Sun, 15 Jun 1997 01:42:58 -0400 COCKROACH! #68 (The National Question?) A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscribtions are free at Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! -------------------------------------------------------- 1. With Friends Like These... 2. Stalin as bad as Hitler? 3. The National Question? 4. More from the ultra left... -------------------------------------------------------- With Friends Like These... Yoshie said commenting on recent un-comradely behaviour on M-I: > With friends like Mark and Adolfo, who needs enemies? > I agree with the sentiment, but I don't regard Mark and Adolfo as class enemies. We should struggle to make this list communist in practice as much as possible, and as well as refusing to put up with death threats, sexist and homophobic language, try to explain why self-identified communists succumb to this behaviour. Johns says its because the list has no working class roots. I agree that it is biased towards academics and intellectuals, but it is not isolated from the working class. Most people on this list are workers, if mainly mental workers. I think that Mark's explanation of his `alleged homophobia' - that the language he used is part of the working class culture that he has learned in the past is correct. But it is no less homophobic for that. Therefore while it would be good to get more participation from a wider range of workers, that is not the problem, nor is it the solution. The problem is that we are living through a period of working class defeats. The former SU which many on the left either saw as socialist, or at least as post-capitalist, has disintegrated. Workers of all ethnicities and genders are being smashed back by neo-liberal attacks accross the world. Yet in many places the resistence is there and workers are putting up a struggle. It is because we all want these struggles to lead this time to a successful revolution that we are at loggerheads and very antagonistic to political traditions which we judge to be reformist at best or counter-revolutionary at worst. Thats why this list is a microcosm of the debates raging across the whole political world. The emotional investment of sometimes decades of hard political slog won't be wished away. Raging at each other on the computer just excecerbates the differences that are already there. All marxists must start from the position that inside the working class there is a revolutionary proletarian line and a competing petty-bourgeois line. The question is: which on this list fall to either side of that line? Adolfo and the Stalin defenders cannot accept that Stalinism was counter-revolutionary; for them it must be Trotskyism. For Trotskyists vice versa. Neither side can be shifted from its entrenched position unless the historical record is confronted honestly. I am a Trotskyist so therefore I take that side of the argument. I am prepared to debate vigorously that Stalinism was counter-revolutionary on the one hand, but to debate just as vigorously that the former SU [and other such states] was a workers state and not state capitalist. However, in arguing these positions I have to come up with a dialectical materialist explanation. Stalinism must therefore be an expression of petty bourgeois influence inside the working class. But this does not make Trotskyism automatically the proletarian line. In my view pre-war Trotskyism continued the Bolshevik tradition. Numerous debates on this list have strongly defended that claim notably those of Hugh and Bob. However, Post war Trotskyism underwent a collapse into centrism,[by which we mean politics which `talk' revolution but `act' confused, vacillating between revolution and reform.] Post war Trotskyism too, then succumbed to petty bourgeois influences so that in my view no healthy revolutionary Trotskyist international exists. To create a new revolutionary international we have to ruthlessly criticise all the weakness and betrayals that all petty-bourgeois political tendencies introduced into the working class. We have to prove again and again to each new layer of radicalising militants, that petty bourgeois class interests lead to a division between theory and practice which means that intellectuals propose historical schemas unrelated to events, while workers are left to fight without revolutionary theoryl or programmatic leadership. Which is not to say that the working class is already revolutionary and could have staged a revolution if it were not for the petty-bourgeois misleaderships. In reality workers cannot spontaneously arrive at a revolutionary consciousness without the active intervention in their struggles of a revolutionary vanguard. It takes marxism to explain that exploitation comes from surplus-value during production and not deduction from wages in exchange and distribution. Spontaneism is `workerism' - a form of idealism. So I would like people on this list to get back to the politics of proposing what they would say and do on the side of workers in Albania. Apart from the self-identified Troskyists on M-I, only two others have commented on what is happening in Albania to my knowledge. Here is a massive armed uprising in response to the reintroduction of the market in a former deformed workers state which threatens to destabilise Europe and possibly the former SU. Here is a good chance to debate the politics and leave the flaming for the real class war. If the stalinists still on this list want to prove that Stalinism was [and is] a progressive force, explain how it is that the masses are arming themselves and forming proto-soviets to get rid of former stalinists. Here is an actually existing armed struggle in an impoverished country. Does Adolfo advocate a democratic stage of struggle or a struggle for socialism now? If the state caps on this list want to claim that the former Albania was state cap, let them explain why the former `ruling class' abandoned their state property and now promote the market. Why didnt they switch to the market decades ago? Perhaps it was because then Albania had full employment based on a bureaucratic plan, and the Stalinist dictatorship could maintain sufficient support and still live off the backs of the workers while the plan survived. Whatever position, here is an opportunity to argue the `correct line' in a rapidly developing revolutionary situation which will become a test for all of us. Dave ------------------------------------------------------- Stalin as bad as Hitler? I think AA with this statement about Stalin and Hitler puts himself on the same level as Rolf M. (the Maoist) who quite gladly would go to the Swedish secret police and turn in the agents of Soviet imperialism. In fact comparing Stalin to Hitler coming from a so called "Marxist" is despicable and not just "stupid" as Proyect claims.. Aldolf is right in saying that this is cold war right wing liberal rhetoric and in the next moment blabbers out his Stalinist rhetoric about Trotskyism =imperialism and defense of the Moscow trials. It is interesting to note that our cold war liberal and old hard line Stalinist have the same basic methodology of slander.. With the only difference being that the Stalinist old guard do it all the time. And our cold war liberals just some of the time. In fact most have realized that the cold war is over and are busy deviding up the booty in East Europe and the former Soviet Union... So both AA and Aldolfo are expressions of the dead past which no longer really exists.. Unfortunately it is the AA cold war liberals who have won a great victory at the expense of the demise of Stalinism. And Trotskyists are the first to say that this fact is HORRIBLE. And in fact certainly would and did defend the former Stalinist states with guns in hands from the imperialist counter-revolution. Aldolfo by the way deserted the Stalinists in 1956 and the Chinese Stalinists when? Whereas the Trotskyists still defend the Chinese deformed workers state from imperialism just as we defend Vietnam, Korea and Cuba! Just as we would defend the PCP when they have the guns pointed in the right direction. So in fact Aldolfo has a lot in common with our anti-Communist AA in that he no longer can defend for example China and like Rolf would probably turn in the Soviet and Chinese spies sent to Sweden to the Swedish imperialist spy agencies. So Aldolfo's talk about AA I must admit is a bit moralistic when push comes to shove.. In fact Aldolfo could not even get it up to critize the blatant anti-communist activities openly admitted by Rolf who turns to the Swedish secret police for help in fighting "Social imperialism in Rolf's imperialist homeland. the same spy agency who is sending suspected PCP people in Sweden back to Fujimora's jails.. Hmmm the rotten block politics of the Stalinists are just mind boggling. And in fact I see that Aldolfo has alredy mentioned how he "Will take care of Mark Jones" when the time comes. Well Mark I just can't wait to see the falling out that is coming between you and you other block partners in the new "Stalin" list which i subscribed too by the way and still have not recieved and answer. Does that mean Jerry is welcome and Malecki is not. Or what abpout Hugh or Dave and others. I am quite sure that their participation would make the list and interesting place for political struggle on Internet. Anyway.. In no way are Trotskyists prepared to join the anti-Communist hysteria that AA represents with his line of Stalin = Hitler.... Another member of the list correctly noted that a lot of people in the International brigades died fighting against the Franco fascists and they were loyal honest supporters of the Stalinist led CPs. They should not be condemned for there heroic struggles. Despite the Stalinist led COMINTERN with its politicsal line which led the working class to a great historical defeat. And Louis Proyect is correct allso in his answer to AA. I notice that he had to go back to his SWP Trotskyist school to get it right by the way..The point being that it was the COMINTERN with its Zig Zag politics of first the popular front in Spain and later on the Red Front in Germany which was the *real*reason for these historic defeats. It had nothing to do with the dedication of the contigents of loyal CP members who tried to struggle. Finally on the Moscow trials. Aldofo with his political line and methodology is trying to turn M-I into a mini version of the Moscow trials! The only difference being he doesn't have the guns,a secret police and the state prosecuters in his pocket. That is the difference between Stalinism in state power and just a whiny old left over from this epok in the history of the workers movement. The tasks of the Trotskyist can be encompassed in one short slogan. Never again! Warm Regards Bob Malecki -------------------------------------------------------- The National Question? I see our list clones of the neo-Stalinist and Menshevik schools are getting started on their forum. and already one can see a clear demarkation line being drawn up. In fact what is coming is nothing other then a backhanded defense of capitulating to Nationalism. In fact replacing replacing class struggle and proletarian Internationalism with "people's struggle" and "national liberation struggle". Most of this stuff comes from the preceding period when the Stalinists in Moscow and Peking in state power liquidated any kind of Marxist or Leninist practice on this question. This is linked too the revisionist line of building socialism in one country, the stage theory of revolution, and finding a progressive wing of the bougeoisie that the CP's could hook into in order to betray the proletariat. This was mainly because it was more important to have minister posts in a goverment with people who were subservient to Stalin foreign policy rather then any kind of real struggle for victory by the Proletariat. I would like a simple answer from these defenders of "national liberation" on the national question. When has this tactic succeeded? When has the poor and working class actually marched in to power since the COMINTERN made this turn already back in the 1920ties. Historical proof is exactly the opposite! In China for example it was only when Mao took the step of breaking with the the "nationalists" and turning away from the Stalinists in Moscow that China became a deformed workers state. In Vietnam it took 40 years of foreign occupation, before this line was overgiven and victory was assured on the battlefield. In all of the African countries where the "national liberation" struggles led to so called victories it has only meant that a African bougeoisie has developed as mini partners to various imperialist interests at the expense of poor and working class people. South Africa being the latest example of "liberation struggles" that wound up in a dead end. I would also like to know how the people on this list see "national liberation struggles" during Marx's life and Lenin's position in the age of imperialism the highest stage of capitalism. It appears to me that the more intelligent neo Stalinists want to confuse the issue. Whereas Marx's support for these struggles was certainly correct and Lenin's unconditional support of National Liberation Struggles was linked too a line which was subordinate to Proletarian Internationalism and the building of the Third International. And the Stalinist line on this question was in fact a fundemental break with the Leninists on this question. Futhermore taking various writers on this question like CL James, Luxemburg and others completely out of context and in relation to theur own political trajectory is like picking raisins from the pie without wanting to eat or see the whole pie. Another question in regards to the above. What was Jame's political trajectory when he was writting? Was he a Moscow line Stalinist who slavishly swallowed all of the other Zig-Zag policies of Stalin for example? Stop this raisin picking instantly because it is a cover up for those who want to raise the Stalinist schooll of politics and strategical questions to a principle! I unfortunately see the stage being set by our list neo Stalinists in paving the way of new betrayals and political liquidation into "people's struggles" rather then basing strategy on a class analisis and proletarian Internationalism. In fact a re-birth of the Stalinist line on this question without the Stalinists having state power is utopian. And uncritical support of national liberation struggles can and will only lead too new betrayals in the sense of revolutions being derailed in the interests of one wing or the other of the national bougeoisie rather then the setting up of transitional societies encompassed in the dictatorship of the Proletariat and in certain countries in alliance with the peasantry or urban poor. Their is nothing really complicated about the National Question. It is only the list neo-Stalinists that want to make this question "profound" in the sense of their own appetites for liquidating any kind of Proletarian independent politics from all wings of the Bougeoisie. This is especially the case in the epok of imperialism the higest stage of capitalism. Communists naturally give un-conditional support for all "national liberation struggles" however they allso do reserve the right to fight for a Proletarian independent victory in these struggles which will put this class in power under its own dictatorship. The Stalinists and Mensheviks make the National question so profound because they do no see the National question in regards to fighting for the dictatorship of the Proletariat. But historically of supporting progressive wings of the bougeoisie and getting minister posts in a national liberation government. This historically was connected to the foreign policy of both Moscow and Peking and the theory of stages connected to the policy of building socialism in one country and today appears more to be and independent ambition of finding a place in the national liberation sun.In other words sort of a permanent February revolution solution to their problems. The Leninists on the other hand see the national question as a tactic which is SUBORDINATE to the interests of the Proletariat and especially Proletarian Internationalism. Our radical neo Stalinists in fact are leading this list by the nose once again down the wrong path. In fact it is quite amusing seeing them trying to raise the national question from the dead without the Stalinists in state power in Moscow. In fact raising this question today in this sense with with the demise of the Soviet Union is ridiculous! In that it can not even being linked any longer to these states which were still worth defending against imperialism. In fact our radical neo-Stalinists are heading back towards "National liberation movements" before the victory of the October Revolution in order to get ammunition to liquidate to national liberation struggles today and perhaps minister posts tomorrow! This is indeed a real step backwards. And in fact a step in exactly the opposite direction that a revolutionary Internationalist leaderrship should be taking. At best you are with your radicalism leading poor and working class people to new bloody deffeats in wars that will not bring the poor and working class to power. Just some wing of the bougeoisie which the radical "Marxist" intelligencia on M-I can find to support with their neo Stalinist line on the National Question! Stalinism is dead! And its clone version on the theoretical question is worse! PS: Aldolo! You would love this stuff! It is right up your political ally. That is if you weren't off on a third period Stalinist Zig Zag you would find yourself at home. Because on the fundementals the list intellectuals have basically the same line as you for example in Peru. Where you are looking for and fighting a "national liberation struggle" with the fundemental line of finding a liberal wing of the bougeoisie as a future ally.. Warm Regards Bob Malecki ------------------------------------------------------- More from the ultra left... Hi Harry, Actually Harry there is nothing wrong with slogans. The problems is having slogans that reflect a correct political orientation. For example your slogan "For Proletarian Revolution" is great but connected to the slogan "Smash the Labor Party" makes it wrong in political context. However I do understand your frustration because the Labor Party and Social democracy is today the major obstacle which must be politically destroyed in the process of Proletarian revolutions. But in order to do this we want all the workers to understand exactly why it must be destroyed. bothered to check out my home page would know that to be the case. >However, I don't see that as being a problem. I'll try and give an >example. In 1918, in Germany, the working class was in revolt against >the state. Who was the state? Answer, the SPD. The unions were >implicated in the war effort and were opposed to the workers councils. >So what demands did the most advanced sections of the class come up >with? Leave the unions, no support for the SPD, no participation in >bourgois elections - indeed, why did they need to do so when they were >actually involved in creating a revolution. Likewise in Russia - what >happened to the Constituent Assembly when it tried to meet? Should >revolutionaries there have participated in it? I think not. In the >German experience, the response of those in the KPD who supported Lenin >was simple - they expelled the majority of the party - who then went on >to form the KAPD (Communist Workers Party). Frankly, at that time >Gorter, Pannekoek, Pankhurst et al were right and Lenin was wrong. >Sorry. I suggest you read 'Origins of the Movement for Workers Councils >in Germany' on my home page to find out more. Now these are extremely important tactical questions you raise Harry. But workers councils or "Soviets" are in fact a lot like trade unions in that without a revolutionary party with a program and tactics standing at its head can and will be defeated. We do not have to go back to Germany to get examples. Albania today shows that even the most militant forms of organisation of the workers and even with arms in there hands is not enough. Without the subjective factor of leadership you are in deep shit without a paddle. In regards to the German situation the party was hardly ready nor the working class to seize political power and because unfortunately the ultra lefts had a small minority of german workers in back of them. And the ultra left came up with tactics which ment turning their backs to the majority of the working class who still saw the unions and the German Social democracy as their leaders. As far as the tactical orientation In Germany I would have to read this stuff again however I am fairly sure I defend Lenin on these questions of Germany and earlier in Russia on the question of the constituit assembly. They left in the KPD was trying to paste the Russian Soviets onto the German situation. Tactically wrong and quite stupid in a young and newly created party... > >Similarly, the unions. I'm afraid that we need to look at the real >situation in the world. What is obvious is a very real difference >between the attitudes of activists and the bureaucracies. The >bureaucracies have become self-perpetuating elites. They pay themselves >boss-type wages and live lives of relative privilege. Their aspirations >are to be either junior partners in the state or part of the process of >the management of capital. And the state and bosses know this. That is >why in the UK many firms give special status to union representatives, >secretaries and even shop stewards. In many cases the stewards act as >unofficial personnel departments for the companies, helping smooth out >conflict before it arises. This is inevitable in any structure which >exists to find the best price for labour power. Come the revolution, as >they say, the class will not use the unions, they will be swept aside. >This will happen not least because the revolution will not be a >syndicalist affair with railways run by rail workers, mines by miners >etc, but by the class as a whole in unitary organisations - workers >councils, possibly. A lot of what the trade union bureaucracy is -is correctly described by you above. However you come to the wrong conclusions. A revolution might sweep away some trade unions or it could be that certain unions will be in the forefront of the revolution. I think it will be determined by the subjective factor of which party wins the majority of workers to its side. And you are unbelievably naive or ignoring that in fact the Soviets which developed and made the February revolution in Russia which led to October was hardly Soviets with a revolutionary leadership. In fact the Bolsheviks were in a minority and it was those who wanted to continue the war give the bougeoisie power and all the rest that describes the whole history of the struggle to win the workers over and make the October Revolution.( In fact one of the key lessons the ultra left in the KPD forgot also by the way.. in 1918)The German left in the KPD wanted to take the highroad to revolution without a party in fact.. In fact without the Bolsheviks there would have not been and October and the workers rather then seizing power and building the dictatorship of the Proletariat could and would have certainly been defeated despite the Soviets. You are turning Soviets into a fetish intead of a tool just like the trade unions which can be molded for revolution or in fact counter-revolution depending on the subjective factor of who is leading what where....This is the major error of all uktra-lefts.. > >Incidentally, if you think I not correct then there is a question I >would like you to consider. Why has every 'left' group that tried to >take over a union ended up as bad as the lot they got rid of? Why has >every new union (that I can think of) ended up replicating the behaviour >and practice of the old ones? Good question! I love it! It is great. Because you are right! Many left groups do in fact liquidate any kind of revolutionary politics as soon as it comes to trade union work. Rather then lead they wind up tailing the workers. This can be seen time and time again. So naturally then it is not the workers that are the problem but the fake leftists who liquidate revolutionary politics in order to become a respected at best opposition. I am completely against it and we should compare discuss this question and the various left organisations and there approach and political line in regards to the unions. > >btw I am not a bordigist. Good! > >Unfortunately I cannot come up with any ready made programme. All I can >say is that at the moment the task of revolutionaries, imho, is to >always try to spread struggles as far as they can go, to develop the >links between them and to be brutally honest to the rest of the class. >It is from the struggles of the class that the consciousness for >communism will come, aided by those sections of the class who are >themselves already communist. It is from that process that the >'programme', if there is one, will develop. Which is what ole Charlie >was talking about when he said that 'the emancipation of the working >class will be the task of the working class itself'. Well I can! It is called the transitional program in its entirety connected to telling the workers the bitter truth now matter how difficult and off the wall it might sound. Unfortunately we have many groups who liquidate both truth and program fearing that telling the truth and fighting for a full program will put them into isolation. But in order to do that they wind up accepting the program and politics of centrist and reformist organisations rather then a revolutionary party who fights for its program and telling the truth to the workers in the unions. These organisations have the same fetish view of trade unions that you do. You from an ultra left glorifying Soviets opinion-they from a fetishsizing of workers and the hold that the reformist traitors have on them in a given moment. Communist work in unions is in order to destroy the political leadership of the union traitors and turn these organisations into fighting organisations of the Proletariat. Not the other way around that the unions turn Communist militants into creeping political cowards afraid to tell the truth and fight for its program in front of the whole class..But this is what the majority of the left is doing today in one way or another! Finally Harry seeing that you like being called "ultra-left". I noticed your header. I shall clarify that your ultra left line is actually in living reality a right wing political motion in that it glorifies the most militant wing (sometimes) of the class without understanding the neccessity of the subjective factor. Your are the mirror reflection of the Mensheviks who think that the MOVEMENT is everything the GOAL nothing. So instead of calling you a Menshevik I suggest Kivehsnem..That is Menshevik spelled backwards.. Keep your chin up! Your heart is in the right place it is your head there is a problem with.. Warm Regards Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of COCKROACH a zine for poor and working-class people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and the book can also be found at; http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ --------------------------------------------------------