Crack Pot Kin, May 2, 2008: So how is ‘Anarchy’ doing these days…which revolution are you lot leading in the world, must be everyone is too dumb for ANARCHISM?! I notice you didn’t mention Nepal – but reality doesn’t really suit you does it? What a pity that the Nepalese haven’t taken up your ‘First World’ petty bourgeois Anarchism and instead have opted for “Authoritarian, Stalinist, Leninist, blah, blah, blah”.
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Nepal; a nice little earner for the Maoist ruling class – in Lenin’s footsteps
Ret Marut
May 12, 2008
Nepal’s Maoist Party has won around 220 seats in the recent Constituent Assembly (CA) election, about one-third of the total. Though the largest party, they don’t have an overall majority; they have stated their wish to lead a coalition government.
But as the result became clear Maoist leader Prachanda told journalists “I will be declared the acting President of this country very soon…which will be followed by occupying the post of the all powerful President of New Nepal…this is the peoples’ mandate…no force on earth can disobey this mandate” (I am the all-powerful first president of New Nepal: Prachanda, Telegraphnepal.com, April 26, 2008); the man who has long talked of his wish to ‘abolish royal autocracy’ now speaks of his “all powerful” role.
Recent news reports reveal the wages and expenses of the newly elected members of the Assembly. While they spend an indefinite period drawing up a new national Constitution they will be paid – by Nepali standards – enormous wages; each CA member will receive net salaries of 23 thousand one hundred rupees per month [£176/$345/Eur224]. On top of this they’ll get expenses for drinking water, electricity, telephone, rent, newspapers & “miscellaneous”. These expense allowances bring the total income of a CA member to 45 thousand 98 rupees [£345/$674/Eur437] each per month.
The CA President (probably Maoist Party boss Prachanda) will have a monthly salary/expenses income of 60,600 rupees [£463/$905/Eur588] – plus a petrol allowance of 24,500 rupees [£187/$366/Eur237]. The vice president will scrape by on a few thousand less.
So the ruling class, led by the Maoist ‘proletarian vanguard’, feather their nest. These salaries must be compared with the Nepali average wage of just $200 a year [£102/Eur129]; Nepal is the poorest country in Asia. Around 10% of the population takes 50% of the wealth, the bottom 40% takes 10%. 85% of Nepalese people don’t have access to health care. So the monthly income of a CA politician is well over three times the annual national average wage! Jobs within the CA are already being allocated by all the various member parties to their friends and family.
In a public appearance last week Maoist leader Prachanda said “I had the opportunity to play the role of Lenin itself in Nepal” (I am Nepal’s Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Prachanda says, Telegraphnepal.com, May 4, 2008). With his fat salary and perks he is certainly following in Bolshevik footsteps; Lenin travelled in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, as did other government officials. “Autocracy’s main enemy, Vladimir Lenin, had no reservations about inheriting the hated old regime’s automobile collection. Lenin used the Tsar’s Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost to drive around town while his colleagues divided up the rest of the collection among them. But two revolutions and a civil war had taken their toll on the cars, and in 1919 [during a time of famine and extreme hardships for the poor] the Council of People’s Commissars had to order 70 more from London” (Aeroflot). Lenin moved into a dacha (country house) previously owned by a millionaire, while much of the other Bolshevik leadership took occupation of the luxurious Lux hotel in Petrograd, dining on preferential food rations. Then and now, for those who inherit the State, its perks and luxuries are clearly irresistable and seen as just reward for their conquest and devotion to power. And so the new Nepalese republic is born – the furniture and faces at the top have been shifted around a little, and that is all.
There’s another interpretation (though less likely) of the reference to Lenin – as a coded pointer towards a historical precedent; that Prachanda’s long-term plan is for the Constituent Assembly in Nepal to share the same fate as it did in Russia. When the Bolsheviks were ready to seize sole power for themselves, a revolutionary guard (led by Anatoli Zhelezniakov, an anarchist sailor) dismissed the CA, dominated as it was by indecisive bourgeois moderate politicians. The Bolsheviks saw its dissolution as a decisive step in the progress from a bourgeois to a proletarian revolution (though the fact that, unlike Nepal’s Maoists, the Bolsheviks did not emerge victorious from the CA elections may have influenced their choices too). The Maoists might, ideally, like to achieve a neat Leninist orthodoxy by replicating this state of affairs, but they know the necessities of ‘realpolitik’. External geo-political pressures and economic realities mean that – for the moment, at least – they need to play the democratic game in order to attract foreign investment, so as to try and build up a sound politico-economic base. A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.
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See also : Devil’s Advocate: Prachanda on Indo-Nepal relations, Karan Thapar, CNN-IBN, May 18, 2008:
Karan Thapar: What will you think will be the impact on Indian Maoists by your coming to power in Nepal?
Prachanda: I think a strong message has already gone. After the elections, there was a wave in favour of our policy. After the elections, a Maoist has sent a letter to me congratulating me for this historical victory in elections. I think there will be a serious discussion and debate within the Maoist circles in India and we have already given a message to not only Maoists in India, but to all over the world.
Karan Thapar: Looking at your own experience in Nepal during the last two years and six months in particular, would you advice the Indian Maoists to give up the peoples war, to join mainstream, to use the ballot rather than the bullet as a way of acquiring power?
Prachanda: I think that I cannot directly address them, but our behaviour and our policy and our practices give out the message of the power of ballot.
Karan Thapar: One of the top Maoist leaders in India, Azad in an interview to The Hindu has said that the Nepali Maoists are unlikely to succeed and that the Nepali Maoists will soon realise that they have made a mistake.
Prachanda: Right now, the same person Azad has sent a letter congratulating me and that he thinks it is a very serious victory for the Maoists. I think it is before and after the elections, that he has evaluated it in a different way.
Karan Thapar: Many people think, Comrade Azad, as you call him, is saying two things. He says one thing to you in the letter and praises you and on the other hand, says another thing to the press and sounds sceptical and cynical. Is he double-faced?
Prachanda: Is there a written statement somewhere?
Karan Thapar: Yes, it is in The Hindu on Friday.
Prachanda: I see. I have not gone through that interview and statement.
Karan Thapar: So right now you are not aware that Mr Azad speaks with two voices. He says something to you and something else to the others. Does that worry you or disillusion you?
Prachanda: No, I have to go through that statement in detail. I cannot blame anything on anyone.
Karan Thapar: At the moment you will reserve your judgement.
Prachanda: Yes.
(Interview with Azad: The situation in Nepal and India are completely different, K. Srinivas Reddy, The Hindu, May 17, 2008.)
There are a mountain of Maoist parties in India. They include the Centre of Indian Communists : Communist Party of India (Maoist) : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Mahadev Mukherjee) : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Flag : Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
In Australia, Maoist currents experienced some small degree of popularity in the 1960s and ’70s — one, Jim Bacon, even became Premier of Tasmania (albeit much later and after having joined the ALP) — but have been in terminal decline since. Extant groups include the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) and a handful of brave if aging souls on lastsuperpower.net.
For a Maoist perspective on events in Nepal, see Revolution in South Asia: An Internationalist Info Project.
On a completely fucking bizarro note, see the Maoist Internationalist Movement and its declaration of February 15 2008: “The masses have less than three days left to break the encirclement of MIM, and we see them trying, but in case they do not punch through, we have already started preparations for tidying up. There is a new website, “MIM Lite”.” As it happens, it appears that the masses didn’t rally to MIM’s cause, despite their posting this plea on their site. “In the end, it can be as simple as the politics of death threats against MIM. It is not accountable for MIM to allow various political forces to play both sides. People promoting those making death threats against MIM are not MIM’s friends. For this reason MIM is leaving the field to the leaders the so-called masses deserve. The masses did not bail MIM out and re-organize the struggle as requested, and so we are left in a form of intra-bourgeois struggle only, a struggle that might be better taken up in other ways, perhaps as bourgeois politicians or single-issue activists. “MIM Lite” will try to organize where there is still some opportunity.” As is the way of things, ‘MIM Lite’ has also announced its political suicide, set for today!
The Good News for English-speaking Maoists is the continued survival of The Great Leader, Bob Avakian. The World requires radical change: “That demands leadership. And that is where Bob Avakian comes in… He built, and today leads, a revolutionary party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA—a party that has mobilized thousands to fight against the system in different ways through the past decades and that has continued to promote revolution and communism. But Bob Avakian is more than that. He is someone who has persisted in confronting the hardest, most excruciating questions before humanity. In so doing, he’s taken the communist understanding of the world and how to change it to a new place. The answers he’s brought forward and the pathways he’s forged demand a serious look—a deep engagement—from everyone concerned about the future of humanity.”
He’s also modest.
Other Maoist (Marxist-Leninist) groups in the United States include the (rival) Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Workers World.
In the United Kingdom, Maoist and Marxist-Leninist political formations include the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the New Communist Party of Britain, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and last — but by absolutely no means necessary least — the Stalin Society.
Did you add Kasama? Its a pretty good read. They discuss a lot, no obvious party line, no craziness.
Not Kasama but writings on Nepal from Kasama.
Well it is certainly a huge step above the zaniness of the usual online Maoism. You also left out the post MIM Maoist-Third-Worldists such as Monkey smashes heaven and Shubel Morgan. They hate all other Maoists (just about), everyone in the First World, and love guns. Awesome.
rebel love
Dave
Shubel Morgan:
Sample post:
Monkey Smashes Heaven:
Sample post:
I surfed through some ‘post-‘Maoist blogs a while ago (many months). They appear to be almost all from the US. And Germany. And ah, elsewhere. Unfortunately, I can’t find any from Australia. (Presumably they’ve all been smashed, or perhaps subverted by the pigs. About the closest thing I can find is Australia Watch; having very briefly surveyed it, it ain’t half bad… maybe I’ll come back to it. See also: Melbourne Maoists Go International, July 31, 2007, about the involvement of the CPA (ML) in the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.) Solidarity blog (referenced above) has a collection of links. Here’s some more English-language ones:
Leftspot
The Marxist-Leninist
Good Morning, Revolution
Red Flags
Maoist Resistance
Rural People’s Party
^ Brilliant ^
— and finally —
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement- Denver
Good vid; Chomsky on 9/11 Truthiness:
well, here’s to raping the third world, and i must say it is not an entirely unenjoyable experience
Slackbastard is a journal dedicated to smashing First World hip hop to smithereens. First World hip hop is rotten to the core. First World rappers as a whole exploit, rape and plunder the beats of the whole planet and its peoples. It’s time to turn the turntables.
Slackbastard does not under any circumstance communicate by drum and bass. Interested parties who have even the slightest genuine proletarian fighting spirit should have enough motivation to create their own small wooden instruments and engage in public communication via that medium. Persyns without that modicum of dedication to revolution and the necessities of security can simply fuck off.
Celebrate May 20 by decisively breaking with First Worldism. Embrace Slackbastardism-Third Worldism! Denounce First World so-called hip hop! Denounce White so-called rappers! Stand for proletarian folk! Women of the Third World, stand against imperialism, especially U$ imperialism!
Long Live the Victory of Peoples War!
Slackbastard is the rag of the international nerd-anarchist-gothic conspiracy. Andrew is a agent of ASIO. The Stalinist League of Australia will destroy the conspiracy and bring about a new era of freedom, democracy, socialism and sex. As the great Chairman Watson said “The agents of capitalism (ie anarchists, fat people, old people, teachers, nerds, geeks, nazis, fascists, trotskyists, and revisionists) are simply a moment of time holding back the progressive movement of international socialist proletariat”.
LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN WATSON
LONG LIVE THE STALINIST LEAGUE
LONG LIVE MARX, LENIN, MAO, AND STALIN
VIVA THE REVOLUTION
Peter,
See you again in June.
Speaking of Mao:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23732698-662,00.html
Go Albert!
I mean, Arthur.
“A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.”
A succinct exposition of the whole of anarchism there. Really grooovy man, I mean I really dig your opposition to the STATE man.
So how did Russia’s leading anarchists of the day deal with the Bolshevik attempts to establish a “strong and stable state power”?
By siding with counter-revolution of course. Crackpotkin supported Kerensky, Makhno supported the White Guard.
Crack Pot Kin.
Like, dude.
Get into the groove
Boy you’ve got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be
Critique can be such a revelation
Dancing around you feel the sweet sensation
We might be lovers if the rhythm’s right
I hope this feeling never ends tonight…
Gonna get to know you in a special way
This doesn’t happen to me every day
Don’t try to hide it love wears no disguise
I see the fire burning in your eyes…
A succinct — er, rather lengthy — exposition of anarchism may be found at the anarchistfaq. In any case, to ascribe the proposition that “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards” to anarchism — and to claim that this is a succinct exposition of anarchism — is mistaken. Marx, for example, and Marxists generally, argue much the same. Lenin: “The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”
Capiche?
The anarchist critique of the state, as I understand it, shares this conception, but augments it by reference to ‘the state’ as a particular set of social relations which provides ‘the state’ with a certain degree of autonomy from the realm of the purely economic… on the other hand, I detect a certain inability to engage in serious discussion of such matters so like, dude, maybe I’ll just like leave it at that.
Regarding the role of Russia’s leading anarchists vis-a-vis the Bolsheviks, I mean like, hey man, I don’t wanna bring you down or bum you out, but like, dude. Serious. I’m confused. I thought you were Crackpotkin?
Are you like, “Wow man, dig this: I gotta time-machine and like, I went back in time — yeah? — and dude: Kerensky. Oh man…”
As for The Anarchist formerly known as Prince Kropotkin: He returned to Russia in 1917, after an absence of forty years (having escaped from a Russian prison in 1876). For the previous twenty, beginning in the 1890s, he’d largely withdrawn from ‘activism’ and the anarchist movement, and shifted in his thinking on a number of crucial issues, especially those concerned with internationalism and anti-militarism. His declaration of support for France in WWI further isolated him from the anarchist movement, and his contacts in Russia, when he finally returned there, centred largely on the Social Revolutionaries rather than the anarchists. It was partly for this reason, as well as his broader standing as an anarchist intellectual and revolutionary, that he was offered a post as Minister of Education in Kerensky’s Government — an offer he rejected, preferring instead to resume his literary efforts, although also meeting with Lenin in 1919 and again in 1920, largely in order to express his concerns over political repression.
The actually-existing Russian anarchist movement pursued a slightly different course.
As for Makhno, you’re absolutely correct. That is, if by “Makhno supported the White Guard” you mean declared war on them and did his best to, like, kill them:
Finally, you may wanna exercise your obviously great intellect by considering the distinction between ‘anarchist’, on the one hand, and ‘Kropotkinist’ and ‘Makhnovist’, on the other.
Peace, love and mungbeans,
@ndy.
“The anarchist critique of the state, as I understand it, shares this conception, but augments it by reference to ‘the state’ as a particular set of social relations which provides ‘the state’ with a certain degree of autonomy from the realm of the purely economic…”
Wow, I mean right on, so really profound “the realm of the purely economic”, so deep maaaann. Makes me wanna pierce my nipples, walk around in black clothes and listen to Crass.
You found a quote from Lenin where he is writing about the bourgeois state in particular and tried to equate that to anarchist nonsense theories about the state in general.
Every state serves the particular class which is in power in that state.
Makhno sought to overthrow Soviet power, his activities assisted the White counter revolutionaries every time his troops attacked the institutions of the Soviet state.
Read about Anarchism here kiddies –
W. B. Bland., ANARCHISM, THE MARXIST-LENINIST RESEARCH BUREAU, NEW SERIES : NO. 8
Have a nice weekend in whatever “realm” the drugs take you.
Oh dear.
I see that the three principles of edjumakashen are somewhat lacking in the British skooling system: reading, writing, and sarcasm. Mind you, you’ve obviously graduated with a ‘C’ in the third arena at least.
A few points:
1) Given your silence over Kropotkin, I assume my point has been made.
2) The utility of Lenin’s quote is that it mirrors the one you provided as being peculiarly ‘anarchist’. In fact, the whole of ‘anarchism:
a) Pseudonymous Internet Stalinist:
“A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.” A succinct exposition of the whole of anarchism there.
b) @ndy the Drug-Addled Anarchist:
“…to ascribe the proposition that “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards” to anarchism — and to claim that this is a succinct exposition of anarchism — is mistaken. Marx, for example, and Marxists generally, argue much the same. Lenin: “The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”
The point being:
First, you claimed that the ‘whole of anarchism’ is contained in the statement “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards”. In reality, this statement is in fact a fairly standard (Marxist) definition of the state as an instrument of class rule (and the more efficient the exploitation, the more stable the state). Why you should confuse the Marxist definition of the state with ‘anarchism’ is for you to explain, not me.
Secondly, in relation to my use of Lenin (State and Revolution), the rather obvious point Lenin was making is that the state exists where there are class antagonisms. Where there are no class antagonisms, there is no state. Thus the communist society of the future will be both classless and stateless. Lenin’s statement does not apply simply to the bourgeois state, in other words, but ‘the state’ as such. You’ve simply misunderstood Lenin.
Finally — and self-evidently, given the above — I haven’t tried to equate Lenin’s conception of the bourgeois state with the anarchist theory of the state. And to understand that would require a little less juvenile delinquency and a little more effort on your part I’m afraid. You’ve also got to crawl before you can walk, so I suggest you actually read Marx and Lenin first before attempting to understand anarchism.
3) On Makhno. Once again, you’re absolutely correct. That is if by “overthrow Soviet power” you mean attempt to defend it from Bolshevik subversion.
In reality — a concept with which you’re obviously on very poor terms — the principal base of operations for the Makhnvoschina was the Ukraine, and from July 1918 through to August 1921. It was an autonomous movement, which sought to remove from the Ukraine foreign powers and to overthrow the rule of the local, Ukrainian elites. It did this in the name of constructing a communist society. The Makhnovists supported the formation of soviets of workers, as well as rural peasant communes — in brief, the socialisation of the means of production — but opposed Bolshevik state control of these institutions. In this context, it should be noted that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 13, 1918) between the Bolshevik State and the Central Powers effectively ceded control of the Ukraine to the German state. Beyond this:
Your pig-ignorance of history does your argument no favours. And the essay by Bland on ‘anarchism’ is likely useful only for a worker who has undergone a lobotomy: the Bolshevik ideal, but happily not the reality. Well, not for most of us anyway.
For Crass Unity,
@ndy.
PS.
The article you recommend as being a repository of wisdom on the subject of ‘anarchism’ was penned by William ‘Bill’ Bland, a dead Stalinist. Here’s an obit:
A w e s o m e!
Long Live the Great October Socialist Revolution!
Long Live the Immortal Ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin!
Long Live the Solidarity of the Working Class and Working Peoples Throughout the World!
[Fly away Peter.]
In reference to the statement in the original article –
“A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards”
you wrote –
“In reality, this statement is in fact a fairly standard (Marxist) definition of the state as an instrument of class rule (and the more efficient the exploitation, the more stable the state)”.
You are so ignorant of what constitutes Marxism-Leninism, that you present a caricature of it in order to try and defeat it. What you consider a “fairly standard (Marxist) definition of the state” is entirely the creation of your own infantile imagination.
Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Makhno’s anarchist-bandits have all been consigned to the dust bin of history. Only petty bourgeois first world hippies pick through such shite these days.
Touché!
Whereas Zombie Stalin is coming to eat your BRAAAINS BRAAAAINS!
If so, I think he’ll be bitterly disappointed when he takes his first bite out of one of his followers.
New article;
http://libcom.org/library/myths-realities-nepalese-maoists-their-strike-ban-legislations
Prachanda is such a disgrace to the Nation and to the 21st century as a whole. Quick question, who do you think will have the last laugh between Prachanda vs Baburam?