rootlesscosmo ([info]rootlesscosmo) wrote in [info]pemm,
2004-06-28 14:45:00

on a lighter note

At some point in the early 80's a group was formed--I think in Northern California, and why not--around the notion that Albania was the last foirtress of unsullied, un-revisionist Marxism-Leninism, and that it was the model society that demonstrated the virtues of socialism.

Given that Albania was then (and still is) far and away the poorest country in Europe, selling this idea in the US was a daunting job. It wasn't made any easier by some of the group's tactics, which included publishing a songbook for use at demonstrations--no, I'm not making this up--including the catchy "Down With Ronald Reagan, Chieftain of Capitalist Imperialism."

Nobody can sing the word "chieftain." Nobody can sing the phrase "capitalist imperialism" without spitting all over the bystanders, if any. Was this group a pure police invention, or just an exceptionally head-up-the-ass sect? Anybody know?

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  • 4 comments

[info]nicklikesnoise

June 28 2004, 15:42:50 UTC 7 years ago

Have you seen this article by Scott McLemee? (He claimed on his blog at one point to have bought the complete run of their newspaper.)

I can't vouch for their existence from personal experience, but IIRC Max Elbaum mentions them a few times in his book.

[info]rootlesscosmo

June 28 2004, 15:54:15 UTC 7 years ago

Thanks for that link. The McLemee article is really touching--I had no idea those folks were so (comparatively) level-headed. Their farewell statement has a kind of nobility that, as McLemee says, would be welcome in other groups, and not just M-L sects, either. (And "let the ruling class tremble" is kinda sweet, too, in its quixotic way.)

[info]wouldprefernot2

June 28 2004, 16:22:15 UTC 7 years ago

That would be the Marxist-Leninist Party USA. I'm inclined to think that if they were a police front, they'd still be with us, out of bureaucratic intertia. Also, as I recall, a few weeks after the article I linked to was printed, In These Times published a letter from a reader in West Virginia who claimed to have met two MLPUSA cadres in a bar; and to have joined them in such rousing classics as "The October League Revisionists Are Preparing For World War!" (to the tune of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".)

[info]wouldprefernot2

June 28 2004, 16:26:27 UTC 7 years ago

spellcheck

Inertia, I mean, not intertia.
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