From:    Carrol Cox 
To:      marxism-international
Subject: Re: M-I: New PCP document -- Part 1
Date:    Sunday, April 12, 1998 6:32 AM

Nancy, to find out information significantly friendly to the PCP, you
should re-read Lou P's recent posts (and the works he cites). Whatever the
merits or demerits of either the PCP or its friends outside Peru, they
seem utterly incapable of explaining themselves to the outside world.

On the other hand, when repression mounts to the point where one must
defend oneself or die (the usual conditions under which armed struggle
evolves), those beseiged have good reason to talk to each other, and the
ultimate test of whether a given PCP document is effective or ineffective
is not the response of outside readers such as either of us but the
response of the Peruvian people -- and of militants within the struggle. 
The attack Lou and I are mounting on Ben Seattle's sterile dogmatism does
*not* imply that the distinction Ben hammers on is wrong in principle,
only that, under current "first world" conditions, it is silly.  It is
*not* silly for people being murdered, napalmed, tortured. "Which side are
you on?" is *always* a crucial question; it's just that its concrete
content changes continuously. 

"Clear explanation" is one of those abstract principles which is
tautological. Of course! But it is always necessary to ask "Clear to
whom?" The PCP is not obliged to be clear to U.S. kibitzers.

Carrol

> 
> < document.  Dated March 1995, it provides some good insight into the 
> nature of the struggle against the Right Opportunist Line (ROL) which 
> emerged after the capture of Chairman Gonzalo.>>
> 
> This is a good example what I mean about revolutionaries talking to each
> other in terms that only they can understand. After reading this entire
> post, I still have no idea of the political content of the conflict between
> the PCP and the ROL. This is regrettable, because I am interested and I want
> to know more. But it seems much more important to the PCP to bash the ROL
> than to educate people as to what is going on and why.
> 
> Nancy
> 
> 
> 
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