The BBC and other media organisations have carried out the latest of a series of opinion polls in Iraq. See: BBC Iraq Poll . The poll shows that an increasing number of people in Iraq are positive about the future. A significant majority see democracy as the best system of government for Iraq, and even an increasing number of people see the possibility of reconciliation between Shia and Sunni communities. There were significant differences of opinion between the various regions of Iraq, those in Baghdad, where sectarian violence continues to be most intense, being the least positive.
So, does this improvement, and the growing concern in the poll for economic issues, along with signs of a strengthening Labour Movement mean that the position of the Alliance for Workers Liberty, of opposing calls for the removal of troops, has been proven to be correct as Martin Thomas claimed a while ago? See: Here . The answer is an emphatic no!!!
The whole basis of Martin's argument, above, is fraudulent, it is a rank apologism. What it does is to put Marxists effectively in the position I have been accused of holding by Cluffy in our long running discussion over Palestine and Imperialism - See: The BBC Workers and Gaza . It means turning yourself into an apologist, precisely because it implies justifying means by ends. But, Marxists can never justify the means by the ends, precisely because for a Marxist Means and Ends are dialectically intertwined, and, therefore, the nature of the end is always conditioned by the means. A Marxist can and must separate Means and Ends, recognising that although they can analyse the end objectively and determine that the end is either progressive or reactionary, the means to that end cannot automatically be read off from it. There are countless examples. Capitalism as a system is as Marx described a most revolutionary system compared with what went before. But, no Marxist would thereby support the robbing of the peasantry of their means of production, or the squalor and degradation in which workers suffered, which formed part of the means by which that most revolutionary system was created. Understand it, yes, recognise the objective historical factors which made it inevitable that such things would be a concomitant of it, yes, oppose a return to some Sismondian Golden Age, yes, but condone it, absolutely no. To some extent the Trade Union reforms introduced by the Tories which attacked the entrenched power of the TU bureaucracy had some positive aspects. But, no Marxist worth their sort could support the actions of the Tories as the means to achieve them. When in 1940 the Stalinist USSR invaded Poland, Trotsky opposed the invasion. He argued that it strengthened the Stalinists, and the view that socialism could be created bureacratically or militarily, anf thereby weakened the real driving force of socialism, the idea of independent working class action. Yet, he recognised the fact that the Stalinists had overthrown the old economic and social relations, and thereby the old exploiting classes as historically progressive. Having done so, and opposing any attempt to reverse that change, it did not change his view of the means by which that change had been brought about. Conversely, workers may engage in a strike against their employer, or even against the Capitalist State. Such an action is in itself objectively progressive, it represents the working class engaging in that self-activity to resolve its problems. Yet, the fact that these means are progressive does not determine that the ends that result from these means are themselves progressive. The recent refinery strikes demonstrate the possibility of that. But, Marxists would not thereby decry the strike as a means of achieving the ends, they would not stand aside from those means, but would seek to intervene in order to drive the means towards a progressive end. Similarly, where reactionary means are being used towards what is a progressive end, Marxists do not decry that progressive end, but decry the reactionary means, they intervene to argue for alternative means of achieving that end. Marx did not oppose the progressive end to which Capitalism was driving - the socialisation of production - but condemned the means by which Capitalism was bringing it about. He retained support for the progressive end, but put forward the case for alternative means - class struggle to defend workers immediate interests within that process, the creation of Workers Co-operatives as part of a National Co-operative federation, which would form the basis of the transition not just to socialised production, but to socialised distribution as its concomitant.
So, even IF, and the jury is still out on whether it proves correct - we should hope that it is correct - that life may become normalised in Iraq, such an end cannot justify the means by which that end has been achieved, cannot remove from Marxists the duty to have opposed those means, and to have worked for alternative means of bringing them about, and indeed to have brught about an even more progressive situation than seems possible in even the most optimistic of outlooks for a bourgeois Iraq. Because, even as Martin tries to claim some moral highground for the AWL's position he is fored to admit that things in Iraq are far from rosy. The Maliki Government is the creation of the US, and is yet, a Government that the US, itself has little faith in, having spoken fairly openly about the idea that maybe he needs to be replaced, and about the possibility that some strongman regime in Iraq should be established. Although, Martin claims that the reason for the proposed troop withdrawal is the "subsiding" of the "resistance", implying that it has been defeated or beaten down, the reality is that the Islamist bourgeoisie have done a deal with imperialism, and that is the real reason for the subsiding. Together they have beaten down the Jacobin elements of Sadr, which constitued the main class threat to them, given he weakness of the working class, but it is clear in Southern Iraq, for instance, that Britain withdrew on the basis of an agreement with the Islamists, and of Iran. Violence in the Sunni Triangle outside Baghdad, has subsided because the Sunnis have been bought off by the US, separated from the Shia and the potential for sectarian attack, and have been given considerable autonomy in the running of their area.
None of this is particularly heartwarming for a Marxist. What has been established has been established by imperialism, and the islamist bourgeoisie. The working class has largely been excluded from the process, and yet it is only the working class, which could have driven that process towards a truly progressive end. What has been created is a reactionary Islamic State. A look at where those Islamist bourgeois forces - the same forces that AWL members were telling us a couple of years ago were really "Constitutional Democrats" - are in control in Southern Iraq, shows exactly what end has been created from the means that the AWL saw no need to oppose. Women in Basra
No, the AWL's position certainly has not been validated by the current situation. Ends can never justify means, and the ends that now exist in Iraq have been condiitoned by the means by which they have been brought about, means that the AWL refused to oppose. The likelihood still remains as I said some time ago that in order for the US to get out of Iraq, and to protect the interests of the Iraqi Sunnis - whose interests the US has to protect because of the cocnerns of its Sunni Client States in the rest of the Gulf, and because of its need to minmise the ability of Iran to further its strategic interests through a Shia Alliance in the region including its proxies in Hamas, and Hezbollah - Iraq will have to be divided up. The likelihood remains that the Shia South will move closer to Iran with the inevitable consequence for the rights of workers, women and other Minorities. Those ends could only have been different, could only have offered the potential for a truly progressive solution had their been built an independent working class solution, and that solution could not remain at the level of Economism that the AWL wanted to constrain it. It could only have been built on that Labour Movement winning the leadership of the masses by combining the legitimate national and democratic rights of the Iraqi people, summarised in the demand for the troops to be kicked out, with a programme of working class demands, and could only have been achieved on the basis oof proletarian means, of proletarian forms of struggle. In the main it has to be said, the Iranian Marxists did attempt to do that, and should be applauded for doing so. The absence of any sizeable organised and class conscious International Labour Movement, and of any significant or adequate international Marxist leadership for such a movement meant they would always be in a weak position to conduct that struggle. But, Marxism can never grow by only doing what is easy or advocating what is seen as "practical politics" as Burnham and Shachtman described it. Marxism can only prosper if it advocates and does what is right, what accords to its principles. In that the AWL failed, and failed miserably.
The AWL are an abysmal excuse for a socialist organisation.
ReplyDeleteYou have to question what was the motivation of those that invaded, if the AWL believe the US and it's friends invaded to free the poor oppressed Iraqi's and remove a threat to world peace, then OK but if the AWL bellieve this was about imperialist self interest and that progressive democracy was just a fortunate side effect then the AWL could not oppose such an imperialist attack on Venezuela or Cuba or anyone else for that matter.
Tony,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the AWL are now a pretty miserable, Stalinist sect. However, I think its necessary to criticise their position on the basis of stating the truth about it. Often, others on the Left have caricatured the AWL's position - and many of those organisations have had a pretty abysmal position on Iraq too, but from the other side of the coin - and that weakens the argument against the AWL.
The truth is that the AWL OPPOSED the actual invasion of Iraq. The criticism of their position is not that, nor even actually that they refused to support a demand for "Troops Out". The real criticism of their position is the argument they used to justify their refusal to support "Troops Out". In fact, it should really be the arguments they used not argument, because in truth they used three different arguments to justify their position as time moved on. All that remained the same was the position of opposition to "Troops Out", and the underlying method which led to that position.
The AWL's position comes from a number of sources. Firstly, as a Third Camp organisation the AWL actually, see the world as made up of three camps. They see a Camp of "Democracy", a Camp of "Bonapartism or Authoritarianism" and a camp of "The Working Class". The truth of that can be seen from the AWL's politics on a range of issues, and could be seen a few months ago in the discussions around the AWL's position in relation to an attack by Israel on Iran. It applies to their position in relation to the defence of Workers States, it explains their hostility to people like Chavez - which goes way beyond the need for Marxists to warn workers about the danger of such bouregois politicians, and led them to support the RCTV TV station as against Chavez - and it even led them to lie about Trotsky's arguments in relation to the "Two Masks" of Imperialism during WWII which dealt with precisely this question.
As a Third Camp organisation they also follow the principle of "Practical Politics" as developed by Burnham and Shachtman, which essentially means that instead of analysing the world on the basis of the Marxist method, of understanding the role of dialectics in uncovering the historical processes at work, and thereby keying into the movement in such a way as to enhance the progressive eleemtns within that movement, the AWL proceed rather by treating each event as something unique, which requires a response based upon the application of "common sense" to provide a workable solution to that immediate situation. It is an inherently subjectivist method, which must lead to opportunism, and to the kind of zig zagging of position that has characterised the AWL's politics.
They also move from what is a true statement that objectively Capitalism continues to play a progressive historical role by continuiing to deveelop the productivee forces, and through imperialism to spread Capitalism throughout the globe, but move from that statement of truth to then act as apologists for Imperialism in the methods used to achieve that objectively progressivee role. As I said, it is in fact the thing that Cluffy accuses me of in our debates here over Gaza. Finally, although the AWL describe themselves as Third Campist, meaning that they argue for an independent working class position, the truth is that like pretty much all of the Left, they have lost faith in he working class being able to undertake thaat role. Like the rest of the Left, they are, therefore, left to seek some other social force to be the vehicle by which their politics are to be implemented. Where on the one hand other Third Campist groups look to forces such as "anti-imperialist" forces, that are always bouregois forces, and often reactionary, anti-working class forces to fulfil that role, the AWL rather see "democratic imperialism" as that vehicle - a position which flows logically from the soources of their politics as set out above.
I have described their politics in this regard as that of Pontius Pilate. They do not actually call for that imperialism to act, just as they didn't actually call for Israel to attack Iran, but rather they use weasel words, saying if imperialism does this then it will be "good", and this then allows them having chosen imperialism as the lesser evil, to wash their hands of the reactionary implications of that action.
This is the crux of he argument. A Marxist says, "If Capitalism develops this economy that will be good. But Capitalism will inevitably do that by methods which are reactionary, which attack the working class. We do not oppose capitalist economic development, but we argue for the interests of workers as against Capital within that process. In fact, we believe that this process can be achieved better if the workers themselves own the means of production, and thereby through their control of those means of production carry through that process is a progressive manner that Capital can never achieve."
Marxists say, "We are opposed to reactionary regimes, but the task of defeating those regimes falls to the working class. That task can never be subcontracting to imperialism or to the bourgoisie, who will if they deem it necessary simply replace the existing reactionary regime with another reactionary regime more to their liking." In fact, that can be seen in Iraq now with US imperialism taalking openly about the possible need for some strong man to take hold of the State.
Out of the above the AWL derived their position, which was effectively that democratic imperialism was a lesser evil to the potential of a clerical-fascist regime being established in Iraq. In fact, they took that to the degree that they were forced to boycott any analysis of the main Shia clericaal-fascist forces as being such, precisely because those forces were in alliance with the democratic imperialist forces they saw as that lesser-evil. Those same Shia forces, which have now established an Islamic State in southern Iraq, closely tied to Iran, and demonstrating all of those anti-working class, anti-democratic attitudes against women, gays etc. had to be painted up as "Constitutionalist".
And because the AWL had no faith in the working class and its "practical politics" led it to seek a common sense solution it was led to oppose calls for Troops Out, even when as in the case of its own Minority that demand was couched in terms of a demand for building a working class movement to achieve that demand, they opposed it for fear of it being seen as supporting thee reactionary Islamic forces as against its lesser evil. In so doing, in applying common sense, opportunism and formal logic tehy missed the whole basis of the Marxist method, which its Minority corectly described, missed the role of dialecticss, by which through this demand the working class could be mobilised, and thereby strengthened to possibly be able to then take the leadership of that Movement, presenting itself as an alternative to both imperialism and to the clericaal-fascists.
It was the argument that the necessary demand could not be raised because it was necessary to allow imperialism to do thee work thaat only the working class can do that is the real reactionary element of the AWL's politics here, and elsewhere.
But, in fact, that same method can be seen in another form, and its not just the AWL that is guilty of it. It is the same method that leads much of he Left to call on the bouregois state to do what only he working class can do. For example the demands for that State to nationalise the banks or other Capitalist businesses, that calls on the local Capitalist state to resolve workers housing and other problems etc. Nearly all of the left is guilty of that Lassaleanism and statism. It has nothing to do with Marxism.
You would think that after the disaster Iraq turned out to be, the Anti invasion left would have felt confident to go on the offensive and not retreat so pathetically like the AWL.
ReplyDeleteI also have to be honest, I have found from experience that the average worker tends to be more sensible than the average socialist.