From: "Greg Schofield" <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
Subject: Re: AUT: Imperialism = main contradiction?
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 12:20:00 +0800


Saul we need a little reality check here.
You say below:
"I disagree that the "main struggle" has ever been "national
liberation."  National liberation means siding with one nation-state
against another."

Well you seemed to have missed much of the 20th century. I was talking in the past tense and in regard to internationalist struggle, you seem to have adopted a universalist position complete with fairies.

This is not a matter of choice, it is plain historical fact - the international history of the 20th century has been largely the history of the emergance of national liberation - I simply do not think this is really up to much doubt. Anyhow many millions of people laid down their lives for it s it seems a bit churlish to dismiss it.

The fact that nation liberation leads to nationalism and all soughts of predictable conflicts - well who said it didn't - that's history mate get used to it. And as for all your assertions about what nation statehood means, well it is frankly an anarchist litnany - ahistorical, simplistic and intellectually self-serving.

Now I apologise to the list for using such strong language, but I dislike being lectured to about a misreading of what I have said, then accused of supporting some sought of anti-communism by some-one who justifies their thinking by disagree with Marx on the state!

The problem is when you believe all analysis is in fact an advocation of a position as in this case with Marx who saw German unification as a question pregnant with contradictions and once achieved would come into conflict with Russia - Saul read a little history and you find that Marx more or less got it right.

NOw you are also telling me that Lenin's Imperialism was from Marx but Rosa Luxemberg's views of the state were not. I don't really think Rosa would agree with you on that one and I think you are reading more into her pamphlet then is actually there (though I would have to reread it to say so with certainity).

Anyhow much of this is beside the given the way things have developed in the world. I will not play words with what is a good and bad state (a state is a state whether it be proletarian or bourgeois - you fool yourself if you think it would be a qualitatively different type of state).

I am sorry Saul that you took such umbridge with my statements, which appear to be a thoroughly unsucessful attempt to push debate to a slightly higher level.

I find this sought of out and out attack and extreme interpretation of a posting a mistake on your part and I hope not to see it again. Things don't balance on your or my definitions but on reality which cares nothing for either.


--- Message Received ---
From: Saul Marsh <saulmail-AT-yahoo.com>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 17:45:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: AUT: Imperialism = main contradiction?

I disagree that the "main struggle" has ever been "national
liberation."  National liberation means siding with one nation-state
against another.  Rather, the main struggle has always been to
overcome all states and create borderless, classless society. 
Nation-states are inherently anti-communist, because they enforce
class-collaboration (ie, capitalism).  Further, all nation-states are
imperialist in their nature.  Just following a broad dictionary
definition of imperialism, "the extension or imposition of power,
authority, or influence [of one state over another]" is clearly every
state's foreign policy.  

I think Marx was quite wrong on the national question.  He advocated,
among other things, not only a unified Germany, but that once
unified, it should immediately attack the Russian Empire.  The
sources of Leninist anti-imperialist pro-nationalism are clearly in
Marx, but this didn't stop Rosa Luxemburg, et al from denouncing all
national politics (in the Junius Pamphlet).  

Anti-imperialism is the path of least resistance of struggles inside
weak nation-states or colonies, but it's a dead-end.  The struggle to
create a state is never revolutionary unless by "state" you mean the
self-organized proletariat and not a hierarchical body that coerces
work out of people, even if its not through commodity production
(though it has been, generally).  


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia
g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au
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