Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:47:07 EST
Subject: M-G: NEUE EINHEIT on 'RIM'    (Segment 1 of 3)



______________________Article Segment 1 of 3________________________ 



    The  Development  of  Our  Organization's  Position
        Concerning  the 'RIM'   (Short outline)

        Rejection of libels connected with past
        efforts to get organized internationally

 
Over the years 1996/7 our editorial staff issued a whole lot of 
statements concerning the international revolutionary movement. This 
followed in particular from attacks against our organization. In the 
process, however, a certain gap remained to be closed, which here we 
want to deal with. Actually, the question poses itself as to our 
position towards the RIM ("Revolutionary Internationalist Movement") 
during the whole time and, speaking more generally, to the development 
of our examination of this coalition which then at any rate comprised 
quite a number of parties. We do not need to shy away from describing 
this development and the reason, for instance, why it did not come to 
a debate essentially earlier. In doing so we have to deal with some 
circumstances of the international debate but also with some questions
within our organization. We think, however, that this deserves general
interest as well. There are some symptomatic points here. Some attacks
by Rolf Martens who posted a host of statements against our 
organization to the Internet and developed a world-wide correspondence,
should also be commented, even if this person has been sufficiently 
proved wrong by his flagrant contradictions.

Of course, the question poses itself why our organization did not react
to the RIM for such a long time. Didn't it know about it? How at all
did it come that it did not participate in the discussion, for 
instance, of  the two declarations of 1980 " To the Marxists-Leninists,
the Workers and Oppressed of All Countries" and 1984 "Declaration of 
the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement"?


In the beginning of the eighties   *it was only by rumour*  that we 
heard of a joining together pushed ahead with the leading participation 
of the RCP/USA and the TKP/ML, without any further information. We did 
not receive an invitation to discussions whatsoever although at least 
the TKP/ML and probably also other parties knew the activity of the 
KPD/ML (NEUE EINHEIT), via their foreign connections. And this was done 
although it was known that the KPD/ML (NEUE EINHEIT) had been defending 
socialist China and Mao Zedong, and right from the start had been 
opposing those who acknowledged the so-called new course in China under 
Hua Guo-feng as well as the fundamental slanderings from the Albanian 
line. And this was done although in Germany the so-called tone-setting 
parties which had been thoroughly criticized by the KPD/ML (NEUE 
EINHEIT), during 1979/80 literally were shipwrecked and disavowed 
themselves completely. There was not a single attempt to officially 
approach our organization about the intention of an international 
joining together and at least to ask its opinion. 

At first it has to be stated that there was no willingness on the part 
of a part of the organizers of this conference to form a connection, 
and that any information was withheld from us. All that happened after 
ten years of our struggle against phony trends in our country which 
exactly in 1979 in a macabre way found a confirmation by the 
aforementioned parties' self-liquidation and denounciation of their 
previous activity. This, however, is not the only aspect as there are 
some further  points which make the matter interesting up to the debate 
of today. It was not before 1984 that the organization finally looked 
at both the above-mentioned declarations, and that its components could 
be studied authentically.
(A special story of this process is formed by the KABD - the latter 
MLPD - which in 1979 did not participate in t h i s  switch, in its 
place, however, already earlier had declared war against the 
foundations of revolutionary politics by an open standing up for the 
leadership of the trade unions and by completely watering down 
revolutionary principles. The KABD subsequently conducted a policy of 
muddling up the politics of Mao Zedong which it formally acknowledged 
with the politics of the 'DKP' and the 'Greens'. It partly occupied the 
position of the completely compromised parties mentioned above. The 
KABD/MLPD, at a close look, is working in really rightist positions 
unbearable for a revolutionary. In many cases it has been educating its 
members in a manner of cadaveric obedience.)


   Also occurrences within our organization

In the end of Dec., 1984, it came to a detailed inner-party 
investigation against a member and a close cooperator of the 
organization because, as it had turned out, essential documents which 
already much earlier could have brought clarity had been withheld from 
the organization as a whole and from its chairman, without any 
discernible reason. This occurrence provided agitation for weeks, it 
had become clear that these circumstances had prevented us from giving 
our opinion about certain things at an earlier date. Already in 1982 a 
member had travelled to the USA and, as arranged, purchased  many 
documents about parties, newspapers etc. in order to hand them out to 
the organization at home. Among these was also the declaration "To the 
Marxist-Leninists, Workers and Oppressed of All Countries" as well as 
materials of the RCP/USA and many more materials. The entirety of these 
materials, however, was simply locked away by a responsible comrade, 
Dietrich Jobstvogt who received them, and was not passed  on to the 
comrade Klaus Sender.
In explanation the person concerned gave the disgusting "personal cult 
of Bob Avakian" for his excuse which, he stated, characterized these 
publications,. Of course it was pointed out immediately that only this 
could not provide a reason to withhold these publications from the 
organization.

In order to understand the far-reaching implications of this occurrence 
one has to comprehend that our organization here in the beginning of 
the eighties virtually led an isolated battle to defend revolutionary 
China led by Mao Zedong, and issued numerous publications about this. 
Our organization defended the different aspects of Mao Zedong's 
politics, the revolutionary people's war led by him during its 
different stages, the socialist construction, the polemics, in 
particular the great Cultural Revolution and the foreign policy of the 
People's Republic of China led by Mao Zedong, which follows the 
Cultural Revolution and is closely connected to it. In this process, by 
the way, we also argued  with the positions of the Turkish organization 
ATIF.
We were busy with these questions particularly in the years 1980/81 to 
1983, as reflected by the then editions of the NEUE EINHEIT.

In the face of these facts that member getting materials in the hands 
which on first sight showed to come from an organisation which at least 
claimed to defend Mao Zedong, had had to pass on these materials 
immediately. It could not be overlooked that these were important 
materials.

In spite of this the materials were not passed on. Also a single 
statement of 1980 in German was passed on amidst big piles of other 
materials, without further notice, so that it was not found.

Only in the end of 1984 when we already had learned about the second 
declaration founding the "Revolutionary Internationalist Movement" we 
learned about the existence of these materials. A major investigation 
by our organization was carried through. Two years later, in the end of 
1986/1987, the whole was discussed once again  at a conference together 
with a series of occurrences which went into the same direction.

After looking into the materials which had been withheld from the 
leadership of the organization and comrade Klaus Sender, we were able 
to see which implications were carried by this withholding. A host of 
parties in 1980 apparently had held a conference and a very general 
declaration had been passed there in such a way that our organisation 
could have signed it quite well in the essence. This declaration is 
lacking in several subjects which already then, at the end of the 
seventies, were catching one's eyes. The whole international reaction 
the way it had developed particularly since the overthrow in China, 
more exactly since 1974 and especially since the end of 1976, was not 
grasped. 

((continued in article segment 2 of 3))

_____________________________________________________________________
                           neue  einheit
           Zeitschrift fuer Politik, Oekonomie und Kultur
_____________________________________________________________________
          copyright 1997 Verlag NEUE EINHEIT (Inh.H.Dicke)
            Koernebachstr.50, D-44143 Dortmund, Germany 
                  or D-10973 Berlin, Postfach 309, 
          Phone:   +49-231-838932    resp. +49-30-6937470


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