From: info <info-AT-j12.org>
Subject: AUT: RE: Re: [R-G] Strategy for an international movement.
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 19:19:18 +0100



From:	Macdonald Stainsby [SMTP:mstainsby-AT-tao.ca]

Being anti-imperialist is precisely that- ANTI. It is not PRO anything, 
unless I
(or the anti-imperialist in question) choose to be so. With the exception 
of the
SPS, there is no government that has been recently bombed/militarily 
attacked
that I really care to defend. However- here is where we get closest to 
agreeing-
I see the distortions of states surrounded by a host of imperialist 
militaries
inherently going towards decay. In that much, I agree there is no *final*
solution here... However, breathing room can not be waited for patiently by 
a
revolutionary during an attack on ther country they live for the sake of
Imperialism- regardless of their opinion of such a state, it is simply 
suicide
for the GLOBAL revolution to subordinate all to the "big picture".

My response:
How can you 'defend' the SPS government? What does that mean? Adopting an 
intellectual position or volunteering for their army in a combatant role? 
Or do you want working class conscripts to do your fighting for you? Would 
you shoot deserters?


Tahir said:
*** Most of these countries have slaughtered communists in thousands. The
movement that I'm seeing, as opposed to what you're seeing, is not an
anti-imperialist one in some Leninist sense, but an anti-capitalist one.***

From:	Macdonald Stainsby [SMTP:mstainsby-AT-tao.ca]
My problem is with Leninists, not Lenin. He was busy sticking his nose into
anything that cropped up in Russia, looking for a way out- as part of the 
world
revolution. He didn't come up with stale formulae that one reads like a 
broken
record. In the modern day on this level, I see Fidel as the current 
"leader"
with such a vision. He speaks very highly of "our" movement against
globalisation (using the very term constantly).

My response:
Well that is a classical Leninist position - to squabble over the mantle of 
the great leader. As for Citizen Castro, I think his problem is that he has 
no where else to go.

Tahir wrote:
*** And at least there I am in agreement with Negri. People are and should 
be
globalising against capitalism. This is not yelling,***

From:	Macdonald Stainsby [SMTP:mstainsby-AT-tao.ca]
I was teasing you. I didn't mean you were yelling- the computer has ben 
rather
quiet all day. Anyhow, the questions are then back to two much earlier 
posts:
tactics one, strategy two.

Leninsim may be a whole lot of different things to a lot of different 
people,
but it is clear what it means. Let us here your strategy and your tactics- 
and
as concise as possible then.

My response:
Yes, it is clear what Leninism means: being bossed around by a technocratic 
elite for the extension of a society based on alienated labour. Our 
strategy must be based on posing  communism as a practical way forward 
against all the socialist experiments which seek to resocialise capitalist 
relations at the point they become disfunctional to the continued 
extraction of surplus value. We call this the abolition of wage slavery.

Tactics: refuse all attempts by rightist to intimidate us and all attempts 
by leftists to subordinate our activities to the revitalisation of the 
state - and in particular any attempt to drag us into supporting this or 
that war machine. The workers of the world have no father land.

Tahir wrote:
**** this is a theoretical and practical question of the greatest 
importance.
And all your heartfelt pleas for common strategy etc will mean nothing 
without
some agreement on such fundamental issues. If anything will destroy the 
movement
it's having to march alongside people who are saying Viva Saddam, Viva
Milosovec, etc.***

From:	Macdonald Stainsby [SMTP:mstainsby-AT-tao.ca]
Tahir, this is not aimed at you but a large series of people in general: 
I'm
really fucking tired of hearing people call others Saddam (or insert here)
lovers for defending Iraq and her people from American bombs. Saying that 
Iraq
successfully engaging in military defense would be a good thing is quite
different than calling Hussein the father of all the people.

My response:
It may be different but it is still counter revolutionary. 'Iraq' i.e. the 
nation state of that name, organised a successful defense against the sura 
set up by revolutionary workers to cast off the rule of Saddam Hussein and 
his palls. Saddam Hussein is the motherfucker of his people.

Undoubtedly it would be wrong to call Trotskyists Stalin lovers just 
because they defended the Soviet Union. Nevertheless their reactionary 
politics have to be opposed just as much as the stalinist before whom they 
prostitute themselves.

Fabian




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