[lbo-talk] Mitchel's interview with two Platypus organizers

[Carrol Cox]

Nope. We have to use the word "theory" and circumscribe it in some way
or substitute a description for any term. "The principles relevant to
the organizing of working-class resistance to Czarist autocracy in
Russia shortly after 1900, with suggestions as to the best organization
of a party under these conditions." The Chinese were saying something
(at least to begin with) when they referred to (what is translated as)
MarxISM-LeninISM-Mao ze dong THOUGHT." This meant (at least originally)
that Marxism-Leninism was a unversal theory of social organization
during the period of imperialism and applied to all nations at all times
furing this stage of capitalism, but Mao Thought applied only to the
particular conditons of China in the 1930s. When, later, they started
talking about "Mao's Theory of the Three Worlds" they were claiming to
put forth a theory for the World Revolution as a whole, essentially a
dogmatic extension of the United Front (as practiced in China) to the
whole world, and they really came close to setting up the following
equations:

Germany (1930s) = Soviet Union (1970s)

United Front Against Fascism (uniting SU with US) 1930s = United Front
against Social Fascism (1970s), uniting China, the U.S. and all good
communists against the Soviet Union, the new fascist power.

And many (not all) of those involved in the "new Communist Movement" in
the U.S. in th 70s went along with this!

I'm saying that in the rigorous sense of Theory (as in Theory of Gravity
etc) there is no such thing as Revolutionary Theory, because there are
no 'universal' principles that a revolutionary party any place in the
world must follow. And we don't have a decent word to describe what we
need _except_ "Thoeyr" with paragraphs of qualification.

Carrol

Chris Doss wrote:
> 
> "The Thinking of Party Organization"
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> And "Thought of Party Organization" is unintelligible.
> 
> 
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