this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse
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There are good Maoist groups, like the guerillas in the Philippines or India (whatever might be said of the inefficacy of the latter), but it seems like all the worst groups that claim ML heritage all call themselves Maoist, including several different cults in the US (Austin Red Guard, Black Hammer, and Avakian's cult)
How do you feel about the Palestinian resistance groups, and their strategies? Failed, stalled, indeterminate after nearly 100 years? Are there better strategies that they're opting not to take, given the circumstances?
You could have said this before October 7th but it’s absurd to argue the Palestinian resistance is stalled or doomed now. The entire region is moving into revolutionary and de-colonial footing and movement is happening to destroy Israel. The axis of resistance is extremely pragmatic and non-utopian, so critiques of MLMs don’t apply here
You think so?
Tell me more plz
Ansarallah (Houthis), Hezbollah, Iraqi resistance, Syria and Iran are boiling the frog. The axis of resistance is past the point of no return and they will not let off the pressure until the Palestinian question is resolved. They are receiving military support from Russia and DPRK and diplomatic support from China.
The west can do nothing against this Eurasian superbloc. They will have to fold and withdraw from the region, leaving Israel isolated and alone. Israel will make desperate moves like invading Lebanon that will result in their eventual downfall.
Yea the nukes are a concern but they always have been. Give nuclear weapons to genocidal fascists and it’s never going to end well
So the options are: Take down Israel and risk a nuclear incident, or stand by and let Israel genocide Palestine and then spread throughout the Levant into Greater Israel, absorbing Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Let them become the next USA of the Middle East, genociding and colonizing with the backing of the US keeping the hegemonic empire alive.
The axis of resistance is choosing option 1, and hopefully allah will be with them
Absolutely nothing. But at the end of the day, you have to have the audacity to risk it all for the sake of freedom. As Mao said, "dare to struggle, dare to win."
Well conservative Islam seems to have worked for the Taliban. I think its more that national liberation movements align themselves with what will gain them the most or the best foriegn and domestic support.
What options would you say Peru had but didn't take? Castillo dressed up like a western cowboy but that still wasn't good enough - do you think those recent events vindicate somewhat the armed struggle?
I doubt the communists there were completely alienated from the people, or else the conflict would have been over very fast - in fact it is still ongoing. Its difficult to assess however, being illegal to show support for them there.
Armed struggle occurs between class enemies, once you have the majority of the working class and (if it exists) peasantry on your side. If you are fighting a de-colonizing war or anti-imperialist war, then you may also need the national bourgeoisie in a temporary alliance against comprador classes and imperialists. It's a war, of the masses. Socialists do not support all armed struggle just because it's armed and a struggle. It's often adventurism, it's often intellectual and disconnected from the masses and the working classes. That is not the phase of active armed warfare, and if you do start to have armed cells of socialists struggling it should be against the state, the bourgeoise and fascists, not against peasantry and other left factions. That's the difference with the path of the Shining Path, it's ultraleftist and doomed because it's minoritarian and elitist. It never had the broad support of the people, it waged terrorism and adventurism and actually attacked all other factions.
Compare that to the red army. The broad coalitions of all the socialists. The peasantry's support of Mao or of Ho Chi Minh or Fidel.
Perhaps - personally, I support many independence movements even if they're not socialist or communist, because often its impossible to progress while occupied or colonised, so its a necessary first step. Afghanistan is a good example of this - its objectively better having the Taliban back in control than the US occupation and their pet warlords.
I see what you mean in a strategic sense - its not a good idea to fight against too many opponents at once. I'm not sure that Shining Path did attack those who they should have allied with however - all the sources I can find are dubious, and I wasn't there, so I can't really make a good judgement about who did what and the types of people they are alleged to have killed, only apply the usual rubric that if the US says one thing about communists, the opposite is probably the case.
From what I've read, it seems like they did have a lot of support (and what they did achieve would be frankly impossible without that). The difference I can see between them and the Maoist case, is that Peru wasn't being occupied by another power at the time, and the urban centres didn't like them so much (except in the very poor areas). But then Peru isn't/wasn't particularly industrialised, being a resource extraction colony, so I wonder if there was even a significant urban proletariat to really bother trying with.
If there isn’t an urban proletariat, and you don’t have support of the peasant class, then what are you even doing playing at a “revolution”? It’s unserious adventurism that gets people killed with no hope of victory.
I don't think there is anything 'unserious' about an armed conflict with a state, and I don't think you can be serious about portraying it that way - its a flippant thing to say.
Again, I don't think its true that they didn't have support from the peasants. Certainly that's been claimed by the anti-communists, but they always say that about their enemies.
I don't think conflicts occur on somebody's whims, there is always a reason. A long (and ongoing) conflict of this kind could not have occured without there being a good reason for it, and also a possibility of victory.