Monday 22 March 2021

Marxism, Zionism and the National Question - Opposition To Immigration Controls and The National Question (1/2)

Marxism, Zionism and the National Question


Opposition To Immigration Controls and The National Question (1/2)


The Third Campist Al Glotzer, in adopting the reactionary stance of Zionism, attacked the position of Mandel, in relation to Jewish immigration to Palestine, during the period when Zionists were attempting to construct a Jewish state there. Mandel argued against immigration controls in general, and for Jews to have the right to migrate anywhere, unrestricted, other than to Palestine. The reason is that this specific migration was intended as an organised migration from above, for the specific purpose of overwhelming the indigenous Palestinian population. It was taking place alongside an armed terror campaign conducted by Zionists, both against British imperialism and against the indigenous Palestinian population. It was an invasion and colonisation. Notably, however, those that made this argument for unrestricted Jewish migration to Palestine, when the situation was reversed, argued against unrestricted Palestinian migration back to Israel, i.e. against a right to return!

Glotzer wrote,

“Some of our readers may be aware that one of the main differences between us and the official Fourth International and the SWP is on the question of the right of the Jews to free immigration to Palestine. In advocating the right of free immigration to all countries, and in the first place to the United States, we advocate, at the same time, that democratic right for Palestine. The Fourth International and its adherents, however, are in favour of free immigration of Jews to all countries, the United States, Great Britain, France, Australia, etc., but ... not to Palestine — the one country to which they want to go! Mandel’s article seeks to give the theoretical and historical justification for this obviously contradictory position.”


The present day Third Campist advocates of Zionism, by contrast, argue for unrestricted free migration, except when it comes to the right of Palestinians to free migration back to the lands that were dispossessed from them in Palestine!


“In our struggle for true internationalism & against “jingo-socialism” we always quote in our press the example of the opportunist leaders of the S.P. in America, who are in favour of restrictions of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, & against the decisions of Stuttgart). We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same time in favour of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, and oppressing nation, who are not against any restrictions of immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes.”

Again, as with the national question, in general, it is necessary to consider the question of immigration controls concretely. Why do Marxists oppose immigration controls? For the reason Lenin describes, here. That is, in developed capitalist economies, immigration controls amount only to another form of the chauvinistic demand of defence of the fatherland, which, in these cases, means defence of an established capitalist state, at the expense of other workers, and other states. For a Marxist, the principle is that the main enemy is at home, and the struggle is against that enemy, not other states, or foreign workers. This is the basis of revolutionary defeatism, and so it is not possible to be a revolutionary defeatist, and simultaneously in favour of defence of the fatherland, and hence its borders, particularly in peacetime! In a developed capitalist state, immigration controls – like import controls – are simply a means of blaming foreign workers, or foreign states for the problems of the capitalist economy in the given state.

Liberals argue for immigration controls in such states precisely on that basis, of a defence of the capitalist fatherland, and blaming foreigners for its ills. Reactionary nationalists will do so openly, whilst the liberal will try to clothe the reactionary sentiment in warm words about seeking only non-racist immigration controls, and fairness and so on. Left nationalists will also make similar arguments including the extension of this racist argument into the demand for import controls. They will base these two related demands on the idea that the workers of any country have shared interests with the capitalists of that country to develop its industry and so on – the basic line of argument simply being an extension of the theory of building Socialism In One Country – and will argue that immigration controls prevent an increase in the supply of labour so causing wages to rise and so on.

Marxists, of course, can have no truck with such arguments for the reason that Lenin describes above. But, does this mean that there are no conditions in which Marxists can support immigration controls, and does this mean that any state that does impose immigration controls, thereby, disqualifies itself as a state, and a right to self-determination?

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