File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 382


From: "Bob Malecki" <malecki-AT-mail.bip.net>
Subject: VB: (Fwd) Re:M-TH: Kosovo
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 05:28:41 +0100



-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: ricardo <davidb-AT-ak.planet.gen.nz>
Till: bob malecki <malecki-AT-mail.bip.net>
Datum: den 16 mars 1998 03:42
Ämne: Re: (Fwd) Re:M-TH: Kosovo


>
>Bob, I can't access M.Th from this address, can you forward this to M.Th
>please.
>Dave.
>
>Reply to Bob on Kosovo.
>
>Bob writes:
>> We would certainly in Kosovo go
>> into a military defense with workers and their organizations against
>> chauvinist Serb pogroms directed at them. But I allso said that we would
>not
>> give one bit of political support to the Albanian bourgeois nationalists
>who
>> are asking for NATO to intervene on their side..
>
>OK but how does this differ from either Hugh's position or mine. Neither of
>us gives any political or military support to the Albanian bourgeois
>nationalists. You on the other hand, by denying that it is national
>oppression that motivates these pogroms, cannot convince the workers
>organisations that you would bloc with, that you are on their side. If you
>go into Kosovo with arms to bloc with workers, the first thing they will
>ask you is  - are you for autonomy? You will say no and get shot. On the
>other hand, we will say yes, of course, but only if we workers are in
>control and we do not allow the pro-imperialists to run the show. We may
>still get shot, but the chances are it will be by those who are aligned to
>the bosses. So, how do you break workers from their bosses without at first
>declaring support for their struggle for independence?  To do anything else
>is to impose an ultimatum - renounce your nationalism it is false and fight
>with us for socialism now - with the obvious results.
>
>
>> Communists like the ICL took the position of revolutionary defeatism on
>all
>> sides in this war while opposing all outside intervention...At best Hugh
>is
>> tailing Bosnian Muuslim nationalism and now Albanian nationalism (albeit
>> with a fake left "Trotskyist" cover) in order to ride on the wave of
>> reactionary popular front politics!
>
>My position is NOT the same as Hugh's on Bosnia. But to say that Hugh is
>tailing Albanian pro-imperialism is to admit that your politics are
>irrelevant to the situation. If you think that 'intervening' in Kosovo with
>your socialist ultimatum, will have any other effect than to drive workers
>further into the arms of the pro-imperialists, you are dreaming. To
>recognise a national oppression does not mean to 'tail' the bourgeois
>leadership. It means to actually fight it on the ground, as opposed to
>standing on the sidelines and shouting 'socialism'. If you are saying that
>because the pro-imperialists dominate the national movement it is hopeless
>to win workers to socialism, then there will be few situations in which
>communists can intervene, because the working class will never be ready for
>your programme. So you can then join all the other lefts who say the
>working class was not ready for us, or rather, the working class was
>mislead by the tailers. But this is a passive tailing of the bourgeoisie
>because its handing the bosses a victory on a plate without putting up a
>fight. The point is that you have to intervene, in order to win over the
>working class to a socialist programme.
>
>> He even goes futher and shouts his support to General Galteri in
>> Argentina--The Irish Question and the middle east to strengthen his
>> arguement. In these three cases it is under the guise of the
>> anti-imperialist United Front  that Hugh and others liquidate the need
>for a
>> communist opposition to these Nationalists and anti-imperialist fakers.
>In
>> fact supporting Galteri in the war with Britain was both the Morenoite
>and
>> LCMCRI's Social Democratic betrayal of August 1914 where they backed
>their
>> own Bourgeoisie in Argentina including the bloody military who has always
>> drowned the Argentinean proletariat in blood!
>>
>Trotsky said defend Abbysinia from Italy despite the Negus (Emperor).
>Defend Brazil from the US despite the generals. Why not Argentina, Iraq,
>Northern Ireland? These are colonies or semi-colonies dominated by
>imperialism. The AIUF does not mean political support or military
>subordination to the national bourgeoisie. That's a long-time Spartacist
>sectarian position which avoids you getting your hands dirty in a bloody
>anti-imperialist war. August 1914 saw the communist movement actually
>voting for war credits in an inter-imperialist war. Are you saying that
>Argentina, Iraq and Northern Ireland are imperialists countries? If so,
>where do they get their super-profits from?
>
>> Hugh's latest enthusiasim on this list both over Iraq and now Albania
>where
>> his organization went so far as saying that Sadaam's Iraq is in the
>> forefront of the anti-imperialist struggle and now his cheerleading of
>> Albanian nationalism under the cover of the legitimate support of the
>> national question is hardly even the Leninist position in the classical
>> sense! In fact Lenin saw the national question as a NEGATIVE question and
>> worked out tactics in order to move things towards a future proletarian
>> solution to the problem. Trotsky too witryh his permanent revolution was
>> into this also. But Hugh is into the politics of the COMINTERN of Stalin
>in
>> word with his utter capitulkation to these mobilizations and their
>political
>> content which hardly is progressive and leading forward--but in fact is
>> being used by the ex-Stalinists to go backwards and create ruling classes
>in
>> this part of the world!
>> So what we have here is both Hugh and Dave trying to use the correct
>> classical position on the national question that Trotsky and Lenin had
>and
>> applying it to the WRONG situation and taking the working class not
>> forward--but BACKWARD!!!!!
>
>Hugh is more than capable of defending himself. You'r right in words, the
>national question is a class question, thats why we have fight on its
>territory, rather than keep our hands clean by taking ultra-left purist
>positions.  That's exactly why Lenin granted the right of nations to
>self-determination inside the SU. That's why Trotsky called for an
>independent socialist republic of the Ukraine. Because in doing so, workers
>in the oppressor countries must declare their solidarity with workers in
>the oppressed countries to fight against national oppression and to win
>them over to socialism and to fight the plans for restoration. So its not a
>question of moving the national question along towards a "future
>proletarian solution" , the National question is a class question from the
>start. Without a  proletarian policy of supporting unconditionally the
>right to self-determination, there will be no "future proletarian
>solution", but rather a bourgeois, reactionary, restorationist class one.
>
>> In fact Hugh is turning his back and supporting one side against the
>other
>> here. That is the problem. And Dave's banal left rhetoric of a federation
>in
>> a future republic maks no sense unless one understands that we do not get
>> their by supporting struggles which de facto mean one side getting the
>> upperhand and reversing the forms of oppression. This is what Hugh does
>> concretely with his one sided support to first the Bosnians and now the
>> Albanians.
>
>It does not follow that the Albanians will reverse the discrimation, unless
>the workers are totally coopted by the pro-imperialist leadership. Are we
>saying that this is already the case?  Or that it must inevitably happen?
>No. It is not totally the case, though the absence of a revolutionary
>movement has already meant that the bosses have almost no opposition to
>their pro-imperialist plans. It will happen, inevitably, only if this
>situation is allowed to remain. The bosses pro-US plans will involve the
>workers in reverse discrimination and a new Balkan war that may spread
>accross the whole of south-East Europe. They only way to stop this is to
>unite Albanian workers with Serb workers, and the international working
>class,  against their respective bosses. This cannot happen unless Serbian
>workers defend the right of Kosovo workers to autonomy, win their
>confidence by fighting alongside them against Serbian repression. Only on
>this basis can a cross-national class alliance develop capable of defeating
>both reactionary national leaderships. So far from a popular front, this
>must be a genuine international workers unite front against national
>oppression and its ultimate cause imperialism.
>
>> Sure Dave! Lets see you get the above off the ground. But the main slogan
>of
>> the Albanian nationalists is getting just NATO to solve there problems.
>Just
>> as the Croats want the Germans to solve there problems. Just as the Serbs
>> want the Russian capitalist state to solve there problems, just as the
>> Bosnian Muslims want the Allyotohahs to solve their problems.
>>
>Bob's radicalism really masks a deep pessimism about the Spartacists
>inability to intervene to any effect in any situation.  He treats history
>as a qualitative piece of shit which is miraculously going to be changed
>into a little piece of heaven on earth,  by some external moral force
>acting upon workers.  Its not fate that says that every little tin-pot
>nationalist dictator or warlord will win. We have to intervene in the shit
>to stop these reactionaries from sucking the workers into new wars and
>murder camps. You can't do that by pulling out of the game because there
>are too many players who interpenetrate and break all the rules. This
>interpenetration is the legacy of 1000's of years of oppression. Bosnia was
>the pits because of mutual cleansing. But Kosovo has not yet seen this
>happen. It will happen unless we convince Serbian workers to stop
>oppressing Albanian workers in Kosovo.
>
>> Dave is fighting for "democracy". We Communists fight against all forms
>of
>> nationalist oppression--but we do this without giving one bit of
>political
>> support to any of the contending nationalists in the former
>Yugoslavia..And
>> the problem with at least Dave and Hugh's position is that they have
>taken
>> sides and support one of the contending bourgeoisies against the other in
>> this part of the world albeit with a left face and in the name of
>> "Trotskyism"...
>
>The irony is here that Hugh and I are clearly NOT supporting any
>bourgeoisie, in fact the opposite,  by trying to split workers away from
>their pro-imperialist bosses. On the other hand, Bob's Spartacist position,
>IS defending the Kosovo Albanian pro-imperialists by default,  because
>there is no way that the Spartacists can intervene on the side of the
>oppressed Kosovo workers without being shot out of hand as foreign
>oppressors dressed up as international communists. You can do all sorts of
>things in the name of "trotskyism", including using the old man's name in
>vain as you call from the side-lines.
>
>Dave.




     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005