Questions and answers on Iraq — why AWL is mistaken
By Daniel Randall
Throughout the course of the debate leading up to AWL's 2007 AGM, and the debate at the AGM itself, it became obvious that many AWL members did not have a clear understanding of what those of us who held a minority position on Iraq were really advocating.
For Iraq — Troops Out Now? The Debate in AWL, click here
This document, therefore, has been written to address some of the basic issues around the question and is intended as part of a wider series of articles that will take up in greater depth the reasons why we believe our organisation’s position on Iraq needs to change.
Q: If the troops withdraw, only the Islamists elements are strong enough to take power. Therefore, doesn’t any sloganistic or programmatic support for their withdrawal equate to support for the coming to power of the most reactionary elements in Iraqi society?
A: Only if we base our slogans and programmes on calculations based on the current strength of existing forces. Such calculations and assessments are important; they help us root our politics in concrete reality. But they are not the sum total of our politics. Being a third campist means developing slogans and programmes that allow the third camp to grow as an independent force, one capable of changing the situation on the ground.
Our starting point is not, therefore, “who is currently the strongest force in Iraq?” or even “what would happen (or probably happen, or certainly happen) if the troops left?” Our starting point is “what will build the third camp?” If the third camp forces in Iraq do not raise anti-occupation slogans, if they do not undertake anti-occupation struggle (using whatever means they have at their disposal; clearly, no Iraqi workers’ organisation is in a position to organise nationwide general strikes or democratic workers’ militias to fight US troops) they will never be able to challenge the current balance of forces.
Opposition to the presence of the troops, and a struggle for their withdrawal, are not abstract principles that can be abrogated until the Islamists are perhaps less strong and the workers’ movement is perhaps less weak. They are, in fact, the means by which the balance of forces will change.
Q: The AWL is not in any position to lecture the Iraqi workers’ movement on programme. As a small group in Britain, all we can do is analyse the current situation in Iraq and provide material solidarity to the Iraqi labour movement. Wouldn’t any sloganistic formulation of “troops out” or “troops out now” make us look like armchair generals or strategists making demands on a situation we really have no control over?
A: Just because making general propaganda for a Marxist programme may be all we can do over and above basic solidarity does not mean we should not do it. An analogy; unfortunately, the AWL has no implantation in Israel or Palestine beyond a handful of loose sympathisers and various leftists with whom we have some contact. We are certainly not in any position to have a meaningful impact on class struggle there and the Palestinian labour movement is rather less vigorous and dynamic than its Iraqi counterpart and therefore somewhat more difficult to solidarise with. But this – rightly – does not stop us from developing an analysis of the situation that goes well beyond mere analysis. We have a programme for the conflict that places at its heart the question of how a united working-class force could be brought into being. So why is Iraq different? Indeed, current developments in Palestine could well be informative for our approach to Iraq.
In a recent Channel 4 documentary, one Palestinian interviewee expressed with regret that the situation had now become so bad and the bloodshed so endemic that he would prefer Israel to increase its presence in the Occupied Territories in order to restore some kind of stability. Undoubtedly, Israel has the military capacity to put down and repress the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.
So has the “Israel out of the Occupied Territories” demand become invalidated because of the current balance of forces? A sudden “scuttling” by Israel from the whole of occupied Palestine could well result in the spread of the conflict and an increase in bloodshed. So which position needs a re-think – our position on Israel/Palestine or our position on Iraq?
For the AWL to incorporate anti-occupation slogans and demands (beyond simply saying “no” to the occupation as we currently do; about as meaningful as saying “no to bad things, yes to good things”) into our material on Iraq would not reduce us to the kind of armchair strategising that so much of the left is guilty of. Even for left organisation with some pretention to third-campism (such as the Communist Party of Great Britain), the “troops out now” demand functions as an abstract expression of what they think the British and American ruling-classes should do with their militaries, rather than an aspect of a programme whose point of departure is working-class solidarity and the question of how the Iraqi labour movement can achieve hegemony. But given that this is our starting point, “troops out” demands take on a different character. It is not a question of giving advice to imperialists; it is a question of working out what perspectives the working-class (both inside and outside of Iraq) needs to become an independent and powerful force in the struggle for democracy, independence, secularism and ultimately socialism in Iraq.
Q: Of course we want the troops to leave. If they leave “now” then we won’t oppose it. We recognise that they have no progressive role and consistently oppose their presence. But given that, if they were to leave “now” the consequences would almost certainly be bad, why do we have to raise this as a demand? We are for troops out (at any time – now, tomorrow or whenever; at no point do we support their presence) but shouldn’t take responsibility for potential disaster by raising the demand ourselves.
A: The situation imagined in this scenario is practically implausible. There is no magic button that, if pressed, will cause the imperialist presence in Iraq to disappear in a puff of smoke allowing the Islamist sectarians to immediately devote their full attention to crushing the labour movement and, primarily, each other.
The manner of the exit of imperialist troops from Iraq will depend on who forces the exit; whether, for example, it is the product of a deal between various sectarian power-blocs (currently the most likely outcome) or whether it is the product of the victory of a popular movement of some kind. Our job is to do whatever we can to ensure that it is the latter, and then that the movement is not only “popular” but working-class and socialist. “Troops out” demands are part of that process.
If the trajectory that comrades such as Martin Thomas have outlined continues in Iraq, the occupation may well lead to the kind of all-out bloodshed we have consistently predicted would result from a “precipitate withdrawal” of troops. When that eventuality is arrived it, will majority comrades flagellate themselves and force themselves to “take responsibility” for not having raised slogans and demands calling for the end of the occupation before its murderous logic was brought to fruition? We agree with Martin that this will indeed be the outcome of continued occupation, as – apparently – do many comrades in the AWL majority. Are they, then, proposing that we “give the occupation time”, to see if this trajectory is deviated from at the last minute?
The occupation has been given enough time already; four years of impoverishment, insecurity, repression and both direct and indirect incitement of ethno-sectarian warfare are enough to show us that the occupation will not deliver on its stated project of importing liberal, bourgeois-democratic capitalism to Iraq. How much more time is needed before we acknowledge this ourselves?
Q: If you want the development of Iraqi workers’ power to be your starting point, then focusing on the troops misjudges the reality. For most Iraqi workers’ organisations the Islamists pose a more immediate threat than the troops. Wouldn’t “Islamists out now” be a more useful slogan?
A: The question of who is the most immediate, day-to-day enemy obviously varies for different organisations in different parts of Iraq. In Kurdistan, neither the occupying troops nor sectarian Islamists pose the main threat. Rather, the nationalist warlords are the most immediate enemy.
For some organisations, it may even vary from day to day; the Iraqi Workers’ Federation (at that point called the IFTU) had its offices raided by American troops but its activists have also been the target of assassination attempts (including some successful ones) by sectarian militias. Likewise the affiliates of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq, such as the Unemployed Union; its 2003 unemployed workers’ demonstrations were violently repressed by troops, but its members have also been targeted by Islamists. The Iraqi Freedom Congress (the political front which the FWCUI backs) has also recently had its headquarters raided by occupation forces.
Our politics are not just defensive shields that workers can use to protect themselves from their most immediate or most immediately dangerous enemy. They are tools for building a workers’ movement that can struggle offensively against all enemies – big and small, immediate and less immediate.
Certainly pretending that the presence of imperialist troops is not an issue for Iraqi labour, or pretending that the conflict over their presence should be left to the US/UK and the sectarian power-blocs, is dangerously negligent and fails to take account of the very real and often very immediate role the troops have played as a force of anti-working class repression.
Q: What are you actually proposing the AWL does differently? Do you just want a few words added to banner headlines? If so, which few words? “Troops out”, or “troops out now”?
A: We are proposing that the AWL takes more seriously – in slogans but crucially in the body of what we say about Iraq – the question of how a working-class movement against occupation might be brought into existence, how it might conduct its struggle and how it might win. We believe that anti-occupation slogans are crucial for this.
The exact form of words is secondary to this overall perspective; it is a fantasy to claim that what is revolutionary about the slogan “troops out now” is the word “now”. The CPGB, for example, claim that because even Tony Blair could hold some sort of “troops out” position, revolutionaries should distinguish ourselves from bourgeois politics by demanding “troops out now”.
This is not our approach; our concern is not merely that the troops withdraw (although we should state our consistent opposition to their presence and our belief that at no time do they or can they play a progressive role) but how they withdraw, who forces their withdrawal and what replaces them in power. We do not believe that Iraqi labour can become a decisive force in the struggle against the occupation without raising sharp demands that express its intransigent hostility to the presence of the troops. We also do not believe that an international third-campist movement focused on working-class solidarity can be built if it is not clear that the imperialist occupation of Iraq has no progressive role.
Our position is not about slogan-mongering. It is about fighting for the third-camp.
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From NEW POLITICS no. 42
"ONE DOESN'T HAVE TO CONJURE UP some mythical Iraqi past where everyone got along to realize that whatever conflicts existed between Iraq's ethnic groups would be exacerbated, not reduced, by the presence of U.S. troops. This was so for several reasons. Those who engage in sectarian and anti-civilian attacks hide behind the mantle of opposition to the occupation which has widespread support. If the occupation were to end, these extremists would be more readily isolated. For example, the Association of Muslim Scholars, the leading Sunni organization with ties to the resistance, has said that were a timetable set for withdrawal they would issue a fatwa against any further armed actions."
Stephen R. Shalom,"Middle East Developments," http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue42/Shalom42.htm
Okay
... I take that as a response to 'no serious attempt'. Some serious attempts, then. I would really, really like to believe this. But I don't.
'Timetable set for withdrawal' isn't quite the same as 'troops out now', by the way. One of the problems with 'troops out now' (in wider debate, I'm not accusing anyone here of it), is that it is an assumed posture under which actually is a proposal for imperialism to withdraw over time.
In fact, of course, any withdrawal will be negotiated, and in general terms I'm for the most sensible and carefully negotiated withdrawal (though the US's ability to do things in Iraq sensibly has not been terribly evident so far). That's not a good slogan, though - not just because it doesn't trip off the tongue, but because it seems to me that really *does* put the emphasis on imperialism's ability to sort out the mess.
Daniel Randall is exactly right.
Take heed, AWL comrades.
Reply to Dan
It is good that Dan Randall has finally put pen to paper on Iraq. However the results don’t take the debate much further.
Wrong method
The main problem is methodological. Dan says:
Our starting point is not, therefore, “who is currently the strongest force in Iraq?” or even “what would happen (or probably happen, or certainly happen) if the troops left?” Our starting point is “what will build the third camp?”
This is not our starting point. To develop a programme and a strategy to build the third camp, you have to start with an assessment of reality. Marx wrote that human beings make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing. Lenin and Trotsky emphasised stating what is – starting from the realities of the situation today in order to develop a coherent working class politics. This is the materialist method, and is necessary if the working class is to make its own history.
Starting from reality is the basis for the AWL’s politics on all questions. Yet the minority comrades have not produced a single, concrete assessment of the reality of the situation in Iraq. Such an analysis should be dynamic – it cannot confine itself simply to the current conjuncture or the existing balance of forces. But before becoming is being. Dan’s document simply fails to engage with the majority position because he offers no alternative assessment, from which his slogans might flow.
Arguments from analogy
The second methodological problem is with arguments from analogy. Dan says our slogan of “Israel out of the occupied territories” is in contradiction with our politics in Iraq. His argument seems to be: “Israeli troops out of the occupied territories” means a probable Islamist state, at least in Gaza – so why don’t we argue against Israel scuttling. This is odd, since Israel has been nominally “out” of Gaza since 2005 – whereas the occupation troops are most certainly “in” Iraq.
In the West Bank, where Israeli troops are most definitely “in”, demanding their withdrawal would result in an independent Palestinian state, run essentially by Fatah. This would be self-determination, a democratic solution, giving space for Palestinian workers to organise. That’s why it is a central agitational demand.
However in Iraq, the consequences of the troops scuttling would be the break up of Iraq, the opposite of self-determination and the crushing of the workers movement in most areas. In other words, the analogy between Israel and Iraq simply doesn’t hold.
The logic of scenario politics
The minority position is characterised by a lightmindedness towards political analysis coupled with the telescoping of future possibilities and current conditions. The comrades are impatient with the lack of progress made the Iraqi labour movement. The latter is understandable, but unfortunately it is combined with the invention of scenarios for quick-fixing the weakness of the Iraqi labour movement.
The minority seem to believe that for the working class to become the hegemonic force in Iraq, it needs to raise shrill slogans against the occupation. Dan writes:
“We do not believe that Iraqi labour can become a decisive force in the struggle against the occupation without raising sharp demands that express its intransigent hostility to the presence of the troops.”
There are two problems with this approach. Firstly, it is a matter of fact that all sections of the Iraqi labour movement already use slogans against the occupation. For example the FWCUI organised a demonstration on the fourth anniversary of the invasion, with banners calling for troops out now (the pictures are on their website). It’s difficult to know what more they could say or do on the issue. They appear to be following the minority’s advice, and yet they have not rallied bigger forces around themselves.
Secondly, the more substantial problem is with the situation. The Iraqi labour movement is not on the offensive, going forward with its own demands and attracting unorganised workers and other strata to its cause. It is organisationally weak, fragmented and fighting for its life – for its survival, against the occupation forces, the Iraqi state and the sectarian militias. Putting forward slogans as if it were about to become the hegemonic force or take power is to imagine a scenario far from current conditions. It is to fantasise about different, more favourable circumstances – as a substitute for thinking about what to say and do today. It is the logic of scenario politics, not rational, Marxist politics.
What will build the third camp?
Dan is right to pose the question of how the working class third camp forces might develop. However he doesn’t answer the question concretely. There are at least some common pointers as to how the Iraqi labour movement can grow.
The most important is probably the fight against oil privatisation. A victory on this front through militant strike action would help establish the labour movement as a significant force in Iraqi politics.
The fight for women’s rights, for sexual freedom and against sectarian, religious-based politics are essential if the workers’ movement is to become a unifying force. Workers’ self-defence militias need to be developed.
Political representation, even in the dire, sectarian political system, would be a step forward. Workers don’t have a voice – a paper, a mass political organisation that articulates their interests – even for basic services, health, education and security. A broad workers party – even a reformist one or an amalgam of existing leftist groups – would be a step forward.
To adequately map out such a strategy requires a more concrete analysis of the Iraqi labour movement. It’s a great shame that the minority comrades have not provided any ideas on this front either.
Paul
Assessment
The assessment - the likelihood of bloody, sectarian civil war, much worse even than what is happening now - leading, probably, to the partition of Iraq (entailing ethnic/sectarian cleansing), is indeed the heart of this debate.
I know of no serious attempt to dispute this assessment (unserious attempts - see below - sure). I certainly no of no plausible effort to claim that it is, categorically and beyond debate, false.
Where does that leave you? It seems to me there are a limited number of responses to this assessment.
1. It is wrong. Unfortunately, most of the attempts to dispute it seem to fall into one of two (related) categories. One is that to say that since the occupation is causing a lot of the sectarianism, it follows that if you remove the occupation things will get better. If lots of other factors also come into play, that would be true; and it might, therefore, given other factors, be true in the long term. But as a 'logical' argument, I'm afraid it seems to me so simplistic as to be, actually, too stupid to argue with. Life is more complicated.
The other is, in effect (and as I say it's linked) that this assessment implicitly gives imperialism a progressive role. Indeed, probably 90% of the polemic against the AWL is along these lines: not that the assessment is empirically false or disprovable, but that *to make it at all* is somehow a concession to imperialism.
The trouble with this line of argument is that - logically (though 'anti-imperialists' are good at avoiding such logic) - if withdrawal *did* lead to sectarian civil war, they should conclude that imperialism is progressive after all, and wholeheartedly support it.
My view is that it possible to make the assessment I make about Iraq without imputing a progressive role to imperialism. It's just an empirical assessment.
2. It's right - but that's self-determination. If the Iraqi people decide to slaughter each other, there's nothing we can do about it - except support genuinely non-sectarian, working class forces in Iraq.
Ultimately, this is clearly true. It seems to me we are for an independent Palestinian state, for instance, even if we disapprove of its government - even if its government are crazy Islamists. The same, at the end of the day, is true for Iraq. It is not that the prospect of civil war, or Islamist government, or whatever, contradicts or nullifies the right to self-determination. It is that we have a responsibility to focus on something *more than* self-determination.
I am against, though, saying or appearing to say 'oh fuck it, if they want to slaughter each other, who cares?' I think we need to pose the issue completely differently, which is why I favour 'solidarity', and (though doubtless we - and I especially - do too much of this) sharp criticism of those who either haven't thought through what they're saying (about 'troops out'), or mean something reactionary.
3. This seems to be the 'minority' position - and Arthur's: the assessment is fundamentally irrelevant; saying 'troops out now' is a way for the Iraqi working class to 'lead' the struggle against the occupation.
There may be, in Iraq, a large element of truth in this - that is, that the choice of phrase helps you state succinctly what you think about the occupation. (It might serve at the same level in the UK, too, and would certainly help avoid having this fucking argument all the time).
The trouble is, it seems to me, that this way of approaching it is essentially just *spin*. It's not actually being serious about what is proposed; it's not *honest*. In fact it seems to imply a secondary level of argument to the effect that *really* what it means is 'troops out when we're strong enough, and saying 'now' is just a way to get strong enough'.
But I think Paul is absolutely right that the assessment - civil war - is central to this debate. I think the 'minority' - and everyone else who disagrees with us - needs to clarify their view on this assessment.
I Think We Are Making Progress
Clive, I'm glad to say I agree with much of what you have said here. I clearly don't agree that if Civil War breaks out when the Occupation leave that this means you can say it has been fulfilling a progressive role. Surely its possible to argue that absent the invasion and susbequent Occupation the whole process that has occurred since would not have happened, and the communal violence would not have happened, and so Civil War would not be on the Agenda.
The problem I have with your argument here, and that put by Paul, is that you also have something else to show. You argue, that if the occupation leaves there will be Civil War, and it will be even worse than that occurring presently. What you have to prove is that if the Occupation stays Civil War will be avoided, and that such a Civil War will not be worse than that in prospect now. I think the converse is likely to be true, for the simple reason that the Occupation is exacerbating communal tension, partly by accident partly by design - for example the switich in tactics to finance, arm and support Sunnis such as in Anbar, and the support being given to Sunni groups in other parts of the region, Lebanon etc., the support, arming and financing of Fatah against Hamas, and even the support given to Al Qaeda linked groups in Lebanon.
The only force capable of acting progresswively in this context is the working class, but far from its position being strengthened by the Occupation it is being weakened on a daily basis.
You are right about the different situation in Britain in relation to "Now", which is why I have always said I make no fetish of this word. My main concern is the argument that the Labour Movement here as well as in Iraq should seek to mobilise the forces to bring about the withdrawal of the troops. We do not and will not short of a dual power situation have the power to determine the terms on which imperialism would leave even were we able to force a withdrawal - viz the argument over India - nor should we sow illusions that imperialism has any interest in leaving in good order - but in building opposition to the Occupation, it is also vital that the Labour Movement builds an alternative, one that as far as we are able gives effective support to the Iraqi working class, and Labour Movement. That requires not just a political campaign as you say against the Islamists and their kitcsh left supporters, nor just Trade Union level support, it requires that we go back to the kind of demands raised in the 1930's in relation to the Spanish Civil War, for an International Workers Defence organisation, and so on. If the Islamists can - and they do - produce such fighters, and such an internation organisation then it is perfectly within the bounds of the international Labour Movement to do likewise, indeed if we don't then the likelihhod of socialism being achieved is remote, and indeed as the political islamists grow stronger we will see Labour Movements around the world go under, and with them in some places, weak bourgeois democracies.
Arthur Bough
'Something else to show'
I do not claim that if the occupation continues 'civil war will be avoided'. Plainly, there is already civil war, and it is (on the whole - actually there was for instance an interesting report in yesterday's Guardian about the healing of sectarian divisions in a town near Mosul) getting worse. I and the AWL majority do not argue that the occupation is actively, or positively 'good', preventing anything, or what have you.
I entirely agree that the occupation is responsible for much of the sectarian conflict (in many senses, in particular the active fostering of them from the start of the occupation itself, and because of the catastrophic political vacuum created by a very badly-prepared aftermath to war, and so on). I don't think it can be entirely that: there must have been a basis for it in Iraqi society for things to have got this bad. (Most experts I read were far too optimistic on this score, and therefore so was I). But the occupation is a bad thing.
Beyond that, I don't want to repeat the whole argument now.
Briefly, on Afghanistan, as I have said before, I think there are differences in context, scale, programmatic implications, etc. Equally, maybe we were wrong.
Briefly
Clive,
I think you have missed my point. The point I was making was not that Civil War is effectively already occurring. My point was that, if as seems widely accepted including in the Iraq Commission Report, and in the Baker Commission Report, the presence of the Occupation is actually INTENSIFYING the sectarian conflict - there may well as you say have been a basis for it originally, indeed it could be argued that it was only contained by the brutality of Saddam's regime, just as maybe ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia had been contained by the Stalinist state there, but if that conflict had been at a much reduced level from the beginning, if the sectarian militia had not been able to use their fight against the Occupation as a cover for their sectarian activities, then a secular or largely secular Iraqi regime might well have contained it - then precisely because of that fact what failing to actively oppose the presence of the Occupation does is to simply defer a terrible situation that might occur when the troops go, for an even worse situation later, precisely because their continued presence has merrely fuelled the sectarianism, and added to the forces of the clerical-fascists. If we are to deal with reality, and assessments that assessment, that reality seems far more likely than an assessment which says that thier continued presence will result in the Labour Movement becoming stronger, that for the labour Movement to stand aside from that political struggle now, and leave it tot he sectarians could in any way help to build that Labour Movement.
On Afghanistan as on Dan's analogy with Israel I don't think the positions on those were wrong, because it is no part of socialists job to in any way give credibility to the potentially progressive role of the bourgeois state, or the Stalinist state, at least not in a subjective sense. They may by their actions bring about changes or situations which are objectively progressive - for example imperialism in developing capitalism also creates a working class - but Marxists have never supported such actions because the action itself is reactionary, in the case of both it strengthens in the one instance the bourgeois state in the other Stalinism, and by the same measure weakens the principle of independent working class action as the only historically progressive solution to the problems of the current epoch. That is one reason that it is not those other positions that were wrong, but the position on Iraq.
Arthur Bough
It does not follow
It does not seem to me to follow that because the occupation has 'intensified the sectarian conflict' that immediate, or even not-quite-immediate, withdrawal would result in a falling off of the sectarian conflict.
First, because I think life has a tendency to confound such logical abstractions. But also, I suppose, because it seems to me improbable that the occupation is the only cause of the sectarian conflict; and for sure, whatever the precise weight of it in the chain of causality, that conflict has acquired its own autonomous logic. I think, most likely, right now, that the simple collapse of the state would result in intensified sectarian conflict.
This is not because the current situation allows the labour movement to 'become stronger'.
And I am in favour of the labour movement actively opposing the occupation, fighting to draw wider layers around it around demands for self-determination, independence (secular laws, too, etc). I don't know exactly what formulation (ie, slogan) is best, but as regards the gist and general orientation, I think it's clear. (I think there is a need to focus also on very defensive issues.)
I know it's not an exact analogy - but in terms of the general logic of the argument: surely it is reasonable to say that 'down with the government!', or some equivalent slogan, is inadvisable right now, without supporting the government in question, or endlessly being accused of it. It is, surely, a bog-standard basic aspect of actual *politics*, as opposed to sloganeering, that we make assessments about whether particular slogans or demands are the right focus, right now, for a particular struggle.
It seems to me that 'troops out now' implies an insurrectionary perspective which the existing conditions do not sustain (though, as I have said, I am by no means dogmatic about this as regards the 'right slogans' in Iraq: I don't know).
It simply does not seem to me to follow that this view, based on a particular assessment (which may of course be entirely wrong, but I'm cautious about accepting more optimistic assessments, see post somewhere above), implies *anything at all* about the progressive, or whatever, attributes of the occupation.
"Down With The Government"
I agree with you about slogans and your example of "Down with the Government". But my argument has never been about just the slogan as I have repeated several times, but the argument behind it. Of course, say during the Thatcher years there was no point going round all the time shouting "Down with the Government". But, had someone asked the question do you think Thatcher should be booted out, should the workers mobilise to kick out the Tories?" Our answer would be an unequivocal yes, wouldn't it? Even if standing in the wings were the possibility of a BNP government, that could not change our perspective that the task would be to mobilise the working class, rather than simply keep quiet because Thatcher was God forbid a lesser evil! When Kornilov threatened Petrograd, Lenin argued for the workers to mobilise against that threat, but it didn't mean in the meantime he stopped calling for "All Power to the Soviets", in favour of giving support to Kerensky. The only times Lenin stopped calling for "All Power to the Soviets" was when he thought tactically the Bolsheviks had a better chance of mobilising a majority behind them from the Factory Committees.
Arthur Bough
The Reality
Surely the reality is, and part of the assessment is that the presence of the Occupation is a major factor in providing the recruiting ground for the "Resistance", and that far from the Occupation providing a breathing space for the working class, it is yet another reactionary force bearing down on the Labour Movement alongside the Islamists.
Arthur Bough
Reality Politics
The reality Paul says if the troops scuttle tomorrow will be a bloody Civil War and the break up of Iraq. Quite possibly, but if the troops scuttle tomorrow it most certainly will not be a result of the AWL calling for it. Nor would it be a result even of the Iraqi Labour Movement calling for it. The only possible condition in which that could be the case would be if the Iraqi working class were strong enough not just to call for it, but to realise the call in practice. But if that were the case then Paul's argument about dealing with reality falls because the reality would be quite different than it is now.
Arthur Bough
Economism
Paul outlines the ways he beleives the Iraqi workers Movement can grow. I have no great disagreement in relation to the ideas he puts forward. But all of these ideas are essentially Economistic, they remain at the level of Trade Union, or partial struggle. This is not completely true, as Paul raises the issue of political rights, and a Workers Party. But how on earth can a struggle for Political Rights mean anything when it does not address the main political right of self-determination, and the end of the Occupation. How even can Trade Union rights be addressed when on a Daily basis Trade UNions are raided by the Occupation, when effectively Trade Unions have been made illegal by laws passed at the behest of the Occupation. How can oil privatisation be rationally discussed without discussing the basis on which that privatisation is being raised, i.e. the stealing of the countries Oil Wealth by foreign oil companies backed up by the military might of the Occupation. What happens when the Occupation forces are sent in to break a strike at the oilfields, to take on the Workers militia there etc.? Do we only then raise the fact that these Economic issues can only be really addressed by also dealing with the political issue of the Occupation? This is precisely the line of reasoning Lenin argued against when he argued with the Economists.
This kind of politics is what we saw from the IS during the 1960's, 70, and 80's. We characterised it then for what it is syndicalism.
Arthur Bough
Political Representation
Paul, says that political representation would be a step forward in building the Labour Movement. In Left-Wing Communism Lenin sets out the reasons for participating in bouregois Parliaments. The main reason he says is in order to be able to raise communist propaganda in the heightened political climate of an election. But he immediately says alongside this, but obviously in other situations, for example a strike, this electoral activity takes second place, because the strike or other heightened state enables that work of propagandising for communist ideas to be done even more effectively.
How much more heightened a political state could there be than exists in Iraq at the present time? But even assuming that Workers could actually engage in this bourgeois democratic activity without getting their heads blown off in what way would this political representation actually build the Labour Movement? It can only do so if it provides answers to the problems faced by Iraqi workers and peasants. If Iraqi workers were able to gain a majority in the Parliament then by the same token they would already have to have won behind them a majority of Iraqi society. In what way would representation in the Iraqi Parliament deal with the murderous attacks of the clerical-fascists? Since when have Marxists beleived that the place to fight fascists is in Parliament rather than on the streets, and in the communities?
Suppose Iraqi workers were to gain a slim majority in the Iraqi Parliament what would be the consequence? It could deal with the workers problems, and the threat of the Islamists only if you are a Parliamentary cretin. The fact is that whatever representation workers obtained in Parliament, the Iraqi STATE is in fact stuffed full of clerical-fascists of various orders, and Marxists beleive that it is the state not Parliament which is decisive. A workers majority in Parliament would quickly be followed by the sabotage, and probably the Bonapartism of the state apparatus, backed up by the Occupation which has put in place, armed and trained that state, and the militia that stand behind it.
Arthur Bough
The Road Home
An editorial in the New York Times yesterday concluded that:
"President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened — the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.
This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage — with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading."
Spot On
Daniel,
I think that you have succinctly put most of the arguments I have myself put forward over the last year or so. My only nit-pick is about why on Earth people have to use the term "Third Camp", presumably as some kind of badge to show membership of the Shachtman club. If we mean working class or Labour Movement we should say so. I would just remind comrades what Trotsky had to say about the term Third Camp.
"The very first “programmatic” articles of the purloined organ already reveal completely the light-mindedness and hollowness of this new anti-Marxist grouping which appears under the label of the “Third Camp.” What is this animal? There is the camp of capitalism; there is the camp of the proletariat. But is there perhaps a “third camp” – a petty-bourgeois sanctuary? In the nature of things, it is nothing else. But, as always, the petty bourgeois camouflages his “camp” with the paper flowers of rhetoric. Let us lend our ears! Here is one camp: France and England. There’s another camp: Hitler and Stalin. And a third camp: Burnham, with Shachtman. The Fourth International turns out for them to be in Hitler’s camp (Stalin made this discovery long ago). And so, a new great slogan: Muddlers and pacifists of the world, all ye suffering from the pin-pricks of fate, rally to the “third” camp!"
Trotsky:Petty-Bouregois Moralists and the Proletarian Party
Arthur Bough
The Third Camp
Arthur Bough is wrong to appeal to Trotsky here. Trotsky was arguing against the Shachtmanites, who were trying to posit the Third Camp of the working class between imperialism and Stalinism. Trotsky was effectively saying that between imperialism and Stalinism one had to side with the latter, as the Soviet Union represented a workers' state, if degenerated, which was objectively on the side of the working class.
In one sense, the Shachtmanites were correct: Stalinism represented a deadly threat to the working class, as did imperialism. However -- and this has some relevance to the AWL majority's line -- the analysis that Shachtman drew up -- that the Soviet Union represented a new form of class society -- was central to his drift to the right and eventual capitulation to imperialism.
If Stalinism represented a new form of class society, and was one that did not permit the gains that the working class had managed to win in the advanced capitalist countries, then there was always the danger that people accepting this analysis would start to come to see Stalinism as a bigger threat to the working class than imperialism. Shachtman's group in the USA threw off rightward-moving individuals and groups right from its start in 1940 until Shachtman himself abandoned his group for openly right-wing social democracy in the late 1950s. Within this process, the real Third Camp -- the independent interests of the working class -- was forgotten.
I see a certain parallel between Shachtman's evolution and the AWL's refusal to call for the withdrawal of US/UK troops from Iraq. It seems that there is a tendency for the AWL to see the likes of Arab nationalism in its Ba'athism guise and Islamicism, because of their undemocratic features, as more of a threat to the Iraqi working class than imperialism; and that the latter is even a lesser evil in Iraq. There can be no other reason behind the refusal to call for Troops Out.
Trotsky criticised the idea of the Third Camp because of his erroneous analysis of the Soviet Union. Championing the Third Camp in Iraq means supporting the working class against all reactionary forces; and there is no way that the US occupation can play a progressive role. Championing the Third Camp means calling Troops Out Now.
No
Trotsky certainly does not call here or anywhere else for support of Stalinism as against Capitalism. Trotsky's distinction is between the working class and capitalist class. His call here for the defence of the working class and its state in the USSR is DESPITE Stalinism. His analogy is that of the support socialists give to a Trade UNion DESPITE the fact that such a Trade Union is reactionary and heavily bureaucratised etc.
Clearly I disagree that TRotsky's analyis of the class nature of the USSR was wrong, though I would argue that it was a deformed Workers State from the beginning not a healthy workers state which degenerated.
As for your other points in relation to how this reflects in practice in the AWL's politics, unfortunately I have to agree. It can be seen in the attitude to the Yeltsin coup, Imperialism in Kosova, in Iraq, potentially in Iran, in the greater hostility shown to Chavez than to his bouregois opponents in Venezuela, and so on.
Arthur Bough
Addenda
I would also point out that your comment that Shachtman's analysis of the USSR as a new class Bureaucratic Collectivist society was central to his drift to the right, and the same process can be identified in the AWL stands at odds with your later claim that Trotsky's class analysis was wrong - unless you want to claim that the USSR was state capitalist which is even more wacky than the Bureaucratic Collectivist argument, and even more likely to send its adherents off into the realms of petit-bourgeois subjectivism.
You are right Shachtman's drift cannot be divorced from the fact as TRotsky predicted at the time that his abandonment of Marxism in favour of the Bureaucratic Collectivist thesis, which itself was for Shachtman a convenient ideological cover for his moralistic repugnance at the Stalin-Hitler pact, drove him into petit-bourgeois socialism. His method and anslysis as Trotsky pointed out was more akin to journalism than Marxist analysis, his ideology closer to Kantian moral philosophy than Marxist historical materialism.
The consequence for Shachtman and others that adopted his position was clear, the Marxist analsysis must be that all those that follow the same approach must tend to the same result, and as Trotsky predicted most have indeed done so, becoming in one form or another apologists for imperialism.
Arthur Bough
Inconsistency
Why does Arthur, the ex-Trotskyist, so often appeal to the authority of Trotsky?
Why does virtually EVERY thread that Arthur participates in become embroiled in a debate over the class character of the Stalinist countries?
And why do people repeat the nonsense that holding the BC analysis of Stalinism automatically causes people to move rightwards? Did Hal Draper and the other founders of NEW POLITICS magazine move to the right? Did the International Socialists (US) or the Center for Socialist History (US) move to the right? No, they didn't.
Various radicals in the US used the term "Third Camp" without any reference to Shachtman, by the way. It was rather common among US radicals in the '50s. It meant simply "we do not support the rulers of the US or the USSR, and we give neither side privilege in foreign policy, and we support the overthrow of both capitalism and Stalinism."
And I don't think the AWL is more hostile to Chavez than to his bourgeois opponents. The AWL is simply reacting to the hero-worship of Chavez so common on the left today.
Short Addenda
Just as a quick aside without getting into a discussion of the politics and history of every US sect and individual I would point out in respect of the IS that Draper himself left them because in his opinion they had ceased placing the working class as central to their politics.
Arthur Bough
Why Did Einstein Refer to Newton?
Red,
You may as well ask why did Einstein refer so often to Newton? I reject "Leninism", and thereby the "Leninist" aspects of Trotskyism. I do not at all reject the vast majority of Lenin's writings, analysis and politics which is soundly based on Marxism, nor for the same reason do I reject those aspects of Trotsky's Writings. But you are right that appealing to Lenin or Trotsky as authority does not end the dispute, but I do find it somehwat amusing the contortions people have to go through to reconcile their continued adherence to "Lenism" and "Trotskyism", with at the same time an adherence to "Third Campism".
As for the class nature of the USSR my original post here did not mention it at all. It was PaulF that raised the issue, and I have merely responded to the point they raised.
As for Chavez, I think it is absolutely correct to react to the hero worship of some on the Left, and to warn of the dangers of the populist politics of Chavez. But it is here a matter of maintaining the right measure. As I have posted elsewhere I think the support for the capitalist owners of RCTV against the decision not to renew their licence is rather odd for a socialist organisation. This is a capitalist outfit that openly called for a coup against the Government!!! As some even liberal reporers have commented were NBC or the BBC to do this no one would blink an eye if their charters were withdrawn at the very least!
This is a government which has already faced an attempted coup by the bouregoisie against it, which has right-wing US politicians and evangelists calling for Chavez to be assassinated, which is represented in the bouregois media throughout the West as being a Dictatorship despite in fact being far more democratic than most bouregois democracies, and which were it not for its oil wealth would now be facing economic sanctions and other measures to undermine it. By all means criticise Chavez, but surely the emphasis should be on supporting what is progressive in the measures undertaken, rather than carping that they are not yet "pure" or "perfect" socialism, and supporting the workers and peasants in Venezuela, encouraging them to push through those reforms already amde, to take advantage of the opportunities for democratic control and participation opened up to them.
Its similar to the attitude to Iran. Faced with a huge imperialist encampment on its border, with frequent raids by the forces from that encampment across its borders, with the kidnapping of its personnel by the CIA, with an increasing armada off its shore, the AWL a few weeks ago had emblazoned across its paper the headline "Against the Iranian Regime".
There is something going seriously wrong here, and it has to be pointed out.
You come dangerously close here...
...to calling for "critical support" for Chavez and the Iranian regime. That may not be your intent, but that's how it reads. As neither the Venezuelan nor the Iranian governments are governed by working-class parties (though some people seem to think otherwise regarding Venezuela -- they are wrong), there is no reason for the AWL or anyone else to be "soft" on these governments, or to worry about whether or not what we say echoes the bourgeois press or what have you.
I personally am less concerned about the RCTV business than I am about Chavez's opposition to union autonomy from the state. We've seen what happens when unions become "transmission belts" for the "revolutionary" government.
(And if Arthur calls the Shachtmanites or whomever else he disagrees with "petty-bourgeois" one more time I swear I'm going to throw the laptop against the wall...it isn't enough for a theory to be mistaken, no, it must reflect alien class influences! Who was it that was the innovator of this type of argument? Oh, I remember...Lenin! Guess you're still a Leninist after all, Arthur!)
Dialectics and Third Campism
What I find interesting in your post above Red, is the extent to which it illustrates a point made by Trotsky in his polemic against the Third campers, and that is their inability to think dialectically. Every process of change, every social phenomena is contradictory it contains elements which are both reactionary and progressive. The job of Marxists is to be able to identify which of these two antagonistic tendencies is in the ascendant, and thereby to identify the social force which from an historical perspective is progressive, even if at the given moment in time it may not appear that way.
For Sismondi and the petit-bourgeois socialists (sorry to offend sensibilities again, but it is the term Marx uses to describe such people) their subjectivist method meant that they were unable to see beyond the horrors of capitalism. That is not surprising those horrors were very real causing the death of millions of workers and peasants, the Irish famine alone accounted for the deaths of 2 million people, or around a quarter of the Irish population of the time, whilst the progressive tendency within capitalism the potential to raise human productivity to unheard of levels was hardly apparent at the time they were writing. It was Marx’s genius, but above all his dialectical method which allowed him to separate out the two, and recognise the historically progressive role that capitalism played.
Marxists have used this method to great benefit in analysing the world around them, and discerning the correct programme to adopt. Yet as Trotsky points out the initiators of the “Third camp” seem incapable of using this method. That is why they are unable to separate out Stalinism and the bureaucratic control of the state, from the fundamental economic foundations of the state for instance. You repeat the same mistake above when you accuse me of offering critical support not just to Chavez, but even more absurdly to the Iranian regime, unable it seems to distinguish between the regime and the nation state, a nation state which far from comprising just the regime, comprises millions of workers and peasants.
For a Marxist using the dialectical method there is no problem separating out the two aspects of this whole. For a Marxist there is no problem recognising that we have a duty to solidarise with the progressive component within that whole – with the workers and peasants – whilst criticising, and where necessary opposing with all means possible the regime that forms its other component. That is why a Marxist is able to demand the Right of Self-Determination even for a nation state that is controlled by the most reactionary regime, even where that self-determination is challenged by what appears on the face of it, a more progressive, bourgeois democratic power. Why? Because, that apparently more progressive bourgeois democracy is just a sham, a velvet glove that masks the same Bourgeois Dictatorship, a bourgeois dictatorship which will show no more concern for the rights of workers and peasants in the country it seeks to dominate than does the existing regime within that country. The only force capable of changing that state of affairs progressively is the working class of that country, if necessary with the support of the peasantry and petit-bourgeois pulled along behind it.
So yes, I have no problem opposing the aspirations of imperialism against Iran despite the reactionary nature of its regime. Nor do I have any problem doing the same in relation to Venezuela, nor do I have any problem with giving critical support to any progressive measures undertaken by that regime, such as the nationalisation of foreign oil companies, just as Trotsky gave fulsome support to the same measures undertaken by the Mexican regime in the 1930’s and criticised as Ultra-Left, and ultimately broke with, those who carped about the fact that the regime had paid compensation.
That is why Daniel Randall is absolutely correct in his method in relation to Iraq, and the Majority are wrong. Daniel and the Minority have used the dialectical method of Marx to identify the fact that as the progressive class in Iraq, the working class can only fulfil its mission, can only increase its social weight if its role is seen within the context of a process, not taken statically, fixed and viewed formally and journalistically as things currently stand. That the condition for overcoming its current weakness and increasing its social weight is precisely by intervening within that process, and becoming as far as it can the main protagonist against the Occupation.
Arthur Bough
Oh please
I understand the difference between the regime and the general populace, thank you very much. I simply said you should be much more careful with how you phrase things.
I can think dialectically just fine, been doing it for several years now.
Then..
... why accuse me of coming close to giving critical support to the clerical fascists in Iran when I never even came within a million miles of doing so?
Arthur Bough