Cancellation of Ukrainian Debt.
Fine, but why stop there? Why not call for the cancellation of all debt? What makes Ukrainian debt special compared to say, Greek debt, Irish debt, Brazilian, Argentinian or Zimbabwean debt? Ukraine is not a workers' state, nor is it an oppressed, developing economy. The demand to cancel its debt is really just a demand to support its own capitalist ruling class, and their war programme. It is in a much better position than was, say, Tsarist Russia in 1914, as it faced being torn apart by German militarism, but that did not lead the Bolsheviks, or even the Mensheviks to support voting through war credits.
Against NATO, etc.
And, yet, the first demand contradicts that entirely, because, in calling for the defeat of the Russian invasion, it is calling for the victory of NATO/Ukraine!
Support for Ukrainian Refugees etc.
All fine liberal sentiments, but the reality of history suggests something different is likely. Look at how, NATO’s predecessors betrayed the Lienz Cossacks, after WWII, for example, or more recently, how the US invited the Marsh Arabs to rise against Saddam and then abandoned them, how it left Libya as a failed state and so on. Much is said about Britain taking in refugees prior to WWII in the kinder transport, but the reality was that it was very limited, and begrudging. The same is being seen with Ukrainian refugees into Britain today, which is not surprising given its overall hostile environment to migrants and refugees alike, the latter it now proposes to ship off to Rwanda!
Moreover, all of these types of demands, are really just pleas to the capitalist state to act out of character. None of them are calls to action by the working class, to mobilise and engage in action that it can undertake on the basis of its own self-activity and self-government. Workers cannot bring about the cancellation of debt, nor force states to take in refugees and treat them well, and certainly cannot, as Paul Mason has suggested, reform NATO into being some kind of progressive, force for good used across the globe. Raising demands as simpering pleas to the capitalist state on that basis, only emphasises the weakness, and pathetic nature of the labour movement, and how far the working-class is from becoming ruling class. As Marx put in The Critique of the Gotha Programme,
“... through these demands that it puts to the state, expresses its full consciousness that it neither rules nor is ripe for ruling!...
But the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and through by the Lassallean sect's servile belief in the state, or, what is no better, by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise between these two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from socialism.”
Its why the arguments of the social-imperialists like the AWL, and of the social-pacifists like the SWP, are both so dangerous, and unrelated to reality. A programme of action, should be a program based upon mobilising the working-class itself, as the progressive agent of change, to undertake actions that it can achieve on its own, and, thereby, bring about change in both material conditions and in its own level of consciousness. Things like state activity in war, cancellation of debts, treatment of refugees and so on, are only things that a class can dictate if, and only if it holds state power itself. To raise demands on the capitalist state to act in ways that are against its interest, to act as though it were a workers' state, or even just a class neutral state, is the method of the Lassallean, the Proudhonist, or the Narodnik, not of the Marxist. It is the method of the petty-bourgeois idealist, not the historical materialist. As Trotsky put it ahead of World War II,
“We must of course fight against the war not only “until the very last moment” but during the war itself when it begins. We must however give to our fight against the war its fully revolutionary sense, opposing and pitilessly denouncing pacifism. The very simple and very great idea of our fight against the war is: we are against the war but we will have the war if we are incapable of overthrowing the capitalists.”
"Where and when has an oppressed proletariat “controlled” the foreign policy of the bourgeoisie and the activities of its arm? How can it achieve this when the entire power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie? In order to lead the army, it is necessary to overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize power. There is no other road. But the new policy of the Communist International implies the renunciation of this only road.
When a working class party proclaims that in the event of war it is prepared to “control” (i.e., to support) its national militarism and not to overthrow it, it transforms itself by this very thing into the domestic beast of capital. There is not the slightest ground for fearing such a party: it is not a revolutionary tiger but a trained donkey. It may be kept in starvation, flogged, spat upon – it will nevertheless carry the cargo of patriotism. Perhaps only from time to time it will piteously bray: “For God’s sake, disarm the Fascist leagues.” In reply to its braying it will receive an additional blow of the whip. And deservingly so!"
A Shift to Renewable Energy
Again fine, and capital is doing that anyway, but its not an immediate solution, certainly not for Europe dependent on gas, and absent workers control of production, nor is it something that is in the gift of workers to bring about by their own self-activity. And, the actual reality is that Biden is about to capitulate to the butchers of Saudi Arabia in order to try to get them to pump more oil to reduce the oil price to try to save his skin come the Midterm elections, a prospect that now looks forlorn as even a million registered Democrats have shifted their support over to the Republicans!
For a Socialist Europe
Great, but that’s like the old demand raised for everything of “Socialism Now” that is unrelated to the real world. Moreover, as far as Britain is concerned, how is that compatible with the fact that Starmer is a bigger Brexiter, nationalist and jingoist than was Corbyn. And, as far as Paul Mason’s candidacy is concerned, which was the point of Coatesy's original post, in which he listed these demands, how does it sit with his own capitulation to nationalism/patriotism, and his line that we should forget about even raising demands for a return to the EU?!
In short, these list of demands do not amount to a Marxist Programme of Action aimed at mobilising the workers on the basis of their own self-activity and self organisation. They are nothing more than a limp, petty-bourgeois list of liberal demands directed at capitalist states to please be nice.
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