Tag Archives: Maoism (Third-Worldism)

Suffering in the First World: Greece and the European Crisis

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To all those out there who follow the Maoist (Third-Worldist) tendency; who uphold the belief that the developed world – Europe, Russia, North America, and certain parts of Australasia and East Asia – is a realm of the wealthy, free of any real oppression, this entry is for you.

Very recently, the European Union offered a hopeless, desperate Greece its latest proposal for a bailout deal, which, whilst potentially easing the crisis in which the country is currently submerged, would carry strict measures in the way of austerity. The referendum as to whether or not the country should accept called for a rejection, with the population (now largely irritated with the EU and the straining demands they imposed on Greece’s already-disastrous economy) probably feeling they’d been down that road before. Yesterday, however, Prime Minister Tsipras announced that Greece would accept the deal regardless, undoubtedly sparking tensions among civilians and party members alike. Whether he had any confidence in the decision or simply yielded to the demands from Brussels we’ll never know, but either way, one thing is profoundly clear: the country is truly in dire straits.

There are, however, those who claim claim otherwise; a significant number entertain the illusion that the developed world, of which Greece is a member, is, by nature, wealthy. They claim that, unlike those in great swathes of countries like India or Bangladesh, who do experience genuine hardship, the populations of Europe or America lead comparatively luxurious lives. In short, they believe that whilst developing nations do suffer exploitation and poverty, developed countries like Greece know nothing of the sort.

This belief is upheld largely, though not exclusively, by those who adhere to the philosophy of Maoism (Third-Worldism), this being a particular branch of Maoist communism which values the idea that capitalist exploitation no longer takes place within the confines of national borders, that the first world countries have effectively become bourgeois nations which thrive off the exploitation of other, poorer parts of the world. The theory enjoys significant popularity among the communist movement today, partly because it can explain why the working classes in the first world are now shrinking in numbers while the third world proletariat is not, and it is, to some degree, accurate. It is obvious, for example, that the first world does profit from the exploitation of the third, with a great deal of our clothes and gadgets now produced overseas, yet the fact that developed economies exploit undeveloped ones is not to say that these economies do not cause suffering at home; Just look at the poverty experienced by many in Russia, or even America, – the heartland of wealth and capital – in which 49 million people, or one in four children (according to the documentary ‘A Place at the Table’) don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Today, Greece is our example, and the recent disaster in the country certainly demonstrates similar horrors to those listed above; I’ve heard stories of how many have been forced to leave their modernised lives and work the land to survive, whilst the unemployment record in the country reached a record of 28% in November 2013, (to put it into context, the proportion of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression was lower than 25%), and homelessness, once a foreign concept to the Greeks, rocketed. Sadly, the rise in what BBC News describes as the ‘New Homeless’ coincided with the particularly harsh winter of 2011-12, leaving many exposed to the freezing temperatures with little more than a blanket to conceal them from the cold.

Greek Unemployment, 2004 - 2015

Greek Unemployment, 2004 – 2015

There is, of course, the argument which states that such hardship is a result of a recession, as opposed to the capitalistic exploitation of the Greek people, and thus, whilst capitalism ruins many lives in India or China, it is not responsible for this particular disaster. Yet a similar situation undoubtedly exists among what the advocates of Maoism (Third-Worldism) cite as the revolutionary proletariat in these aforementioned countries, for not everybody in this part of the world lives under the shackles of first-worldist exploitation, but the poverty experienced by the majority of the population (including these people) is still reflective of the unequal distribution of wealth caused by the former, and thus, the economic system can be held responsible for their impoverishment. The same can be said for the Greek population, as the crisis which ruined these people is rooted directly in the capitalistic economies of Greece and Europe, so threfore capitalism is still the force which reduced them to poverty.

Additionally, I believe that whilst refuting Maoism (Third-Worldism) is important, the crisis also serves a more general purpose in reminding us of just how vulnerable we, the capitalist world, actually are. It would be easy to assume, from the bubble of ignorance provided by a comfortable western lifestyle, that this kind of thing doesn’t occur in our neck of the woods; that capitalism today cannot bring about such misery, yet it’s important not to let yourself fall into this trap, for such a crisis could happen to you too. If nothing else, treat the event as a news story, one informing the planet that misery and suffering do, and will continue to exist in the first world.

The Third ‘Bloc’ That Never Happened: Tito and the Non-Aligned Movement

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The idea of socialism outside of the Eastern Bloc has surfaced multiple times in history, perhaps most famously among the communist left, and later the followers of Mao Tse-tung or, to a lesser extent, Che Guevara. It will have undoubtedly intrigued many intellectuals and revolutionaries since the birth of the USSR, one of whom I will focus on in particular…

Josip Broz Tito, the Croatian-born leader of Yugoslavia did something both extraordinary and also somewhat reckless, which, I’ve decided, shall be the subject of this entry: he led the first state in Eastern Europe, then in the grip of Soviet influence, to become ‘socialist, but independent’.

Josip Broz Tito

What relevance does this have? Well, April is the month which, twenty-three years ago, saw the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On April 28th, 1992, Serbia (the last of the Yugoslav republics) became an independent nation, serving as the final nail in the coffin for the great communist federation of South-eastern Europe. This was a country fundamentally different to many others: it was among the first to have been liberated by the Red Army, yet to reject the USSR, and operated under the system that could have been described as ‘council communism’, where worker’s councils and unions would provide the basis for socialist transformation, which could be seen in contrast to that of the Soviet Union.

Yet equally interesting are the social and political ideas of international socialism Marshall Tito upheld, for he was an active member, and later leader, of the Non-Aligned movement. This is an ongoing organisation representing the interests of developing countries, with the founding aim of ‘opposing imperialism and neo-colonialism, especially from western domination.’ Such an idea was most apparent in the Cold War’s polarisation of political identities, with the desire to create an ‘independent pathway’ for these states so that they would adhere to neither the USA nor the USSR.

I’ll say this now: this entry is not an opinionated one; I won’t go into depth about my personal views on the subject or on the political views of Tito generally. Rather, I’m writing discuss this idea of an ‘independent pathway’, and its relevance to both communism and capitalism respectively.

The Movement's Member States

The Movement’s Member States

Coming back to the Cold War, it couldn’t have been a more interesting time to consider a third power arising in the world, combatting both the Eastern and Western Blocs with a newly-developed idea of proletarian internationalism. It would also provide an opportunity to oppose what could have been perceived as Soviet imperialism (a particular criticism which did gain a degree of popularity) whilst remaining true to the principles of communism. In other words, you would no longer have to bear the label of ‘Soviet sympathiser’ to consider yourself a communist.

In the latter half of the previous century, however, history seems to have had other ideas. The two ‘Blocs’, the great realms of power split Europe down the middle similarly to how the Triple Entente once calved Imperial Germany and its neighbours out of the rest of the continent, only such a division was far clearer easily distinguishable now that it adopted political connotations. Yet it was surely obvious that such a scenario, this is to say Europe’s division into a communist east and a capitalist west, could never have been a permanent situation, making the arisal of a third power bloc perfectly possible. Why then, in a climate of hate and tension, when a third way was definitely on the cards, didn’t this new union form?

I’ve been thinking, and here are the reasons I’ve managed to come up with:

Five Reasons as to Why the ‘Third Bloc’ Never Arose

  1. A lack of information of Marxist philosophy or communism as a political theory within these countries (especially in the less-well-developed nations).
  1. A lack of the necessary conditions for communist revolution due to the existence of less-advanced methods of production.
  1. The development of a view picturing both west and east alike as ‘similarly evil’ threats to these nations and cultures, without adequate consideration of the political climate, and thus the demand for the national sovereignty against the two powers compromising proletarian revolution.
  1. The division of these nations by the two powers, directing them against each other and against the respective power blocs, as the west and the east’s sphere of influence adapts the political climate of these countries to their immediate needs, an example of which would the United Kingdom’s influence over the former British colonies.
  1. The tendency of the division separating the capitalist and the communist world to polarise political thought worldwide, rendering the construction of a third power increasingly difficult.

While we’re at it, we may as well look at the collapse of communism in the Eastern Bloc as well:

Five Reasons as to Why the Eastern Bloc Fragmented

  1. The development of nuclear weapons west of the division, and thus the rising possibility that a war may result in apocalyptic outcomes, preventing the socialist states from military advancement.
  1. The general lack of evidence pointing to an improvement in the economic circumstances within the communist world, causing a lack of faith and enthusiasm for communist lifestyle and the idea of reaching ‘true communism’.
  1. The decline of ideological stability among the populace as what have been recognised as capitalist principles, e.g. corruption and inequality, became apparent in communist regimes.
  1. The development of western capitalism to a stage regarded as acceptable by many of the would-be exploited in the west, internally strengthening capitalist society and removing the strong base of proletarian support the socialist states could have relied upon for revolution, or at least sympathy, within these countries.
  1. The struggle for the stagnating autocratic regimes to maintain power over the populations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the face of modernisation, coupled with the weakening of their authority in general.

I’ll finish with this thought: Tito is long dead, and Yugoslavia dissolved over two decades ago. Yet if such hadn’t happened, that is to say, if the political climate was such that the new state was able to arise, who knows what the result would be. Perhaps the proletariat of these nations would line up under Tito’s leadership, against the troops of the USA, the USSR, Great Britain, the People’s Republic of Poland, France and Hungary; perhaps the task of revolution would entail a struggle against not only the capitalist, but also the communist world.

It’s ironic, when you think about it, and fairly shameful for both sides of the Berlin Wall. Just imagine how Stalin, the man who is quoted to have said ‘I will shake my little finger and there will be no more Tito!’ would have reacted.

Imperialism, Isolationism and Communism

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The way I see it, all communist states, (and in fact, all communists) embrace elements of one of the following ideas: isolation or imperialism. Which one exactly depends on the conditions of the state or the individual concerned, yet both can be exemplified, which seems odd, as both are similarly unpopular ideas among the communist movement.

National isolation is an idea which communism has grown to frown upon for multiple reasons. Such a rule cannot be applied to every situation, yet in general, the separation of one portion of the proletariat through the artificial division of states can be seen in contrast to class struggle, especially since Marx himself believed the nation-state was a bourgeois creation. In the Communist Manifesto, it is written that ‘National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster.’

Equally, communism rejects imperialism – the practice of constructing an empire – probably more profoundly so. This can be seen most clearly from a Maoist (Third-Worldist) perspective, known for its fierce opposition to the exploitation of the third world by nations of the first, perhaps even more so than to labour exploitation in general. Even outside of Maoism, one would struggle to identify an openly imperialist advocate of Marxism. Long before Mao’s theories gained significance, Vladimir Lenin referred to imperialism as the ‘Highest phase of capitalism’, probably eliminating all prospects of its official establishment among the communist world.

The prospect is simple: both ideas appear counter-revolutionary in the field of Marxism. Yet, if you examine the communist and formerly-communist world, it appears that every state will have fallen into one of these traps…

The reason for this is as follows: I believe that the following two theories have split communism down the middle more drastically than any others: world socialism, and Socialism in One Country. This division has it’s roots back in the Bolshevik power struggle of the 1920s, in which Trotsky, an outspoken internationalist, talked of spreading the revolution whilst Stalin spoke of cultivating Russian communism independent of the outside world. It appears that Stalin’s ideas proved far more influential, for the majority of socialist states seem to have followed the path of building socialism independently. Thus, as independent communist states in a capitalist world, they took on an increasingly isolationist approach, setting themselves apart from their neighbours. Often, this lead to the rise of heavily nationalistic views within the regime, as has been the case in various communist states across east Asia.

256px-Yao_Ming_with_the_Chinese_flag_2008_Summer_Olympics_-_Opening_Ceremony

By contrast, the communist world has also embraced ideas of world socialism, which can be seen again in the example of the USSR (prior to Stalin’s leadership) which existed not as one nation, but a network of states bound together by the common leadership of Moscow. Critiques of such a system highlight the fact that this was achieved by the repression of what have become known as the Russian ‘satellite states’, reducing them to mere provinces in the power block and thus robbing them of the national identity they once possessed. This has been criticised as an imperialist idea, for obvious reasons, allowing countries like the early Soviet Union to acquire negative connotations. So there you have it, on one end of the spectrum you have Lenin’s Soviet Union, and on the other, North Korea. As a communist country is, by nature, an enemy of the international capitalist world, a revolutionary state has two choices: they can fight capitalism, or they can hide from capitalism. Either way, it involves going to one of two extremes, for (not including the westernised and, let’s be honest, post-communist nations like China) they can’t just simply exist, but either extreme entails an ugly scenario.