(source: shubelmorgan.wordpress.com)
Some comments recently posted at Monkey Smashes Heaven will be helpful in focusing our thinking in this concluding article of the “On the Theory of the Productive Forces” series.
The first comment is actually a reader’s response to Part 5c of this series. In that part we said:
The Chinese Communist Party claimed they could build socialism while embracing the international theory of the productive forces as powered by the first world labor aristocracy. Maoism-Third Worldism calls that out right here and now as bullshit. Today even Third World forces professing People’s War claim they can achieve proletarian victory without an all out fight against the first wordlist ideology that was instrumental in defeating socialism in China. In Part 6, Maoism-Third Worldism calls out those bullshitters as well.
Here are excerpts from the reader’s response:
The Third World ‘bullshitters’ you are talking about often don’t know about conditions in the Western countries. … Also, part of the Maoist etiquette tends to be that you don’t pass judgment on how people are struggling in other countries. … Attacking Maoist leaders right, left and centre for not endorsing your not yet fully developed line is likely to be rather unproductive.
Now, Prairie Fire at MSH has already provided a comprehensive rebuttal to this bullshit first worldist response. The problem of “not knowing” about the extreme parasitic wealth of the first world populations, Prairie Fire points out, is not one of epistemology but one of ideology. There has been no significant proletariat in the imperialist first world for at least the greater part of a century. This is simply not news. It is as well not news that the primary contradiction in the world has been and continues to be between imperialism and the oppressed nations. And, finally, it should not be newsworthy to actual communists that the first responsibility of communist leadership is to distinguish friends from enemies, which of course means knowing the enemy. The international proletariat, as we’ve said, steadfastly maintains that expectation of all communist leadership.
The above bullshit response pretends to make excuses for what the writer wants to fabricate as terminally naive Third World shock and awe at first worlder riches, but this is only one silly argument in a series of silly arguments in the service of making excuses for continuing to peddle the international Theory of the Productive Forces to the world’s oppressed and exploited majority. According to the division of labor for selling this lie to the international proletariat, most of imperialism’s ideological resources are apportioned to selling the lie outright: look, look, look at how rich first worlders are, just forget class struggle and you can live like that too! Within the ICM, though, the ideological responsibility becomes that of making “communists” appear as delusional morons who think they can keep first worlder parasitism a secret from the oppressed by running around whispering to any who might spill the beans, “shhh! don’t tell!” So the writer tells the Maoists-Third Worldists “shhh! don’t tell!” because of some phony “Maoist etiquette” against calling out revisionism. Or “shhh! don’t tell!” because centuries of first world parasitism on the Third World don’t constitute the basis for a “fully developed line.” Or “shhh! don’t tell!” because we’ll just be “attacking Maoist leaders” willy nilly (”right, left and centre”). Or “”shhh! don’t tell!” because it’ll be “unproductive.” And so fucking on. And so fucking forth.
Well, as we said, Prairie Fire has already pegged this nonsense for the nonsense that it is. We review it here firstly because it’s a fine example of the fake “left’s” assigned role for TOPF promotion within the ICM, which we’ll need to talk about later. But it also does touch on the question of just how do Maoists-Third Worldists say to Third World leaders of people’s wars that if they are promoting the first world labor aristocracy they are speaking counter-revolutionary bullshit to their people? Which we need to talk about now.
Because after great consideration we can only conclude that the most productive way of saying this to these leaders is to say that, in all proletarian honesty and frankness, if you are promoting the first world labor aristocracy you are speaking counter-revolutionary bullshit to your people, and to the international proletariat generally. Speaking bullshit thusly would include lying about the enormous wealth of the first world populations and the imperialist superprofit rape of the Third World from which that wealth derives. Speaking bullshit thusly would also include remaining silent and agnostic on first worlder parasitism – such silence speaks volumes of international Theory of the Productive Forces bullshit. Speaking bullshit thusly would of course further include even the most creative sorts of creative fence-sitting on this life and death issue of proletarian ideology. In fact, to the extent that any communists are not providing fierce leadership against the international TOPF and the first world labor aristocracy they are speaking the bullshit of counter-revolution. It’s just that simple and there’s absolutely no way around it that is genuinely communist.
In Part 6a we said as much to the advanced forces in the Philippines. At MSH, Prairie Fire has said as much to the advanced forces of India in the excellent article, “Indian movements won’t connect the dots … yet.” Here we say it to the advanced forces leading people’s wars worldwide. If you are not leading your people directly, and the international proletariat by example, in struggle against the imperialist ideology of the Theory of the Productive Forces and the first world labor aristocracy you are objectively bullshitting about struggling for socialism.
That said, then, let’s move on to considering a second comment posted at MSH. A comrade provided an article documenting the responses she received from some “communists” when she presented them with the Maoist-Third Worldist political line on the first world labor aristocracy. The article is well worth a read since the “communist” responses pretty much cover the gamut of flimsy attempts at refutation that so-called “leftists” can muster against Maoism-Third Worldism. We’ll make use of just one of these here. It’s short, but it packs in more opportunism in the service of defending first worldism than you might think possible in a single sentence. The “communist” response to the comrade regarding Maoism-Third Worldism was this admonition:
Don’t listen to ghosts that hide behind the internet and have not applied these things anywhere to test their validity.
There it is. In one brief sentence the first worldist “communists” show that in their rush to defend first world parasitism they’re prepared to opportunistically abandon:
(1) the ideological proposition that class struggle exists and thus the need for security is real
(2) the scientific proposition that truth is independent of the speaker
(3) the basics of logic, which says that if “ghosts” are those you know nothing about, then you cannot simultaneously claim to know something about them, like for instance their practice
And those are just for starters. We could go on and on with this rich sample of what passes for argumentation among first worldists, but (2) above suits our purposes for advancing to our final comments here, so we’ll focus on that bit of wisdom that seems to elude so many “communists” these days.
“Don’t listen to ghosts that hide behind the internet …” So, on an anomyous web page is written the equation, 2+2=4. But, a lifelong and trusted friend says to you, “2+2=5.” What to do? The “communists” above would without hesitation highly recommend to you the second equation.
Sure, it’s the venerable logical fallacy of argument from authority. The truth or falsity of a proposition exists and is verified independently of its proponent. “Communists” who want to charge Maoists-Third Worldists with being “ghosts” aren’t just employing a bad argument; they’re employing no argument whatsoever. Worse, they’re promoting the abandonment of science altogether, which should be a big tip off that they are not communists at all but rather poser first world apologists.
But, and here’s the real reason we’re even entertaining this “leftist” poser crap, the fact is that the Maoist-Third Worldist “ghosts from the internet” are in reality not 100% ghosts, and they’re certainly not as ghostly as they’d like to be. Even the casual reader can readily ascertain, for instance, that much of Maoism-Third Worldism has arisen in and continues to derive from the first world.
Pricelessly, we get the same dumb non-argument from authority leveled at us in a gotcha! tone from the yahoo white nationalists of the first world “left.” “Oh yeah, well I can tell you’re from the first world just like us, so I guess you’re parasites too! So there!”
And with this current set of articles we expect more of the same from the defenders of the first world labor aristocracy but with a newer twist on the attribute that supposedly vitiates our arguments, like, “you’re not from the Third World so how can you say anything about the Third World or its leaders?” Or maybe, “you’re not leading a people’s war so what right do you have to speak to those who are?” Again, fortunately for the international proletariat, the truth of Maoism-Third Worldism – the truth that the international Theory of the Productive Forces is the primary imperialist ideological weapon aimed at the world’s oppressed and exploited – does not cease to be true because of some attribute of its promoters. The objective truth of Maoism-Third Worldism ensures that it will remain the ideological weapon of choice for the international proletariat to defeat imperialism regardless its own geographical origin or that of its adherents.
On the other hand, we could always seek refuge in the same bogus argument from authority and ask, who better to assess the class structure of the imperialist first world and disseminate that first hand knowledge to the international proletariat than first worlders themselves? Who in the world knows these parasitic bloodsuckers better?
But the first world John Browns speaking the truth about parasitism are today proportionally no more than in John Brown’s own time. The first world overwhelmingly speaks first worldism to the oppressed, so it would do the Maoist-Third Worldists no good to opportunistically encourage listening to first world authority even if we were disposed to opportunism.
So we’re left with promoting Marxist science to the international proletariat and its leaders. Today Marxist science is Maoism-Third Worldism. For the world’s oppressed and exploited, anything else claiming proletarian science entails a completely unacceptable level of bullshit.
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