[Marxism] Maoism and the Democratic Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It has been a while since the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) has shown up on my radar screen. When Stan Goff was a member, I paid a lot more attention to it since I had a high regard for Stan. When he dropped out with an open letter disavowing Marxism, I pretty much lost interest. I should add that there are actually two FRSO’s. The one that Stan was involved with calls itself Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Refoundation) while the other FRSO is called “Fightback”. Neither group uses the qualifier in referring to itself. The split occurred in 1999 over the “refoundation” business that appeared to overlap to some extent with broader moves to break with sectarianism on the left. With all proportions guarded, the split is reminiscent of the split in the CPUSA with the Committees of Correspondence offering up its own kind of “refoundation” thinking and the Gus Hall faction upholding “orthodoxy”, as laughable as that seems to someone outside their ranks. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/maoists-and-the-democratic-party/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] "Maoism" in India.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Artesian asks the right questions, (1) was the derailment deliberate; (2) who did it. It seems clear, from most independent reporting, that the derailment was deliberate. The most important question is who did it. There is disagreement on the part of the government. The Home Minister says that the track was damaged (fish plates removed), so that this was sabotage. The Rail Minister says that the track was blown up, and that TNT was found by it. The Finance Minister says that it is not clear what has happened. Why have I jumped to the conclusion that it is the ³Maoists²? Since 2006, the ³Maoists² have been attacking the trains. The Press Trust of India made a list: Apr 22, 2006 - Maoists lay siege to a passenger train in Latehar for eight hours. May 2008 - Maoists lay siege to a passenger train in Latehar for five hours. Nov, 2009 - Maoists blow up railway tracks in Simdega district in Jharkhand derailing a passenger train killing two persons and injuring 38 people. October 27, 2009 - Maoists detain Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express for eight hours during a bandh called by the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA). May 19, 2010 - Maoists trigger landmine blast on railway tracks near Jhargram in West Midnapore district injuring two drivers of a goods train and leaving the engine damaged. May 20, 2010 - Fourteen oil tankers of a goods train derail and catch fire after Maoists blow up railway lines between Dighwara and Pipra stations in Bihar under Muzaffarpur-Narkatiyaganj section of East Central Railway. May 22, 2010 - Two persons, including a policeman, travelling in the Tatanagar-bound Steel Express, injured in crossfire between Maoists and joint forces at Banstala station in West Midnapore district. They have a history of such attacks. It is likely that this is them. The Police has said that there were posters found at the scene. This can easily be a fabrication. Hard to say from just this. It is the history and the tactic that is much more clarifying, as is the intensification of attacks by the ³Maoists.² Vijay. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] "Maoism" in India.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Are we sure that: 1) the derailment was deliberately engineered? and 2) that if deliberately engineered, engineered by those whom the government claims engineered it? Derailing a moving, occupied public, or private, civilian passenger train is just nuts. And there are more than enough nuts to go around outside the "officially designated" nuts of the Maoist party. - Original Message - From: "Vijay Prashad" Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] "Maoism" in India.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name The essay below is a response to the sabotage of the rail lines by the ³Maoist² party of India. For more on the recent attack on civilians, see http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article440190.ece?homepage=true. In 2009, the ³Maoists² killed 586 civilians. The number this year will easily exceed that. On the problems of Indian Maoism, see Dilip Simeon¹s very fine essay from March 2010, http://www.india-seminar.com/2010/607/607_dilip_simeon.htm. Vijay. >From "Maoism" to Open Terrorism? Srinivasan Ramani First they tried to assassinate the West Bengal chief minister through a land mine blast. Then they tried to create a liberated zone and murdered political opponents. Then they started killing some of "their own sympathisers". Now, near Jhargram, by deliberately targeting ordinary citizens (two posters of the Peoples' Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) were found in the derailment site) and killing 65 of them (as I write this) and injuring dozens of others, the Maoists and their front group - the PCAPA have killed the camel whose back they had already broken through loading several straws. Mere outrage is not enough. Justice can be served to the victims of this gruesome rail tragedy, only by making those responsible feel the brunt of the law. The PCAPA's leaders at large should be brought to justice. And any pretense of a talks based solution to the Maoist challenge in West Bengal should now be given up. And the Railway minister must resign. The lady has demonstrated a serial incompetence that was displayed in the handling of the motormen strike in Mumbai, her statements blaming the dead people themselves for a stampede in the New Delhi Railway Station, the repeated attacks on trains recently by the PCAPA and the Maoists etc, apart from the horrendous tragedy that was enacted yesterday night. And she and her partymen- the rabble rousing Kabir Suman in particular have openly colluded with the PCAPA and the Maoists in the near past, in their endeavour to take on the ruling government in West Bengal, by hook or crook. Her party is now answerable for this tragedy - a consequence of the PCAPA's activities, which were not merely condoned but also given political support in days not very much in the past. The United Progressive Alliance government is also answerable for this disaster -dithering, dilly-dallying, oneupmanship and crass Realpolitik had blinded the home minister to the political ways of his coalition partner from West Bengal. Lastly, those in the "civil society" who have condoned the Maoist/PCAPA activities in the near past, if they indeed have a capacity to retain their mental balance, should atleast now realise the futility of Maoist politics and its reduction to plain opportunism, violent, anarchic and irrational violence that kills the very people they claim to preponderantly represent. http://www.pragoti.org/node/3965 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Maoism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/15/2010 7:42 AM, Dan wrote:If by Maoism you mean adherence to Mao's doctrines and practices, then > Maoism is NOT Marxism or Communism. > > It is a great leap backwards to a feudal economy. > > To be sure, there is no more fetichism of the commodity, because > commodity production ceases to exist. You will know full well that x' > amount of your labour-time is due to the State and only x is given back > to you to enable you to reproduce your labour. No more mystification > created by commodity-production to veil the true source of value, i.e. > the labour power of society as a whole. > > You know from bitter experience that your labour is commensurable with > any other labour. You see the social relationship between each producer > in clear, undisguised form. > > But you are not living in a society of "free producers" as Marx imagines > in chap. 1, section 4, of Capital vol. 1. You are living in an despotic > mode of production. All your energies are geared towards not getting > shot and this means you will produce quite a lot of surplus-value above > the socially necessary labour time required to reproduce your labour > power. > > This surplus-value will be used by the PArty for its own purpouses, > mostly on bulding A-bombs (the cost of developping nuclear weapons in > China was staggering) and enlarging the army. > > Of course, I for one would soon be bludgeoned to death by a gang of > PAarty thugs, together with my wife and two young children. I just can't > keep my mouth shut. > Maoism isn't Marxism per se, it's a version of Marxism-Leninism reinterpreted and adapted to the context of post-colonial, semi-feudal China, governed by a strong central government. Also, Maoism once served as a uniting ideology for the overthrow of foreign control of China and a rejection of bourgeois nationalism as personified in Chan Kai-shek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek The social, political and economic systems that arose out of the communist victory in China and their revolution cannot be fairly characterized as communist in the sense that Marx and others envisioned it, I agree. But whatever their system is or was, it appears to be turning into full blown capitalism before our very eyes. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
