MiSTED: Communism Will Make Life Better 3

[The Happy SP2]

PART 2 ENDS HERE

>The struggle at the Central Committee level over the pace and scale of

MIKE: the parabola.

>the cooperative movement in the countryside was in reality only one
>facet of a more fundamental struggle concerning the whole course of
>the revolution. ... (p. 162)

TOM: Was he trying to say something important?

>The same sort of thing happened in the cities.

CROW: Vomiting?

>In China Winter Masi describes the "sullen" and dejected attitude among
>workers in the factories where workers' rule (described under No.3) was
>dismantled and replaced by Western-style labor discipline.

CROW: No biggie--they always looked sullen and dejected.

>Such discipline was
>the price that had to be paid to make Chinese factories attractive to
>Western capital.

TOM: Western capital? Does he mean Phoenix?

>As mentioned in the excerpt from Hinton's book, there was a struggle
>throughout the Chinese Communist Party between the left, who wanted to
>push on towards communism and the right, who believed that developing
>technology and industrial might was most important.

CROW: Right! Left! Now pomerade!

>This was really
>the issue underlying the Cultural Revolution.

TOM: Silly me, I thought that the Cultural Revolution was a PR stunt.

>A glance at China today
>makes it clear who won.

MIKE: Well it seems to mean that both sides had a compromise.

TOM: Yeah they got exploitation from business *and* oppression from government.

>Our Party has drawn conclusions from these earlier attempts to build
>communism. These are presented in earlier PLP writings, the most
>important being Road to Revolution III (1971)and Road to Revolution
>IV: A Communist Manifesto (1981). A few of the points developed in
>these works are:

CROW: 1) This is baloney.

TOM: 2) We are dupes.

> 1. Socialism does not lead to communism; socialism retains the seeds
> of class society (different wages for different work) which grow into
> a new class of exploiters over a generation or two.

TOM: This makes no sense.

MIKE: That's okay--it's not meant to.

> 2. Nationalism is a reactionary ideology; "national liberation
> struggles" promote capitalism, not communism.

> 3. Workers under PLP's leadership need to institute communist economic
> relations when we seize power; we will organize according to the
> principle, "from each according to commitment, to each according to
> needs."

CROW: Lenin screwed up the whole vanguard party thing!

> 4. The only way to keep from moving backward toward capitalism is to
> move forward toward communism.

MIKE: Kinda like moving forward to a brick wall.

> 7. How does PLP know it can lead a successful revolution?

TOM: Yeah, smarty pants, how?

> The short answer to this question is because others have done it
> before us.

TOM: Kinda sounds like how the different "Star Treks" get their plots.

> A myth of invincibility is maintained by

CROW: Superman's PR agent.

>the wealthy 1%

TOM [singing]: It makes me, one percent . . .

MIKE: Please, no obscure Jane's Addiction songs.

>of U.S.
> society who run the government, control the media and supervise
> education.

ALL [scream]: ROBERT MCELWINE !!!

>That myth is maintained by making sure that certain parts
> of the world's history are hidden from most people.

TOM: If it is so hidden, how did you know about it?

CROW: Yeah, tell us Mr. Smarty-Pants Communist.

>When is the last
> time you saw a feature movie about the Chinese revolution?

MIKE: Does "The Last Emperor" and assorted independent films ring a bell?

>In 1992 the
>75th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution came and went with no big
>TV specials.

CROW: What would such a production look like?

TOM: Can-canning Red Army Soliders?

CROW: Marx rememising about formulating the Manifesto?

TOM: Special guest Vanessa Redgrave!

MIKE: How many borgeousis oppressers does it take to change a lightbulb. Two,
one to exploit the means of production, and one to oppress the proletierat!

>When the mass media do mention these earth shaking
>events,

TOM: What does he have against media coverage of earthquakes?

>easily the most important history of the 20th century,

TOM: "Most important history of the 20th century"?

CROW: My guess is the history of the platform.

>they do
>so in a negative light.

TOM: All that bitching about oppression and stuff! Damn media!

>In other words, capitalists use the apparatus
>of mass communication to keep working people in the dark about what
>workers before them accomplished.

CROW: You overdosed on coverage on the OJ Simpson trial too, huh?

>So that doesn't answer the question.

MIKE: No, but apparently you could care less.

>In fact, it enlarges the
>question: add "without control of the mass media." But still our Party
>is confident that we will make revolution here and around the world.

TOM: All those diagnosises of psychosis don't mean a thing!

>That's because we do have the two key things that the Russian and
>Chinese working people had.

MIKE: Cold weather and a brutal history?

>We have numbers and we have the truth.

CROW: Our survey will prove our point!

>Working class people outnumber the wealthy class of parasites who
>employ us by about 100 to 1.

TOM: Assume we are dealing with a base population of 100, that figure would be
99 to 1, right?

CROW: They made up their mind, don't confuse them with the facts.

>It is true that most workers have never
>even heard of PLP at this point and, if asked, would not immediately
>identify communism as the way forward.

MIKE: Then again, Web access is still a dream to some people, but why worry?

>However, the objective fact is
>that capitalism cannot work for the vast majority of people inhabiting
>the earth, and sooner or later (this part depends on us) they will
>understand that overthrowing capitalism is necessary for the survival
>of our class.

TOM: Class, what class?

CROW: Introduction to Biology?

MIKE: The Methodlogy of Bertrand Russell?

TOM: Yoga class?

>Truth is a stubborn thing. No matter how many commercials you watch or
>how much distorted information the mass media spews out in front of
>you, you also have the experience of your life.

MIKE: And according to my experience, you guys SUCK!

>And life under
>capitalism is simply not what the bosses' media says it is. The
>reality for the vast majority is unemployment or the threat of it, a
>falling standard of living, an uncertain future for our kids and
>worsening racism. We experience repression by brutal police in our
>neighborhoods and constantly fear that our young people will be sent
>to die in some foreign war for profits. They don't tell it like that
>on TV, but that's the way it is. People see it.

TOM: Like you guys are any better.

>The truth is,

MIKE: I am getting tired.

>the communists in Russia, who numbered only a few
>thousand in the years leading up to the revolution, organized tens of
>thousands of workers and soldiers around a political program which
>offered people what they needed.

CROW: That is questionable.

>In opposition to the rulers of their
>day (who, by the way, controlled the printing presses, the
>universities, and so forth), this small and poor party changed the
>thinking of masses of people.

TOM: Sounds like the Velvet Revolution!

MIKE: Oh, the irony.

>Sailors in the Baltic fleet, Russian
>soldiers at the front (this was during World War I), employees at the
>armaments factories in Petrograd and thousands more united around a
>program of ending the imperialist war, land to the tiller

TOM: Whip to the master.

>and
>political power to the workers' councils (elected factory committees,
>also known by their Russian name, 'soviets'), all under the open
>leadership of the communists, known at the time as 'Bolsheviks.' At a
>critical point, the Russian government got to the point where most of
>its armed forces were either unreliable or openly under Bolshevik
>leadership and unwilling to obey their officers. At this moment, the
>communists mobilized their forces to seize the key centers of power.

>The determination of the masses under communist leadership was
>captured in an exchange between a sophisticated crowd supporting the
>old regime and an uneducated but determined working class soldier.

>A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the
>uniform of a student, was leading the attack.

TOM: We will attack at dawn

>"You realize, I presume," he said insolently, "that by taking up arms
>against your brothers you are making yourselves the tools of murderers
>and traitors?"

CROW: You realize, I assume, that you are a patsy used to make a superficial
point.

>"Now brother," answered the soldier earnestly, "you don't understand.
>There are two classes, don't you see, the proletariat and the
>bourgeoisie. We--"

>"Oh, I know that silly talk!" broke in the student rudely. "A bunch of
>ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few catch-words.
>You don't understand what they mean. You just echo them like a lot of
>parrots." The crowd laughed. "I am a Marxian student. And I tell you
>that this isn't Socialism you are fighting for. It's just plain
>pro-German anarchy!"

>"Oh, yes, I know," answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from his
>brow. "You are an educated man, that is easy to see. But it seems to
>me--"

>"I suppose," interrupted the other contemptuously, "that you believe
>Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?"

>"Yes, I do," answered the soldier, suffering.

MIKE: Kinda reminds you of Letterman grilling Joe the Cab Driver, huh?

CROW: And it's just as funny.

>"Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in a
>closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?"

>"Well, I don't know much about that," answered the soldier stubbornly,
>"but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to hear, and all
>the simple men like me.

CROW: Elmer Fudd impresations are what the Russian people wanted?

MIKE and TOM: Huh?

CROW: Read *Time After Time* and you'll get it.

>Now there are two classes, the bourgeoisie and
>the proletariat--"

>"You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schlüsselburg

TOM: Sashay, shante.

>[prison] for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down
>revolutionists

TOM: Shooting *up* revolutionists?

MIKE: Read that sentence again.

>and singing `God Save the Czar!' My name is Vasili
>Georgevitch Panyin. Didn't you ever hear of me?"

>`I'm sorry to say I never did," answered the soldier with humility.
>"But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero."

>"I am," said the student with conviction. "And I am opposed to the
>Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free revolution. Now
>how do you account for that?"

>The soldier scratched his head. "I can't account for it all," he said
>grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes.

TOM: Let's hope his brain doesn't explode.

>"To me it seems
>perfectly simple--but then I'm not well educated. It seems like there
>are only two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie----"

>"There you go again with your silly formula!" cried the student.

>"----only two classes," went on the soldier, doggedly." And whoever
>isn't on one side is on the other ..."

CROW: Mike, what *was* the point of that?

MIKE: Apparently to show the determination of the workers during the Russian
Revoultion.

TOM: More like the mud-dumb stupidity of those workers.

[SKIT #2]
[Crow is dressed in a grey Red Army outfit with a fur cap on. Mike is dressed
in a long black coat with a fur collar]

MIKE: What's your name, murderer of Russia?

CROW [in drawl]: My name is Forrest Gumpov. People call me Forrest Gumpov.

MIKE: I presume you know that you are taking up arms against your brothers and
fellow countrymen.

CROW: My mama always said that if people laughed at me, they weren't really my
friend.

MIKE: Do you *really* believe that Lenin is the friend of the workers?

CROW: Well that Lenin fellow shaked my hands and stuff and he never called me
dummy, so he is my friend. I don't know about everyone else.

MIKE: Well, while you were shooting people and praising the Czar--

CROW: Whose the Czar?

MIKE: Don't tell me you don't know why the Czar is. Why, he rules the country!

CROW: Well I don't know the Czar. I know Mama and Jenny and Bubba and his
fishing boat, but I don't know the Czar.

MIKE: Well, he put me in prison camp, that's what he did!

CROW: I hope they fed you plenty of shrimp.

[Mike looks visibly peezed]

MIKE: Well, my name is Mikhail Ivanovich Nelsonov. You never heard of me?

CROW: No sir, I have not. If I ever see the Czar, I'll ask him to apologize for
putting you in that prison camp. [takes out a box of chocolates and some
pamphlets]. Would you like some chocolates? Or maybe one of them here
pamphelets?

MIKE: You really believe that stuff that Lenin tells you, huh?

CROW: Yes I do. And Mama does too, and you should listen to your Mama.

MIKE: Well, you and your Mama are stupid! How can you divide people into two
classes, the borgeousis and the proletitat ?!

CROW: Stupid is as stupid does, comrade. Are you one of them bor-was-ee that
Lenin always talks about?

MIKE: What? I am Marxian, and I think you and Lenin are destroying
Mother Russia!

CROW: Why don't you talk to Lenin and have him apologive? You should be nice to
your mama. I'll stand here and hand out these here pamphelets and tell about
Lenin, so don't worry about me none.

[Mike fumes and stomps off.]

CROW: Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates--if you suck on them
when they are frozen and stuff, they gets warm.

--------------------------------------

>This pamphlet is only a short introduction to a new world.

MIKE [in scary voice]: A world of *terror*!

>As we dig

TOM: jazz

CROW: graves

MIKE: the slinky grooves

>around in the reports of the many eyewitnesses to the
>revolutions in Russia and China we get more of a feel for how huge

TOM: Huge?!

MIKE: Stop it, Servo!

>and
>important these transformations were. Workers throughout the world owe
>a debt to those who went before us, not whining, "nobody's done this
>before," but instead stating simply, "This must be done." We must not
>belittle their sacrifice by failing to study the lessons they learned
>through experience--sometimes thrilling, sometimes bitter. We must
>repay them in the only way possible, by taking the revolutionary
>struggle to the next level.

>Several useful books are listed below.

CROW: Oh, there's more?

>They provide a fascinating
>glimpse of the future, as seen through the window of the past.

TOM: Kinda like watching 50's space movies.

>When we
>pull our noses out of the numbing day-to-day experience of life under
>a dying system

MIKE: How do we pull our noses from experience?

TOM: Mixed metaphor alert!

>we can begin to see the big picture: "...a better
>world's in birth."

CROW: Just not here.

END OF PART 2
They cancel a message--ten more messages spring up.
They send a court order--ten more home pages dedicated to their trickery spring
up.
They raid a critic's house--ten more critics spring up.
read alt.religion.scientology to find out the truth.