These comments all relate to a posting on Kosova's declaration of independence
Er
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 20 February, 2008 - 17:13.
I'm a bit worried by this Martin.
"Muslims all just naturally love the USA and NATO? Not likely"
It seems to be saying that all Muslims are anti-imperialist, or anti-US by nature of being Muslims! Though of course its stated as an ironic reverse of that. I think we can see lots of Muslim regimes that are pro-US - Pakistan for one. Surely its not a matter of what religion the majority of the population are, but the relationship the given state has to US imperialism, how much it is indebted to it, reliant upon it, and so on.
We should bear in mind Lenin's comments in his Draft for the Theses on the National and Colonial Question when he wrote,
"Sixth, we need constantly to explain and expose among the broadest working masses of all countries, and particularly of the backward counries, the deception systematically practiced by the imperialist powers, which under the the guise of politically independent states, set up states that are wholly dependent upon them economically, financially, and militarily. Under present day international condiiotns there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet Republics."
Lenin "Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions" in Lenin on Proletarian Internationalism p 301
The Kosovan "state" has been set up wholly through the agency of US and EU imperialism, and is economically, financially and militarily dependent upon that imperialism. The Kosovans do not have self-determination they have been turned into an EU colony, whose Viceroys will control the country on the behalf of it.
Arthur Bough
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The Balkans and Imperialist Strategy
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 21 February, 2008 - 11:41.
The idea that imperialism wanted a Muslim client in Kosovo is wrong. The US has many Muslim clients – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, not to mention its many outposts in the Stans of Central Asia. But the Balkans have always occupied an important strategic position. As Rosdolsky points out Engels set out the progressive role of the Habsburgs in establishing their Empire in the Region which acted as a bulwark against the danger of Islamism creeping up into Southern Europe. The Balkans strategically protect the soft underbelly of Europe, which is why they played an important role in both the First and Second World Wars.
Today it is not Muslim regimes which are a problem for US imperialism, but the threat that these regimes might be overthrown by radical Islam. The recent events in Turkey and Pakistan highlight the danger for imperialism. But the Balkans are important for another reason.
At the end of the 19th century a Long Wave Kondratiev up cycle led to a huge increase in demand for resources to meet the needs of rapidly growing economies. It led to a scramble by developed capitalist powers for those resources in countries that were essentially pre-capitalist, and could only be achieved through colonialism. Competition between different capitalist powers created what Trotsky describes as an “armed peace”. In the late 90’s the world economy entered another 20-30 year Kondratiev up cycle, which has been the basis of the current economic boom – the AWL’s World economy position paper is simply on another planet when it talks about “the current recession” – and a similar scramble for resources pushing raw material and foodstuff prices again through the roof. A similar scramble for resources has taken place, but now in a world where the majority of countries have gone past the stage of colonialism, and have their own politically independent capitalist states, the form of this scramble has been the application of economic and political influence to sign bilateral agreements such as those the US and Europe have created in Central Asia, and China has established in Latin America, and Africa as well as in its own Central Asian backyard.
Russia is now probably the leading oil producer, and has the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas. The West would love to get its hands on those reserves. Despite the fact that Russia relies on oil and gas exports for nearly 80% of its foreign earning, whilst these exports account for only 18% of European imports, there are continual warnings that Russia is using its oil and gas to threaten Western Europe! The US has openly admitted that it has used its resources through the CIA, and other well financed front organisations to influence elections etc. in Serbia, in Ukraine, and in Georgia. With the fall of its former frontman – Yeltsin, who with his accomplice Chubais, was the wholesaler of Soviet assets on the cheap to Western Capitalists and Russian oligarchs alike – in Russia, it has used a plethora of similar fronts in Russia itself, as Putin has locked up the oligarchs and clawed assets back under the control of the Stalinist state.
The US has ringed Russia with military installations in the South through the Stans, and Iraq, and in the West in Eastern Europe. The latest being the attempt to draw Ukraine into NATO, and set up the SDI on its soil as a direct challenge to Russia. In addition to protecting Western Europe’s southern flank the Balkans are a gateway into Russia from the South. But they are more important than that. In addition to protecting Europe’s Southern flank, and providing the basis for an attack on Russia from the South, they are also a gateway to Asia from the West. If Russia provides the US in particular with the prospect of easy pickings of raw materials, China poses a threat in the form of its growing economic, military and political power and its concomitant role in locking up potential supplies.
The decision of the US to test its SDI technology on the pretext of shooting down a rogue satellite is a direct response to China making a successful test of similar technology. In short the kind of scramble for resources that marked the Kondratiev cycle in the late 19th/early 20th century, which created an armed peace, and ultimately at the conjuncture of that cycle led to WWI is being repeated today.
The last Balkan crisis in the centuries long repetition of such crises arose after Germany recognised the declaration of independence of its former WWII ally Croatia. That led to the genocide in Bosnia, which even today leaves the communities hating each other and completely separated. The separation of the Kosovars may well cause the Bosnian Serbs to formally separate from Bosnia triggering a new round of genocide. Historically, the Greeks have come to the aid of their Orthodox Christian brethren in Serbia, whilst Turkey has sided with its Muslim brothers in the region, and has been the basis of the many conflicts between Greece and Turkey. The current rise of Islam in Turkey makes such a development not at all unlikely.
It was this kind of complex interrelationship that out of what appeared to be nothing led to WWI. Before simply making moralistic judgements over the Right of Self determination, Marxists have a duty to weigh such factors in the balance, and consider not what is morally just, but what the consequences will be for the international working class.
Arthur Bough
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Mr Colin Foster, I would
Submitted by claedy on 14 February, 2008 - 00:32.
Mr Colin Foster, I would like to begin my comment by thanking you for your effort on this matter. Indeed all you write in here are true.
I recommend for all the Serbs who comment here to be sensible, and possibly apologies for their controversial comments. You must stop the Serbian dreaming, and propaganda which has enslaved your brains! The reality is that Serbs in a majority have never existed either on the territory of today’s Kosovo or anywhere ales in the Balkans! You are a late comer down to this Illyrian region. This is why there is no point using idiotic justifications, as indeed you are foreigners to the land you occupy! On the other hand the Albanians are autochthones and it is also true that the territory of Kosovo has always been populated with Albanians, and that it was violently occupied by Serb forces in 1912 with Russian assistance and turned into a Serb colony by not just pouring in Serb colonies descendants of whom are the minority of the Serbs in today’s Kosovo, but also by committing constant genocide and ethnic harassment among the autochthones population.
Therefore the crimes committed by the Serbs culminated in 1998-99 and you proved to the rest of the world that you are animals, and that Kosovo or any other foreign populated territory must never be allowed on your hands!
Independence for Dardania
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No "bad" nations or "good" nations
Submitted by martin on 14 February, 2008 - 11:41.
Yes, the Serb-majority area in northern Kosova should have the right to secede if the people want to. No, Serbs are not "animals", nor any worse than any other nation. The point is not that Serbs are especially bad, but that the Kosovars should have the right to self-determination.
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The Right
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 16 February, 2008 - 13:53.
Kosovans should have the right to self-determination as should every group of people that considers itself to be a separate nation. The question is should socialists support calls for the implementation of that right? As Lenin pointed out democratic demands such as that for self-determination do not stand above our commitment to socialism. If such a demand leads to a situation in which the working class as a whole is weakened then socialists do not support such a demand. Lenin gives the example of a small state who by insisting on self-determination causes a way between tow neighbouring larger states thereby dividing the working class. In fact, something like this is very likely in the Balkans, and of course it would not be the first time.
Socialists should concentrate on trying to build unity of the working class across the region rather than focussing on bourgeois democratic demands to its exclusion.
Arthur Bough
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Arthur's anti-Marxist argument
Submitted by David Broder on 18 February, 2008 - 16:45.
Why should the workers of Kosova trust the workers of Serbia - or rather isn't it perfectly understandable that they don't - if the latter fail to oppose "their" state's repression of the Kosovars or fight for their right to self-determination? Of course, for communists, workers' unity across divisions is the basic thing, but to counterpose that to self-determination (or indeed any other democratic right) is to advocate that the oppressed sit on their hands until the workers of the oppressing nation/race etc etc are ready to come to their aid. No: the fight for democracy, including national self-determination, is an essential part of the struggle for international working-class solidarity.
Sacha Ismail
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When
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 19 February, 2008 - 17:05.
the Provos were bombing British pubs as part of their campaign to kick the Brits out of Ireland they responded to the criticism of blowing up innocent British workers with exactly the argument you put here. There were no Innocent British workers because tehy did not support Irish independence, they voted in British Governments that kept troops in Ireland and so on. They used your arguemnt that they could ot trust British workers. Ask Sean they were supported at the time by the International Socialists who used the same petit-bouregois Third Camp argument in that respect that Glotzer used to support Zionism. The workers are too weak, too disunited to bring about change, so we have to rely on some other social force, some other social programme to achieve our moral imperative. Its the same argument the SWP use today to support the clerical-fascists in Iraq. The workers can't be relied on so we have to rely on the clerical-fascists to achieve the goal, just as on the other side of this moral argument the AWL chooses the Occupation as its moral champion.
Arthur Bough
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Marxists and Anti-Marxist
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 20 February, 2008 - 16:21.
David,
When I read your post originally I did not notice the title you gave it. Fair enough we can all slip from the Marxist method on occasion none of us are perfect, though its rather different to accuse someone of an approach that is un-marxist to an accusation of anti-Marxism. Its also fair enough if you can substantiate the claim. So let’s compare what I said, and what you said.
1) Is my statement, that the Kosovans, like any group of people that consider themselves to be a nation, have a right to self-determination, anti-Marxist?
2) Is my statement that the question is should Marxists support this Right, anti-Marxist? The idiot anti-imperialists would obviously answer Yes. Do you really want to jump into bed with them? Like the AWL they have abandoned Marxist class politics on the National Question in favour of petit-bourgeois Kantian moralism. The difference is that their Categorical Imperative leads them to support every “anti-imperialist” struggle no matter who that leads them to jump into bed with, whilst the AWL’s Categorical Imperative leads them to ally themselves with whoever is on the other side to the idiot anti-imperialists.
3) Is my statement, following Lenin, that bourgeois democratic demands cannot stand above our struggle for socialism anti-Marxist?
4) Is my statement that if such a demand leads to a situation in which the working class as a whole is weakened then socialists do not support such a demand, anti-Marxist? If so then it is difficult to understand the AWL’s position in respect of the North of Ireland.
5) Is my statement that Socialists should concentrate on trying to build unity of the working class across the region rather than focussing on bourgeois democratic demands to its exclusion anti-Marxist, if so then you would have to argue that Lenin’s statement in 3 above is anti-Marxist too, because it is a restatement of it.
I await your response to those questions to justify your allegation. Now let us compare your statements with the basic tenets of Marxism in relation to the national question and internationalism.
1. In place of the basic statement “Workers of the World Unite”, you have the slogan “Workers of the World you cannot trust the workers of other nations!”
2. In place of the dictum the workers of each country have more in common with the workers of every other country than they do with their own bourgeoisie, we have your argument that because workers cannot trust the workers of other countries, and are too weak to achieve their own demands they should jump into bed with their own bourgeoisie, or even as in this case with imperialism in order to achieve a programme of national reformist bourgeois democratic demands!
3. In place of the idea that the Socialist Programme is internationalist or it is nothing, that it can only be achieved on the basis of the greatest unity of the working class across nations, that the Programme for World Socialist Revolution is not simply a summation of the various national programmes, we have your version that workers should forego consideration of internationalism, and settle instead for a Programme of national reformist, bourgeois democratic demands. In other words the Programme not of the Third but of the Second International that led ultimately to WWI, because those “Marxists” too believed that their own workers ultimately couldn’t trust the workers of other countries!
If the radical liberal reformist conclusions you draw here are Marxism, then you are right I am no Marxist.
Arthur Bough
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Trotsky on Social Patriotism
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 21 February, 2008 - 12:02.
"The patriotism of the German social democrats began as a legitimate patriotism to their own party, the most powerful party of the Second International. On the basis of the highly developed German technology and the superior organizational qualities of the German people, the German social democracy prepared to build its “own” socialist society. If we leave aside the hardened bureaucrats, careerists, parliamentary sharpers, and political crooks in general, the social-patriotism of the rank and file social democrat was derived precisely from the belief in building German socialism. It is impossible to think that hundreds of thousands of rank and file social democrats (let alone the millions of rank and file workers) wanted to defend the Hohenzollerns or the bourgeoisie. No. They wanted to protect German industry, the German railways and highways, German technology and culture, and especially the organizations of the German working class, as the “necessary and sufficient” national prerequisites for socialism.
A similar process also took place in France. Guesde, Vaillant, and thousands of the best rank and file party members with them, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary workers believed that precisely France with her revolutionary traditions, her heroic proletariat, her highly cultured, flexible, and talented people, was the promised land of socialism. Old Guesde and the Communard Vaillant, and with them hundreds of thousands of sincere workers, did not fight to protect the bankers or the rentiers. They sincerely believed that they were defending the soil and the creative power of the future socialist society. They proceeded entirely from the theory of socialism in one country and in the name of this idea they sacrificed international solidarity, believing this sacrifice to be “temporary.”"
Trotsky - "The Third International After Lenin pp 70-71.
See:Third International After Lenin
But, of course your position is worse here than that of the Social democrats described by TRotsky. The Social Democrats when they told their respective workers not to trust their fellow workers in other countries did so on the basis of defending the material basis of what they saw as the foundations of building socialism. You on the other hand want workers of different nations to kill each other not for such a socialist programme, but for nothing more than the programme of radical liberalism!
Arthur Bough
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Correction
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 21 February, 2008 - 19:57.
I was not obviously intending to suggest that you actually want workers to kill each other any more than that the Social democrats wanted workers to kill each other in WWI. Better wording would have been that you wanted workers to be prepared to kill each other, or you are prepared to see workers kill each other.
Arthur Bough
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So
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 19 February, 2008 - 17:24.
Its perfectly understandable that Palestinians do not trust Jewish workers, and should place there faith in those such as Hamas who advocate a state for Palestinians rather than in socialists that seek to resolve the problems of the Palestinians through the combined agency of Jewish and Palestinian workers then!!! That is the argument that some of the more fanatical advocates of a Palestinian state have put forward in discussions here have adopted. I am surprsied that you put the same argument. Its the argument that led one contributor to say there were no Jewish socialists because they all support the state of Israel,a nd so on. Its what leads to the argument that its okay to attack Jews as civilians, because after all they can't be trusted to support Palestinian rights can they? It is a thoroughly defeatist and reactionary argument that can only be put by people that have lost all faith in the working class being the revolutionary class, and the only class capable of providing real solutions for the problems of the world. It is the argument of petit-bourgeois.
And after all Sacha or is it David it was you that some time ago quoted Lenin's argument in regard to not supporting the demands of people in a small state for self-determination if it meant that it might lead to a wider conflagration in which the unity of the working class was weakened. You misrepresented the meaning of Lenin's statement then in relation to Iraq, now in conditions where it is directly applicable you ignore it altogether!
Of course, advocating working class unity does not mean asking the people of Kosovar or anywhere else to simply sit on their hands until the workers of Serbia come to their aid! It means that a socialist program focusses on building workers unity between the two people's around a fight for basic democratic rights for Kosovars within the state they live, and should have been doing that for decades, just as a socialist programme for the Palestinians requires fighting for unity between Jewish and Palestinian workers here and now for democratic rights for Palestinians within the state they live - Israel. If the conclusion of the fight for those democratic rights is indeed that a new state should be created then it is only on the basis of a prior struggle for those democratic rights that the conditions can be created in which such a state can arise on the best terms for workers of both states.
If we look at the establishment of a proto state in Gaza by Hamas, I fail to see how any socialist can claim that this developemnt has in any way taken forward the cause of working class unity, or of the working class in any shape or form. If anything it has had exactly the opposite consequence, and as the recent events on the border with Egypt demonstrate threaten to draw the workers of neighbouruing states into the conflict. If Serbia decides again to intervene in Kosovo, possibly backed by Russia (unlikely but then such circumstances led to the outbreak of WWI), and is met by opposition by Albania, if this then leads to an escalation of the conflict throughout the Balkans as Serb and other minorities also declare their own statelets, I fail to see how the resulting mass bloodshed will be conducive to workers interests.
The Bolsheviks and the early Comintern advocated the Right of Self Determination for specific reasons. The National Revolution was seen as being intimately linked to social revolution in a period when they believed that the world had enetered a period of social revolution that would see capitalism overthrown. Such struggles could act as the catalyst for such social revolution. At the time there existed large Communist Parties, and these had the backing of the USSR, and its influence amongst oppressed peoples. They had the prospect thereby of winning the leadership of such struggles. For these reasons the arguments that Lenin had previously given as to why Marxists are naturally centralisers - for example his quotes from marx in relation to Ireland - why small states are reactionary vis a vis large states, and therefore, the interests of small states have to be subordinated to those of large states, were set aside in favour of promoting such struggles as means of linking them in to the social revolution. Those conditions have long since disappeared.
Despite proclaiming its belief in the principle of workers self-activity the AWL once again show that this commitment is skin deep, that it is just a mantra to be repeated like the Catholics who perform their rituals. In practive your politics is based not only on a top down approach, but a top down approach tied to a radical liberal rather than socialist programme. You continually rely not on the working class to provide solutions, but on alien class forces. In Iraq the Occupation, in Israel/Palestine the Jewish and Arab bouregoisie in conjunction with the imperialist powers, in the NHS the state capitalist burureacracy, and in general within economics in Britain a reliance on state capitalist solutions, In Venezuela you side with the bouregoisie democrats for example over RCTV, in Russia with imperialism and its agents such as Yeltsin, and in Kosovo a solution implemented not by workers, but the military might of US and European imperialism. No comrade its your politics which time and again ebtray your slogans, its your politics which are anti-Marxist. What has been created in Kosovo is a European colony. The Kosovars do not have political indpendendence they are to be run by EU officials acting on behalf of the European proto state. Even the Albanian Kosovars themeslves recognise that, and they are trying to organise to oppose it. The answer is a struggle to defend workers rights, including basic democratic rights, and that struggle can only be won by a United working class response. For workers anything else simply replaces one form of oppression with another,and that applies as much in Kosovo as it does in Palestine, or in Iraq.
Arthur Bough
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Odd Contrast
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 21 February, 2008 - 19:11.
Isn't it odd that the AWL justifies the continued imperialist occupation of Iraq on the spurious basis that it is preventing Civil War, yet is prepared to see the entire Balkans go up in flames to accommodate the establishemnt of the new EU colony in Kosovoo????? Find the common thread.
Arthur Bough
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Lenin and Self-Determination
Submitted by Arthur Bough on 22 February, 2008 - 18:03.
Lenin's position was clear. Marxists as internationalists are for the greatest unity of the working class. He reiterates time and again that although we champion the right of self-determination, and secession, although we are opposed to the armed retention of nations within a given state - Marxists should certainly OPPOSE any attempt by Serbia to retain Kosovo against the will of its people, by the same token we judge each case on its merits, and only in EXCEPTIONAL cases are we in favour of the creation of a new class state, particularly one like KOSOVO which is actually an EU colony. Usually, Marxists rather than opposing the splitting up of workers are in favour of their coming together in larger states like the EU because such states reflect a progressive development of capitalism, and create better condiitons for workers unity, and international class action he argues.
The starting point should be the struggle for democratic rights for oppressed nationalities up to and including the establishment of regional autonomy as the best basis for maintaining the unity of the class. He says,
"Incidentally, autonomy, as a reform, differs in principle from freedom to Recede, as a revolutionary measure. This is unquestionable. Bat as everyone knows, in practice a reform is often merely a step towards revolution. It is autonomy that enables a nation forcibly retained within the boundaries of a given state to crystallise into a nation, to gather, assess and organise its forces, and to select the most opportune moment for a declaration ... in the “Norwegian” spirit: We, the autonomous diet of such-and-such a nation, or of such-and-such a territory, declare that the Emperor of all the Russias has ceased to be King of Poland, etc."
"The Discussion on Self Determination Summed Up"
Arthur Bough