File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-12.024, message 65


Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 11:53:50 +0100
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: M-I: Re: Albania: Revolution or Ignorance?


Vladimir is healthily, but unnecessarily, sceptical:

>Some comrades on this list  have been too quick to announce
>a revolution in Albania and to offer the rebels a correct political
>line and meticulously tailored slogans. Yet, there is no indication
>whatsoever that what we have in Albania is an anti-capitalist
>revolution or has any chance to become such. I found the proclamations,
>"analyses," and slogans on Albania that have been coming from European
>trotskyist organizations an example of wishful thinking, to put it mildly.
>What is immediately obvious from reading the reports by LCMRCI and the
>IEB of Social Appeal is that they do not have any independent sources
>of information in Albania and no political connection with the insurgency
>whatsoever. Yet the LCMRCI calls the Albanian insurgents
>
> "For a revolution based in workers council and militias!"
>
>This is a very serious slogan. The revolution based on and led by workers
>councils is the highest form of revolution imaginable, and one can add, the
>one that so far exists only in our imagination.  Yet the LCMRCI admits that
>even if the rebels move radically to the left they will most certainly put
>at their helm some of the former stalinist leaders. But if this is so, the
>above slogan is nothing but pure rhetoric and dangerous nonsense. Unless we
>think, of course, that our slogans do not have to relate to concrete social-
>political situation. And the situation in Albania shows no sign of a socialist
>revolution, let alone a revolution led by workers councils.  Not only both
>reports fail to produce any evidence that such councils exist in Albania, but
>LCMRCI tacitly acknowledges that *so far* the rebellion remains within strictly
>bourgeois demands.


I think Vladimir is confusing what the people are doing with what they are
saying.

The fact that what they are saying is neither Bolshevik nor Marxist is
hardly surprising given the history of world working class leadership since
the mid-1920s, especially in the degenerated and deformed workers' states
(made worse by the capitulation of the Pabloite leadership of the 4th
International to the Stalinists in the 1950s).

This makes it imperative to struggle for the consciousness of the people
now in revolt in Albania.

Vladimir underestimates *what they're actually doing*. In response to the
most vicious and blatant capitalist rip-off imaginable, a whole region of a
European country has thrown off the state's oppressive machinery and armed
itself to the last five-year-old.

This is *unprecedented* since the disarmament of the Greeks after World War
II! Perhaps the only parallel in Europe -- and this needs checking -- is
the power of the armed people in Yugoslavia at the end of the war.

Not even in Romania when the people went for Ceauscescu's jugular was there
this degree of total armed control out of the hands of the state machinery.
Think of it!

In the face of the usual Stalinist class-collaborationist, conciliationist
policies, the rebels are saying NO. And this is without an organized
revolutionary leadership.

The prospects for development depend on how soon an organized leadership
develops and in which direction it develops. The chances for fatal mistakes
are great -- this is the genuine basis for Vlad's scepticism.

However, it is absolutely necessary to see this revolutionary situation for
what it is and point out steps that need to be taken to move events in the
right direction. That's what I think we've been doing in our discussions of
the processes at work and of the appropriate slogans.

State power is up for grabs in Southern (and potentially in all) Albania.
Those in power can't hold on to it, those under them refuse to have them on
their backs any longer. Or to make it "official":

        ... it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and
        rule in the old way.

        ... It is only when the *"lower classes" do not want* to live in
the old
        way...

        ... and the "upper classes" *cannot carry on in the old way* ...

        that the revolution can triumph.


The other preconditions for success are what me and Bob and Dave have been
banging on about on these lists for so long. A Bolshevik-Leninist party and
class-independent, revolutionary, internationalist policies. Building such
a party is our real political work.

As for the slogans, they are banners trying to unite the mood of the people
with what is necessary for the development of a socialist revolution. Just
take another look.

* No disarmament -- for a universal people's militia!

This puts the question of power in the centre. Do we give up our guns? Yes
or No? We say No.


* No compromise with Berisha and the capitalist regime!

Isn't this self-evident and in tune with the mood of the people? What it
does is turn the attention of the rebels to the sell-out policies of the
Stalinists who are actually working *for* a compromise with the regime.


* For a revolutionary government based on worker, militia and community
  councils!

This is necessary to underpin slogans one and two. It is the alternative to
a government that will disarm and betray the people who are in revolt and
at present have the arms to assert their will. Remember Chile under
Allende, where enormous progress in organization and social consciousness
was smashed because of a political leadership that went directly against
these first three demands.


* Renationalize all the privatized companies without compensation!

On the basis of the previous demands, this is a natural consequence and in
fact the only way in which the power gained in a revolutionary situation
can be consolidated.


* Open the books! Workers control of industry and the economy! Compensation for
  the victims of the Pyramid swindle!

This is based on the preconditions for running nationalized industries in a
democratic way, and ties back into the reasons for the current revolt in
Albania.


* For a voluntary socialist federation of the Balkan nations!

And this is the line needed to preserve the gains of the Albanian uprising
in the face of imperialist intervention.


This is a good line and it's in tune with the current state of popular
challenge to bourgeois state power in Albania. The chances of this kind of
platform being put forward by any powerful group of rebels are slim, given
the lack of a revolutionary party. But this doesn't make the demands wrong
or even wrong-headed. What it does is underline the need for building such
a party in many countries, so that the fight for revolutionary mass
policies has a better chance each time a situation like that in Albania
arises.

Finally, this development shows how utterly mistaken all the sceptics have
been in their predictions of social passivity and their jeremiads about the
incredible stability of bourgeois control. It is their responsibility more
than any others, that so little time and energy has been spent preparing
the mass political base for being able to intervene when *inevitable*
crises of this kind arise.

I hope Vladimir sees the necessity for the preparation of party-building
more clearly now, too. The empiricism of his response lands him in the same
boat as the sceptics, and that's no good for him or the revolution.

This, Vladimir, is not wishful thinking we've been dishing out. It's
hammering out a political line. It would be wishful thinking if we had
illusions in the victory of a socialist Bolshevik revolution in Albania
when so many of the preconditions are absent. We don't. But we can see a
revolutionary situation when it arises, and don't hesitate to take a
position on it that we think could lead it in the right direction.

Cheers,

Hugh




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