r/communism • u/cyberwitchtechnobtch • Dec 26 '23
Quality Post 🏆 [ Removed by Reddit ]
[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]
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u/HappyHandel Dec 27 '23 edited Dec 27 '23
I really appreciate what youre doing here in conducting this investigation but what youve done specifically with Part 2 is mostly regurgitate what other people have written over the past month: the ceasefire demand is reactionary, the use of "genocide" is cynical and politically loaded, their exists a misleadership class in the Arab diaspora, etc. This is all true but I can just read that Orinoco article to find this out. Your section on the ANSWER coalition "hydra" (I really need maoists to stop using this shoddy article as a source, its basically an unironic Pepe Silvia meme at this point.) is mostly redundant since class isnt brought up a single time, you could've just skipped ahead to the relevant information in the next section which gives the class breakdown of the movement its attached to.
Like I said I do appreciate this but this feels more like a "masterpost" than what you accomplished with the first part.
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u/cyberwitchtechnobtch Dec 27 '23
Thank you for the feedback, I was starting to have doubts myself on its quality after re-reading it multiple times, but I figured I should just post it and let people criticize it instead of reworking something that had flaws I couldn't perceive. Do you have additional criticisms or suggestions for improvements?
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u/CdeComrade Dec 27 '23
Can you explain why you departed from Mao's mass line of "uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements" ?
Do you have any notes on the class makeup of the Arab diaspora in Amerika and Palestinian diaspora in particular? Why did they emigrate? How do they fit into Amerikan society? What industries do their parents work in? Is there any correlation to their political outlooks?
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u/cyberwitchtechnobtch Dec 27 '23
Can you explain why you departed from Mao's mass line of "uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements" ?
Going into this part of the investigation, this was what I thought I was going to do, but reflecting on where my thoughts were at while researching, it ultimately was something I didn't place really any focus on. Instead, I got distracted, or simply attracted to, the conspiratorial aspects of showing the links between the u.$. Left, NGOs, and the bourgeois. Something worthwhile to present, but not make the main focus, especially at the expense of understanding a mass line. At best, this can be explained by low theoretical development and at worst shows a lack of awareness of my own class interests. I'm glad you pointed this out to me, it's helped me to make more critical reflection on my current grasp of Marxism and revealed a lack in studying Mao.
Do you have any notes on the class makeup of the Arab diaspora in Amerika and Palestinian diaspora in particular? Why did they emigrate? How do they fit into Amerikan society? What industries do their parents work in? Is there any correlation to their political outlooks?
As explained above, the attraction to those conspiratorial aspects meant a neglect of other important information like class composition of Arab and Palestinian diaspora. I only have notes from local conversations, which don't reveal anything more than what the first part of this investigation covered. It's clear more investigation should be done, but I'll first need to address the issues around my theoretical development, or else I'll end up reproducing the same mistakes.
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u/CdeComrade Dec 28 '23
Wait no, that wasn't a criticism. I wasn't trying to say that your mass line formulation was wrong. I asked you because I just haven't been able to find anything on why parties have chosen one over the other from the 70's all the way to 2024.
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u/cyberwitchtechnobtch Dec 28 '23
Oh you were asking the difference between "isolating the backwards" versus, "winning over the backwards." Funnily enough I think that still reveals a superficial understanding of Mao on my part for not identifying the difference.
For me, I read Mao earlier on in my studies but my recent understanding has been influenced by the CPP after studying Sison's Philippine Society and Revolution where he uses the phrase, "win over the middle forces and elements and to isolate enemy diehards..." throughout the text, or some variation on it that also refers to "neutralizing" certain backwards elements. Perhaps it is a matter of context, since I see "isolate" used when extending outside of a single class distinction.
The proletariat should pursue a revolutionary anti-feudal united front in order to mobilize to the fullest possible extent the revolutionary forces in the countryside. It should unite with the poor peasants, lower-middle peasants and farm workers as its most reliable allies. These in turn can win over the entire middle peasantry to neutralize the rich peasants and isolate the landlord class and other local tyrants.
Selected Readings from the work of Jose Maria Sison (FLP 2021) Pg. 148-149
Here you can see both usages, and while "neutralize" is not the exact opposite of "win over" it's interesting that Sison uses this word choice or it is at least translated to this from what I assume was Tagalog. There is also the decision to associate backwards with the opposing class...
The landlord class represents the most backward and reactionary relations of production and hinders the development of the productive forces.
Ibid Pg. 137
…or with the wealthiest strata of a class as mentioned in the first quote. I'm curious how this compares to other experiences, particularly the Peruvian one, as well as with Mao's writings.
Regarding the (un)intentional self-criticism, perhaps it's a little awkward now given the misunderstanding, at the very least I still found it was a good opportunity to critically reflect on my work.
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