This is a humourous explanation of what social classes does Russian Maoist Party (RMP) represent and what do we stand for, written by Oleg Torbasow for the Party newspaper 'Cultural Revolution' in 2006. Translated into English and punlished by Left Russia in 2016.
We are the Russian Maoist Party, the party of rednecks 1, dirty migrants, chicks and faggots. That is what the bourgeoisie named us. If only it were not half-blind and could tell us apart – us little, dumb, wicked inbreds. Well, that’s fine, the whole founding congress of the Communist Party of China in 1921 fit on a boat on a lake in a park; whereas today there are 100 million of accursed revisionists, who are in power and are following a path toward capitalism. We hope to repeat anew the beautiful revolutionary history of the CPC (or of Lenin’s and Stalin’s VKP(b)) and, given the possibility, avoid its embarrassing transformation.
The names of the four categories represent the bottomless oceans of our strength.
Rednecks are the workers (not some well-paid brigadiers and masters, of course) and the poor people (different servants, retirees, students from the rural areas, and etc.). The income gap of the population in Russia is, of course, not as great as in Brazil, but way worse than in Japan and in Europe, and even somewhat wider than in the USA with their Blacks and MexicaJDvbW4wQYAAns. Lawyers and managers, TV journalists and politicians are the devotees of the modern world. As they stroll around with a pompous look, they gladly discuss their own importance, their ‘holy actions’ devoid of any intelligent sense, yet they make money hand over fist. Income is determined not by the labour, but rather by such vulgar things as ownership and status. The elite gated itself away from the people through diplomas and connexions, feeding just a handful of particularly cunning and subservient intellectuals.
At the same time, millions of persons cannot earn enough to pull themselves out of poverty, even if they are working hard. There is a catastrophic lack of noble accommodation (not elitist, but rather for the masses!). In many cities, people are periodically left without light, heat and water (in some places these basics are even unheard of). Employers force the proletariat to work in harmful, often physically-endangering environments and pay pennies. Vodka is the source of the cheapest calories – it kills workers from the inside. Even those who don’t drink cannot afford full meals; they don’t get enough vitamins and amino acids. As a result, long before retirement, the labourer becomes a wreck, and then he is forced to spend whatever he possesses on medicine (benefits for the procurement of which have also been cancelled, by the way).
“Women carry half of the sky on their shoulders” they were saying in revolutionary China. But do they get equal salaries? Definitely not! The best that they managed to achieve is “equal pay for equal work”. Behind the crafty formulation hides an unpleasant fact – traditionally female occupations are seen by society as less important, and therefore lower-paid. What is the point in the absence of salary discrimination when women are being driven by the upbringing, education, culture, consumer and economic sectors to settle on non-prestigious professions? Often their work is tougher, but appears to be less qualified, that’s why female textile industry workers receive 1.5-2 times less than the guys from the next-door mechanical repairs workshop.Xb0qbB0kmAE
Another reason why employers allow themselves to pay a lesser salary for female-dominated professions is based on their assumption: a ‘chick’ must find herself a ‘dude’, who will ‘take care of her’. Women are basically being urged on to prostitution. Public morale’s ‘merit’ requires this prostitution to be life-long, calling it a ‘holy conjugal bond’. How can we even talk about love?! How can a woman freely choose her partner, if she is required to guarantee her survival? How can a man count on the honesty of his partner if she is materially-dependent on him?
“Woman is the nigger of the world” sang John Lennon. Yet we also have our own real ‘niggers’ – the non-Russian peoples that every second one of our compatriots, without giving it a second thought, will call an insulting name, even if working side by side, let’s say, with Tatars or Karelians. The eyesight, clouded over by chauvinism, does not notice the poor immigrants, who are running from war and hunger, as they slog away as road sweepers and construction workers. The crowd of political journalists patronizes the Ukrainians from the position of ‘big brother’. The politics of russification have almost buried the languages of the peoples of Russia. In the framework of ‘putinisation’, national autonomies are being liquidated. Whereas the federal army cruelly represses numerous attempts at founding their own independent country, Noxchis (Chechens) have lost a portion of their population comparable to the losses of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. Many of those that have heard stories of successful Chechen entrepreneurs or names such as Alekperov or Nurgaliyev cannot understand why they should riot. The truth is that the poorest peoples of Russia are the Ingush people, the Kalmyks, the Buryats, the Komi-Permyaks, the Mari people, the Tuvans….
However, even the proud-sounding name ‘Russian’, for many centuries, stood for only one right – the bitter and humiliating right to subjugate oneself to the Moscow-based hand of the sovereign. If we are to exclude the Moscow megalopolis and a few rich natural resource-extracting regions out of the statistics, we will see quite a poor central Russia, a hopelessly hard-working Volga region and a completely poverty-stricken Far East. In order to break free of this situation, the regions of Russia and the national autonomies must emancipate themselves from Moscow’s centralised dictatorship, must avoid being welded into the Empire. The regions require a new federal treaty, a treaty that makes them equal and free, not a ‘treaty’ where they are regarded as vassals of the new tsars.
What can we say about ‘faggots’, meaning lesbians and gays? Traditionally, they are disliked in the population; in the best case scenario they are considered a curiosity. Meanwhile, they are not leaders of an aesthetic movement descended from the stage, but rather millions of normal individuals, who live among us, study, work, love and dream. Sadly, they are not quite ready to organize and defend their right for a dignified, proportional place in society (as it was in the Occident in the 1960’s). The attitude toward them happens to be a measure of social progress. It’s not in vain that their attempt to exit their cultural ghetto and conduct a gay parade was met with unlawful opposition from Moscow authorities. It’s not in vain that reactionaries from LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) and Rodina are proposing, seemingly out of the blue, to introduce a criminal punishment for ‘improper’ sex. On the other hand, foreign experience (and we’re not talking about that in the West) cultivates an example for the left: recently the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines organized a gay marriage for two of its guerilla fighters. Russia’s gays and lesbians will still have a chance at ‘playing their violin’, and we shall hope that they will play in the same orchestra as the proletariat.
The four pillars are proletarian poverty, oppressed peoples, discriminated women and humbled sexual minorities; together this is the ‘Great Campaign’ against orthodox rich white sirs that represent the government, the corporations and their spongers.
With such a strong mass base, even the tiniest, dumbest, stupidest and most wicked inbreds such as us can be sure of victory.
Long live the Revolution!
First published on Maoism.Ru