verdict in April that concluded that Churchill was illegally removed from his position for his political beliefs. The ruling gives regents of the University a free hand to fire whomever they want for their political beliefs. Churchill’s attorney David Lane stated:

“It’s an extremely rare thing for a judge to throw out a jury verdict — that’s big, that doesn’t happen… Here it’s being done at the expense of the Constitution of the United States of America, and it’s really a tragedy. It sends the message to the public of, ‘Oh, jury verdicts. Who cares?’”

Churchill lost his job after attention was drawn to an essay that he had written following the 9/11 attacks. In his essay, Churchill called those who died in the twin towers “little Eichmanns.” Thus Churchill compared the technocrats who worked in the Trade Center maintaining the US empire with technocrats in Nazi Germany. Churchill’s point is hardly radical. Churchill’s point comes from the work of Hannah Arendt’s account of the trial of Adolph Eichmann. The Nazi bureaucrat Eichmann, according to Arendt, was a banal individual whose evil was not motivated by strong ideological beliefs, but rather by conformism and careerism.  The evil of empire is made possible by a large strata of ordinary people who contribute to the evil of the system by staffing its bureaucracy. Like the verdicts at Nuremberg, Churchill’s point is that “I was just doing my job, just following orders” is not an acceptable defense for evil. Like the leaders of empire, the functionaries of empire are also responsible for its crimes. There is collective responsibility for the crimes of empire that go beyond the small circle of ideologists and figureheads who make policy. 

 

The ruling is an unhappy ending to a long witch hunt. The ruling is a blow to academic freedom. 

 

Source: 

 

1. http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2009/jul/07/ward-churchill-job-university-colorado-boulder/

CP of India (Maoist) falls short of breaking with revisionism in Nepal.. Our response: Put politics in command.

 

CP of India (Maoist) falls short of breaking with revisionism in Nepal.. Our response: Put politics in command. 

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

 

An open letter has been written from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).  Like previous documents from the CPI(M) to the U/CPN(M), the new document lists several textbook revisionist lines adopted by Prachanda’s clique, but the CPI(M) falls just short of breaking their ties with revisionism in Nepal. The document by the CPI(M) is mostly correct in its criticisms even if it makes an opportunist error by failing to put politics fully in command. We are glad to see that we are not alone in pointing out the revisionism of the Prachanda clique.

 

On the ABCs of Marxism

 

The Indian document restates the ABCs of Marxism against Prachanda’s textbook revisionism: 

“[I]n the name of struggle against dogmatism, there have been serious deviations in the International Communist Movement (ICM), often going into an even greater, or at least equally dangerous, abyss of right deviation and revisionism. In the name of creative application of Marxism, communist parties have fallen into the trap of right opportunism, bourgeois pluralist Euro-Communism, rabid anti-Stalinism, anarchist post-modernism and outright revisionism.” (1) 

“After witnessing the full flowering of the concept of prachanda path one thing has now become clear to the Maoist revolutionaries everywhere: Lenin and Mao had indeed become an obstacle to Prachanda and the CPN(M) for carrying out their reformist, right opportunist formulations. They needed to discard the Leninist concept of state and revolution, and imperialism and proletarian revolution. They needed to throw overboard Mao’s theory of new democracy and two stages of revolution in semi-colonial semi-feudal countries, and to replace the path of PPW with an eclectic combination or fusion of people’s war and insurrection, and finally pursue the same old revisionist line put forth by the CPSU under Khrushchov against which comrade Mao had fought relentlessly. Prachanda path had finally turned out to be a theory that negates the fundamental teachings of Lenin and Mao and the essence of prachanda path is seen to be no different from the Khrushchovite thesis of peaceful transition.” (2)

“This peaceful path of com Prachanda has already led the Party and the PLA into a dark tunnel.” (3)

 Thus the Indian document echoes the criticisms that we’ve made for years. We wrote: 

“Prachanda’s organization flaunted their tossing of the ABCs of Marxism for years. It would be one thing had Prachanda developed the ABCs of Marxism in a revolutionary way. However, this is not the case. Prachanda’s revisionists tossed Lenin’s teaching on the state, dual power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They embraced the theory of productive forces. They tossed the Maoist teaching on people’s war. They rejected Lin Biao’s global people’s war line; instead, they sought a settlement with the imperialists. They tossed cultural revolution for multi-party democracy. Prachanda’s organization put forward run-of-the-mill revisionisms of almost every variety. Prachanda advanced well known reactionary lines that are associated with revisionists like Kautsky, Liu Shaoqi, and even Trotsky. For years, Prachanda cozied up with the imperialists and their institutions such as the World Bank. ”  (4)

“Either Prachanda has found a new way to socialism or he hasn’t. If Prachanda’s fans had any courage,or brains, they would openly admit that Prachanda’s course contradicts what has heretofore been regarded as core, universal lessons of the 20th Century revolutionary experience. Rather than obfuscating in eclectics, the fans should admit that Lenin’s teachings on the state are not universal. They should admit to Prachanda’s novel contribution of extending the label ‘New Democracy’ to cover everything under the sun. They should admit that they have abandoned the legacy of the Cultural Revolution in all but its ’spirit.’ They should admit that they have abandoned people’s war as the principal means to ascend to power. And, in practice, to abandon people’s war as a principal means is to abandon it as a means at all. Such is the logic of mobilization, of a war footing. People’s war must be carried through to the end, or it isn’t carried through at all..” (5)

Although many in our movement held that all member organizations of the RIM were revisionist for over a decade. We officially repudiated the entire Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) as revisionists around 2005 or 2006. Our repudiation of the RIM and all its member organizations as revisionist was mostly based on the RIM’s First Worldism and crypto-Trotskyism. We went on to further identify textbook revisionisms within Prachanda’s party  after the Seven Party Agreement (SPA) became available. Prior to the SPA, we had maintained that even though Prachanda’s group was revisionist, they were still landing blows against imperialism, comprador capitalism and feudalism. Thus they fell within the broad united front against imperialism, even though they were revisionists. However, the SPA agreement and the actions of Prachanda’s party at that time showed not only that they were textbook revisionists who deviated from the ABCs of Marxism, but Prachanda’s clique had ceased to be a member of the united front. We concluded this because when the Prachanda clique began imprisoning and decomissioning the PLA, dismanteling the dual power of the people’s state, and returning land, Prachanda’s group had crossed over from landing blows against imperialism, compradorism and feudalism to aiding imperialism, compradorism and feudalism. In other words, they shifted from being agents of New Democracy and proletarian power to being agents reversing New Democracy and proletarian power. Prachanda’s group tried to justify their course of actions by saying that they were still fighting the monarchy and that this justified their reversals. However, as we pointed out at the time, fighting the monarchy and fighting feudalism as a mode of production are two different things. This last point was one that the CPI(M) also made around the same time. What it really came down to was that the U/CPN(M) was embarking on a counter-revolutionary path that placed them far outside the united front, and they and their supporters threw up a bunch of smoke and mirrors to try to justify this turn. Even now, they and their supporters justify every revisionism under the sun in the name of “fighting dogmatism.” This is ridiculous because they and their supporters are the biggest dogmatists around, uncritically supporting First Worldism as they do even after First Worldism has been thoroughly exposed for over a quarter century now.  

 

On crypto-Trotskyism

 

What is especially interesting is that the Indian document critiques Prachanda’s crypto-Trotskyism: 

“[The U/CPN(M)] had made the formation of SASF [South Asia Soviet Federation] as a pre-condition for the victory of revolution in Nepal. This concept is similar to the Trotskyite concept of permanent revolution that denies the establishment of socialism in one country. Your Party document specifically mentioned that it is almost impossible to sustain the revolution in Nepal without a revolution in the entire sub-continent. The success of revolutions in India and other countries of South Asia has been made into a pre-condition for sustaining the revolution in Nepal. We think this too is a reason for the loss of conviction in advancing the revolution in Nepal to its final victory and, instead, taking the path of reconciliation and class compromise.” (6) 

Prachanda’s argument that socialism cannot be sustained in a single country is similar to  ideas developed in Bob Avakian’s Conquer The World. Bob Avakian’s claim is that “colonial and dependent” countries of the Third World cannot sustain socialist revolution without socialist revolution spreading outward, especially to the First World. In this view, the reason for this is that the productive forces of Third World countries are not advanced enough for socialist construction and, therefore, Third World countries need the help of First World countries to sustain socialist progress. The entire idea behind the RIM, as a fourth international, is to coordinate revolution on a global scale, between the First and Third Worlds. As the Indian document correctly points out, this kind of argument is orthodox Trotskyism. It is Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution, the basis of which is the Theory of Productive Forces. Maoist-Third Worldists, our predecessors, and similar groups have struggled against crypto-Trotskyism for decades. In the US, people are so unaware of what real Maoism is that they think that groups like RCP(USA) are Maoist even though their whole outlook is orthodox Trotskyism. RCP(USA) first articulated its crypto-Trotskyism in a set of polemics against “Lin Biaoism” in the early 1980s. In these polemics, not only did RCP(USA) reject the Lin Biao’s righteous global people’s war, they also rejected the idea that people’s war is the mark of Marxism over revisionism as “Lin Biaoist.” (7) Very few stood up to repudiate Bob Avakian’s revisionist attacks on people’s war as “Lin Biaoism.” This was a major failing of the “Maoist” movement globally. A thorough critique of crypto-Trotskyism requires not only repuitating Prachanda, but also Bob Avakian. After all, Bob Avakian’s crypto-Trotskyism, by declaring Third World socialism dependent on the First World,  is much worse than Prachanda’s crypto-Trotskyism. Bob Avakian’s crypto-Trotskyism is outright social imperialism. Also, it is no accident that alongside crypto-Trotskyism, both Prachanda and Bob Avakian tolerate the rejection of Stalin. 

 

On proletarian internationalism

 

The document also criticizes Prachanda’s lack of proletarian internationalism: 

“Another serious deviation in the leadership of CPN(M) lies in its abandoning the principle of proletarian internationalism, shelving the CCOMPOSA and the fight against Indian expansionism and US imperialism, adopting a totally nationalistic approach and sheer pragmatism in dealing with other countries and Parties. We can describe this trend as Left nationalism or radical nationalism displayed by the bourgeois class during its incipient stage of development. That is, nationalism of the national bourgeois class. Comrade Prachanda obliterates class content and class perspective, mixes up bourgeois democracy with people’s democracy and justifies all opportunist alliances as being in the interests of Nepal. When any tactic is divorced from our strategic goal of New Democratic Revolution it ends in opportunism.” (8)

“It is a great paradox that a Maoist-led government has not even ventured to severe its ties with the Zionist Israeli terrorist state particularly after its brutal blatant aggression of Gaza and the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians when governments such as those in Venezuela and Bolivia had dared to do so. Even more disgustful is the manner in which the CPN(M) leadership has been trying to get into the good books of the American imperialists. To curry favour with the American imperialists, a section of the CPN(M) leadership had even assured that it would remove the Maoist ‘tail’ from its Party name. It is high time the CPN(M) take a consistently anti-imperialist, anti-Indian expansionist approach and work to forge close, working relations with other forces worldwide to weaken imperialism and the reactionary forces.” (9) 

While the critique of Prachanda regarding proletarian internationalism is correct, the Indian document overestimates the possible unity between true communists and so-called Marxist-Leninist and Maoist parties worldwide: 

“This stand will not promote, but rather harm, the interests of Nepalese masses, undermine Nepal’s sovereignty in the long run, creates illusions on the reactionary parties in Nepal, and Indian expansionists outside. It undermines the need for a united struggle by ML parties world-wide against imperialism, particularly US imperialism.” (10)

The fact is that nearly every party today calling itself “Marxist-Leninist” and, even, “Maoist,” is revisionist. Many of them are socialist imperialist parties. There can be no strategic unity between the real revolutionary movement and the social imperialists posing as Marxists. Nearly every party calling itself “Marxist-Leninist” or “Maoist” upholds the false belief that the First World working class is an ally of the Third World. Again and again, our movement has proven that not only that there is no reasonable sense in which the First World working classes are exploited, but they are also arch-reactionary classes. They are enemies of the Third World and they are the social base of fascism in the First World. Those who uphold First Worldist revisionism will eventually end up lackeys of imperialism. Those who seek unity between the popular classes of the Third World and the reactionary classes of the First World are not Marxists, they collaborate with the enemy. They sell out the Third World to the First World. Those organizations that refuse to adopt Third Worldism (by this we DO NOT mean the reactionary Three Worlds Theory of the 1970s) are incapable of scientific analysis and cannot be consider Marxist. 

 

On Empire

 

The document correctly repudiates Prachanda’s concept of a globalized state as a new stage of imperialism: 

“The conclusion regarding globalised state goes against dialectics as it relegates inter-imperialist contradictions to the background and attempts to make imperialism as a whole into a homogeneous mass. This formulation was put forth for the first time by your Party towards the end of December 2006 after striking an alliance with the SPA. In fact, we can say that your 12-point agreement with the SPA, your decision to become part of the interim government sharing power with the comprador-feudal reactionary parties in Nepal, your participation in the elections to the Constituent Assembly and forming a government under your leadership once again with the reactionary forces, and theorizing on peaceful competition with these parties—all these had arisen from the above assessment of your Party regarding imperialism and the conclusion that it has assumed the form of a globalised state. It is only natural that such an assessment, similar to the thesis of ultra-imperialism proposed by Karl Kautsky in 1912 and which was laid bare by comrade Lenin, cannot but lead to the conclusion of a peaceful path and peaceful transition to people’s democracy and socialism. The fusion theory had ultimately led to the theory of peaceful transition! Now there is neither people’s war nor insurrection but peaceful competition with other Parliamentary parties for achieving power through elections!!” (11) 

The idea of a globalized state resembles the theory of Empire developed by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Their view is that a global empire made up of transnational structures has come to replace the nation-based imperialism. There are parallels between this type of view and Kautsky’s theory of ultra-imperialism. While these views are incorrect, it is true that imperialism has changed. 

 

The idea that imperialism is stagnant and must be the same today as it was in 1917 is a metaphysical one. The imperialists have learned from their mistakes. The imperialist world wars of the past nearly wiped capitalism off the map. The first world war saw the birth of the Soviet Union. The second world war was followed by the creation of proletarian dictatorship over a fourth of humanity in China, the birth of people’s democracies across Europe, and a wave of wars of national liberation throughout the Third World. Imperialists are not likely to engage in world wars that threaten the capitalist system itself anytime soon. Instead, inter-imperialilst conflict has been de-escalated since the fall of the Soviet Union. Revolutionary movements should not bet on significant inter-imperialist conflict in the current period. More and more, the world is one where the imperialist countries as a whole are set against the imperialized countries as whole; the First World is set against the Third World. The world situation should be seen as a global people’s war where the global city is pitted against the global countryside.   

 

The way forward

 

The Indian document states:

“[The UCPN(M)] should pull out the PLA from the UN-supervised barracks which are virtually like prisons for the fighters, reconstruct the organs of people’s revolutionary power at various levels, retake and consolidate the base areas, and expand the guerrilla war, and class and mass struggles throughout the country. “ (12)

We agree with the sentiment expressed in the Indian document that Prachanda ought return to the revolutionary path. However, asking Prachanda to return to the revolutionary path is as naive as expecting revisionists to stop being revisionists or capitalists to stop being capitalists. The CPI(M) falsely believes that there is a two-line struggle still being waged with the revisionists in Nepal. Prachanda and his followers are not merely right opportunists, their behavior is textbook revisionism. There is no question about this. Just because Prachanda’s party uses Mao as an icon and plays lip service to Maoism should not shield them from repudiation as revisionists. In fact, that they wrap their revisionism in Mao’s banner makes it all the more insidious. The CPI(M) should admit that they made a serious error in maintaining fraternal relations with a revisionist party for so long. Real Maoists are not afraid to admit when they have made errors.   

 

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) correctly points out that in this time of economic crisis, there needs to be a genuine communist pole in the world. (13) This is not a time to fudge revolutionary science. If there is to be a new wave of people’s wars, then communists must lead by example. If the Communist Party of India (Maoist) or another people’s war group in the Third World embraces Maoism-Third Worldism, shock waves will be sent throughout the proletarian struggle worldwide. A new, revolutionary pole and people’s wars will emerge. Communists must repudiate all forms of revisionism, especially First Worldism. Revisionism is revisionism. Politics must be put in command otherwise “Maoism” means nothing.

 

Monkey Smashes Heaven 

June 29, 2009  

 

Notes. 

 

1. Open Letter to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/indian-maoists-on-world-controversies-among-communists/

2. ibid.

3. ibid.

4. On Recent Revisionist Yapping on Nepal,  http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/on-recent-revisionist-yapping-on-nepal/

5. Prairie Fire. Prachanda wins. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is dead, Maoism-Third Worldism lives http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/prachanda-wins-marxism-leninism-maoism-is-dead/

6. Open Letter to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) 

7. Bob Avakian. For a Harvest of Dragons. RCP Publications. USA:1983. p 150-151. “ ….to cling to at least aspects of Lin Biao-ism. Lin Biao was a top leader of the communist Party of China in the 1960s and he is associated with the line of singling out U.S. imperialism for a common onslaught from the “third world,” with simultaneous national liberation wars defeating U.S. imperialism throughout the “third world,” and even possibly destroying it altogether. His line (as expressed in a 1965 pamphlet [written by Lin Biao], Long Live The Victory of People’s War) represented the absolutizing of what was then the principal contradiction in the world (between oppressed nations and imperialism) — raising it out of context of world relations and contradictions in which it actually exists and treating it as a thing unto itself and virtually the only significant contradiction in the world. While recognizing the existence of revolutionary situations and favorable revolutionary prospects in many countries in the “third world” it exaggerated this into a tendency to treat the “third world” as an undifferentiated whole, ripe everywhere for revolution. Related to this, in upholding the importance of armed struggle as a necessary means for replacing the old order with the new and insisting on the fact that in many places in the “third world” it was possible and necessary to make armed struggle the main and immediate form of struggle — in opposition to the Soviet revisionist line that attempted to make economic development the main task in the “third world” neo-colonies — Lin Biao’s line exaggerated this to a point of virtually insisting that everywhere in the “third world” revolutionary warfare could and must be launched right away (in Long Live the victory, whether one dares to wage a people’s war is made the touchstone of distinguishing Marxism-Leninism from revisionism). As part of this whole line, the objective fact that the proletarian revolution had been delayed in the imperialist countries and that there was as yet no proletarian revolutionary movement there was absolutized, so that the prospect of such revolution in the imperialist countries was all but dismissed…
…But to attempt to cling to Lin Biaoism in the world situation of today, with all its profound changes since the 1960s, including the principal contradiction, can only have very serious and disastrous consequences…”

8. Open Letter to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

9. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. ibid.

12. ibid

13. ibid.

 

***

The farce of july

Who are the real pirates? Amerikkkan imperialists threaten northern Korean ship

Who are the real pirates? Amerikkkan imperialists threaten northern Korean ship

(lossanpatricios.wordpress.com)

 

A US Navy destroyer is poised to intercept the northern Korean, cargo ship, the Kang Nam. The US is threatening to search the vessel in order to enforce sanctions placed on northern Korea by the UN. The US suspects the vessel of transporting arms. The northern Koreans have stated that it would regard an interception as an “act of war.”

 

According to so-called international law, if the Korean ship refuses a US search, the US destroyer is not allowed to board the ship. However, the US destroyer can “escort” the Korean ship to a port to be searched by the port authorities of that country. Singapore has stated that it will search the Korean vessel on behalf of the US. 

 

The Kang Nam is the first ship to be targeted by the US after UN sanctions adopted  were adopted recently.  The US has sought to provoke northern Korea since before the so-called Korean war that began in 1950, with hostilities temporarily halted since 1953 with the signing of an armistice. This latest threat by the imperialists is one in a long series of threats. Bullying of northern Korean sea commerce is yet another way that the imperialists seek to strangle the Korean people into submission. This latest threat against the Korean people reveals that it is the US and other imperialists who are the real pirates on the high seas. 

 

Maoists-Third Worldists stand for the right of the northern Korean state to conduct commerce without imperialist meddling. Maoist-Third Worldists stand against imperialist intervention and attacks on Third World peoples. The UN sanctions are nothing more than thinly veiled piracy. Northern Korea’s Rodong Sinmum reportedly stated defiantly, “If they point a gun at us, we will get back with a cannon. If they point a cannon, we will point missiles and for sanctions, we will give them revenge. Getting back with a nuclear weapon for a nuclear weapon is what we do.” 

 

Sources

 

http://tothecenter.com/news.php?readmore=10205 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE55J1GB20090621

MSH: Chorus of Imperialists and lackeys attack Third World right to self-defense

Chorus of Imperialists and lackeys attack Third World right to self-defense

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

 

Recently, northern Korea claimed that it conducted an underground nuclear test. According to Russian officials, the bomb that was tested was comparable to those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 10 to 20 kiloton yield of the bomb was greater than Korea’s test in 2006. 

 

Predictably, a chorus of imperialists and their lackeys denounced the tests. Barack Obama declared that the test was in “blatant defiance” of resolutions limiting such tests. Gordon Brown condemned Korea as a “danger to the world.” Russia too condemned the test a “a serious blow to international efforts” to prevent nuclear proliferation. Even China opposed the test. The French said they would push for more sanctions. “I sincerely hope that the Security Council will take necessary corresponding measures,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.  (1) In addition, the revisionist CP(U$A) joined the imperialist chorus. (2) 

 

One voice standing up for self-determination for Third World nations was Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi. He stated that North Korea’s nuclear test was a Korean “internal affair.” He refused to condemn this test. Iran’s defense of Korea’s self-determination and right to self-defense comes amid threats against the Islamic Republic for its own nuclear  and missile programs. (3)

 

U$ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “A nuclear-armed Iran with a deliverable weapons system is going to spark an arms race in the Middle East and the greater region. That is not going to be in the interests of Iranian security and we believe that we have a very strong case to make for that.” (4) Thus Clinton voices the long standing imperialist attacks on the Islamic Republic. Such imperialist attacks against the Iran’s nuclear program have also long been echoed by imperialist puppets, such as the so-called “Maoists” in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. (5) 

 

It is the height of hypocrisy that the imperialists, who have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Earth many times over, condemn Third World peoples for defending themselves. Typically, the imperialists fail to mention that zero Amerikans have been killed by the Korean nuclear program. Yet 22,000 Koreans were killed when the U$ obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (6) In addition, the imperialists are the main source of instability the world over just as the imperialists are the biggest purveyor of arms in the world; imperialists are the greatest beneficiaries of arms races the world over. If any regional power is to be condemned in the Middle East for creating “instability” and an “arms race,” it is the nuclear-armed, Zionist entity of I$rael, not Iran. With a blank check from the U$, the nuclear-armed, Zionist entity has waged genocidal wars in the region since its inception. The imperialists are not concerned with the well-being of the Third World. The imperialist rhetoric is aimed at creating an on-going pretext for intervention and sanctions. 

 

Maoist-Third Worldists denounce imperialist meddling in the Third World. Maoist-Third Worldists uphold the right of self-determination and self-defense for Third World nations. Thus Korea is justified in its development of nuclear weapons.   

 

Notes.

 

1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090525/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear

2. http://pww.org/article/articleview/15770/

3. http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Iran/246531

4. http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-20-voa59.cfm

5. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/wyl/crypto/rcpusairansectiononnukes.html

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

MSH: Movie Review of China: A Century of Revolution Part 2, the Mao Years 1949 to 1976

Movie Review of China: A Century of Revolution Part 2, the Mao Years 1949 to 1976 (Directed by Sue Williams, Zeitgest Films, 1994) 

reviewed by Prairie Fire (monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

China: A Century of Revolution, The Mao Years, is part two of a three part, six hour, documentary directed by Sue Williams in 1994. This documentary is in the class of Morning Sun (Carma Hinton, Richard Gordon and Geremie R. Barmé, 2003) and Mao’s Bloody Revolution Revealed (with Philip Short, 2007). In fact, Mao’s Bloody Revolution Revealed (2007) borrows much of its narrative structure, to the point of plagiarism, from this earlier documentary. The interviewees include many of same individuals in Morning Sun (2003) and the Philip Short documentary (2007). This class of documentary film is far superior to sensationalist and trashy ones such as Mao Declassified (2006), which has recently been broadcast on the “History” Channel. Like other films in the genre, the rare footage makes the film worth watching. This film has rare scenes of Red Guards, and a rare recording by Jiang Qing instructing that Liu Shaoqi should “die the death of 1,000 cuts.” 

In the opening, the film touches on what it perceives as positive and ambiguous aspects in the immediate post-1949 period. 1949 was the year the People’s Republic as declared. Ge Yang, a Communist Party member, describes the immediate post-1949 period, “Communism meant political equality for everybody. The people would be masters of the country. That was the propaganda. People would have enough to eat and wear. Poverty would be a thing of the past.” Another quote, “Nearly half of all of China’s arible land was distributed to poor peasants.. Our life became better.” “Now it was the people who were the masters. They really liked that. Land and houses were taken from the landlords and given to them. People saw that they benefited, so they supported the Communist Party.” The narrator states of the land reform period, “Officials encouraged peasants to humiliate and beat their landlords… across China, hundreds of thousands of land lords were killed.” The film’s ambiguous attitude toward land reform was captured in the story of Li Maoxui, son of a class enemy:

“It was feirce. The whole villiage, hundreds of people came, beating drums. They dragged me to the meeting ground and wanted to beat me. I said don’t hit me. I know my family has exploited the people for generations. I’ll give you my house, land, everything. After they discussed it, they labeled me an enlightened son of a landlord family. They let me keep my house. Although there wasn’t much left in it. But in fact, I did well. Many people died.”

Despite the impression left by the film, the land reform movement was one of the most liberating events in all of history. Nearly a quarter of the world’s population stood up and broke the chains of feudalism. Many were able to live with dignity for the first time. The feudal fetters on development were removed. The cycles of starvation were finally broken in China, saving countless lives. Health and sanitation practices were implemented, also, saving untold millions from disease. The violence that the masses inflicted upon class enemies pales in comparrison to the violence that would have resulted had the old system continued.These important facts are mostly ignored. 

To its credit, the film praises advances in gender relations. Li Xiuying reports, “Before liberation women had to do whatever they were told. They had no rights. There were three obdencies and four virtues: obedience to father before marriage, to husband after marriage, and to your son after your husband dies. You had no rights at all.” Also, Ge Yang, a Communist Party member reports, “Marriages arranged by parents or matchmakers were stopped. Women could marry the men they loved. So they were very happy.” The film comments that the first legislation after 1949 was to grant women equal political rights. A quarter of the world’s women went from feudal oppression to full citizenship, having democratic rights. Thus, the Chinese revolution should be seen as the single greatest feminist advance in history. However, the film goes downhill from here.

Like similar documentaries, China: A Century of Revolution’s (1994) casts a negative shadow on socialism overall. This negativity does not approach the level of “Mao’s China=hell on Earth.” The same criticisms of Mao’s Bloody Revolution Revealed (2007) can be made ofChina: A Century of Revolution (1994). The film does not even attempt to understand the Mao years from the point of view of the Maoists. The conflicts of those years are not explained as struggles between antagonistic classes, proletarian and capitalist. The narrative does not explain events in terms of two different futures for China: a socialist one and its current capitalist one. Instead, according to the bourgeois narrative, the events of the Mao era are a result of Mao’s personal quest for power and his attempts to impose a utopian fantasy on the reluctant people of China. If there are any heroes in this bourgeois narrative, then they are Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, who try to rescue China from Mao’s whims. In the bourgeois narrative the leaders are above sociological forces. This film is yet another version of the great man theory of history. In this bourgeois narrative, history is not the result of contradictions and power struggles between sociological forces. Rather, in the film’s bourgeois account, explanation ends with great men, in this case, the top leaders in the Chinese Communist Party. In the film’s bourgeois narrative, why leaders act as they do is either a function of their psychology, or is a complete mystery. Contrary to the idealist view found in China: A Century of Revolution (1994), the scientific view of history is materialist. In the materialist approach social evolution is a result of contradictions between sociological forces. And, historical materialism is scientific because it provides greater predictive and explanatory power. 

The film relies heavily on anecdotes, mostly from those who were allegedly persecuted in some way during the Mao years. Rather than a scientific analysis of the events, the viewer is witness to a series of personal stories, mostly horrific recollections of violence during the Cultural Revolution or famine during the Great Leap Forward. The film estimates that 30 million died during the Great Leap Forward and 400,000 died during the Cultural Revolution. The figures used in the film are  conjectures turned into imperialist propaganda. (1) (2) Nonetheless, the film presents them as facts. At the same time, the film ignores the indisputable advances made during the Mao years. For example, life expectancy doubled in the Mao years, reaching nearly Western levels. (3) Infant mortality dropped significantly. (4) Industrialization has always been a violent process. For example, modern capitalism in the United States was accompanied by industrial slavery in the South and a continental genocide. Massive man-made famines in Europe, especially Ireland, caused migration to North America, ensuring a cheap labor pool at the expense of human life. Whatever violence accompanied China’s democratic revolution and industrialization was, all and all, far less than that which accompanied the birth of Western capitalism. In addition, the figures for Cultural Revolution deaths, besides being made-up, is de-contextualized. The narrative paints a picture where the majority of the dead are “moderates” and those who opposed the Cultural Revolution. The image in the film is one where these victims die by the hands of Maoist mobs. This is a complete distortion of reality. Many of the deaths of the Cultural Revolution were not at the hands of Maoist mass movements as the film implies. Many deaths were a result of confrontations that involved the army or state apparatus being used against the mass movements. The mass movements were the ones on the receiving end of the violence more often then not. Rebel students and workers were often severely repressed. Massacres occurred, especially in the provinces where the PLA was not under Maoist control. (5) This context is lost in the film’s biased parade of anecdotes.

The film glosses over the line struggles within the Maoist left. Instead, loyal to the film’s unscientific approach, every twist and turn during the Cultural Revolution is presented merely as Mao’s whim or as a complete mystery. The only exception to this is the line struggle between Mao, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and Chen Yi versus Lin Biao on foreign policy. The film correctly identifies this as one of the reasons for the conflict between Mao and Lin Biao. Mao and Zhou Enlai’s group favored opening up to the United States, Lin Biao opposed reconciliation. However, the film does a disservice by not addressing other conflicts leading to Lin Biao’s demise: the struggle over agricultural policy, the militarization of society, and, the continued conflict between Lin Biao versus Zhou Enlai and the Adverse Current, the right wing of the PLA. (6)

The film juxtaposes the leftist mass movements of 1967 and the counter-revolutionary demonstration against the Gang of Four on the 5th of April, 1976. On the Qingming festival to honor the dead, a memorial to Zhou Enlai turned into a political protest against the Maoist left. By 1976, the Maoists did not have a vibrant, spontaneous mass movement to challenge revisionism in the streets. Jiang Qing ordered the demonstration at Tiananmen square broken up by the militia. The film accurately captures the shift in public opinion that occurred between the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and the last years of Mao’s life in the 1970s. By the 1970s, the gains of the Cultural Revolution were threatened. Without a Maoist “street” movement from below and without the PLA under Lin Biao’s command at the center, in Maoist hands, there was little hope of a repetition of the kind of power seizures witnessed in 1967 and 1968. With little support, the remaining left had little chance of victory after Mao’s death. Unfortunately, this level of analysis is absent from the movie. 

China: A Century of Revolution (1994) is one of the better bourgeois film portrayals of the Cultural Revolution. Yet it suffers from the standard problems of bourgeois historical analysis. Films like Morning Sun (2003), Mao’s Bloody Revolution Revealed (2007) and China: A Century of Revolution (1994), are the best that can be expected within the framework of bourgeois history. These films are informed by academic sensibilities, so they are more sophisticated than films such as Mao Declassified (2006) with its “Mao’s China=Hell on Earth” narrative. 

Notes. 

1. Ball, Joseph. Did Mao really kill millions in the Great Leap Forward? http://www.re-evaluationmao.org/didmaokill.htm
2. MC5. Myths About Maoism. http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/mythsofmao.html
3. ibid.
4. MIM. World Bank on Infant and Child Mortality. http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/infant.html
5. Meisner, Maurice. Mao’s China and After. Free Press. USA: 1986.

6. Prairie Fire. Two Roads Defeated Part 2. Monkey Smashes Heaven. September 17, 2008. http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/two-roads-not-taken-part-2-of-3-still-under-revision/

*

Also see: Two Roads Defeated part 1; Two Roads Defeated part 2; Two Roads Defeated part 3; Mao Declassified; Some of Us reviewed (Part 1); Some of Us reviewed (Part 2);Some of Us reviewed (Part3); A Maoist-Third Worldist Review of Mobo Gao, The Battle for China’s Past; In memory of the great Lenin..; Some lines within the CCP in the Maoist period; Shubel Morgan video On the Theory of Productive Forces; The Essence of “Theory of Productive Forces” Is to Oppose Proletarian Revolution; The Lin Biao Centennial, hooray!; Lin Biao excerpt on the TOPF with important commentary by Prairie Fire; Mao’s Bloody Revolution Revealed (with Philip Short, 2007); Really supporting the GPCR vs. Opportunist Yapping;Morning Sun (2003, Carma Hinton, Richard Gordon and Geremie R. Barmé); Shubel Morgan’s Series On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces”, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of Productive Forces,” part 1, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of Productive Forces,” part 2, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” Part 3, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” part 4 (and video in English), Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” Part 5a, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” Part 5b, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” Part 5c, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” Part 6a, Shubel Morgan: On “On the Theory of the Productive Forces,” Part 6b, Red Salute to Lin Biao!

MSH: Kim dynasty has new heir apparent

 

Kim dynasty has new heir apparent

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

 

The media is reporting that the northern Korean leadership has designated a successor to Kim Jong-il, the current supreme leader. According to reports, the regime is now pledging alliance to Kim Jong-un, youngest son of Kim Jong-il. Before Kim Jong-un was designated, the mantle was supposed to be passed to his brother Kim Jong-nam. The latter blew his chances in an embarrassing incident: he was arrested in Japan for trying to enter with a false passport from the Dominican Republic and a couple of floozies in tow. If the latest reports are true, then this will be the second time that the position of supreme leader in northern Korea has passed from father to son.  Just as Kim Jong-un seems to be inheriting the position of future supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, the current supreme leader, inherited his position from his father Kim il-Sung.  

 

It’s clear that a Kim dynasty controls the government of northern Korea. Not only has every supreme leader since the liberation of the northern half of Korea been in Kim Il-sung’s male line, but the mothers of his successors are also venerated. Kim il-Sung, who founded the dynasty, was regularly referred to as “father” in the northern Korean media. 

 

The patriarchal dynasty that exists in northern Korea is not socialism, rather such is a trait of revisionism. Dynastic succession, historically, has been associated mostly with feudal traditions, although it is also widespread under capitalism. Like the northern Korean state, the Cuban state too, has kept the top leadership position within a single family. When Fidel Castro became incapacitated, his brother  Raúl Castro inherited his position as top leader. Such dynastic succession in Cuba is ironic since Fidel Castro once criticized Mao’s personality cult as feudalistic. During the Cultural Revolution familial nepotism was criticized as revisionist, even though Mao himself was guilty of it to a certain extent. 

 

Socialist societies never developed adequate methods to transfer power. The death of top leaders in socialist societies provided big openings for revisionists to take power. Proletarian politics and skills should be the basis for appointing socialist leaders and familial ties should not be a factor. In addition, future socialist societies will need to find ways of consolidating proletarian power that do not rely on the personal power of a top leader. Such power is inherently unstable and fleeting. Throughout the socialist period, there will never be a way to screen out all revisionists from holding positions of power. This is because the inequalities and imbalances within socialism are the very source of revisionism. Instead of focusing on individual realm in weeding out revisionism, it is more important to focus on the structural and ideological realms. Emphasis should be placed on fighting the social basis of revisionism itself in order to drain the pool that spawns the new capitalist class. And, widespread political education should be emphasized in order so that when revisionist policies are implemented, they provoke widespread revolt by the populace. These are lessons we ought take from the Cultural Revolution.   

 

*

 

Also see:  More revisionism in Nepal.. Juche endorsed as a “road to socialism”

Chevron kills indigenous peoples, may have to pay up

Chevron kills indigenous peoples, may have to pay up

 

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

 

Located above a shopping center, a court in a small city in Ecuador may send an earthquake through the oil industry.  Chevron may be forced to pay up to 27 billion in damages to “los affecteados,” or “the affected ones,” indigenous peoples in Ecuador who claim that Amerika’s third largest company poisoned their communities, and destroyed their environment and way of life. This may be the largest environmental lawsuit in history. If the Ecuadorean people prevail, the Amerikan oil giant could be required to pay claims equal to about a third of Ecuador’s GDP. Ecuador is a exploited nation with 40.8 % of Ecuador’s population living on less than 2$ a day. If the Ecuadoreans win, most of the 27 billion will go to clean up. However, some claim that 27 billion is a lowball figure and that it won’t even cover all the cleanup costs.  The ruling is expected soon.

 

A little history: Beginning in the 1960s, Texaco, then partnered with Ecuador’s national oil company, began to pump oil out of Ecuador. Texaco pumped out a total of one and a half billion barrels of oil over a twenty three year period.  Texaco drilled hundreds of wells. Along with the wells, Texaco created thousands of pits that were supposedly meant to hold toxic waste generated as a side effect of drilling.  When Texaco pulled out of Ecuador, it left thousands of toxic waste pits unattended and degenerating for 30 years. Some of the pits were even designed to flood into local water supplies. According to one expert, Texaco “treated Ecuador like a trash heap.” Later, Chevron acquired Texaco. 

 

Chevron is doing everything it can to avoid paying for its crimes. In Ecuador, they are running a media campaign against the victims. And, in a blatant effort to blackmail the government of Ecuador, Chevron is pushing the U$ trade representative’s office to strip Ecuador of a range of trade preferences.  Thus Chevron wants the U$ to disrupt the Ecuadorean economy if the ruling goes against the oil giant. 

 

Is it any surprise that indigenous peoples of Ecuador are poisoned so that Amerikans can have their car centered leisure culture?  Third Worlders are poisoned to the benefit of First Worlders. It’s simple cause and effect, and Chevron is the middleman. The surprise here is that the indigenous people have managed to get as far as they have within the bourgeois legal system. However, even if they win, the damage has already been done to the Amazon and the people who live there. Only socialism can put an end to corporate and First World violence against humanity. Unless the masses of the world rise up to radically reshape the world,  corporations like Union Carbide in Bhopal, India or Chevron in Ecuador will continue to destroy human lives and our planet. 

 

Sources.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914867284999153.html

 

http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/24.html

 

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ec.html

 

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/05/video-60-minutes-challenges-chevron-on-ecuador-oil-mess/