by The Worker Editorial Board
The Revolutionary People’s Student Movement (MEPR), a New Democratic student organization in Brazil, was recently subjected to a failed liquidationist attack in late August. The liquidationists, former members of the movement who were responsible for managing the group’s website, used their privileged position to upload a post calling for the dissolution of the MEPR and announcing the formation of a “New” MEPR. Soon after, the real leadership of the MEPR, representing the revolutionary line, asserted itself and took down the reactionary article and posted an official communication denouncing the rightists and exposing their hypocrisy.
In their official statement, the MEPR leadership characterizes the article posted by the liquidationists as “a right-wing manifesto that, wrapped up in quotations from Chairman Mao and ultra-revolutionary phraseologies, with arguments of convenience, as well as boasting of supposed revolutionary virtues”. They correct the historical distortions made by the liquidationists, who hide their own participation in opposing the recent student occupations while at the same time claiming all of the successes of the movement for over the last decade as their own. They correct the political distortions of the liquidationists, who reject New Democracy as the correct type of revolution in Brazil, a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country, and the necessity of uniting with the peasantry. They correct the ideological distortions of the liquidationists, who traffic in postmodernism and Trotskyism and falsely claim to support the Communist Party of India (Maoist) while rejecting their positions in essence.
While exposing the accusations put against them by the liquidationists, the revolutionary leadership asserts their commitment to the basic principles of Maoism: “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we defend, the Marxism of the class struggle, of the Communist Party and the Communist International, of revolutionary violence, of the dictatorship of the proletariat and scientific socialism, of the proletarian cultural revolution and communism, the Marxism of the people’s war in Peru, of the PCP and of Gonzalo thought, of support for the people’s wars in India, Turkey and the Philippines, the wars of national liberation.”
Revisionism, or bourgeois ideology cloaked under Marxism, is the main danger to revolution, because it attacks from within and tries to change the very essence of the movement. Liquidationism, as a trend of revisionism, seeks to dismantle the revolutionary movement on the basis of rejecting the main criteria of Marxism. These are: 1. Maoism as the third, new and higher stage of Marxism and the necessity to combat revisionism and all opportunism; 2. the omnipotence of revolutionary violence in order to make revolution in each one’s own country; 3. the necessity to demolish the old state apparatus and replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the dictatorship of the proletariat; 4. the necessity of the revolutionary party of the proletariat; 5. the necessity of proletarian internationalism.
As the struggle for unity under Maoism unfolds internationally, revisionism and liquidationism fight harder to prevent this unity, as they are born on the basis of the class struggle, bourgeois influence reflected in the revolutionary movement, and they thus act in opposition to this unity which terrifies the enemy.
We draw inspiration from and applaud the comrades’ handling of this situation, of quickly asserting the left line and publishing a thorough repudiation and exposure of the liquidationist attempt and their reactionary positions. Because liquidationism is born out of opposition to unity under Maoism, it shares distinct features internationally, relying on common arguments and attacks to achieve its nefarious aims. While its specific form may vary—either claiming “Maoism” or openly anti-communist—its essence remains the same.
We reiterate the call from the MEPR leadership to its members: “do not let yourselves be carried away by the atmosphere of cheerleading, of cronyism and personal considerations, sowing intrigues and distilling poison, relations and practices such that the class struggle makes them shards in no more than two shakes, and, for this very reason, it only serves to cloud the discussion, distill poison, hide the real differences, foment sectarianism and instill false rebellion. Study, reflect and discuss”.
photo: Student demonstrators block the main street outside the State University of Rio de Janeiro demonstrating against the cuts to student welfare. The banner reads “UERJ without scholarships is fire”
