[lbo-talk] Mao, Mao, Mao Tse-Tung, Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

[Carrol Cox]

This seems accurate. As it happened, I never met anyone from the CWP and
can't comment on it. The "confusing" part of it was the mental
gymnastics its adherents had to go through to fit all situations into
the theory. In the mid-70s we in B/N were with a west-coast group called
The New Voice. It at least did not try to jam u.s. rality into a version
of the Worker-Peasnt theology of the CPC, but it id swallow China's
foreign policy completely, and this often led to pretty weird
gymnastics. The October League/CPML (Klonsky) really pushed a "United
Front" strategy, copying the Chinese, and that led to real problems of
finding an equivalent of the Chinese peasantry in the U.S. Jan & I knew
people from the Sojourner Truth Organization, and we picked up their
rejection of the United Front strategy.

Carrol

Thomas Seay wrote:
> 
> --- On Sat, 5/9/09, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> <<If
> your web sources are confusing, probably you should blame the Mao's
> Theory of the Three Worlds which was pretty confusing to begin with.
> Anyhow, until the USSR is defeated by a world United *Front, that is the
> primary contradiction, and the contradiction between the third world and
> imperailism (the u.s.) is seconday. (I forget where the contradiction
> between the working class and capitalism came in.) But we are post-60s
> now, and all this throws some retrospective light on the '60s but is not
> directly relevant.>>
> 
> What aspect of it was confusing?  When I was in the Communist Workers Party/Workers Viewpoint Organization, we touted the Three Worlds Theory heavily.  Unite to defeat imperialism.  This meant supporting third world countries when they stood up against imperialism.  Support even second world countries when they stood up against the first world (United States and Soviet Union).  It lead to some pretty weird justifications, such as when China recognized Chile after the overthrow of Allende.  Not all maoist groups were on board with the Theory of 3 Worlds.  RCP was not, if I recall correctly.  I think Klonsky's group was though.  Of course, my group the Workers Viewpoint Organiation was very supportive of it.
> 
> Thomas Seay
> 
> 
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk