File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/marxism-general.9705, message 41


From: "David Bedggood" <d.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
To: marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 10:56:34 1200+
Subject: M-G: Congo: Marxism versus empty abstractions


-

PO Peru and Malecki make mincemeat of Proyect on Zaire so I will try 
to be  brief. Proyect bases his case against the Trotskyists on Zaire 
on his belief that we don't analyse the concrete reality. That we 
don't consult the "economic or social statistics the way Lenin or 
Trotsky did when they wrote about Czarist Russia".  What we offer, he 
thinks are "empty abstractions". 

 Isnt it interesting that Proyect thinks 
that Lenin and Trotsky were writing just about Russia, just as 
Proyect today cites "facts" about Congo-Zaire in isolation? This 
reveals Proyects schematic view of history in which there are 
separate nations slotted onto some tracking system which go through 
different stations  in sequence. This is social imperialism shared by 
the labour aristocrats of the imperialist countries.  It says to 
workers in the semi-colonies, follow us, we will give you 
civilisation, first bourgeois democracy, then when we judge you 
ready, socialism. 

In reality what Lenin and Trotsky revealed  was that Russia was a 
capitalist semi-colony in the imperialist world system. The 
imperialist super-exploitation of Russia made it the weakest link
despite the fact that its working class was small, new and lacked 
strong organisations and culture. The Mensheviks hated Trotsky and 
Lenin for this because it shifted the locus of revolution from the 
West and the "best" and made it uncivilised and uncultured. They got 
their revenge by stifling the German Revolution and isolating the 
Russian revolution.

Now Proyect wants to isolate and stifle the Zairian revolution in 
advance  because it does not meet the menshevik criteria of a fully 
developed proletariat. He rejects the theoretical tools developed by 
Lenin and Trotsky which prove that despite its small size and 
relative backwardness, the Central African workers could lead the 
poor peasants to a socialist overturn. This is no surprise as 
Proyect and others on these lists regard the Russian revolution 
as premature because the Russian working class was too small 
and got decimated. Proyect does not understand that the  Bolsheviks 
always recognised that the Russian revolution would fail unless it 
was rescued by a European or  a "Far Eastern" Revolution.

The same goes for Congo-Zaire today. Proyect cannot see that the 
rebellion in Zaire was as product of imperialism, and more 
specifically the emergence of US influence through Mandela's regime 
and Museveni's regime in Uganda. That Congo-Zaire is a bastardised 
nation of many nationalities and ethnic groups which are spread 
across central Africa. That the Tutsi now control the state in 
Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and are the main local backers of Kabila.
This complex concrete reality can only be understood by applying the 
theoretical elements of  the theory of "combined and uneven 
development" and "permanent revolution".  

Far from being "empty abstractions", these theories allow us to fill 
in the many determinations which go to making up the concrete reality 
of Central Africa today.   They allow us to combine an understanding 
of the ethnic mix and the ethnic elites which are competing as 
comprador agents for imperialism in central Africa, with the class 
composition of the WHOLE  of central and South Africa. Just as 
Mandela, Museveni and Kabila are one side of the equation, so are the 
masses in all of their various social relations on the other side of 
the equation. So the outcome of the struggle does not reduce to an 
"empty abstraction" i.e. "facts" about the number of workers in 
Zaire, but the dynamics of class struggle in the whole of central and 
South Africa and beyond that the class struggle in the imperialist 
countries.  

In the final analysis, Proyects argument is classic menshevism. It 
always blames the failure of revolution on the weakness or 
unreadyness  of the working class instead of the bankruptcy and 
betrayals of the petty bourgeois "socialists".  If you want to see 
how our analysis pans out into a programme for revolution which does 
not depend on any one individual, at any one point in the world, with 
or without liquor,  then read the latest resolution of the LCMRCI on 
"The Downfall of Mobutu and the New World Order in Central Africa". 

Dave [for permanent revolution and on this list]

> Does this sound like anything that Hugh or Bedggood have ever produced on
> this list? Now, I don't claim to be the incarnation of Trotsky as they do,
> but I have tried to remain faithful to this approach of detailed class
> analysis when I have written about Cuba, Nicaragua, Costa Rica or the
> United States on this list. Thses are countries that I have direct
> experience with or have studied in some depth. The reason that Hugh and
> David don't take this approach is that their Marxism is the Marxism of
> slackers. Rather than consult economic or social statistics the way that
> Lenin or Trotsky did when they wrote about Czarist Russia, they are much
> more comfortable dispensing opinions. Opinions are worth very little.
> Whatever they write about former Zaire will consist of empty abstractions.
> "The working class should do this. The peasants should do that." This is
> not Marxism. It is the sort of idle chatter one can hear in student or
> bohemian neighborhood bars in any large city. "The working class should get
> its act together and take over the government. That's what I say. Blimey.
> (Bartender, another Fosters for me and my mate.) And that's what Trotsky
> said. Hiccup."
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 


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