ICL on Afghanistan: 'Realist' Wiseacres
IBT Webmaster
Intervention of an IBT supporter at a Spartacus Youth Club (SYC-youth group
of the Spartacist League [SL]) in New York City on 12 February.
Is now available on the IBT web site - http://www.bolshevik.org
Bob Malecki
are coming from.. And I note that the IBT quietly sides with the
anti-communist scum here including putting fuel on the fire..
Bob Malecki
"IBT Webmaster" <i...@bolshevik.org> wrote in message news:<UYec8.7090$k91.358590@wards>...
varlet
ICL on Afghanistan: 'Realist' Wiseacres
International Bolshevik Tendency [IBT] supporter Samuel T. at a meeting of
the Spartacus Youth Club (SYC-youth group of the Spartacist League [SL]) in
New York City on 12 February. This was the second time in a week our comrade
challenged the SL on its refusal to call for the defeat of the U.S.
imperialist attack on Afghanistan in 2001 [see: "Where is the ICL Going?"
and "Healyites of the Second Mobilization?"]. Once again the SLers were
unable to respond politically.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
The SYC comrade mentioned that his organization defends Afghanistan without
discussing why they don't call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism. What does
it mean to defend Afghanistan without calling for the defeat of U.S.
imperialism-that one "defends" Afghanistan only to the extent of seeking to
limit the damage inflicted upon it? Since the SL claims not to call for a
U.S. defeat because the struggle for the Afghans would be militarily futile,
that's the only possible conclusion I can see.
If we accept the assumption that the SL makes about the military futility of
any struggle by the Afghans, what does the SL suggest they do? Show no
resistance? Allow the U.S. to completely take over their country?
Marx believed that the workers who launched the Paris Commune were doomed to
defeat from a purely military standpoint, yet he still supported them and
called for their victory. (1)
In the current issue of 1917 we cite Lenin's comments in "Socialism and War"
:
"'A revolutionary class cannot but wish for the defeat of its government in
a reactionary war, and cannot fail to see that the latter's military
reverses must facilitate its overthrow'; and in a war of Morocco against
France, or of India against Britain, 'any socialist would wish the
oppressed, dependent and unequal states victory over the oppressor,
slave-holding and predatory "Great" Powers.'" [emphasis added]
Lenin called for the defeat of imperialism in colonies as undeveloped as
Afghanistan is today. The struggle between imperialism and the Third World
was always unequal, but only the most wretched Kautskyites use that as an
excuse to abstain from a revolutionary defeatist position by counterposing
"class struggle at home."(2) In raising the issue in these terms, the SL is
simply attempting a cowardly dodge. Whether forced to pull out by resistance
from the Afghans, the U.S. working class, or as a result of class struggle
in other parts of the world, a defeat is a defeat.
As for how, theoretically, the "ragtag fundamentalists" could have driven
out the U.S. "without even an army"- well, "Islamic Jihad" drove the U.S.
out of Lebanon by blowing up the Marines' barracks in 1983. Of course in
that case the SL flinched and denied that it was a militarily supportable
blow against imperialism.
Lastly, I'd like to report an interesting conversation I had with a friend
today, who, back in high school, was also a member of the Northites' youth
group [the Young Socialists-affiliated with David North's Workers League,
now known as the Socialist Equality Party]. When I left the Northites over
their refusal to call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism during the Gulf
War, she and another youth member left with me. Unfortunately both were too
burned by their experience with North's version of Healyism to want to
continue in politics, but they subscribed to Workers Vanguard for a few
years after I joined the SYC. Not having followed the SL for several years,
she reviewed the new position on Afghanistan and, remembering the position
on defeating U.S. imperialism at the time she left the Northites, commented
"Wow, it seems like the SL really had its back broken."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
(1) Lenin in 1907 wrote the following:
"In September 1870, six months before the Commune, Marx gave a direct
warning to the French workers: insurrection would be an act of desperate
folly, he said in the well-known Address of the International. He exposed in
advance the nationalistic illusions of the possibility of a movement in the
spirit of 1792. He was able to say, not after the event, but many months
before: 'Don't take up arms.'
"And how did he behave when this hopeless cause, as he himself had called it
in September, began to take practical shape in March 1871?... Did he begin
to scold like a schoolmistress, and say: 'I told you so, I warned you; this
is what comes of your romanticism, your revolutionary ravings'? Did he
preach to the Communards, as Plekhanov did to the December [1905] fighters,
the sermon of the smug philistine: 'You should not have taken up arms'?
.
"Ah, how our present 'realist' wiseacres among the Marxists, who in 1906-07
are deriding revolutionary romanticism in Russia, would have sneered at Marx
at the time! How people would have scoffed at a materialist, an economist,
an enemy of utopias, who pays homage to an 'attempt' to storm heaven! What
tears, condescending smiles or commiseration these 'men in mufflers' would
have bestowed upon him for his rebel tendencies, utopianism, etc., etc..
.
"Kugelmann apparently replied to Marx expressing certain doubts, referring
to the hopelessness of the struggle and to realism as opposed to
romanticism....
"Marx immediately (April 17, 1871) severely lectured Kugelmann.
"'World history,' he wrote, 'would indeed be very easy to make, if the
struggle were taken up only on condition of infallibly favourable chances.'"
.
"Marx was also able to appreciate that there are moments in history when a
desperate struggle of the masses, even for a hopeless cause is essential for
the further schooling of these masses and their training for the next
struggle."
"Preface to the Russian Translation of Karl Marx's Letters to Dr.
Kugelmann,"
-Collected Works Vol.12, pp.108-112
(2) Lenin had nothing but contempt for the self-proclaimed socialists who
derided the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin as a "putsch" doomed to fail
because of the overwhelming strength of British imperialism. He commented:
"The dialectics of history are such that small nations, powerless as an
independent factor in the struggle against imperialism, play a part as one
of the ferments, one of the bacilli, which help the real anti-imperialist
force, the socialist proletariat, to make its appearance on the scene."
"The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up" (1916)
-Collected Works Vol. 22, p. 357
Published: 17 February 2002
varlet
that explains their position on Afghanistan vis-a-vis the "Defend" or
"Defeat" the US slogan. The first excerpt is from the article "IG Disappears
Red Army Fight Against Islamic Reaction in Afghanistan", which was in
Workers Vanguard #772, 11 Jan 02. :
"In attacking our propaganda on the U.S. war against Afghanistan, the IG's
Internationalist No. 12 (Fall 2001) fulminates against our call for "Class
Struggle Against Capitalist Rulers at Home," declaring that the "emphasis on
'at home' is counterposed to the call to defeat the imperialists abroad."
But the IG's call to "Defeat U.S. Imperialism" in its war against
Afghanistan is nothing more than empty rhetoric. The notion that the world's
most powerful imperialist country was going to be defeated at the hands of
tribal forces in one of the world's most backward countries is truly
deranged. The easy win for the U.S. in Afghanistan demonstrated that the
Taliban was a creature of Pakistani intelligence services, with no base of
local support. And while dispatching Special Forces to track down bin Laden,
U.S. imperialism is not interested in a large-scale deployment of American
ground troops in Afghanistan. Indeed, the international "peacekeeping" force
has British, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and other troops, but not an
American among them.
The IG's elevation of military struggle against imperialism over and above
the political struggle to mobilize the proletariat to smash imperialism from
within is simply a measure of its despair in the revolutionary capacity of
the working class. Norden has always had proclivities toward a fatuous
optimism about the capacity of forces very distant from Trotskyism, or the
proletariat for that matter, to "struggle" in some successful measure
against the depredations of U.S. imperialism. Correspondingly, this means
seriously downplaying the crucial and related factors of political
consciousness and material economic reality.
The slogans used by the revolutionary party to lead the working masses to
the seizure of state power are necessarily conjunctural. In 1941, when James
P. Cannon, leader of the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and
27 other Trotskyists and Minneapolis Teamsters leaders were tried for their
opposition to U.S. imperialism in World War II, an ultraleft critic in the
Fourth International, Grandizo Munis, chastised Cannon for not stressing
during his trial the need for the "organized violence of the poor masses."
Cannon replied that it was foolish to engage in such phrasemongering. Noting
that the SWP was still a small party whose task was to organize the
proletarian masses to carry out a revolution, he referred to Bolshevik
leader Lenin's writings in May 1917. Having already won the Bolshevik Party
leadership to the perspective of "All Power to the Soviets!" and no support
to the bourgeois Provisional Government, which was in power following the
fall of the tsar in February, Lenin argued that this did not mean that the
Bolsheviks should immediately raise the slogan "Down with the Provisional
Government!" He wrote that since the Bolsheviks were still a minority in the
working class, "such a slogan is either an empty phrase, or, objectively,
amounts to attempts of an adventurist character.""
This excerpt is from the Workers Vanguard article "No to Bosses' "National
Unity"! For Class Struggle at Home!", dated 9 November 2001:
"Our perspective is based on the experience of the October Revolution of
1917, which triumphed amid the slaughter of World War I because of the
Bolshevik program of turning the imperialist war into a civil war.
Proletarian opposition to the imperialist depredations of the exploiters
can, in the words of Leon Trotsky, be pursued "only through the
revolutionary mobilization of the masses, that is, by widening, deepening,
and sharpening those revolutionary methods which constitute the content of
class struggle in 'peacetime'" ("Learn to Think," May 1938).
"This is the understanding we have propagated in our sales at work
locations, in the ghettos and in all our interventions at antiwar protests
and meetings. Nevertheless, the Internationalist Group (IG), a handful of
centrist renegades who fled our organization in the mid-1990s under the
pressures of imperialist "death of communism" triumphalism, have recently
taken us to task for having "flinched" in the face of the jingoist
warmongering now rampant in this country. In an Internet manifesto dated
October 2001, the IG excoriates us for our supposed "opposition to calling
for the defeat of 'their own' bourgeoisie in an imperialist war. All talk of
socialist revolution comes down to 'pie in the sky in the sweet bye-and-bye'
if you don't come out four-square for the defeat of 'your own' bourgeoisie
in an imperialist war."
The IG, in an effort to back up its empty phrasemongering, offers the
following example: "The French defeat at the hands of the Algerian
independence fighters culminating in 1962 demoralized the French bourgeoisie
and helped lead to the worker-student revolt of 1968, which posed the first
potentially revolutionary crisis in Europe in years." In reality, the
eight-year-long colonial war in Algeria bears no resemblance to what is
happening in Afghanistan today.
"It is interesting to examine our position of defense of Afghanistan against
the U.S. onslaught as compared to a situation which was, in some ways,
similar: the 1935 invasion of Ethiopia by imperialist Italy. Ethiopia under
Emperor Haile Selassie was a cruelly oppressive society-one of the world's
last bastions of chattel slavery-characterized by tribal backwardness,
subjugation of minority peoples and unremitting exploitation of the peasant
masses. Revolutionaries defended Ethiopia against Mussolini's Italy because
the latter was an imperialist power, regardless of the fact that the form of
imperialist rule was fascist rather than democratic.
"In calling on the working class to defend Afghanistan against U.S.
imperialism, we apply the same Leninist principle of siding with backward
countries against imperialist attack. That said, the U.S. war against
Afghanistan is in important ways different from the Italian invasion of
Ethiopia, which was aimed at realizing Italy's longstanding intention to
colonize that country. The U.S. does not aim at an occupation of
Afghanistan-at least not at this point-although now that they're in Central
Asia the imperialists will grab what they can. In attacking Afghanistan, the
U.S. seeks vengeance for the insult to its imperial might"......
"Such is not always easily available even to the mightiest imperialist
power. In the 19th century, when Britain was the world's leading imperialist
state, its ambassador to Bolivia disdainfully declined a cup of Bolivian
beer. Bolivian officials were so offended by his condescending attitude that
they dragged him through the streets of La Paz tied across the back of a
donkey, then forced him to drink a whole barrel of the brew. Infuriated by
this act of lèse majesté, Queen Victoria insisted that the Royal Navy
bombard Bolivia in retaliation. When one of her advisers finally summoned up
the courage to inform her that Bolivia was landlocked, the queen demanded a
map and, dipping her pen in an inkwell, marked a bold X across the country,
declaring "Bolivia does not exist!"".........
"Washington's most likely variant at this time is for continued, incessant
and purposeless bombing for which the Taliban has no possible military
redress. Again, this was not the case in the 1935 Italo-Ethiopian war. Italy
was a second-rate imperialist power riven by sharp class contradictions and
constrained in its intentions by its bigger imperialist rivals. Although in
the upshot Italy was victorious after a seven-month-long ground war, it was
not unreasonable for the then-Trotskyist U.S. Socialist Workers Party to
project a possible military victory by Ethiopia:
""It can be said without exaggeration that a defeat of Italy and a
revolution on the Apennine peninsula can have unforeseeable results. The
whole European system of alliances and states would fall apart. The
proletariat in Germany, Austria, Spain, on the Balkans, and not least of all
in France, would receive an enormous impulsion; the face of Europe would be
altered. That lies in the direct class interests of the international
proletariat. But still more. A defeat of Italy in Africa, a victory of
Ethiopia, might deliver the imperialist bandits a terrific blow in Africa."
- "Questions of the Italo-Ethiopian War," New International (October 1935)"
"None of these factors currently constrain the U.S., although, to be sure,
the war will exacerbate tensions among the imperialist powers, and its price
in misery at home may awaken class combativity in the American proletariat.
Thus, the call for a U.S. military defeat is, at this time, illusory and the
purest hot air and "revolutionary" phrasemongering-and one which derives
from forsaking the mobilization of the U.S. proletariat with the aim of the
conquest of state power."
End of excerpts
I recall that, at the time of the first US war against Iraq, under Bush, the
SL had a great deal of discussion around the question over their slogan
vis-a-vis Iraq: their slogan was "Defend Iraq, Defeat US Imperialism!" It
was felt by many that, if my memory serves me correct, this slogan was
correct, although it led to the burgeoning of false illusions in the
capacity of the Iraqi military to actually accomplish anything; in fact this
was pointed to as one of the first instances of Jan Norden's (he was at the
time editor of WV) subtitutionist fantasies. I have the quote here, from WV
no. 518, 18 Jan 91, the main article "Defeat U.S. Imperialism! Defend
Iraq!": "...no war has ever been won by air power. The U.S. military dropped
more bomb tonnage on Vietnamthan the combined total of all the combatants in
Europe in World War II! Yet American imperialism was defeated on the ground
by the heroic Vietnamese workers and peasants fighting for social
revolution.
"In Vietnam, U.S. forces faced light infantry armed with rifles and
mortars. [Here's the key part:] Now they are going to attack an entrenched,
battle-hardened army of a million men armed with modern weaponry. American
combat deaths in this war could be as great or greater than in the entire
eight years of the Vietnam War." !!!
[End of excerpt]
The slogan "Defend Iraq! Defeat U.S. Imperialism!" was a good slogan. But
would it still hold up today?
Iraq has had hundreds of thousands killed in the Gulf War and in subsequent
attacks. The Iraqi armed forces are decimated, their weaponry reduced to
twisted metal and ashes. Over a million have died of malnutrition,
starvation. If it was fantasy to believe in 1991 that Iraq, as that country
then stood, could inflict more "combat deaths" against the U.S. than "in the
entire eight years of the Vietnam War", then what do you say are the
prospects today?
Unless the US working class comes forward to block the arms shipments for
this proposed war on Iraq, unless the US soldiers refuse to fight, unless
the Air Force infrastructure is locked up by strikes, surely the Iraqi
people are in for a bloodbath. Led by the likes of Saddam Hussein, who lives
only to enrich himself and his cronies, what chance do they have? Be REAL,
IBT! Get your heads out of your asses!
It is even possible that we need to make a serious reassesment of this
slogan. Is it right to mechanically apply slogans to the strategic situation
that the working class finds itself in today? The balance of military power
is so lopsided in favor of the US that, unless US imperialism is fighting
revolutionary workers, organized and led by revolutionary leaders, arms in
hand, those workers don't even stand a chance in hell against the US! We put
our faith in the working masses of the world to defeat US imperialism, here
and abroad. Not Saddam Hussein or some mullah!
Revolutionaries stand at all times for the defeat of their own
bourgeoisies, through workers revolution at home! If they don't then they
are not Marxists, not Leninists, and not Trotskyists! They are not
revolutionaries!
But the social forces capable of "Defeat[ing] US Imperialism" cannot be
wished into existence! There is a VAST difference in the social forces that
came into battle in Vietnam, or in Korea, and in Iraq, or in Afghanistan!!
We run the risk of sowing tremendous illusions in the minds of the world's
workers if we say that the likes of Saddam Hussein and the decrepit Iraqui
ruling class, or the ragtag and backward Taliban militia are capable of the
same heroic victory obtained by the revolutionary workers and peasants of
Vietnam! There is a world of difference between the class nature of the
societies involved! And to call for the military victory of ...the
Taliban(!) is purest fantasy!
To talk like that to the working people, to call for the military victory
of Taliban Afghanistan over the US, makes you, IBT, ridiculous to any
thinking person! Wars are won, revolutions are victorious, not by hurling
"revolutionary slogans" but by the forces on the ground! In the real world,
not in our "revolutionary" imaginations!
That said, I believe that the ICL website itself shows that there must be
more than a bit of internal discussion going on over this very subject. They
have not posted a single article on the site that clearly and unequivocally
states their position on the war in Afghanistan in its title. That is very
unlike the SL.
On Afghanistan, here are a few ideas: OK, only two;
1. Why not call for the Chinese to extend their nuclear umbrella in defense
of Iraq and Afghanistan? Bush, you recall, was only able to go ahead with
the bombing of Iraq after Gorbachev made it clear that the USSR would make
no attempt to interfere in the matter. Look at the map! Bush has US troops
in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan; he wants to send them into
Iraq and maybe Iran; and North Korea! Who is he aiming for? CHINA! They
should have moved their troops to the China-Afghan border as soon as Bush
started rattling his sabre! What would the US have done? And the Chinese
Stalinists had better wake up out of their dreams about becoming rich
capitalists before they retire! They may not live that long!
2. How about the slogan: "Defend Iraq! For International Labor Action
Against the War to Defeat US Imperialism!"? or some such formula?
Let the sh*tstorm of criticism begin!
Varlet
Martin Schreader
>
> IBT Webmaster! ? Now that pretty much says it all where these people
> are coming from.. And I note that the IBT quietly sides with the
> anti-communist scum here including putting fuel on the fire..
>
> Bob Malecki
If anti-Leninists are anti-communists, then the ICL is anti-communist.
After all, refusing to support the defeat of imperialism in time of
war is what separated the Bolsheviks from the social-pacifists,
social-chauvinists and social-patriots. And the ICL's "neither victory
nor defeat" position is a textbook example of social-chauvinism.
"Nobody gets a free ticket!" Remember?
Martin
Stephen Diamond
"varlet" <var...@earthlink.net> wrote, quoting the ICL:
> The easy win for the U.S. in Afghanistan demonstrated that the
> Taliban was a creature of Pakistani intelligence services, with no base of
> local support. And while dispatching Special Forces to track down bin Laden,
> U.S. imperialism is not interested in a large-scale deployment of American
> ground troops in Afghanistan. Indeed, the international "peacekeeping" force
> has British, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and other troops, but not an
> American among them.
>
> The IG's elevation of military struggle against imperialism over and above
> the political struggle to mobilize the proletariat to smash imperialism from
> within is simply a measure of its despair in the revolutionary capacity of
> the working class. Norden has always had proclivities toward a fatuous
> optimism about the capacity of forces very distant from Trotskyism, or the
> proletariat for that matter, to "struggle" in some successful measure
> against the depredations of U.S. imperialism. Correspondingly, this means
> seriously downplaying the crucial and related factors of political
> consciousness and material economic reality.
The ICL pretends that what is at stake is only the aptness of this or
that slogan. Varlet is taken in by the charade.
The issue isn't one of slogans, but of program. The ICL refuses to give
military support to the Taliban. Whether that military support at a
given time is manifested in one slogan or another is secondary.
If the ICL were honest it would address what position Trotskyists within
Afghanistan should take on the military struggle between the Taliban and
the United States.
"Cesspool" or not, apst is a microcosm of (mostly U. S.) Trotskyism.
Just as Burnham demonstrated the ultimate logic of bureaucratic
collectivism, Philbin demonstrates the logic of the ICL position.
BTW, Munis had a point. It wasn't that Cannon failed to emphasize the
"violence of the poor," but he misrepresented the Trotskyist program as
one in which the working class employs revolutionary violence in only a
defensive capacity. Cde. Ferguson notwithstanding, it appears Cannon's
demoralization did not wait for the end of the war. Read Cannon's
arguments before the court objectively: he comes off sounding like the
SLP.
srd
Fred Ferguson
Exactly!
>
>"Cesspool" or not, apst is a microcosm of (mostly U. S.) Trotskyism.
>Just as Burnham demonstrated the ultimate logic of bureaucratic
>collectivism, Philbin demonstrates the logic of the ICL position.
>
>BTW, Munis had a point. It wasn't that Cannon failed to emphasize the
>"violence of the poor," but he misrepresented the Trotskyist program as
>one in which the working class employs revolutionary violence in only a
>defensive capacity. Cde. Ferguson notwithstanding, it appears Cannon's
>demoralization did not wait for the end of the war. Read Cannon's
>arguments before the court objectively: he comes off sounding like the
>SLP.
What the sectarian Munis missed (and the point Cannon makes in his
reply to Munis) is that there was a *possibility* of winning over that
jury of ordinary workers. Given the still existing conditions of
legality, getting up and delivering calls for Rrrrrevolution! from
the witness stand, would only have made the job of the prosecution
easier.
A similar argument has been going on in the defense work around the
abu Jamal case. Jamal and one wing of the defense organization are
fighting to free Jamal any way they can.
The Spartacists (modern day Munis) insist that the only principled way
to fight the case is to fight ONLY for immediate release. They say
that fighting for a new trial would build illusions in the bourg
courts.
But then, its not Jim Robertson's ass sitting in that cell, and Munis
was safely in Mexico in November 1941, and a long way from Sandstone
Federal Prison.
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Is Mr. Schreader certain that he knows how to spell his own last name?
HW
Holly
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The Trotskyists are against US involvment in Afghanistan but how would you
organize
a bunch of pre-feudal people. DO you
think the Taliban are workers?
How many of you political correct apst correctly supported the Red Armies
invasion of Afghanistan?
We may look easy pickings but we got some bite, so never kick the dog, because
it's just a pup; we'll fight like 20 armies and we won't give up, so you'd
better run for cover when the pup grows up...
Stephen Diamond
mrsc...@aol.comnojunk (Holly) wrote:
> The Trotskyists are against US involvment in Afghanistan but how would you
> organize
> a bunch of pre-feudal people. DO you
> think the Taliban are workers?
Trotskyists would center their efforts in the cities. They would call
for industrial actions in defense of ALL forces fighting imperialism.
>
> How many of you political correct apst correctly supported the Red Armies
> invasion of Afghanistan?
I supported it at the time. In retrospect, I would defend it but not
support it. That is, I would call for the victory of the Red Army as
part of the defense of the Soviet workers state; I would not "hail" it,
as did the SL. By invading Afghanistan, the Soviet Union fell into the
trap set by Brezhinkski (sp?).
srd
Louis Proyect
<steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Trotskyists would center their efforts in the cities. They would call
>for industrial actions in defense of ALL forces fighting imperialism.
Yes, the sight of Afghan autoworkers marching down the main street of
Kabul would be quite a spectacle.
Louis Proyect, ln...@panix.com
The Marxism mailing list: www.marxmail.org
Roger
> How many of you political correct apst correctly supported the Red Armies
> invasion of Afghanistan?
> We may look easy pickings but we got some bite, so never kick the dog,
because
> it's just a pup; we'll fight like 20 armies and we won't give up, so you'd
> better run for cover when the pup grows up...
You stupid moron, the red army's invasion of Afghanistan was just the excuse
that the imperialists needed to extend the cold war and drive back the
Soviet Union into its darkest days of capitalist restoration. (Which,
incidentally, is not completed) If the Soviet Union had not invaded
Afghanistan the world situation would be much more favourable to socialism
than it is today. However, the imperialists are now making their own
mistakes and the further they spread their *war against terrorism* the more
likely they are to stir up revolution in its wake.
rab
--
Roger Blackwell, Norwich, Britain
Cellphone 07970 396815
PMR446 6(8)
http://www.blackwell23.freeserve.co.uk
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Fred Ferguson
their client regime to have been overthrown by the Taliban or some
other CIA front, they would have been faced with the impossible
problem of sealing off the Afghan border to prevent infiltration into
the Soviet Moslem provinces by moslem fundamentalists.
Further, it was not "losing Afghanistan" that caused the collapse of
the Soviet economy, as the Republican version of history goes, but
rather it was the culmination of seven decades of Stalinist
bureaucratic "socialism in one country" nostrums.
"Roger" <rog...@blackwell23.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"Holly" wrote
>
>> How many of you political correct apst correctly supported the Red Armies
>> invasion of Afghanistan?
>> We may look easy pickings but we got some bite, so never kick the dog,
>because
>> it's just a pup; we'll fight like 20 armies and we won't give up, so you'd
>> better run for cover when the pup grows up...
>
>You stupid moron, the red army's invasion of Afghanistan was just the excuse
>that the imperialists needed to extend the cold war and drive back the
>Soviet Union into its darkest days of capitalist restoration. (Which,
>incidentally, is not completed) If the Soviet Union had not invaded
>Afghanistan the world situation would be much more favourable to socialism
>than it is today. However, the imperialists are now making their own
>mistakes and the further they spread their *war against terrorism* the more
>likely they are to stir up revolution in its wake.
>
>rab
Roger
> Wrong. If the Soviet Stalinists hadn't invaded Afghanistan and allowed
> their client regime to have been overthrown by the Taliban or some
> other CIA front, they would have been faced with the impossible
> problem of sealing off the Afghan border to prevent infiltration into
> the Soviet Moslem provinces by moslem fundamentalists.
>
> Further, it was not "losing Afghanistan" that caused the collapse of
> the Soviet economy, as the Republican version of history goes, but
> rather it was the culmination of seven decades of Stalinist
> bureaucratic "socialism in one country" nostrums.
But the regime in Afghanistan WAS overthrown and Islamic fundamentalists did
establish themselves in Soviet provinces, not least in Chechnya which is
formally part of the Russian federation. Lenin fought for the principle of
self-determination for nations against Stalin's concept of Great Russian
chauvinism. It was Lenin's adherence to this principle that won many of the
smaller republics over to the Soviet side in the first place. The red army
invasion of Afghanistan was not only a serious mistake but also an
expression of Soviet chauvinism. Did you also support the invasions of
Hungary and Czechoslovakia?
The Soviet economy did not collapse all by itself. It was crashed first by
Gorbachev and then by Yeltsin with their programme of perestroika.
Ultimately this was due the isolation of the Soviet Union and its capitalist
encirclement but the Stalinist bureaucracy moved further to the right under
Gorbachev and Yeltsin than they had during all the previous decades of
Stalinist misrule.
Fred Ferguson
>"Fred Ferguson" wrote
>
>> Wrong. If the Soviet Stalinists hadn't invaded Afghanistan and allowed
>> their client regime to have been overthrown by the Taliban or some
>> other CIA front, they would have been faced with the impossible
>> problem of sealing off the Afghan border to prevent infiltration into
>> the Soviet Moslem provinces by moslem fundamentalists.
>>
>> Further, it was not "losing Afghanistan" that caused the collapse of
>> the Soviet economy, as the Republican version of history goes, but
>> rather it was the culmination of seven decades of Stalinist
>> bureaucratic "socialism in one country" nostrums.
>
>But the regime in Afghanistan WAS overthrown and Islamic fundamentalists did
>establish themselves in Soviet provinces, not least in Chechnya which is
>formally part of the Russian federation. Lenin fought for the principle of
>self-determination for nations against Stalin's concept of Great Russian
>chauvinism.
But there are hierarchies of "rights" The right to self determination
is superseded by the right of a workers state to defend itself against
invasion or internal attempts to re-establish capitalism, and that
right is superseded by the needs of the world revolution.
Just because they lost the fight in the face of a religious holy war
backed by billions and billions of dollars shoveled out of the U.S.
Treasury by the ole Gipper, doesn't make it an unprincipled fight. It
just means that sometimes you lose.
> It was Lenin's adherence to this principle that won many of the
>smaller republics over to the Soviet side in the first place. The red army
>invasion of Afghanistan was not only a serious mistake but also an
>expression of Soviet chauvinism. Did you also support the invasions of
>Hungary and Czechoslovakia?
>
The invasion of Czechoslovakia was an intra-Stalinist squabble between
Dubcheck and the Soviet Stalinists. Objectively, quantitatively there
wasn't a dime's worth of difference and no side for the working class
to take.
In Hungary the uprising was genuinely one of workers attempting to
throw off the Stalinist chains. The leadership however at a national
level (Nagy, Anna Kethley etc), continually sowed illusions in the
imperialist powers, and in the absence of a revolutionary party, won
over a portion of the workers councils. Toward the end they were
calling for U.N. guaranteed "Free Elections" and "Free Trade Unions".
The call for free elections were to initially include all the pre-war
parties--including the fascist Iron and Cross Party.
In the counry-side it was even worse. In opinion polls by both the
government and by Radio Free Europe, showed that the pre-war Small
Holders (peasants) Party would any election hands down.
The anti-communist Roman Catholic Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty sought
and was granted political asylum in the American Embassy in Budapest.
Significantly the cable traffic and documents for that embassy for
1956-1960 while deposited in the National Archives in Washington, are
still embargoed as "Top Secret".
There are a number of books from Herbert Aptheker's "The Truth About
Hungary" a Stalinist white-wash, to "Hungary 1956" by Bill Lomax which
includes virtually nothing derogatory about the events on the ground.
If you'd like a representative bibliography on the events, I'll post
one.
I have long wanted to write something on the subject, but lacking
access to the cable traffic, I think it is impossible to lay hands on
the smoking gun of Imperialist involvement.
Much like years later in Poland, the workers were mis-led, lied to and
in the end fought for what objectively was a restorationist regime.
>The Soviet economy did not collapse all by itself. It was crashed first by
>Gorbachev and then by Yeltsin with their programme of perestroika.
>Ultimately this was due the isolation of the Soviet Union and its capitalist
>encirclement but the Stalinist bureaucracy moved further to the right under
>Gorbachev and Yeltsin than they had during all the previous decades of
>Stalinist misrule.
>
No, I don't think so. I think if you investigate the subject the
Soviet "command" economy had pretty much reached its limits by the
early-mid 70's i.e. the country was essentially rebuilt from the near
complete destruction of WW II. When it came then to produce consumer
goods involving questions like fashion, workmanship and probably most
important, affordability, there was just no way a room full of
bureaucrats could predict the needs five years down the road, of a
country as vast as the USSR.
The alternative was worker control of the industries that they'd built
and then rebuilt in the space of a generation, was something that the
bureaucracy would not and, by its nature could not do.
Stephen Diamond
Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix_nospam.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Feb 2002 07:55:51 -0800, Stephen Diamond
> <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >Trotskyists would center their efforts in the cities. They would call
> >for industrial actions in defense of ALL forces fighting imperialism.
>
> Yes, the sight of Afghan autoworkers marching down the main street of
> Kabul would be quite a spectacle.
It is I suppose a backhanded tribute to the SL that its disinformation
on Afghanistan is accepted even by right-sectarians such as Project. The
SL even had me believing that, as it has claimed, there are more mullahs
than workers in Afghanistan. The point was cleared up a while back on
apst. I would give credit, except I don't remember who posted the
statistic.
The northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Kholm, Poli Khomri
apparently have concentrations of workers.
While there are no auto manufacturing plants in Kabul to the best of my
knowledge, there appears to be an auto repair plant there.
If Project claims there is no potential for working class political
action in Afghanistan, I wonder what he would do had he happened to have
been born there. Rely on the Cliffites to demand open borders, so that
he could emmigrate?
srd