Leninism has nothing to offer for Burma

This article is a compilation of my reply within International Luxemburgist Network when it comes to the topic of Program of resistance groups in Myanmar. It’s true to observe that Myanmar's regime appears to be falling apart, much like South Vietnam's did in 1974. There certainly is room for radical to push for a socialist agenda because the state owns and controls a significant section of the economy. However, people of Burma are currently using "democracy" and "federalism" as the primary catchphrases of the revolution. The definition of "democracy" those red fascists like Mao Zedong, Stalin, Pol Pot, and other Marxist-Leninist tyrants used is not what people of Burma meant when the term is used nowadays. It is also true that Burma is socialist in many ways because we have suffered so much under this authoritarian Marxist-Leninist dogmatism, which shares many traits with fascism. Considering that this is a Luxemburgist organization, I'm rather certain that the comrades don’t mean that kind of “democracy” which most Marxist scholars called as bureaucratic collectivism or new class.
On the other hand, when we speak of "democracy," we mean the inalienable rights to "free speech," "freedom of movement," "freedom to protest," and so forth. These might be considered as tenants of the liberal democracies by some western scholars and leftists. I'm not going to refuse. Over the course of the last sixty years since our independence, Burmese citizens have not experienced the same type of "liberal democracy" as the west had for the entire century. Even though Burmese people and the neighbouring ethnic people were the ones who were colonized, exploited, and oppressed for several decades, we as a third-world nation had to pay a large sum of money to the imperial British empire instead of receiving the reparation. That would be appreciated to keep these situations in mind.
Currently, people in Burma find the soviet council style "democracy," too unfamiliar because it has never been properly implemented worldwide. The last time that the people of Burma and the surrounding ethnic groups dreamed of a Soviet democracy, we ended up with a program of Burmese Socialism, which is remarkably similar to the policies of Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

NUG versus Ethnic Armed Organisations

It's also true that the military's total collapse is most likely to mark the end of the civil war. That being said, the total dissolution of the military does not spell the end for us, considering the hundreds of militia groups that each have distinct ideological or ethnic agendas. There will be more ideological clashes and conflicts based on ethnic interests as we enter a new period.

Our current course bears a striking resemblance to that of the Rojava Kurds. While it is true that Rojava enjoys considerably superior democracy to ours, I think we are headed in the right direction if we continue to speak for "democracy" and “federalism”. In a few decades, we might be able to get to the position where Rojava is now. Such a scenario, in my opinion, represents a positive turning point toward social justice in our democracy.
It's deniable that history repeatedly demonstrates that in cases where a revolutionary force succeeds in toppling a dictatorship without presenting some sort of economic plan, the dictatorship will almost certainly quickly return. Sincerity be told, the majority of people are most afraid of such scenario in Burma/Myanmar. CRPH/NUG does, in fact, represent at least the majority of the popular vote of the Burman ethnic population in the Burman ethnic majority geographical area, despite the fact that their representation is dubious given that they are the elected political party and individuals from the election that followed the 2008 constitution of the military junta. The other ethnic populations represented will have the right to self-governance. They will once more determine who represents them politically—the CRPH/NUG or their ethnic armed organizations. I believe there will be discussions or referendums over whether or not there will be another national election. If so, CRPH/NUG will serve as the interim administration as it emerged victorious in the national election, which was conducted in accordance with the 2008 constitution.

Federal Democracy Charter issued by CPRH/NUG is available at this link:
• https://crphmyanmar.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04...
The following are some websites readers should check out to obtain their publications and statements:
• https://gov.nugmyanmar.org/
• https://crphmyanmar.org/

The majority of ethnic armed groups support elite capitalism and are nationalist. Some lean left, some lean right, and some are theocrats. Though the most centre-liberal politically, a handful of them are centre-left. Though there are more than a hundred ethnic armed organizations, the most potent ones include the Karen National Union, United League of Arakan, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Kachin Independence Organization, and Palaung State Liberation Front.

At the moment, the groups leading Operation 1027 are the Palaung State Liberation Front, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the United League of Arakan. Because of its intense nationalism, the Arakan Army, the military wing of the United League of Arakan, has made it known that it aspires to Nazism. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army was the one who overthrew and almost completely destroyed the Burmese Communist Party. Both the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Palaung State Liberation Front are considered to be puppets of China's imperialism. The sole explanation for the lack of rivalry or hostility between CRPH/NUG and the so-called "Three Brotherhood Alliance" is federalism or confederacies (self-governance). The "Three Brotherhood Alliance" is only concerned with obtaining ethnic geographic self-determination. They don't care about the ethnic geography of Barman. In their respective regions, they have numerous business interests with China.

Some ethnic groups do, nevertheless, have conflicting goals. They have a convoluted history and contested geographical territories, such as Israel and Palestine. All ethnic groups that have traditionally resided in those places are represented there, in one form or another. The question of who has a better and stronger military wing will therefore determine who prevails in certain regions. For example, Kachin ethnic groups and Shan ethnic groups have Israel and Palestine kind of conflict over who is indigenous to the overlapped areas between two states. Besides, some Kachin ethnic people are indigenous to the geographic area of Shan ethnic groups even though they’re Kachin. Reversely, some Shan ethnic people are indigenous to the geographic area of Kachin ethnic groups even though they’re Shan.

Left-wing Politics in Burma

Different political groups with a communist leaning made several attempts to put an end to all of this ethnic nationalism historically. Nonetheless, all communist organizations have been eradicated from history, and armed ethnic nationalist groups persist. Let us assume that nationalism endured, but not class consciousness. The Burmese Communist Party is now being revived. Nevertheless, in my opinion, they are typical Stalinists or Maoists who are closer to fascists than communists (internationalist Marxists). Their numbers are so minimal that they are essentially using the alliance technique to topple the armed forces. Their political philosophies are not clearly defined yet. They don't even acknowledge the ethnic population's right to self-determination from an ideological standpoint. They still adhere to the unitary Myanmar Union one state solution, just like the military dictatorship did.

As of now, federalism acts as the minimum program and tinyism has become the maximum program, according to the majority of people, including the Bamar majority, ethnic majorities, and some ethnic minorities. Thus, the Communist Party of Burma is out of touch with the general populace and has essentially no ideological differences with the military regime.

Please try these articles if the readers like to know more about Communist Party of Burma.
• https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/we-dont-want-...
• https://libcom.org/article/revival-burma-communist... (This article is mine).
• https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-stage-...

There are some dogmatic Trotskyist tendencies in Burma who are affiliated with IMT cult. On the other hand, one of the student leaders, comrade Kyaw Ko Ko has recently founded a new social democratic party in Burma. He seems to know pretty well about Trotskyism as well. Comrade Kyaw Ko Ko indeed is knowledgeable and plays a vital role in defending class politics when it comes to identity politics. Please try to read these articles to know more about them.
• https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-27/ne...

After all, in contrary to the traditional Marxist politics, the current overarching policy of Burma/Myanmar is to decentralize the administration as well as the economy. Even during the beginning of this revolution, it was absolute anarchy. There were no vanguard parties leading the revolution, there were no ethnic armed organisations coming to save us, yet most workers and people of Burma organised a nation wide protests and strikes on their own with the help of their local grassroot activists. So, the people of Burma are seeking for federalism as a minimum program and, if feasible, confederation type tinyism as a maximum program, as opposed to a unitary one state option. In addition to me and many other humanists and activists, there are attempts to replace ethnic nationalism with spatial communalism. On the other hand, some armed wings are counter-revolutionary in their efforts to replace ethnic nationalism with geographical communalism since they stand to gain from this feudalistic ethnic nationalism. Although the BPLA, a recently formed ethnic armed group that purports to speak for the Burman people, acknowledges that our federalism ought to be grounded in geographical communal consciousness, they assert that people, along with all other ethnic armed groups, actually prefer ethnicity-based federalism. The general populace, on the other hand, is against the idea of an ethnic-based state, Burmese state, preferring a federal government based on regional community consciousness. Therefore, it’s totally rationale to conclude that BPLA and allied centre-left social Democratic associated parties are effectively becoming counter-revolutionaries in order to promote their economic and ruling class interests.

This website contains a selection of the texts and writings of these reformists, social democrats, and post-colonialists. Not all of them, but the majority are ethnic social democrats of the Bamar majority, white academics employed by iNGOs, postcolonial scholars of colour who were born in the West, and wealthy, upper-class ethnic researchers.
• https://progressivevoicemyanmar.org/

Democratic seizure the assets of the military

Nonetheless, I can attest that democratic governance over the resources taken from the armed forces is unavoidable. A significant portion of our fundraising initiatives, which involve lotteries, fortunate draws, and auctions of senior military officers' lands, properties, and other assets, centre around the management of assets that have been taken from the military institution. This is the democratic control over the resources taken from the military. There are, in fact, bureaucracies involved in the fundraising process, etc.

Decentralise, not centralise

For this reason, despite the fact that the majority of people have never heard of them, we are learning about the experiences of the Kurdish revolutionaries, particularly those of their allies from Rojava. Instead of the traditional centralization of Marxism-Leninism and national socialism (Nazism) which are essentially socialism in one country, and even Trotskyist approach of nationalisation on a global level, the people of Burma are planning to decentralize.

The tinyist or federalist (self-determination) approach is our main focus, rather than the unitary single-state union. Our focus lies in secularism and intersectional social justice. It is painful to acknowledge that, on occasion, western NGOs and its purportedly postcolonial scholars have deliberately ignored class struggles, which has a direct impact on the radicalization of grassroots activists.

Conclusion

Leninism, for its vanguardist approach with the centralisation, was used partially by the Socialist Party and the military junta regimes since the first of coup in 1959 against the social democratic government of Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League. The Communist Party of Burma used Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as their primary ideology in the last century. In the 1960s, they also attempted to topple the military regime. Nonetheless, the Burmese Communist Party has said unequivocally that they have no interest in conducting a free and fair election. They intend to use military action to take control of the state. Similar to how Ba'athism was a synthesis of Islam and Marxism-Leninism, the Burma Socialist Programme Party was a synthesis of Buddhism and Marxism-Leninism.

Therefore, virtually every generation of military juntas shared the majority of Leninist teachings such as centralization, bureaucracy, state capitalism (or state socialism), vanguard party, and war communism. All military juntas have their roots in Marxism-Leninism, which is fundamentally more familiar to fascism and Leninism than it is to true emancipation, even though none of them adheres to the authentic democratic socialism and communism.

Link to Download "Mass Strike," the journal of the "International Luxembourgist Network," Volume 4, Number 3, January 2024.: http://luxemburgism.org/sites/default/files/Mass%20Strike-Feb%202024.pdf

Hein Htet Kyaw

Länk: https://libcom.org/article/leninism-has-nothing-offer-burma