UNITE! Info #106en: 3/7 More rattler "NE" writhings
Rolf Martens
[Posted: 30.07.99]
[Continued from part 2/7]
RATTLER WRITHINGS AND SOME STRAIGHT FACTS
In the below, I'm reproducing the "Group Neue Einheit's" latest
wriggling post and "reply" to me, of 26.07, with comments of
mine inserted.
Paragraphs by the "group" will be marked "[RATTLER WRITHING:]"
and will be reproduced within quotes " ". My own comments will
appear as plain unmarked text.
Chapter numbers and sub-titles added (in capitals) are by me.
[POSTING HEAD OF THE GROUP'S:]
From: ver...@neue-einheit.com (Verlag Neue Einheit)
Newsgroups: alt.society.revolution,
alt.politics.socialism.mao,
swnet.politik,eunet.politics
Subject: NEUE EINHEIT: Who is Rolf Martens (Re: News on
Congo 27-29 resp. Unite! #104)
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:50:14 GMT
Organization: [Posted via] Interactive Networx
Lines: 285
[Posting signed "Editorial Staff of Neue Einheit, 07/24/1999"]
I. THE "SOLIDARIC" RATTLESNAKE
[RATTLER WRITHING:]
"Rolf Martens is once again using a solidarity movement to
spread libels against our organisation which have been refuted
in great part already long since."
Look, editorial staff of the (present) magazine "Neue Einheit",
Some actual (animal) snakes are said to even be edible; you edi-
torial snakes in human guise at least are edifying, of use as
(very) negative examples if nothing else. Even in those first
lines of yours, you're already bringing a couple of lies.
As already pointed out in my #105en, by no means did I "use"
the DR Congo support movement when warning people about you,
who now are saying you want to join it.
[RATTLER WRITHING:]
"This happened on the occasion of the translation of an impor-
tant programmatic speech by the president of the Democratic Re-
public of Congo, Laurent-Désiré Kabila of Jan. 21, 1999 which we
had published for the first time in German, and of which we also
wanted to spread an English translation on our homepage. We
asked a Swedish solidarity committee for the permission to take
their English translation of this speech, and as a result of
this were attacked in a vile way by Rolf Martens who is active
in this solidarity committee.
In this way Rolf Martens brings questions into the solidarity
movement which belong to the argument between other parties."
Other participants in a solidarity movement "should not" be
warned about rattlesnakes such as yourselves, you say! But of
course they should. I also wrote about this (in Infos #104en-
105en):
'Even in those particular cases, such as yours, where
there are strong reasons to doubt a certain partici-
pant's sincerity [in a solidarity movement], others
should not because of this from the start exclude ex-
tending such co-operation to that participant, in my
opinion, but should try to utilize its/his/her - sus-
pected - hypocrisy too, turning a possible poisonous
snake's venom as far as can be done into a beneficial
serum, so to speak.'
This is the meaning too of the correct thesis that in a solida-
rity movement, there should be both unity and struggle.
[RATTLER WRITHING:]
"It was not our intention, but having been attacked in a really
massive, insulting way in a lengthy paper, we now see ourselves
compelled to comment just on these points."
My heart bleeds at your crocodile tears! But if you really want
to learn something about "insults", why don't you for instance
play again some parts of those audio tapes you have of one very
interesting party conference of yours back in 1990, a part of
which I got the chance to attend too? Wasn't one "analysis" by
your chairman then, on "why" I was criticizing you as now bour-
geois, pretty edifying in this respect and in some others?
II. WHO'S WHO? AND WHY? - ON A PARTING IN 1990
[RATTLER WRITHING:]
"On some of the points our contributor W. Gerhard has already
commented in a personal statement. Here it is about some very
important questions of principle in the international context.
W h o i s R o l f M a r t e n s ?
Rolf Martens is a former member of our organisation who in early
1990 started a sudden attack on our organisation inventing the
accusation that we did no longer fight the "Greens" and had
changed sides. For this groundless slander he was expelled, and
simultaneously declared his withdrawal."
Ouch, snakes, here you're spewing out a whole knot of various
lies all at once, some of which are on relatively important
matters. This requires some paragraphs of mine to put straight.
1. ON MY RELATIONSHIP TO THE EARLIER PARTY,
THE KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT)
Firstly, I was never "a member" of your present "group", which
was always a nasty reactionary fraud. Secondly, what I during
a long time did do was giving that earlier, actually revolutio-
nary party in Germany whose completely bourgeois-degenerated
and traitorous remains you are, namely, the KPD/ML(NEUE EIN-
HEIT), some international support - more or less the *only*
support which it got from people in any other country too -
while I on my part of course got a crucial support precisely
from that party, from 1974 and a decade or so onwards.
From 1985 or so on, you snakes started hiding certain things
from me (too), as has later become apparent - your information
on the "RIM" and on the PCP (at least), since you must have
suspected that I'd never agree to that dirty pro-CIA work in
relation to those which you had already started to engage in,
but would have combated and exposed this.
In early 1987, you suggested that I, though a Swede and living
and working here in Sweden, should now become a member of your
party in Germany. I agreed - which I now hold was a mistake on
my part, for reasons of Marxist-Leninist principle.
In April 1990, I - of my own accord - *left* your then party,
after having already exposed it as now bourgeois. You *after
this* - quite ridiculously - decided to "expel" me too. But it's
impossible to "expel" non-members. You've lied in various ways
on this point before - although you've already once admitted the
truth on it too, in a certain letter in autumn 1994, later even
posted by you on the Net in English.
2. ON MY CRITICISM OF THE KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT)
IN 1990
Was the reason, and (perhaps) the only reason, for my - correct
- conclusion, in 1990, that you snakes had changed sides, an
"accusation" [on my part] that you "no longer fought the
'Greens'"?
No. The reasons I gave for this are documented in my August-
September 1990 article "EINE KRITIK...", later posted (so far,
only in German) in my 11-part Info #49de, on 22.08.1997. In
that article, six main points of criticism were enumerated. At
that conference in April 1990 during which the break between us
occurred, I (orally) put forward three of these, which in them-
selves were already conclusive concerning the then character of
your party; the other points I was forbidden by you even to
state.
In your posting you're lying or misrepresenting things on four
counts:
a) implying there were "no other" (important) criticism points
b) saying it was "only" a matter of whether or not to combat the
(rather small) party of the "Greens" - and *not* the massive,
ultra-reactionary and very harmful "green" propaganda and po-
licies *engaged in by practically the entire bourgeoisie*
c) saying that I accused you of *ceasing* (completely) your
counter-attacks against these "green" policies; what I poin-
ted out was that you had *reduced* them - which I said was an
error though *not* (in itself) a *decisive* one
d) hiding away completely my real and *main* point of criticism,
which was directed against a certain *openly reactionary "ar-
gumentation"*, for reducing the anti-"green" counter-attacks,
which had clearly become a *line* of your party's (see below),
and which in itself *showed* its degeneration.
3. ONE SMALL (THOUGH ALREADY DECISIVE) PART OF MY
1990 CRITICISM OF THE KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT)
Here are, in translation, the first three of my 1990 criticism
points (out of the six brought in my Aug-Sep article). They were
the ones which it was possible for me to bring, orally, at the
April conference. And the second of them was at the time stres-
sed by me as being a decisive one, concerning the character of
that party as then bourgeois and no longer proletarian. The
third point was only stated briefly, in its gist, by me at that
conference; I'm bringing it here as explained somewhat more in
my later article anyway.
Excerpts from my August-September 1990 article (in translation)
"A CRITICISM of the bourgeois policies of the KPD/ML(NEUE EIN-
NEIT), or whatever it is called now, and its chairman Klaus Sen-
der, 1989 / mid-1990"
(and as other readers will gather from that title too, a name-
change had already been "proposed" - though with *no* reason
given then for this - and it's likely too that it was my criti-
cism of this that made you, "NE" editorial-staff-snakes, delay
your already planned "official" *liquidation* of that party for
eight years, until mid-1998, isn't it?):
POINT 1: The KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) in the last few years
has to a large extent reduced that very impor-
tant criticism which it has developed, against the "green" po-
licies of the bourgeoisie, including the revisionists, and has
to a large extent reduced its counter-attacks against these po-
licies.
This in spite of the fact that these policies are now being en-
gaged in by almost all the leading circles of the bourgeoisie,
are now being driven to extremes even more than before and are
having even worse effects for the peoples. The "green" policies
at present are more important to the bourgeoisie, and also more
revealing concerning it, than ever. The counter-attack against
them is important for several reasons.
[NOTE, 1999:
I'm inserting here just one passage, out of very many, which the
KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) itself in earlier years had written about
the importance of such counter-attack. At the 1990 conference in
the course of which I already decisively proved that that party
had now turned into a bourgeois one and the sharp split between
us thus occurred, I among other things quoted that passage. I'm
reproducing it here, in translation, from Info #27en:
"A party which does not radically attack the 'green'
tendency within society, which after all participates in
this trend, engages, when all is said and done, in a
mockery and a discrediting of Marxism-Leninism."
(From No. 2/1985 of that party's theoretical organ, "NEUE EIN-
HEIT", and directly aimed, at that time, at the phony"Marxist"
so-called "MLPD" in Germany.)
In 1989 / early 1990, the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) itself precisely
was not *radically* attacking this "green" tendency any more,
and even, in my judgement very strangely, had failed to attack
it at all in a number of leaflets in 1988 against the closure
of a certain steelworks, where this precisely was needed.]
The reduction of that criticism and those counter-attacks was a
very notable and strange thing. It could possibly, in itself,
still have been an error made by a proletarian party. That this
is not the case [here] is shown by [the fact noted in] Point 2.
POINT 2: When the abovementioned reduction [of this cri-
ticism and these counter-attacks] was criticized
[by me], it was, in the course of a timespan of more than half a
year, several times and in an unequivocal manner defended by
representatives of the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT), including leading
representatives of it, including [its chairman] Klaus Sender,
with that argumentation that one should "not create a split in
relation to" those who, because of the massive swindle efforts
[by the media etc], had gotten to be adherents of those ultra-
reactionary policies.
[The time period I referred to was the one between August 1989
and April 1990.]
"We would distance ourselves away from millions of people" (that
is, if we would forcefully counter-attack the present "green"
strangulation measures), thus Klaus Sender, for instance, ex-
pressed this in a telephone conversation [between himself in
Germany and me in Sweden] on 06.03.1990, when I criticized that
actual covering-up which the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) was engaging
in in relation to these ultra-reactionary policies. There in the
period mentioned also were other strange so-called arguments in
defence of this way of acting, but this "not-splitting", respec-
tively, "not-distancing-ourselves-away-from", argumentation was
the most important one in that defence.
This argumentation was also, when it was put to the debate [by
me] at the abovementioned conference of the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT)
in April 1990, not criticized in any way whatsoever by any one
of the other participants of that conference.
But this reason, as stated to be the one for that harmful reduc-
tion [of the criticism and counter-attacks mentioned], already
very clearly demonstrates the now bourgeois standpoint of Klaus
Sender and the bourgeois character of the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT),
in which he has a decisive influence. This argumentation of
course means advocacy of capitulation to the propaganda and the
measures of the most extreme reaction. And to top it all, in ac-
cordance with that so long-since well-known phony"Marxist" res-
pectively also directly bourgeois blueprint, the blame for that
capitulation is being put on to the masses of people.
[NOTE, 1999: This point was what I cited as a *decisive* one
too, at the April 1990 conference, concerning the character then
of the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT): Its "argument", clearly *elevated
to a line*, that you should *reduce* information on and counter-
attacks against a certain propaganda and certain measures which
you *knew* were ultra-reactionary and extremely harmful, "so as
not to split" in relation to some ("ordinary") people who had
gotten to be influenced by that propaganda. It's an utterly re-
actionary "argument" of course, which since some 100 years or so
back even has a particular designation to it in Marxist circles:
"Schwanzpolitik" in German, "tail-end-ism" in English.]
POINT 3: In the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT), there in the last
few years has been developed a so-called criti-
cism of Marxism-Leninism which consists of two parts:
Firstly, a published detailed criticism by Klaus Sender against
certain aspects of the theory and practice of Lenin, a criticism
which actually is correct and which will also be of importance
in the future.
Secondly, however, certain as far as I know non-published re-
flections, among which some perhaps deserve attention, some
however are either irrelevant, unclear or even clearly erro-
neous, and for the totality of which the typical thing is that
it does not contain any clearly formulated theories; it instead
is always a question of "perhaps this" and "possibly that".
Basing himself only on that so-called criticism which consists
of these two very different parts, Klaus Sender has proposed
that the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) in practice should reject Marxism-
Leninism or declare it to be outdated.
Concretely, the CC of the Party in its call for the abovemen-
tioned conference [that of April 1990 - RM, 1999] proposed that,
under certain circumstances, the name change mentioned above
should be decided on, and not the least concrete reason for this
proposal was advanced. This approach was not criticized by any
of the other participants of this conference either [by none of
them except me - RM, 1999].
A proletarian revolutionary party indeed absolutely must always
reflect anew on its ideological basis in accordance with its ex-
perience. If Marxism-Leninism as a whole were incorrect, out-
dated or in a misleading way insufficient, then one should in-
deed declare one's parting with it. However, in the first place,
this it is not. On the contrary, the bourgeoisie including the
revisionists at present have good reasons for fearing very much
this theory, since because of their own actions, this theory's
conclusions are getting greater actuality than ever.
Secondly, the approach in this question, as briefly described
here, is unacceptable. It shows once again that it precisely
is not a question of deliberations by a proletarian party but
of quite other deliberations [behind this].
[So far an excerpt in translation from my 1990 criticism
article]
[Continued in part 4/7]