By S. Mazur

After publishing The Negation of Proletarian Politics, the Maoist Communist Group (MCG) replied to our criticisms here. Beyond the pretentious roleplaying of themselves as Lenin scolding an immature Nadezhdin as metaphor, they bring up dishonest allegations and arrogantly suggest that the larger living movement has a low ideological and practical level.

A Response to False Claims Around Communication

1. Struggle Sessions has never called for “competition” but demanded two line struggle and ideological struggle for unity, which MCG has avoided, in public or in private.

2. Red Guards Los Angeles (RGLA) does not exist any longer, so it is not a spokes-group for the ideological trend which we represent. It should be clear that our content and political line is no more similar to RGLA than it is to MCG.

3. We can not comment on the nature of private emails from “autonomous” collectives that no longer exist, any more than we can comment on the private documents of any other former organizations from any period. We must not have their individual lines confused for ours.

4. Three River Reds did not author “On Identity Opportunism,” Red Guards Austin (RGA) did, and yet there is no correspondence with Austin indicated. Austin represented the center of the former movement, whose name several “autonomous” collectives took on and corresponded with. This highlights that MCG never actually struggled with the authors of the lines they “appreciated.”

5. In actually reading the letters that MCG has screenshots of, it is clear that it was MCG who declined to meet with and debate other groups, as the invitation was clearly there. I would hold that the invitation was inappropriately extended since MCG had not proven their merit. Interestingly enough, it was not the peripheries of the former movement they avoided, but the center. MCG goes on to publish old positions, taken in private which have been now defeated (with no thanks to them, as they reneged on even struggling over them when given the opportunity) while never making their own position on any of the listed issues clear.

6. Interestingly enough, the redacted name from the email on January 21, 2018 was Austin Revolutionary Organizing Collective, specifically Andrew Dobbs, an Austin-based opportunist and bourgeois NGO careerist, who has collaborated with the police and attempted to organize a counter pole against actual Communists in Austin. Moreover MCG met with him multiple times. Their maneuverings should come into focus here. They avoided speaking with the center of the former movement (Austin), while trying to build relations with a counter-group in the same city where the center of the former movement was based.

Any claims to have struggled honestly then are proven to be demonstrably false.

Other Claims

When it comes to answering some of the issues brought up in the emails, MCG acts smart in raising rudimentary questions that many trained activists in the movement today could easily answer and complain that this hasn’t been appropriately explained to them over an email from years ago. MCG admits it hasn’t tried to corresponded with any one in the movement besides “autonomous” collectives two years ago over email.

Let’s answer them now so that it’s clearer.

1. To speak to specific questions about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), we uphold Gonzalo and his line that the Revolutionary Committees were the single greatest development, improved and applied in mass from the prototype of the Yenan base area.

2. We hold that the 9th Congress was a subtle plot (Lin Biao) to end the GPCR *but represented the progression of MZT, and as all Maoists do, we uphold the 10th Congress.

3. We hold that 1976 was a coup but that it was also a counter-revolution, with the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) being one of the first outside groups to call it a coup.

4. Our defense of the Four and the PCP, among other topics outlined here on this site, already answer other questions that they stress haven’t been explained to them enough.

If MCG is more capable of “comparing observations with aims” then why are these greedy scientists keeping their formulas secret? They accuse the larger living movement of idealism, but then keep their supposed ability to cultivate appropriate slogans and practical experience behind a bolted door. This is the standpoint of selfish-compartmentalism in practice, arrogant individualists who do not want to be led or to learn.

*As an edit and addition, as they have distorted this, they originally asked in their email if “proletarian power was consolidated at the 9th Congress” not if it represented Mao leading the development of MZT. Lin Biao in this Congress was making preparations for his fascist coup attempt. Instead of further responding to this, they screenshot this specific response and used it to claim that we were not knowledgeable about the question that they asked.