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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes 88                          May, 1994

MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.


IN THIS ISSUE:

1.  MIM TURNS 10!
2.  LETTERS
3.  FMLN LEADS THE WAY DOWN THE WRONG ROAD:
    MASSES LOSE IN SALVADORAN ELECTIONS
4.  BLACK NATION DAY CELEBRATED
5.  REPARATIONS FOR ROSEWOOD 
6.  JAPAN-U.S. CONFLICT STIRRING 
7.  JAPAN COMPARED TO EVIL EMPIRE?
8.  TEN YEARS OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
9.  MIM HISTORY: HOW IT ALL BEGAN
10. MIM'S MUST READ BOOKS
11. THANK YOU, RCP!
12. RCP STUDY PACK
13. COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN RWANDA 
14. AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM IN HAITI 
15. PCP RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS: 
    REVOLUTIONARY PARTY IS NOT ANTI-GAY
16. MIM HOSTS TALKS ABOUT REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN IN PERU
17. THE PAPER
18. NPA ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED

* * *

WHAT IS MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208


* * *

COMMUNISM IS ALIVE!
MAOISM THRIVES!
MIM TURNS 10!
MAY 1, 1994!

On International Workers Day 1994, we celebrate a decade and more 
of victories in the self-reliant people's wars of the Philippines 
and Peru--led by Maoist vanguard parties. We celebrate the current 
resurgence of the revolutionary Maoist science in the world. We 
celebrate the first 10 years of existence of the Maoist 
Internationalist Movement--born humbly in struggle on May 1, 1984.

We celebrate the just anti-imperialist and anti-militarist battles 
that have been waged in this decade by the masses of Somalia, 
Chiapas, Iraq, Azania, Los Angeles, Eritrea, Miami, Kurdistan, 
Bougainville, Haiti, Palestine, El Salvador, Nicaragua--to name 
but a few. 

We sympathize deeply with the masses of the ex-Soviet Union and 
China and Eastern Europe who are--once again--afflicted by 
capitalism, reactionary nationalism and corporate fascism. We 
acknowledge that World War Three has become the daily experience 
of 80% of the world's people--who live in the many nations 
deliberately under-developed and torn by imperialism, semi-
feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Imperialism means war. Forced labor, super-exploitation and the 
planned starvation of hundreds of millions are instruments of war 
and increasing genocide-for-profit. Destruction of the planet's 
ecosystem is an act of war. Monopoly of the world's media by the 
patriarchs on Madison Avenue is a frontal attack on the human 
spirit and a war on human culture. Cash-cropping is war. The 
profitable crushing of technological improvements of the means of 
production and distribution are forms of mass death banally 
calculated in corporate board rooms and departments of the state.

International usury, super-profits and the theft of raw materials 
are the spoils of war. The International Monetary Fund and the 
World Bank and the "non-governmental organizations" are pillaging 
war-machines in their own right. Amerika is war-crazed Babylon 
riding the many-colored consumer-beast as it fire-bombs the 
innocent from Waco, Texas to Bosnia to the Middle East to Central 
America and plants its evil nuclear seeds far beneath the seas and 
into orbits in outer space.

Despite the tactical prowess of the alternately competing and 
colluding European, Amerikan and Japanese monopolists--it is as 
true in 1994 as it has been in all of our history--that the power 
of groups over groups breeds successful resistance. As we 
celebrate the scientific advances in making and continuing the 
revolution brought forth by Mao Zedong and the great Chinese 
people from 1911 to 1976--we focus, in 1994, on the need for 
proletarian unity and the decisiveness of political line in the 
international communist movement, in accord with these relatively 
recent lessons.

We have tremendous strategic confidence in the ability of the 
earth's vast majority to shake off the clear and present danger to 
the very survival of our species: patriarchal capitalism. In the 
communist centuries to come, humanity will look back upon the 
present period of planet-wide war and universal destruction as but 
the birth pang of a truly social civilization--as but the primeval 
wail of a mass self-consciousness organizing itself while 
straining to break the chrysalis of commodity production.

MIM's vanguard contribution to this effort has been to make and 
promote a concrete class, nation and gender analysis of North 
American society as we work to build independent power of the 
oppressed and help to turn the old society into a new thing. If 
you want to become useful: join MIM and be a part of the future.

* * *

LETTERS:

Some criminals must be stopped

I enjoyed your post [MIM Notes 87 Crime Bill article] and agreed 
with much of it. However, there are some issues and ideological 
considerations you cannot or should not skip.

Granted, the broadly-defined aspects of this growing movement 
[anti-"crime" proto-fascism] covers too much, but there are some 
valid reasons for it beyond right-wing ideology. I've had 
experience in both probation (group counselor 5 years) and 
education. There are people who are dangerous, and they will do 
harm to others, regardless of social-economic class, ethnicity, or 
whatever. I've watched the same people leave institutions and 
return for the same or similar violent crimes, which are more 
often than not perpetrated against working class people. I just 
read yesterday about a client I knew years ago who's going to the 
joint for life. He blew the head off a woman who refused to give 
up her car.

I was nearly killed by a male juvenile about three weeks ago as I 
drove home from work on a freeway. The kid tossed a brick, a 
cinder block, from a freeway overpass. Had I not been trained as 
an interstate bus driver to "get the big picture," I would not 
have seen the kid or the brick. I would be dead or crippled, and 
others on the freeway with me would have suffered.

This kid got away, of course. Had he been arrested, he would have 
one strike. Two more acts of similar violence against others, 
regardless of class, would remove him for over 20 years in 
California. I have no problem with this. Every time I see the 
damage to my truck I think the brick could have and probably would 
have hit me. Whatever deep, underlying hostility caused this kid 
to "act out" his aggression may or may not have something to do 
with fascism and the repressive apparatus. A week ago on the same 
freeway another young man shot a woman in the face as she drove 
home from the airport. What we do know is that these guys will 
hurt others.

Violence is not a statistical abstraction for me. I work in center 
city L.A. and have dealt first-hand with gang violence. The last 
fight I broke up involved a knife and a gun. I have had students 
who stopped coming to school out of fear for their lives. I would 
probably do the same if I was in their shoes.

On the one hand, prisons are over-crowded. On the other, money's 
not going in the right direction. As for what is the right 
direction, I don't know, but I gather it would have something to 
do with eliminating the isolation and alienation throughout mass 
industrial, capitalist society.

I don't necessarily disagree with the boot camp idea, but I do 
disagree with its rigid, hierarchical structure. One thing we've 
learned about kids in trouble (whatever underlying cause may be 
involved), they do at times respond when placed in a highly-
structured environment with adult leadership, 3 meals a day, 
school, positive peer pressure, and physical activities. In fact, 
most kids in trouble are in trouble because they've had too little 
structure in their lives. Consistency in an environment is not a 
bad thing. Although, the military structure of what's planned is 
not the best track, I'm sure.

Nice post, anyway. Regards.

--L.A. Internet reader

MIM replies: Thank you for writing with your comments and 
criticisms. MIM is glad to see people thinking seriously about the 
injustice system, even when we don't agree with their conclusions.

Sure some people do bad things, but there are some big problems 
with your view:

1. Amerika has no right to pass judgment on those it has 
oppressed, no matter what "crimes" they have committed. In a just 
society, people who throw bricks off of overpasses will need to be 
struggled with and/or corrected. That does not make it right for 
Amerika to imprison that person today.

2. Imprisonment, the death penalty, etc., have been demonstrated 
over and over to do great harm to "criminals" while doing 
absolutely nothing to reduce violence, death, rape, etc., in 
capitalist society.

3. The people who run this society do much more damage to many 
more people than all the "criminals" in Amerika put together. They 
don't drop bricks, they drop nukes. They don't fight with knives 
and handguns, they fight with Napalm and cluster bombs. And, of 
course, the greatest crime of all is the imposition and 
enforcement of a system which systematically starves, enslaves, 
and otherwise oppresses billions of people worldwide.

The U.N. counts 800 million people as "chronically 
undernourished."(1) And that's just the very bottom. Who's going 
to hang for that?

Thanks again for writing.

Notes: 
1. AP 3/22/94.

Black nationalism not MIM turf

What I really would like to know is: what Black Nationalism has to 
do with MIM? [In response to MIM's articles on Farrakhan in MIM 
Notes 87.] When Marcus Garvey (considered by many African 
Americans to be one of the founding fathers of Black Nationalism) 
was alive, he had many debates with avowed communists. In fact, 
Garvey hated them because he felt they would use the black masses 
for nebulous causes which have no relevance to our community--like 
some white liberals do today. ...

Who cares what MIM thinks? They are far removed from anything 
which has any relevance to the Black Community in the U.S. anyway. 
That's why Garvey didn't like the bullshit communists who tried to 
align themselves with our community in the first place.

--Black Internet critic

MIM replies: Garvey was by no means the first Black nationalist. 
Nor is his view of communism decisive on the relationship between 
Black nationalism and communism. Black nationalism has to do with 
MIM the same thing it had to do with the Black Panther Party and 
other revolutionary Black communists and Maoists who understand 
the need for revolutionary nationalism in the struggle against 
imperialist national oppression.

Revolutionary nationalism, the national liberation struggle led by 
the proletariat of the oppressed nation in strategic alliance with 
other anti- imperialist classes, is crucial in the struggle for 
emancipation and the construction of a socialist society.

Find us some white liberals who say that. We agree that white 
liberalism has nothing to offer the oppressed.

The mostly Black southern chapters of the Communist Party, USA 
worked with Garvey supporters on anti-lynching campaigns in the 
early 1930s.(1) Garvey himself was not a communist, but many 
Blacks then--as now--were. But if you think MIM is removed from 
the Black nation, then you must not have been reading MIM Notes 
much. We urge you to subscribe, on e-mail or in print, and 
struggle with us more.

Notes: 
1. Robin Kelley, Hammer and Hoe, University of North Carolina 
Press, 1990. p. 81.

Are Israelis sub-human?

I am truly perplexed. [In response to MIM Notes 87 article on 
Hebron] I realize you are a Maoist organization and as such are 
for radical changes in society and against reformist measures that 
don't solve repression. I assume you are a humanist organization 
and believe in ultimate social harmony. Yet your views on the 
Palestinian-Israeli situation seem as strident and extreme as the 
Kach/Kahane views on the other side. They are "purists" whose ears 
are closed to the rights of the Palestinians as people. Are you 
not the same as to the people who are Israelis? Are they wicked 
sub-humans? The "peace process" may be flawed, but what's your 
solution? Is it the same as the Israeli extremists, but for the 
other guys? All I hear from you and the extremists of the other 
side is uncompromising stridency. Is compromise and compassion for 
all people (even Jewish Israelis) so evil? When I pose this 
question to extremists on the other side I'm greeted with 
contempt, anger and inflexibility. I'm hoping for a more reasoned 
response from you. Thanks. 

--West Coast reader

MIM replies: Thank you for writing.

We are not against reformist measures that don't solve oppression. 
When reforms have good consequences, we support them. When reforms 
are bogus attempts at political pacification, we call them out. 
What are the good consequences of the non-peace non-agreement 
between Arafat and Israel?

We do believe in "ultimate social harmony" (by which we mean 
classless society with no oppression, otherwise known as 
communism) and see nothing in this agreement that moves us toward 
that goal.

Our solution begins with the national liberation of Palestinians, 
who are currently oppressed by Israel acting as agent for 
imperialism. National liberation means self-determination on their 
own land. Self-determination means no international economic, 
political or military domination. It does not mean a token police 
force on a strip of desert surrounded by hostile forces of 
occupation and dominated by a hegemonic economic power.

We do not think Israelis are all wicked sub-humans. Their society 
is using the force of imperialism to oppress another nation. To 
the extent that any Israelis oppose that oppression, in deeds as 
well as in words, then we welcome them into the community of 
humanity.


The Coalition Against U.S. Imperialism (CAUSI)

MIM recently received the following "Proposal for a Statement of 
Purpose for CAUSI" from some friends in the St. Louis area.

1. We oppose imperialist U.S. foreign policy and U.S. oppression 
of captive nations within U.S. borders.

2. We support the struggles for self-determination and 
independence of the oppressed peoples under U.S. dominance and 
rule.

3. We recognize the military, police, corporations, prisons, 
courts, FBI, CIA, NSC, and others as repressive institutions of 
the capitalist-imperialist state.

4. We want freedom for all political prisoners in U.S. jails.

5. We do not recognize the legitimacy of the artificial U.S. 
borders carved by imperialism. We support immigration without 
restriction.

6. We oppose U.S. economic embargoes and blockades.

7. We support every person's basic human rights as outlined in the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

8. We recognize nuclear weapons and power as a threat to all 
people which must be disassembled.

For more information, or to help CAUSI build public opinion 
against imperialism, write: CAUSI, PO Box 78842, St. Louis, MO 
63178.

Housing is a Battlefield

In many respects the phased destruction of social life in the city 
during the 70s and 80s has meant that radical urban politics are 
at an impasse. That impasse is no more clearly revealed, 
especially since job flight, than in the area of housing. In the 
90s, housing is one of the most crucial political theaters 
remaining. It encompasses subsidized (Section 8) housing, housing 
projects, and homeless shelters. In the wake of job flight, these 
structures are teeming with individuals and families that have 
been condemned to welfare, prison and low wage work by insecure 
First World regimes still smarting from the urban rebellions of 
the recent past. These institutions are also the checkpoints for 
high and low level functionaries, landlords and utilities, 
university researchers and church missionaries. Across the country 
multiculturally diverse and politically centrist municipal 
administrations are engaged in a civic crusade to further 
demobilize and intimidate the urban poor in the name of fighting 
drugs, violence and moral anarchy.

In Cleveland, the city government is transforming Section 8 
housing. Following the recommendations of the city elites who make 
up a 21-member Building and Housing Task Force, the Housing 
division has been reorganized. Such a reorganization entails 
increasing the number of field inspectors, changing the process 
for certificates of occupancy, creating a code-enforcement section 
in the city's law department, etc.(1) By requiring every 
commercial and residential structure be inspected annually, and 
the vigorous prosecution of housing code violators, social life 
has been made more of an object subject to bureaucratic regulation 
and law enforcement.

In St. Louis, senior citizens, grassroots reformers and urban 
planners have consolidated their efforts to extirpate the 
disquieting presence of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project. 
Built in the early 50s on 55 acres near downtown St. Louis, 
Pruitt-Igoe comprised 33 11-story buildings that, in 1972, housed 
10,000 low-income occupants.(2) Since that time, planned social-
welfare policy initiatives have cast its residents to the four 
corners of St. Louis. The housing project was razed in 1992 to 
make way for a school for gifted children.

In Washington D.C. homeless shelters, taking their cues from 
public fears of crime, have begun imposing restrictive rules and 
regulations on its indigent clients.(3) Sunset curfews, lights-out 
orders, 6-month to 12-month occupancy limits, curtailing outside 
visits, and coercive work requirements are measures being 
employed, not only in D.C. but nation-wide. Applying techniques 
from penal institutions, homeless shelters are instruments that 
discipline people; people for whom housing is not a commodity, or 
a right, but a battlefield. 

--MA115

Notes:
1. Cleveland Plain Dealer 1/9/94.
2. Chicago Tribune 2/13/94.
3. Washington Post 2/14/94.

MC234 responds: While the motives of the state are always 
suspect, we think it would be a good thing for something--be it 
the masses or the state--to force landlords to bring their 
buildings up to code.

* * *

FMLN LEADS THE WAY DOWN THE WRONG ROAD:
MASSES LOSE IN SALVADORAN ELECTIONS

by MC12

The remains of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front 
(FMLN) in El Salvador lost a national election in March, after 
abandoning armed struggle following the collapse of the Soviet 
Union and the electoral loss of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The 
FMLN-backed party, Democratic Convergence, came in second behind 
the Arena party, their former military enemies--the party of the 
oligarchy and military. A runoff election was to be held in late 
April, after MIM's deadline, which Arena was expected to win.

The FMLN's defeat should be taken as a lesson for those who think 
socialism can be won through electoral struggles. No ruling class 
has ever given up its power in an election; even when the leaders 
of government change, such as in Chile with the socialist-leaning 
middle class Allende government, elections don't lead to 
socialism. That this Salvadoran election was a fraud only 
underscores the point.

The Arena party claimed 49% of the vote, just short of the 50% 
they needed to avoid a runoff. The Democratic Convergence (which 
includes several parties), came in second with 26% of the vote. In 
the end, only 54% of eligible voters voted in the first round, 
between fraud and refusal to participate.(1)

Fraud

The Salvadoran comprador ruling class showed no signs of 
permitting the FMLN to win even if a majority of Salvadorans 
wanted to vote for them. Some 340,000 voting cards were never 
distributed, most of them in areas where the FMLN was more 
popular.(2)

In fact, one poll showed that 38% of Salvadoran thought there 
would be fraud in the election (there always has been before), and 
the FMLN found itself in the ridiculous position of trying to 
defend the bourgeoisie's election process!(2)

The New York Times reported: "In addition to concerns over fraud, 
many voters said before the election that the Farabundo Marti 
National Liberation Front, straining to appear mainstream and 
avoiding language that revived memories of the war, seemed much 
like any other party."(2)

Even though the Times' words should be taken with unsafe dosages 
of salt, this is a good representation of the FMLN's campaign. 
Speaking in Boston before the election, Democratic Convergence 
candidate Ruben Zamora said, for example: "The fight in El 
Salvador is no longer between left and right. It is now the 
interests of a nation versus those of a small minority....

"We have learned that we cannot get rid of the top 25%. The 
government needs to hook into that wealth for the other three-
quarters of the population."(3)

So, he called for higher taxes, land reform, education, health 
reform, "jobs" (making what for whom?) "professionalizing" the 
military (no thanks!), and so on. Zamora acted as if it was 
possible to escape economic dependence and imperialist domination 
through an open trade policy and progressive social policies in a 
Third World country. This tired song-and-dance has been tried and 
failed many times.

In fact, the land reform policy that the FMLN and Arena agreed to 
before the election would redistribute even less land than the 
bourgeoisie's last land reform in the 1980s.(4)

Zamora went further. After the Cold War, he said, the United 
States would no longer be hostile to progressive governments, as 
"'divisions of right and left are becoming increasingly 
irrelevant' to U.S. foreign policy. 'The U.S. interest now is in 
our position regarding free trade and whether we can offer 
stability.'" And finally: "There is no choice regarding whether to 
globalize. The choice is whether to globalize or be 
globalized."(3)

So, if Zamora, the Democratic Convergence and the FMLN plan to 
appease U.S. imperialism by supporting "free" trade (free for the 
imperialists), and promoting "stability" (the status quo of 
oppression), then why should the oppressed vote for them?

President Clinton congratulated current Arena party President 
Alfredo Cristiani for the peaceful vote: "Clearly, enormous 
progress has been made toward national reconciliation," he said. 
"A solid foundation has been laid for the future of democracy in 
El Salvador."(1) From a man whose definition of democracy means 
periodic voting for non-options in between years and years of mass 
exploitation, suffering and starvation, this is high praise 
indeed.

Fight to win

To win the support of the people, socialists need to demonstrate 
the advantage of socialism: the strategy of people's war is built 
upon winning areas of territory and starting the construction of a 
new society there, then expanding the revolution progressively 
from those bases. Without such a strategy, the words of socialists 
and communists are just more rhetoric in the masses's ears--and 
they should be.

People who enter into battles they can't win, such as this 
electoral battle, and then blame their opponent when they lose, 
are guilty of opportunism and misleading the masses. Foreseeing 
the treachery of the bourgeoisie is always the responsibility of 
revolutionary leaders.

The FMLN has joined the ranks of the Sandinistas, the African 
National Congress and the Palestine Liberation Organization, in 
abandoning class struggle for electoral efforts that are doomed to 
failure. In so doing, all four organizations showed their 
dependence--ideological and material--on the Soviet Union's 
revisionist conception of liberation struggles and a Cold War 
strategy of fighting not to win power, but to win negotiating 
position.

MIM and other anti-imperialists supported these movements as 
resistance to U.S. imperialism, the dominant oppressing force in 
the world today. Still, we had no illusions that their strategy 
would ultimately result in real national liberation and socialism. 
Rather, we hoped these efforts would strike blows against 
imperialism and lay the groundwork for future struggles. Learning 
the right lessons from such losses is crucial to making the great 
sacrifices of the people worthwhile. Likewise, failure to learn 
from previous mistakes is itself a crime and a betrayal of many 
martyrs.

In the post-USSR era of Third World liberation struggles, the path 
is cleared for the reassertion of Maoist revolutions, self-reliant 
movements engaged in people's war to seize power, to achieve 
national liberation and socialism. These are the movements that 
will free the people from imperialist domination, rather than 
trying to accommodate it.

Notes:
1. Reuter 3/22/94.
2. NYT 3/22/94, p. A3.
3. Central America Reporter Jan-Feb 94, Central America Solidarity 
Association, Cambridge, Mass. p. 1, 12.
4. Elisabeth Jean Wood, "The Transformation of Agrarian Social 
Relations and the Prospects for Economic Development in El 
Salvador." Dec. 1993, Stanford University, unpublished.

* * *

BLACK NATION DAY CELEBRATED

WASHINGTON D.C--On April 1-2 the Provisional Government of the 
Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA) sponsored the annual Black Nation 
Day Weekend at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The PG-RNA 
was founded in 1968 in Detroit when they announced a Declaration 
of Independence for the Black nation and set up a provisional 
government for the nation while it is a colony. 

On Saturday, April 2, the PG-RNA held a rally at Lafayette Park in 
front of the White House to demand justice and reparations for the 
Black nation. 

There were several dynamic speakers, some focusing on "spiritual 
warfare," and others talking about concrete organizing strategies 
to achieve reparations. All demanded: "Free the Land!" 

Some of the speakers spoke of a bill currently in Congress, House 
Resolution 40, entitled "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals 
for African Americans Act." The bill is supposed to "acknowledge 
the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of 
slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 
1619 and 1865." 

MIM asked the Minister of Defense of the PG-RNA about whether this 
congressionally-oriented kind of political work could really be 
effective. She explained that the PG-RNA does many kinds of 
political work and that they needed to set up the demand as a 
rallying point to organize the people and to force the racism in 
Amerika to the forefront of the nation's consciousness. 

MIM doesn't believe that the U.S. Congress will give reparations 
to Black people in the U.S., so we think that it is misleading to 
tell people to petition the Congress for reparations. We think 
that oppressed people should organize to take back what is rightly 
theirs, instead of petitioning the oppressor. While we disagree 
with the strategy taken by the PG-RNA, we wholeheartedly support 
revolutionary nationalism and the correct demand for reparations.

The Minister also spoke about the historical basis for reparations 
given to a people for a wrong done to them, and gave the examples 
of reparations given to Japanese internment victims and the 
reparations that Germany gave to Jewish people for the Holocaust. 
She said that reparations are becoming a big issue, and noted, for 
example, that the town of Rosewood, Florida is now demanding 
reparations for a 1923 racist attack that resulted in the entire 
town being burnt down. (See accompanying article.)

The PG-RNA calls for reparations only on the basis of slavery. MIM 
would encourage the PG-RNA to expand the idea of "stolen labor" to 
include the labor power expropriated from Black people in this 
country under capitalism, including paid labor.

* * *

REPARATIONS FOR ROSEWOOD 

The survivors and families of survivors of the 1923 massacre of 
the Black town of Rosewood, Florida are seeking millions of 
dollars in reparations from the state of Florida.(1) A Florida 
official, although admitting that Florida has a "moral obligation" 
to compensate them, did not recommend that they be paid the $7 
million they are demanding. He instead recommended that the state 
should set up a fund to repay only the claimants who can prove 
they lost property and $150,000 each to the seven known survivors 
who are still alive. The official admitted that it "is clear that 
government officials were responsible for some of the damages."(1) 

The massacre started on Jan. 1, 1923 when a white woman, Fannie 
Taylor, accused a Black man of assaulting her. A study on the 
Rosewood massacre suggested that the Taylor may have been lying to 
cover up a visit from a white lover.(2)

The massacre has been described as a "scorched earth raid."(3) At 
least eight people were killed during the week long attack. 
Survivors of the massacre testified before hearings on the issue 
of reparations in February. Houses and property were burned to the 
ground and the entire town was wiped out. They reported seeing 
family members killed and recounted memories of running from white 
vigilantes and hiding in the woods buried under weeds.(3) The 
sheriff "reported that the situation was under control" and the 
governor went hunting.(3) 

The hearings are being held in response to bills proposed by 
Florida state representative Miguel De Grandy and Daryl Jones to 
pay reparations to the survivors.(3) One survivor explained that 
she never asked the government to pay up earlier because "I didn't 
know how to file a claim ... I'm scared those crackers might come up 
there and find me and kill me."(3)

Ernest Parham, a white man who witnessed one of the Rosewood 
lynchings came forward to testify for the first time just this 
year.(2) He said that he never spoke out before because "I was 
never asked." He also refuses to name one of the killers because 
even though he is probably dead, "he has relatives and I don't 
feel like it would be fair for me to tell it." Meanwhile, Parham 
witnessed the man whose name he is protecting choke a Black man 
with a rope, beat him in the chest and then shoot him.(2)

The massacre and killings are part of Amerika's long tradition of 
murder. Researchers have documented over 4,000 lynchings before 
WWII, and that is only a fraction of the number that actually 
occurred.(3)

MIM knows that even if Amerika pays off to the seven known 
survivors, now in their 70s and 80s, it is only a drop in the 
bucket of what is owed to the Black people in this country whose 
labor was stolen under slavery and the Third World people around 
the globe whose labor is still being stolen through U.S. 
imperialist violence. 

Notes: 
1. New York Times 3/23/94, p.B8. 
2. Orlando Sentinel 3/27/94, p.B1. 
3. Houston Chronicle 2/27/94, p.A9.

* * *

JAPAN-U.S. CONFLICT STIRRING 

by MC5

It seems that the people of another imperialist country have the 
impression that the United States "is a nation of gun-wielding 
maniacs, unfit for tourism or study." (1) They are right.

"They" is the people of Japan. On March 25, two Japanese students 
studying in the United States died from gunshot wounds inflicted 
by a car thief in Los Angeles.

Walter Mondale, the ambassador to Japan, had to go on television 
in Japan to calm people down with an apology. The incident occurs 
against the backdrop of a trade war between Japan and the United 
States. President Clinton has started the bureaucratic machinery 
to impose ever stiffer tariffs (taxes) on Japanese imports. The 
matter is currently in negotiations between the two imperialists.

Such national tensions between countries are an inevitable part of 
capitalism, which demands cut-throat economic competition between 
countries. The relations between peoples will always be poisoned 
as long as capitalism exists.

The white nation chauvinism and crime of the United States is 
another major source of tension between Japan and the United 
States. Another Japanese student was killed in a more racial 
context in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1992 when a homeowner shot 
him for showing up at his door by mistake. The Japanese student 
had the wrong address for a Halloween party, which was happening 
next door. Last May, a jury acquitted Rodney Peairs of all charges 
connected to the killing of the high school student.(1) 

The United States has the highest murder rate of the 
industrialized world, and ranks third in the whole world.(2) The 
gun-toting character of the United States is a part of its settler 
history, where each homeowner like Rodney Peairs saw fit to carry 
a gun to kill the indigenous people they stole land from. While in 
other countries John Wayne may be an idol, in North America, the 
Euro-Amerikans actually try to imitate Wayne in real life. They 
never gave up John Wayne, because they continued to live in a 
society where internal colonialism was more important than in any 
other imperialist country. 

The repression of the oppressed nations within U.S. borders is so 
extensive and bound up with a luxurious settler lifestyle, that 
even a portion of the oppressed nation peoples buys into the John 
Wayne approach and white supremacy. The only thing coming close to 
such popular support for repression was Hitler's support from the 
German people. His support from the people was admittedly more 
intense for a shorter period of time, but the support for Amerikan 
repression of the oppressed nations has proved much more stable, 
refined and deadly.

Today, the U.S. government leads the world in imprisonment rates, 
thus qualifying as a police-state par excellence. But no matter 
how many people it imprisons, it will not get over its illness, 
because the illness is the politics of the labor aristocracy. 
Until Euro-Amerikans come to grips with their settler past and how 
they continue to live the settler life, they will never solve the 
crime problem. They will go on voting for politicians that favor 
tougher crackdowns on national minorities and the poor, while 
nothing changes.

Every year the settlers demand a more repressive crackdown on the 
national minorities and every year they get it in the democracy of 
the dominator. Yet, between 1975 and 1989, the time spent by 
violent offenders in prison almost tripled but violent crime did 
not decline.(3) The reason is simple: imperialist repression does 
not solve the crime problem; it does not work.

State prisons tripled their holdings of prisoners, but violent 
crime did not decline in the 1980s. Now settler President Bill 
Clinton proposes more of the same (See MIM Notes 87) in the effort 
to rally the settler vote to his side, and without the slightest 
shred of evidence that repression can stop crime. Already the 
United States is the world's leading police state by one measure, 
and yet the settlers want to keep reaching for higher records of 
imprisonment.

Even other imperialist countries have managed to live with one-
tenth the murder rate. More importantly, in China under Mao, they 
had one-tenth the murder rate, no drug problem, no prostitution 
and, more importantly, no white collar crimes of the rich that 
resulted in the starvation and war-related deaths of tens of 
millions. It is possible to do better than what the U.S. system 
allows, but the Euro-Amerikan working class must stop clinging to 
its historical privileges to see the solutions. Unfortunately, 
this is not likely to happen to the people of John Wayne without 
disastrous wars or environmental catastrophe.

NOTES: 
1. New York Times 3/29/94, p. 1. 
2. John Hagan, Crime and Disrepute (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge 
Press, 1994), p. 24. 
3. Ibid., p. xiii.

* * *

JAPAN COMPARED TO EVIL EMPIRE?

The resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Hosokawa on April 8 put 
the Amerikan imperialist press in a surly mood. Recognized as 
someone Amerikan corporations can do business with, Hosokawa was 
the hope of Amerika-first business for doing "fair trade" with 
Japan.

The New York Times said his resignation may derail supposed 
efforts to "deregulate a country choking on bureaucracy." Since 
this kind of criticism used to be reserved for so-called communist 
countries, MIM read on with interest.

The New York Times has summed up the new candidates for Prime 
Minister in Japan as follows: "The leading candidate is Foreign 
Minister Tsutomu Hata, who once said that the Japanese could not 
import more American beef because Japanese intestines could not 
fully digest American hamburger.

"Another candidate is former Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe, who 
once said that the problem with America is that blacks do not pay 
their credit card bills. The third likely option is some sort of 
coalition spearheaded by the Socialists, the most protectionist 
party in Japan." Protectionists are those who want to add higher 
taxes to goods imported from other countries.

Rarely do we see the Japanese and Amerikan ruling classes go at it 
with such bluntness, and just in case anyone thought the Cold War 
was over, "Some analysts wonder whether the Clinton Administration 
did not exaggerate Mr. Hosokawa's willingness to accede to 
American demands, much the way it built up President Boris N. 
Yeltsin of Russia. In both cases, the United States seemed to be 
counting on reform-sounding leaders and seemed unaware that they 
were steadily losing public support." 

Damn it all, it seems that Clinton lost "Russia" and "Japan" to 
the, the, the--well what do we call them?--the "conservatives" or 
"anti- reformers" or "hardliners." The endorsement of the New York 
Times requires that "reformers" be vaguely for free market 
reorganization that somehow results in a balanced U.S. trade 
account. Though the rhetoric is not yet as sharp as it was for the 
Soviet "evil empire," the latest round of disputes with Japan has 
seen a steady increase in bile.

Under President Clinton, the U.S. ruling class's willingness to 
poison public relations with Japan has increased. This represents 
Clinton's particular plan to hold out select incentives to 
Amerika-first corporations and the Amerikan labor aristocracy 
threatened by the trade deficit with Japan. Clinton's "managed 
trade" concept contrasts somewhat with George Bush's tendency to 
"laissez-faire"--the belief in keeping government out of business; 
yet, both presidents had a solid lock on the internationalist 
bourgeoisie represented by the likes of the Trilateral Commission, 
which doesn't care where capitalists make their profits as long as 
they are allowed to make them in ever greater quantities. 

When the two respective capitalists classes in Japan and North 
Amerika cannot agree on the terms of their multi-billion-dollar 
deals, they know enough not to publicize what their real concern 
is. Instead, they launch their fire at the whole country of the 
competing business. Clinton is whipping up Euro-Amerikan public 
opinion against Japan in such a way as to benefit certain U.S. 
business interests, and to show the Amerikan labor-aristocracy 
that he hasn't forgotten about them in the proud partnership of 
Amerikan capitalists and Amerikan labor against the rest of the 
world.

The conflicts between the United States and Japan cannot be 
resolved under capitalism, because dog-eat-dog competition is 
built into capitalism. Instead of working against the hatreds 
built up between entire countries, the leaders like Clinton seek 
to use that hatred for their own purposes. Racism and national 
chauvinism are the result.

MIM is for letting the capitalists devour each other so that the 
peoples of all different countries may live in harmony without 
fearing for their jobs because people of another country also 
work. It is absurd that the Japanese and Amerikan workers fear 
each other. Peace and the fight against national chauvinism depend 
on eliminating the law-of-the-jungle in economics. Ironically, it 
is only under communism that there will be truly free and fair 
trade.

Note: NYT 5/9/94, p. 1, 5.

* * *

TEN YEARS OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS

As MIM celebrates its 10th anniversary--and the 100th birthday of 
Mao Zedong--it is appropriate to review MIM's accomplishments. 
When the original RIM decided to form its own party, its critics 
often took the pragmatist view--explicitly refuted by Mao--that 
numbers of members, not political line, are decisive.

From the beginning, various sectarians said what we wanted to do 
"would be difficult." The pragmatists criticized us for not having 
large enough numbers and expressed disappointment that we did not 
have above-ground offices, bookstores and a presence in all the 
cities we work in like the wealthier communist parties.

These people are afflicted by sizeism and above-groundism and 
never attribute any importance to questions of line and scientific 
method. Like the CP, USA, they will wake up one day to find that 
their work--and that of many others--was wasted because they 
didn't pay enough attention to line.

MIM's first accomplishment was to establish under what conditions 
the formation of a party was necessary. The clear break with the 
RCP over issues of line, as described in the previous article, was 
such an advance. The decision to "go it alone" as the vanguard 
party also correctly acknowledged Mao's stress on political line.

The next accomplishment, in 1984, was the distribution of 
explicitly Maoist literature. That literature eventually became a 
newspaper. A theory journal--and other organs of public opinion 
building--developed later.

Continuing to forge ahead on questions of line--MIM's analysis of 
the political economy of the Amerikan white working class 
decisively broke with imperialist economism. In parallel fashion, 
MIM attacked reductionist, economist and liberal theories of 
gender. On these questions MIM holds a unique platform within the 
imperialist countries. This platform follows the spirit of Maoism 
in practice by deepening our concrete understanding of our own 
conditions.

MIM has won numerous tactical victories in its public opinion 
campaigns--many connected to distributing party literature and 
some connected to elections in mass organizations. MIM also played 
a large role in stopping the deportation of Dennis Brutus and in 
the unleashing of solidarity struggles with Azania.

MIM's newspaper and journals have assumed ever-more professional 
formats. The first 35 issues of MIM Notes were photocopied sheets, 
and many months passed between some issues.  In 1988, MIM shifted 
to a bigger newsprint format, and went monthly a year-and-a-half 
later.  

Articles based on mass contact now predominate. Artists finally 
stopped floating around MIM and have started to produce graphics 
and other materials for MIM use. Separate cultural efforts are 
getting off the ground--with prison poets and artists in the lead.

In prison, MIM is clearly the leading revolutionary organizer of 
any stripe--as has been acknowledged by other organizations. These 
efforts have attracted the attention of some middle class anti-
fascist forces, such as the ACLU--who on occasion win tactical 
victories for MIM literature distribution in prison.

MIM's influence is growing on college campuses. Students and 
scholars can be found discussing MIM's theories, and our influence 
can been seen in many campus organizations and publications.

Among industrial workers of the labor aristocracy, MIM has found 
that not all of them are closed to the idea that they must rebuke 
their class, gender and dominant nation interests to join the 
revolution. Some have given considerable financial and other 
support to MIM--contrary to what the opportunists are wont to 
expect. MIM is in the process of gathering information on how to 
expand on this dialectical phenomenon.

MIM's recruitment of women has increased and solidified. Parallel 
to its influence on Third World solidarity, anti-militarist and 
prison organizations, MIM finally gained an influence on advanced 
elements in women's organizations by breaking decisively with 
reductionist assumptions that socialism automatically makes sense 
to the women's movement. Women do not join the revolution because 
they have the most to gain from a plethora of anti-militarist, 
anti-poverty and pro-equality movements. Joining the revolution 
means rejecting the material foundations of the gender privileges 
available to Amerikan women. Here again, MIM found the concrete 
analysis of conditions to be the key. 

Unlike sectarian idealists, MIM has no qualms about making use of 
the most advanced literature at hand on all questions--even if it 
is not party literature. MIM realizes that a materialist method 
requires making use of the best weapons available in all of the 
infinite number of fields in which we must attack the 
imperialists.

While the next spiral upwards awaits a consolidation and deepening 
of line on the national question, Stalin, and the united front, 
MIM's public opinion efforts among the First Nations have 
skyrocketed and steadied. In sections of the Black Nation, MIM's 
organizational, political and theoretical work is much appreciated 
by the masses struggling to create independent power structures.

MIM Notes has long-featured a Spanish page--soon a Spanish edition 
of MIM Notes will be coming out on a quarterly basis. MIM's 
foreign-language efforts are increasing overall--as MIM prepares 
the ground for the separate national forms of revolutionary 
struggle that will take place in North Amerika.

Internationally, MIM has circulated its media in places as far-
ranging as Peru, England, Germany, Azania and the Philippines. 
MIM's international distribution effort has reached the desk of 
Jose Maria Sison, former chair of the Communist Party of the 
Philippines, who said he has a high regard for our literature.

On the international Internet, MIM has taken a vanguard stance--
promoting Maoism and hacking and slashing revisionist 
pronouncements from Peru to Pittsburgh.

Recently, MIM united with diverse multi-national forces from here 
and abroad to help create the Philippine-American Workers 
International Solidarity Committee (see article this issue).

In conclusion, MIM assures the international proletariat that it 
will not allow itself to become "dizzy with success." Indeed, MIM 
has often been referred to as "grim," because that attitude is 
appropriate for work within North America. Rather than 
idealistically work to create a false unity with objectively 
bourgeoisified labor aristocrat and petty-bourgeois forces, MIM 
has chosen to face reality in North America and not make light of 
the actual conditions for revolution in the belly of the beast. On 
a global scale--we are confident that the international 
proletariat will destroy imperialism and the patriarchy.

MIM does not water down its principles to gather large numbers of 
supporters. It won't cater to homophobia or anti-Mexican 
chauvinism or anti-Japanese chauvinism or pseudofeminism or 
electoral politics in order to maintain a non-communist unity. MIM 
does not care how unpopular our line on the labor and gender 
aristocracies may be in some circles--we know that it will 
prevail--because it is true. 

MIM will never isolate itself from the oppressed people who reside 
principally in a Third World tortured by patriarchal-imperialist 
parasitism. Militant and undeviating attention to the decisiveness 
of line--the practice of Maoist science--is our greatest 
accomplishment and guarantor of future success. 

* * *

MIM HISTORY:
HOW IT ALL BEGAN

October 1, 1993, marked the 10th anniversary of the founding of 
the Maoist Internationalist Movement's predecessor--the original 
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. 

May 1st, 1994 is the 10th anniversary of the changing of the RIM's 
name to MIM--after our original name was appropriated. These 
anniversary dates were consciously chosen in 1983 and 1984 to 
celebrate the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and International 
Workers' Day, respectively.

The basic principles which caused the original RIM to form are as 
valid today as they were 10 years ago. In 1983, the organization 
announced that anti-imperialism and anti-militarism are the two 
most important revolutionary principles and that proletarian 
internationalism is our guiding ideological vision. Since that 
time MIM has deepened its line considerably.

In 1983-84, the comrades in Peru rejected the "Marxist-Leninist" 
unity that the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA was trying to 
forge internationally.(1) At this time, MIM also made a series of 
decisive breaks with the RCP, USA, though MIM's members were never 
members of the RCP, USA--and had no contacts with the Communist 
Party of Peru. 

In 1984, we changed our name to MIM to reflect that while the RCP, 
USA/RIM might claim its "Marxist-Leninist" unity internationally: 
MIM contains the real Maoists. As was typical at the time, 
spokespeople for the RCP, USA consciously denied that they were 
Maoist. This reflected the RCP, USA general line as expressed in 
Revolution #50, 1981--the infamous "Conquer the World ...," in which 
Chairperson Bob Avakian eschewed Maoism for crypto-Trotskyism.

The origins of MIM are inextricably bound up with the phenomenon 
of the RCP, USA. Before 1987, MIM did not assess the RCP as 
consciously revisionist--even though MIM criticized the RCP for 
Trotskyite tendencies. To this day, there is confusion as to why 
MIM founded itself and the difference between the RCP, USA/RIM and 
MIM. We take our 10th anniversary as an opportunity to explain 
this difference generally, with emphasis here on the pre-1987 
period. 

The founding documents of the original RIM describe the RIM as a 
"pre-party." The reason for the "pre-party" label is that these 
documents were a qualitative advance in the struggle between 
Maoist elements as yet unorganized into a party--and the RCP, USA-
-which had not yet adopted its current Maoist veneer.

The founding documents solved two problems simultaneously.(2) They 
laid down the basis for membership in the original RIM and 
delineated the relationship of the new Maoist forces to the RCP, 
USA in practice. Ideological, political and organizational riddles 
solved themselves simultaneously when a comrade close to the RCP, 
USA used our document "Manifesto on the International Situation 
and Revolution" as an application for membership in the RCP, USA. 
The comrade explained that if the RCP accepted the comrade on the 
basis of this document--then the other comrades would also commit 
to joining.

The RCP, USA rejected the application and a decisive break ensued. 
The issues entailed the nature of vanguard parties, Maoism versus 
Trotskyism and many smaller matters.

The RCP then raised a number of criticisms of the new-born Maoist 
forces--which had existed for a long time as an organization named 
the RADACADS before changing its name to RIM and finally to MIM. 
Likewise, the new-born Maoist forces criticized the RCP. 

Pre-1983

The RADACADS had openly worked with various organizations claiming 
vanguard status--but principally with the RCP. The RADACADS had 
consciously worked with parties that descended from the Maoist or 
Maoist-influenced elements of Students for a Democratic Society 
(SDS) and had consciously refused to work with Trotskyists or the 
CP, USA. At RADACADS events, surviving splinters from the SDS 
could all be found tabling and distributing literature.

Contrary to mistaken impressions circulated by enemies, the 
foundation of the organization was with a majority of national 
minorities and a majority of women. This was not by conscious 
design but through the natural pace of events and the political 
line promoted by the organization. The RADACADS were leaders in 
struggles concerning Azania, Central America, the Middle East and 
anti-militarism. Not surprisingly, the RADACADS attracted the 
corresponding social base with its line and work.

As time went on, the RADACADS crystallized into more developed 
poles. Although we can only raise this objection in retrospect--
because we did not raise it then--the RCP, USA played a role in 
dividing the forces within the RADACADS, despite the overall 
Maoist tilt of the RADACADS from its very foundation.

The clearest Maoist pole within RADACADS defended Mao and the 
Cultural Revolution and opposed Soviet social-imperialism. This 
pole constantly had to defend Maoism from attacks by those who 
associated Maoism with the RCP, USA. Many activists with a solid 
impression of the RADACADS did not favor the RCP, USA. The 
clearest Maoist pole within the RADACADS was forced to defend the 
RCP, USA--and usually pretend that there was no difference between 
the two. Indeed, the conscious political differences were often 
not clear enough to say that there was a fundamental ideological 
difference--though there was clearly an organizational difference.

Conscious struggle and a decisive political break had preceded 
even the formation of the RADACADS. The question raised was why 
the new-born Maoist forces did not work with the Revolutionary 
Communist Party's Youth Brigade (RCYB).

Actually, the new-born forces had worked with a number of 
organizations--but principally the RCYB. A period of strong unity 
with the RCYB gave way on the issue of El Salvador.

The official RCP position was that the FMLN was "not objectively 
anti-imperialist" and that it "struck no blows against U.S. 
imperialism."

While the RCP admitted that the masses in oppressed countries 
always rise up against imperialism, it held that without a 
vanguard party formed on Marxist-Leninist principles, the masses 
could land no blow. This was a sticky point within the RCP itself 
and the RCP was not always clear on whether or not the masses 
could land any blows spontaneously. For this reason, the words 
"objectively" and "are not anti-imperialist" and "strike no blows" 
were very important.

The RCP gave as reasons for the "strike no blows" assertion that 
the FMLN was not led by a genuine vanguard party and was 
influenced by Soviet revisionism. The role of Soviet revisionism 
was emphasized because--in practice--the RCP believed the FMLN was 
led by a party, a revisionist party.

The new Maoist forces did not disagree that the FMLN was 
influenced by Soviet revisionism or, more importantly, that Soviet 
revisionism was fatal. When the new Maoist forces asked to go over 
this question in detail, the RCP obtained some FMLN/FDR documents 
for discussion.

In this crucial discussion, the RCP comrade attacked as 
revisionism those aspects of the documents that were correct. In 
particular, the new Maoist forces defended the need for a new 
democratic revolution against imperialism and semi-feudalism.

In contrast, the RCP was not sure that El Salvador needed a 
revolution against semi-feudalism and criticized the documents for 
talk about capitalism and the necessity of a two-stage revolution. 
The RCP was more perceptive on the question of imperialism, 
however, than were the new Maoist forces. The RCP correctly 
labelled the conflict as a disagreement over the principal 
contradiction in the world. The RCP view was that the principal 
contradiction between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-
imperialism ruled even in El Salvador. The RCP seemed to soften 
this view at times, while honestly asking us: "How can you expose 
U.S. imperialism while simultaneously attacking Soviet 
revisionism?" 

The key to this lies in objective versus subjective conditions. In 
other words, MIM was saying that despite subjective leaders like 
the FMLN, the masses were landing anti-imperialist blows, because 
the masses were objectively revolutionary in El Salvador. In 
contrast, the RCP could not imagine objectively revolutionary 
conditions existing without a motivational subjective factor. This 
is a kind of 19th century philosophical idealism which says that 
the conditions are not revolutionary unless there is a Marxist 
there to perceive them as revolutionary--and form the vanguard. In 
essence, the RCP was saying that, "You can't support the FMLN and 
the Salvadorean people against U.S. imperialism without supporting 
Soviet revisionism."

Some time after the break on the question of El Salvador, the RCP 
summed up the new Maoist forces as having a line that the 
oppressed nations versus imperialism was the principal 
contradiction. The RADACADS did not deny this, but at the same 
time, to be quite frank about our theoretical weaknesses, the 
RADACADS were not clear on this point and openly debated the 
question, while the RCP had a worked out position and correctly 
labelled a practical difference. The RCP also correctly stated 
that this difference should not be considered a big deal and the 
Maoist forces agreed to co-exist.

The real tell-tale difference between the RADACADS and the RCP was 
that many activists considered the RADACADS to be substantially 
more involved in leading and influencing mass movements. RADACADS 
people also received the compliment of speaking more concretely 
than the RCP. Even those who swore they would never join any 
organization like the RCP--because of their reputation for 
sectarianism and dogmatism--quickly joined the RADACADS and the 
original RIM and took up leading roles.

The biggest weakness that the RADACADS had was not being able to 
put together the nature of the white working class and the 
question of imperialism and the principal contradiction. This 
worked itself out in practice.

One of the things that slowed down the developing break between 
the new Maoist forces and the RCP was that the RCP frequently lost 
itself in the mists of formalism and it was difficult for the 
RADACADS comrades to pin down the RCP. For quite some time, the 
main question appeared to be the necessity of a vanguard party. 
Whenever the RADACADS raised a political issue, the RCP would 
retort: "You must not understand the need for a vanguard party."

This got so bad that one comrade in the most Maoist pole of 
RADACADS said we should join the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) en 
masse, "Because, at least, I can understand what they are saying!" 
This was a joke, because the PLP used simplified language like 
"bosses." (PLP had informed RADACADS that they were deemed 
"centrist" forces by the PLP.)

The RADACADS labored for a while under the illusion that maybe 
they had not tried hard enough to understand the RCP. But practice 
quickly proceeded and the differences became more and more 
difficult to cover up. The new Maoist forces were to learn their 
differences with the RCP principally through practice. In 
retrospect, it is clear that some Trotskyists masquerading as 
Leninists with a confused respect for Mao were the ones who did 
not understand these real differences.

After the fall-out over El Salvador, the RADACADS formed and its 
comrades resumed work with the RCP from something of a distance-- 
but in some ways on a larger and more diverse scale. The RADACADS 
held a quick succession of political education lectures and 
demonstrations over a period of years. Many events came off in a 
matter of days, and created a large impression.

The RADACADS summed up that their experiences were drawing forth 
thousands of people as well as the attention of numerous 
revisionist and more genuine forces--yet RADACADS lacked a 
consolidated organization. The questions that pressed to be 
answered continually became more advanced; and those claiming 
themselves as vanguard organizations seemed unable to capitalize 
on the work that the RADACADS was doing so closely with them.

The RADACADS concluded that the RCP had a problem in understanding 
the mass line relationship between the vanguard and the masses. 
When the RADACADS and elements of sympathetic organizations 
renamed themselves the RIM, the suspicion that the RCP was stuck 
in formalism and Avakianist mysticism was quite strong.

As described above, the RIM comrades went to the RCP after years 
of joint work and told them that they were definitely not agnostic 
and wanted to join or form the vanguard party. Even then, the RCP 
comrades said that the RIM still did not understand the need for a 
vanguard party. On the other hand, the RCP spokesperson said that 
the application would be evaluated and that it had some merits.

When the RCP came back with their response another decisive break 
ensued. Criticism number one was that the document did not 
recognize the RCP, USA as the vanguard. Criticism number two was 
that the RIM's criticisms of Trotsky were really criticisms of the 
RCP! (To which MIM says, "If the shoe fits, wear it!") Criticism 
number three was a series of opportunist doubts raised that the 
comrade was a cop for making the application.

The RIM responded that if the RCP accepted the principles in the 
written document--then certainly the RCP was the vanguard party. 
If not, the RIM hinted, then the RIM was the vanguard. This point 
still causes confusion here and internationally. MIM believes 
there is a vanguard in every society--even if it does not 
consciously recognize itself as such. The vanguard is simply the 
scientifically most advanced element. It exists materially. 
Failure to recognize this truth creates excuses for agnosticism 
and liquidationism on an idealist basis--which amounts to 
criticizing reality with ideas only. 

The RIM consciously set out to test: who is the vanguard? Should 
the new Maoist comrades struggle within the RCP or form their own 
party? The founding documents of the RIM answered this question. 
By writing these documents and using them as a test, MIM's 
predecessor, the RIM, followed Mao, who said: "Ideological and 
political line is decisive."

A symbolic example of the basic difference between the two 
organizations was in how they conducted their work on the street. 
While RADACADS/RIM was supposedly soft on party-building, it was 
RADACADS/RIM that did the most on the street to demarcate Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism from Trotskyism and other revisionist variants. 

The RCP line was that it did not know what its actual differences 
with other organizations were--and that it was up to concerned 
individuals to find out for themselves. Despite this agnosticism, 
RCP comrades intervened in one instance to physically remove a RIM 
comrade from conflict with the Spartacist League at a literature 
table. The RCP referred to us as "Spart-killers" and laughed--
because it was RIM practice to stand up to the Sparts and repel 
their ideological nonsense in front of the masses. 

After a certain number of political defeats, the Spartacist League 
learned not to confront the RIM on the street--a lesson that MIM 
must teach such revisionists anew from time to time. But to this 
day, MIM maintains that the majority of RCP members do not 
comprehend the dividing line differences between Trotskyism and 
Maoism.

After the break over the membership application, the RCP started 
treating the RIM as half enemy, half friend. It started telling 
the RIM some lies for the first time (of notice) and it indulged 
in formalist cop-baiting.

Nonetheless, relations continued and some some joint work was done 
with RCP organizations, under their own names, and RIM, under its 
own name. Then the RCP consciously stole the RIM name for its 
international mutual aid society.

After MIM hoisted its current name and declared itself as the 
Maoist vanguard in North America, the RCP's formalism and anger 
eventually cooled down and overtures at substantive unity were 
made. 

Seeds of further division

MIM observed that the RCP's relationship to the masses was 
formalist and obscurantist. Even on MIM's weakest point at the 
time--the nature of the white working class--there were telling 
differences in practice.

Some time after the original RIM's break with the RCP in 1983, the 
two sides had come together again to discuss deep differences. One 
thing the RCP did not like was the way RIM's founding documents 
ended: "Neither before nor after the revolution will RIM wait for 
class relations to change. RIM will not even wait for the 
proletariat itself. 'Workerism'--worship of the workers whatever 
they do--and 'economism'--waiting for economic conditions to dish 
up revolutionaries on the silver platter, especially through wage 
struggles--are not only not ways of advancing the revolutionary 
line now, they are also good ways to blow a revolutionary 
opportunity."(3) The RCP said, "We'd like to see you say that shit 
to the workers!" The RCP also had us pinned as seeing "youth as a 
class," which we denied.

Ironically, the RIM had previously criticized the RCP newspaper 
for having nothing to say about the workers' struggles--nothing 
concrete at all. In response, an RCP comrade made one of his 
better statements: "You're right; we should [have something to 
say], only to criticize them!" 

By 1984, MIM held a confused duality of views:

1. That the white workers were exploited--a view rarely acted on--
except in vague ways--because of the confusion shared with the RCP 
about "economism";

2. That the RCP had Trotskyist tendencies; and that maybe the 
principal contradiction was between the oppressed countries and 
imperialism. 

It was not until 1987 that the pieces really started to come 
together with MIM's study and circulation of Settlers, The 
Mythology of the White Proletariat, by J. Sakai, and Labor 
Aristocracy: Mass Base for Social Democracy, by H.W. Edwards. In 
accord with this new spiral development in theory, MIM made the 
question of the non-revolutionary, bourgeoisified white working 
class a dividing line question in practice for U.S.-based Maoists.

Looking back--on this 10th anniversary of our founding--we see 
that the most ironic struggle the original RIM had with the RCP 
concerned the class nature of the new bourgeoisie formed under 
socialism in the Soviet Union, China, Albania, etc. 

In an argument over this point, the original RIM discovered that 
an RCP spokesperson did not know who Liu Shaoqi was!(4) This 
argument did much to persuade the RIM that the RCP was not on any 
real Maoist footing. In discussions with an associate in 1983, one 
RIM comrade said, "If they are going to force us to choose between 
Lenin and Mao: who are you going to pick?" Our associate (not a 
RIM member, but active in RCP circles) replied, "I don't know 
about that." The RIM comrade continued, "Don't you think you would 
pick Mao?" 

In a subsequent series of arguments, MIM learned that the RCP held 
the productive forces as principal under socialism and that the 
RCP had no idea that inside the Party leadership under socialism a 
"new" bourgeoisie was created through the various components of 
"bourgeois right," the division of labor, and other internal 
contradictions. The RCP believed it was class remnants from the 
old system and the external force of imperialism that created the 
bourgeoisie in the party. 

One irony of these old struggles from the early 1980s is that in 
1993, Raymond Lotta, a theoretician for the RCP, criticized a 
conference of Maoist parties held in Germany, principally with 
regard to its lack of a line on the "new bourgeoisie." On the 
other hand, Avakian's recent works still support the constantly 
recycled RCP productive forces and external causation theories. 
Meanwhile, the RCP has also adopted the label "Maoist" under 
pressure from the Shining Path, and we believe--though 
unacknowledged--MIM's continued existence and growth.

While the RCP has moved forward on a number of issues, it stands 
confronted on many other issues that remain unresolved. The 
touchstone unresolved issue between the RCP and MIM is the nature 
of the Amerikan working class.

One vanguard

In 1992, after years of struggle, MIM finally concluded that the 
RCP is, in reality, a revisionist party--a Trotskyist blend. The 
RCP has proven unable to resolve the key ideological and political 
issues confronting it and has not benefited from articulate, 
organized explanations over the years. These issues range from the 
RCP's absurd, anti-proletarian line against homosexuality to their 
continued, patently erroneous stance on the principal 
contradiction the world. 

On the international scene, comrades should cast aside the RCP 
slogans and rhetoric and carefully study recent RCP writings on 
the role of democracy under socialism; the "revolutionary" nature 
of the bourgeoisified working classes; the political economy of 
super-profits; the basis for the emergence of a new bourgeoisie in 
the party under socialism; the ideological tailing after 
pseudofeminist movements; and the theoretical liquidation of the 
role of revolutionary nationalist movements in the new-democratic 
revolution.(5)

Unlike some imperialist countries' parties that claim the banner 
of Mao, the RCP has no excuse for its dogmatism. Material reality-
-practice--including struggle with MIM--has shown the RCP a number 
of correct analyses that it has consciously rejected. In some 
countries, RCP-like parties and affiliates are actually the most 
advanced elements available. Founding vanguard parties on correct 
principles in those societies is a struggle dawning on the horizon 
as Maoism continues its modern resurgence.

In more objectively revolutionary societies, the vanguard parties 
are more advanced in practice than MIM. As MIM enjoys its 10th 
anniversary, it resolves for the new year to become an 
increasingly international force and a political factor in the 
imperialist countries for the advancement of internationalism on 
the touchstone questions: the restoration of capitalism in the 
Soviet Union and China; upholding the lessons of the Cultural 
Revolution; and the political economy of the imperialist country 
working classes.

Notes:
1. El Movimiento Comunista Internacional/El Movimiento 
Revolucionario Internacionalista, El Pensamiento Gonzalo, Central 
Committee, Communist Party of Peru, 1991, p. 318-324. English 
translation available from MIM for $2. 
2. Founding documents available in What Is MIM? $2. 
3. What Is MIM? p. 4. 
4. Liu was the leading revisionist proponent of the capitalist 
road in China, before he was purged during the Cultural 
Revolution.  
5. Order MIM's The RCP Study Pak, revised 1994, $15.

* * *

MIM'S MUST READ BOOKS

Krooth, Richard. Arms and Empire. $8 This book covers economic 
history and the roots of WWI and WWII and is a key to 
understanding the roots of the present WWIII.

Sakai, J. Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat. $10. 
This history of the United States from the viewpoint of the 
international proletariat, argues that most Amerikans are bought-
off allies of U.S. imperialism.

Shanghai People's Press. The Fundamentals of Political Economy. 
$15. A basic introduction to Marxist political economy and the 
economic laws of socialism and communism.

MIM Bound Volume. $15. This contains MIM Notes issues 1-34 and MIM 
Theory 1-13. 

Wheelwright, E.L. & McFarlane, Bruce. The Chinese Road to 
Socialism: Economics of the Cultural Revolution. $5 Information 
and explanation of the economic organization and strategy of the 
most advanced economy seen in history to date.

* * *

THANK YOU, RCP!

The Revolutionary Communist Party has finally owned up to its 
erroneous and social-chauvinist position that the bourgeoisified 
Euro-Amerikan working class is economically exploited.

The January 16, 1994 issue of the Revolutionary Worker contains an 
article about a two-day conference in Germany on Mao Zedong 
Thought during November 1993 that was initiated by the 
International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and 
Organizations.

At the conference, MIM presented a position paper demonstrating 
that the majority of the Euro-Amerikan working class is not 
exploited--which has obvious implications for concrete class 
analysis in all the imperialist countries. (See MIM Notes 85, 
January 1994 for more in depth coverage of the excellent 
conference.)

In the Revolutionary Worker article on this conference, there 
appears an interesting paragraph--which for surface theoretical 
purposes might as well be a MIM criticism of the RCP:

"The conference also revealed how some organized Marxist-Leninists 
have sought to invoke Mao's name but to rob his teachings of their 
revolutionary thrust. This was especially apparent with groupings 
from the imperialist countries (like the MLPD). [The Marxist-
Leninist Party Deutschland hosted the event.-ed.] Many are mired 
in economism--trailing after the economic struggles of the workers 
and not building an all-around revolutionary movement that aims to 
be prepared, when the objective conditions ripen, to launch the 
armed struggle for power. And they are also mired in social 
chauvinism--downplaying imperialist domination of the Third World 
and the key role of national liberation struggles in the world 
revolution, as well as downplaying the struggles of immigrant 
workers and oppressed nationalities in the revolutionary process 
in the imperialist countries."

It is heartening to see the RCP appear in print supporting the 
concept of real-life national liberation struggles--and we can 
only hope that the RCP uses the content of this paragraph to 
rectify its political economy and abandon Trotskyism. 
Unfortunately, the RCP immediately proceeded to undue all this 
good self-criticism in a small, but sectarian, footnote.

"The participation of a questionable organization called the 
Maoist Internationalist Movement must be noted in this regard. 
This organization tries to associate itself with the people's war 
in Peru, and it was seemingly opposing social-chauvinism when it 
spoke from the floor about imperialism and the Third World. But it 
argued that white workers as an economic-social grouping in the 
United States are not exploited, are part of the process of 
exploitation of the workers of the Third World and have no 
revolutionary interests. This is a wrong and counterrevolutionary 
idea. Some conference participants thought this was the RCP, USA 
and RIM's view, which it is not."

Aside from the feeble attempt at cop-baiting and the attempt to 
split and wreck the practical unity of those in the International 
Communist Movement who do support the PCP and the revolution in 
Peru--it is a crying shame that the RCP, USA and its self-
isolating Revolutionary Internationalist Movement remain willfully 
and consciously in denial about the political economy of North 
Amerika.

In MIM Notes and MIM Theory, MIM has done its best over the last 
10 years to present the scientifically developed case for a real 
and material class, gender and nation analysis of the North 
American societies. The RCP has tried to publicly ignore MIM's 
existence and has never bothered to make a case in rebuttal to 
MIM's political economy. MIM has done its best over the years to 
positively influence the RCP, but mostly MIM just proceeds with 
the mundane work of slowly and patiently organizing the Maoist 
vanguard forces in North America.

What can we say? Where there's smoke--there's fire. MIM urges the 
RCP to use the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to reassess its 
fallacious Trotsky-type theories, drop its social-chauvinism and 
worship of the bourgeoisified Euro-Amerikan workers and work hard 
to support the most advanced revolutionary forces in all the 
imperialist countries and all the oppressed nations and internal 
colonies. For its part, MIM will always leave the door open to any 
groups struggling to develop a Maoist theory and practice to 
mutually enter into rational and scientific discussion of concrete 
conditions.

MIM pulls few punches and has made principled, well-documented 
criticisms of published RCP, USA theory. MIM would have hoped that 
the RCP had enough strategic confidence in its own political 
economy and general line to debate a vitally important question--
now pressing on the agenda of the revitalizing International 
Communist Movement--without resorting to pointless calumny and 
infantile posturing. MIM suggests that the RCP leadership cease 
its senseless tactic of useless sectarian slander: if the white 
working class in Amerika is exploited--prove it.

Note: Revolutionary Worker 1/16/94, p. 5.

* * *

RCP STUDY PACK

MIM is often asked: "What is the difference between the Maoist 
Internationalist Movement (MIM) and the Revolutionary Communist 
Party, USA (RCP)? If you are both Maoist parties--then why don't 
you work together?"

This collection of published and unpublished MIM documents 
concerning the RCP, USA shows the development of MIM's political 
line over time in contrast with the line of the RCP.

Political line is decisive and practice is principal. The true 
test of a revolutionary party is its practice based on its 
analysis of concrete conditions. MIM urges all revolutionaries to 
talk to us, write to us, and enter into polemics with us around 
the important questions addressed in these pages.

The principal focus of these theoretical documents is on the 
differences between the RCP and MIM. Both MIM and the RCP were 
born out of anti-imperialist movements and have shared at certain 
points similar theoretical views. MIM scientifically applied 
Maoism to North Amerika from the point of view of the 
international proletariat and developed three dividing line 
questions to demarcate genuine Maoism from revisionism in the 
United States. 

These questions revolve around the nature of the capitalist 
restorations in the Soviet Union (l954) and China (l976); 
upholding the Cultural Revolution as the furthest advance of 
communism; and the fact that the non-revolutionary North Amerikan 
white working-class is objectively allied with imperialism. The 
RCP currently fails the test on all three questions--principally 
on the last.

In its history the RCP has wavered from right to left and back to 
right imperialist economism and social-chauvinism. MIM holds that 
the political economy of the RCP has always been and remains mired 
in crypto-Trotskyite opportunism. 

Although there may be honest revolutionaries in the RCP ranks, MIM 
finds the RCP to be a revisionist party. Despite tremendous hype 
to the contrary, the RCP cannot practice genuine Maoism today 
because its theoretical foundations rest on economist theories of 
the productive forces, external causation theories, and the 
revision of Marxist truths and the abandonment of the Marxist-
Leninist-Maoist method.

"Left" economists elevate the purely political struggle over the 
economic struggles of the people. "Right" economists emphasis 
economic determinism over political movement. Modern imperialist 
economism, "right" and "left," is blind to both the economic and 
the political struggles of Third World people--and views the world 
through the eyes of the non-exploited classes.

The most obvious manifestations of the RCP's economism are the 
ridiculous cult of the personality, the absurd homophobia, the 
lack of a developing gender line, and the RCP's outstanding 
theoretical liquidations of anti-imperialist/revolutionary 
nationalist class struggles in the oppressed nations as necessary 
stages in Maoist-led revolutions. This results in disdain for the 
truly exploited masses.

Unraveling the political economy of the RCP is no easy task. For 
one thing it flip-flops from left to right economism and back 
again even as it mouths dare-devil sentiments and adventurist 
slogans while revising Maoism. The RCP cloaks itself in high-
sounding jargon mixed with hip imitations of the revolutionary 
people's language. Although the RCP's organ, the Revolutionary 
Worker, often accurately covers proletarian struggles, the RCP's 
theoretical work belies this attention.

The RCP Pack does not cover everything that the highly repetitive 
RCP has published. It does cover the most important works and MIM 
is happy to debate anyone on the entire corpus of RCP materials.

Long ago MIM came to the conclusion that the RCP is not a genuine 
Maoist vanguard party. MIM set about to concretely make a 
scientific, statistically verifiable Maoist analysis of the United 
States and to build a vanguard party out of what is at hand--in 
accordance with reality--as opposed to wishful thinking. 

The RCP Study Pack has been prepared to expose our differences and 
to help people get a grip on the main dividing line issues of the 
day for Maoists. 

Send $15 cash or check payable to "ABS" for the 1994 revised 
edition of the RCP pack to MIM, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-
3576.

* * *

COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN RWANDA 

by MC79 and MC86

The heaviest recent fighting took place on April 7 in the hills of 
Kigali, Rwanda's capital city. Kigali was attacked by the Tutsi's 
Rwandan Patriotic Front following the April 6 shootdown of a plane 
carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and President 
Cyprien Ntaryamira of neighboring Burundi. Government radio 
stations exhorted citizens in the embattled city to join Rwandan 
government troops (Hutus) in battling the Tutsi rebels.

Since gaining independence from Belgium in 1962, Rwanda has 
experienced constant tensions between the minority Tutsi group and 
the majority Hutu group. The Hutu compose 90% percent of Rwanda's 
population. In 1993-1994 alone, the death toll in this south-east 
African country reached 100,000. The civil war continues as the 
Tutsi group rebels against the 30-year long rule of the Hutu 
group.

The Rwandan government accused the Rwandan Patriotic Front of 
shooting down the plane carrying the two Presidents. Both men were 
members of the Hutu, which had been subject to Tutsi domination 
under Belgian colonial rule in Rwanda prior to national 
liberation.

Six hundred armed Tutsi guerrillas, operating from base areas in 
Uganda, went for the Hutu jugular and engaged the elite Hutu 
presidential guard with heavy weapons. The 20,000-strong Rwandan 
Patriotic Front controls at least three neighborhoods in Kigali 
with 2,000 rebel troops.

The 1,500 Belgians doing business in the Rwandan neo-colony have 
always favored the Tutsi in the struggle for political power. On 
April 12, Belgium informed the United Nations that it planned to 
withdraw its 400 soldiers from the 2,500-strong U.N. occupying 
force in Rwanda "at the earliest possible date." Tutsi rebels were 
careful to guarantee the United Nations and foreign governments 
that they would do nothing to interfere with the evacuation of 
rich foreigners. 

Belgian diplomats said the evacuation was necessary because of a 
strong current of anti-Belgian feeling in the strife torn capital 
of Kigali. With European lives on the line, the imperialist media 
noticed the slaughter. The United States transferred marines from 
ships off Somalia to Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, to aid in the 
evacuation of 250 U.S. citizens from Rwanda. 

An airlift planned by Belgium was initially blocked by angry 
Rwandans, who barricaded the airport runway with firetrucks. On 
April 16, 280 French paratroopers landed at Kigali airport. U.N. 
troops escorted convoys of Europeans fleeing south by road to 
Burundi. A spokesman for the Rwanda Patriotic Front said rebel 
troops were only waiting for the evacuation to be completed before 
launching an all-out assault on Kigali. 

United Nations officials in New York urged the formation of an 
interim government by the military and the police to stabilize the 
situation. They evinced concern that the elite presidential guard 
would seize power for itself. 

As in Bosnia and Somalia, imperialist governments and their media 
attempt to paint pictures of civil wars as primitive "ethnic" or 
"tribal" conflicts lacking economic or political justification. 
Beneath the class and national conflicts between the Hutu majority 
and the out-of-power Tutsi minority, lie the imperatives of 
neocolonial institutions representing primarily the United States, 
Belgium and France.

According to Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe, chairman of the Rwandan 
Patriotic Front, the Tutsi are rebelling against Hutu rule. "It is 
a war against a dictatorship," said Kanyarengwe. When imperialist 
powers even tacitly support a rebel movement, MIM smells a rat. 

The Tutsi held political power in Rwanda under German rule prior 
to World War One; and under Belgium rule until 1962. In 1959, 
oppressed Hutu masses liberated Rwanda from direct Belgian and 
Tutsi control. On April 12, 1994, the Hutu radio station accused 
the International Red Cross of using its convoys to help only 
Tutsi wounded. The Red Cross suspended humanitarian operations for 
a day--until the radio station retracted this statement.(1)

Rwanda is the size of Vermont. With a population of 7.5 million it 
is the most densely populated country in Africa. It is also one of 
the poorest nations in the world. Its import to export ratio was 
an exceedingly uneven $279.2 million/$111.7 million in 1990. Death 
by starvation and preventable disease is a normal occurrence. The 
economy is dependent on coffee exports and "foreign aid," (which 
rises and falls in inverse synchronicity with the local market 
price of coffee).(2) The civil war is further depressing the 
economy and even more misery is in store for the Rwandan people in 
yet another round of World War Three.

In international capital's game of divide and conquer, the coffee 
companies and assorted non-governmental organizations will swoop 
in like vultures--once the bloody dust has cleared--to pick at the 
corpses of Hutu and Tutsi alike.

Cup of coffee, anyone?

Notes:
1. New York Times 4/11/94-4/14/94.
2. CIA World Factbook.

* * *

AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM IN HAITI 

by MA307

Of course we all know that the United States of Amerika as the 
foremost nation of Democracy in the world would do everything in 
its power to support the return of exiled president Aristide, 
Haiti's democratically elected president. While the press has done 
everything it can to portray Haiti as a complicated morass of 
interests, in truth a thin ideological veil weakly screens the 
United States's actual policy towards Haiti, in which Clinton & 
Co. have no intention of returning president Aristide except under 
conditions where he would be a figurehead for the military. Part 
of this veil has been the pressure on Aristide to accept the 
"Parliamentary Plan," in order to facilitate his return.

The U.S. envoy to Haiti, Lawrence Pezzullo, recently admitted that 
the "Parliamentary Plan," supposedly advanced by the military coup 
government in Haiti as their solution to the "Aristide Question," 
was in fact drafted and covertly delivered by the U.S. State 
Department. The United States also channeled funds through the 
Center for Democracy (CFD) in order to have Haiti's special envoys 
return the proposal to them. The CFD was also helped by another 
institute, the National Freedom Institute headed by Kevin Kattke, 
former Oliver North aide, in bringing the February delegation for 
the parliamentary plan. 

Amerika trying to speed up the peace process?

Meanwhile, in Haiti from March 1-15 there were at least 21 extra-
judicial executions and suspicious murders in combination with 
systematic rape, beating, torture, and random arrests of Aristide 
supporters and others who oppose the parliamentary plan. The U.S. 
embassy in Haiti announced that it "shared the anxiety expressed" 
by the UN agency observing the situation. But other minions of the 
empire like the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) head, 
Sam Martin, dismissed these atrocities (off the record) as "all 
bullshit," made up by Non-Government Organization observer 
organizations like Americas Watch and Amnesty International.

Trying to deny the systematic execution and suppression of the 
Haitian people, the U.S. government says that it will continue its 
policy of automatic repatriation of Haitians, in spite of an 
Aristide announcement in Springfield, Massachusetts on April 6 
that Haiti would no longer honor this arrangement. Of course, with 
the U.S. Coast Guard intercepting fleeing Haitians and 
repatriating them without attempting to determine their possible 
status as refugees, the original repatriation treaty has been 
effectively annulled for the last two years. 

Furthermore, the CIA has been exposed in the bourgeois press for 
training officers of the Haitian military at U.S. military bases 
since the coup. This is shocking evidence that the U.S. government 
takes its commitment to autocracy in Haiti extremely seriously, so 
much so that it is willing to risk being charged with hypocrisy in 
order to shore up the Haitian regime.

In short there is an INS that will continue to repatriate 
refugees, a State Department that is attempting to force an exiled 
President to accept a "Haitian" Parliamentary plan, and a 
rapacious military government which does not seem to be crippled 
by the current U.S. blockade of Haiti. 

Why is the U.S. government micromanaging the politics of a small 
Caribbean island? Because, Haiti has been the traditional location 
of U.S. firms like Spalding baseballs, who divested from Haiti 
after Aristide was elected. Because nearly one-third of Haiti is 
owned by foreign agricultural sugar cane-growing operations, and 
the richest third at that. 

Because there are more foreign manufacturing firms located in 
Haiti now than before the coup. Because a repressive government in 
Haiti can provide cheap labor-power in the Dominican Republic and 
other Caribbean Islands, through forcing Haitians to emigrate to 
the cane fields there. Because Haiti, in 1791, was the site of the 
only successful slave revolution, which has made the country the 
focus of repression by U.S. imperialism ever since. 

A liberated Haiti signified the possibility of liberation for the 
whole Black nation and dictatorship over the white nation, 
prompting Thomas Jefferson to fret that "a revolution of the wheel 
of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events."(1) 

In other words, behind the thin veil of helping the 
"democratization process," the U.S. is engaged in covertly 
supporting a dictatorial military regime, hell-bent on oppressing 
the Haitian people into highly profitable submission. The new 
"democratization" ideology is nothing more than the same old 
imperialism with a transparent liberal veneer.(2)

Notes: 

1. J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, p. 
20. Send $10 cash or check payable to "ABS" for a copy. 

2. Most of the current events information in this article was 
cited from Haiti News Digest, an Internet affiliate in Boston.

* * *

PCP RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS:
REVOLUTIONARY PARTY IS NOT ANTI-GAY

In March, Prison Legal News (PLN) published an article that 
included statements from the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and gay 
activists in Peru, all denying that the PCP persecutes gay people 
for their sexual orientation.

The PCP, or Shining Path, has been subjected to slander that it 
rounds up and executes homosexuals. For the past two years, both 
MIM and Prison Legal News have searched for evidence to back up 
these charges, and have challenged the gossip-mongers to prove 
their slander  The PLN article should hopefully put this matter to 
rest. 

The PCP always takes responsibility for its actions and explains 
them to the masses, so we expected to be able to find the truth--
if these charges were true--very easily. None of the PCP's critics 
ever offered proof, and the PCP denied the charges and claimed 
that it had no line on homosexuality.

PCP statement

The discussion in PLN was started by a transsexual prisoner who 
while supportive of the revolution, repeated information he had 
heard from members of the Movimiento Homosexual de Lima (MOHL). 
The prisoner also suggested that those of us doing the 
investigation into these charges didn't have any connections with 
the MOHL. 

The PCP replied to the prisoner:

"We have sought articles on the homosexual question written by our 
teachers, that is to say Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao and even 
others, but we have not found any, nor has our party specifically 
addressed this question in its documents. In general, it appears 
to us that there is an excessive pre-occupation with this subject 
in certain revolutionary and militant circles, which does not 
exist in Europe. They are, as we have previously stated, lies and 
slander which claim that the PCP kills gays for being gay or makes 
statements against them.

"In reality, if we examine what Marxism says, the problem is not 
one of a person's sexual orientation but rather the class position 
that they take as everyone is classified as revolutionary, 
progressive, democrat, revisionist or reactionary. Far from making 
a lengthy analysis here, we can see that homosexuals have existed 
in all societies, some from birth, others converted by the social 
environment in which they live or have lived, the latter seems 
extremely influential to us. Our view is that homosexual 
orientation is not an ideological matter but one of individual 
preference.

"It is probable that the PCP has executed a homosexual, but rest 
assured that it was not done because of their sexual orientation 
but because of their position against the revolution. It is not 
difficult to see that in the bars and brothels of Peruvian cities 
frequented by elements of the police and army some homosexuals 
work as snitches and collaborators and because of this they 
accumulate blood debts with the revolution so that when the party 
seizes that city it will settle accounts with those elements, 
regardless of their sexual orientation. What then happens is the 
government and reactionary media report that the Party killed gays 
or 'cleaned up' the city.

"We reiterate that the PCP does not attack, slander nor 
discriminate against anyone because of their sexual orientation. 
In fact, party membership is open to all who support the cause of 
communist revolution and the principles of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, regardless of what their sexual 
preferences maybe. We believe that there are other more important 
and crucial topics over which to open major discussion, as for 
example, that of revolutionary violence, which is concretely the 
universal weapon of the people's war, etc."(1)

MOHL denies allegation

Prison Legal News reported that the "Uruguayan weekly Brecha, in 
its Feb. 12, 1993, edition" published an interview with "Enrique 
Bossio, a member of the Homosexual Movement of Lima. Bossio is 
quoted as saying that the PCP has not made gays the focus of any 
attacks" but indicated that the Tupac Amaru (MRTA), a pro-Cuban 
focoist group in Peru, did persecute gays.

Prison Legal News also contacted Lucien Chauvin, a gay journalist 
and activist in Lima, who "confirmed that the PCP does not attack 
homosexuals because of their sexual orientation. He stated that 
there were opportunist elements in the gay community in Peru who 
had jumped on the anti-PCP bandwagon to advance their own 
interests. Mr. Chauvin makes clear that he is no supporter or 
sympathizer of the PCP. He suggested that perhaps [the prisoner] 
is confusing the PCP" with the Tupac Amaru.

What started rumors?

A Peruvian exile in Europe speculated that rumors of PCP 
persecution of homosexuals grew out of the PCP's opposition to 
prostitution. Women and men in Peru are sometimes forced into 
prostitution by poverty. This includes men who are not gay, but 
prostitute themselves to other men for money. When the PCP 
liberates territory, prostitution is opposed. That could look like 
opposition to homosexuality.

Carol Andreas, at a recent lecture in Boston, said that 
homosexuality is accepted among the indigenous people of Peru, who 
make up the majority of the PCP. 

Gossip serves imperialism

Prison Legal News concluded: "When an allegation is made it helps 
to look at who stands to benefit from making it and of course who 
is making it. Support for the PCP is controversial because they 
are an openly communist party who are engaged in a peoples' war 
with the express goal of seizing state power and installing a 
popular, communist government and economy. But the goal of the 
anti-imperialist countries who do not define themselves as 
communists or revolutionaries should be to ensure that their 
governments do not intervene in Peru. The choice of the form of 
government in Peru must be made by the Peruvian people, not the 
U.S. government or the International Monetary Fund. The goal of 
non-intervention is a simple one that should not be influenced by 
baseless allegations."(1)

Notes:

1. Prison Legal News 3/94, pp. 11, 13-14.

Subscribe to Prison Legal News. Suggested contribution $12. Prison 
Legal News, PO Box 1684 Lake Worth, Florida 33460.

* * *

MIM HOSTS TALKS ABOUT REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN IN PERU

Professor Carol Andreas gave a number of lectures in Amherst and 
Boston, Massachusetts in early April, as a part of MIM's ongoing 
campaign to support the struggles of the people of Peru. The talks 
brought out an interest in and support for the Communist Party of 
Peru (PCP) even in the face of a strong misinformation campaign on 
the part of the Amerikan government and media.

Andreas discussed the history of women's efforts in Peru as they 
led to the revolutionary movement, and stressed the significance 
of the feminist movement in Peru as a revolutionary struggle and 
as an important part of the PCP. She described the PCP as an 
expression of proletarian feminism. Pointing out the unprecedented 
levels of poverty and unemployment in Peru, Andreas noted the 
strong support the PCP has among the population--particularly 
among indigenous women. This she contrasted with the other "left" 
parties that are all hostile to revolutionary feminism.

Andreas's research shows that indigenous women of Peru have a long 
tradition of leading resistance to capitalist expansion and 
destruction of their culture. At present, imperialist 
appropriation of the indigenous people's land, labor and resources 
all represent attacks on indigenous women in particular. Their 
response is a Maoist revolution that seeks to break the parasitic 
ties between Peru and the imperialist world and build a new, 
liberated culture and society.

Her lecture helped dispel myths that Peruvian women are dupes of a 
sexist, patriarchal organization that cynically uses women for 
"its own" ends. She buried that lie with the truth that 
revolutionary women in Peru--like oppressed women anywhere--can 
and do decide for themselves that communist revolution is the best 
solution to their problems.

In response to a question about what we can do to support the PCP 
in this country, Andreas said that what the PCP really wants is 
for people to join Maoist parties and work toward world 
revolution.

These events, enthusiastically received by attentive audiences who 
participated in lengthy discussions afterward, were important 
elements of building a mass movement in support of the revolution 
in Peru, and against Amerikan imperialist aggression.

For copies of Andreas's book--When Women Rebel: The Rise of 
Popular Feminism in Peru--the result of her extensive research and 
work with the people in Peru, send $15 to MIM. Write to MIM for 
information on organizing similar events in your area.

 

* * *

THE PAPER
1994

This movie about a New York city tabloid misses the true story 
entirely. The plot focuses on the writing of a story about two 
young Black guys who got framed for the murder of some rich white 
guys. The lead character, the news editor, is convinced that the 
kids didn't do it and is very moral about not wanting to run an 
incorrect story because he doesn't want to hurt the kids' future, 
and he doesn't want to incite more racial tension and possibly 
riots. He makes great personal sacrifices for this important 
principle.

The movie tells us this is an isolated incident, Black kids don't 
regularly get framed for crimes they didn't commit. Reality: This 
happens all the time. 

The movie shows us that all the Black guys in the city jail are 
big mean criminals who are a menace to society and to the nice 
framed kids. Reality: Prisoners are a menace to society, but not 
because they are social deviants, it's because they know who the 
real criminals are--the rich white imperialists. 

The movie says bourgeois newspaper editors want to get the story 
right and will sacrifice sensationalism for principles. Reality: 
Newspapers print whatever sells papers and will not lose thousands 
of dollars just to delay printing so that they can get a story 
right. 

The movie shows us that cops don't want to frame the wrong guys. 
Cops know that young Black kids have a potential future outside of 
prison and they just want to get the real criminals, in this case 
the white mob. Reality: this is bullshit.

There was also a subplot thrown in about the news editor's 
pregnant wife being angry at him for ignoring his responsibilities 
to his family and placing his job first. Fortunately, in order for 
it all to end happily ever after, she forgot all about all her 
complaints once the baby was born. Phew. Race riots avoided. 
Everyone's family problems resolved. And they got the exclusive. 
Now you don't have to see the movie.

--MC17



* * *

NPA ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED

During the week of March 29, people in North Amerika celebrated 
the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the New People's Army 
(NPA) led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

In San Francisco and Berkeley, California, and at a college campus 
in the Midwest, the Philippine-American Worker's International 
Solidarity Committee (PAWISC) presented the NPA video documentary 
Medics of the People to multi-national audiences of activists and 
supporters of the Maoist-led people's war in the Philippines.

In California, the events featured live and energetic singing of 
revolutionary songs in Tagalog--including "Ang Bagong," the anthem 
of the NPA; a newly composed song called "People's War," which 
extols the recent CPP rectification; and "The Internationale." 

A statement from the Central Committee of the CPP was read. The 
statement firmly acknowledges the successful return of the CPP to 
the Maoist road and the acceptance of the rectification by the 
vast majority of CPP members. The Party reaffirmed the basic 
Maoist principles that guided its establishment in 1968 and 
proclaimed its leadership of the NPA and the National Democratic 
Front (NDF).

According to the CPP statement, "The NPA has thousands of full-
time guerrilla fighters with automatic rifles, excluding the more 
numerous forces of local guerrillas, militia and self-defense 
units with inferior weapons. They operate in guerrilla fronts 
which cover 25 percent of the villages (more than 10,000 out of 
40,000 villages) or substantial portions of more than 60 of the 73 
provinces."

Medics of the People follows an NPA Barrio Health Committee as it 
serves the medical needs of the workers, peasants and soldiers.(1) 
At the campus showing, one audience member said s/he attended the 
event because s/he is interested in giving medical care to poor 
people, and discussed the importance of preventative care. All 
audience members liked the CPP medic's attention to prevention 
through education. They noted that the stress in health care in 
the United States is on marketable skills and not prevention. 
Healing skills become less marketable once the people learn how to 
prevent serious illness and this interferes with the profit system 
in health care.

MIM pointed out that Maoists recognize that poverty and starvation 
are just as violent a form of death as gunshots, and in some ways 
worse because the bourgeoisie trains us to think that poverty 
"just happens" to people. The importance of the people's armed 
medical units is that they join the war against starvation and 
preventable disease with the armed struggle against capitalism and 
imperialism.

In California, PAWISC fielded questions from the audience 
regarding the leading role of women in the Philippine Revolution, 
the relationship of the revolutionary nationalist Moro National 
Liberation Front to the CPP/NDF, the semi-colonial and semi-feudal 
character of Philippine society, and the resurgence of the 
international Maoist movement in the Third World since the 
increasingly blatant exposure of the counterrevolutionary 
capitalist regimes in the ex-Soviet Union and China.

Audience members were concerned about how to create a practice in 
solidarity with the 65 million Filipinos afflicted by, mainly, 
U.S. multinational corporations and their military forces. 
Activists were encouraged to read the NDF bi-monthly magazine 
International Liberation and to work with PAWISC as it struggles 
to expose the role of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines, 
everywhere in the Third World, and in the occupied colonies inside 
North Amerikan territory. 

MIM remarks that the best way to support the international 
revolution is to make revolution in your own country in solidarity 
with the international proletariat. In North Amerika, the most 
effective way forward is to work with and join MIM.

Watch your local alternative newspapers and telephone poles for 
announcements of more PAWISC events. Read MIM Notes and grow 
politically.

Notes:
1. See MIM Notes 87 for a review of the video, available for $25, 
cash or check made out to "ABS," P.O. Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI, 
48106-3576. 

Write to MIM for more information about PAWISC and to obtain new 
CPP and NDF literature.