The USC write, phrasing the question they want to answer,
“Q: When you focus on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, why do you ignore the May 2014 referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk in which 87% of citizens voted for independence, which was met by eight years of bombardment by Kyiv and the killing of 13,000 civilians, largely ignored by the world community?”
They then go on to answer this question, by arguing that the referenda and so on were not free, and do not show a clear desire for separation from Ukraine. On the basis of the argument I have set out, most of this is irrelevant, because the same arguments apply in relation to the independence of Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea as apply to any other question of national independence. In other words, our primary concern is the interests of the working-class as a whole, and so, although we support the right of free secession, we argue against that right being exercised, and nor do we support it being exercised where the result would be a war between much larger nations. As Lenin also put it,
“What is the lesson to be drawn from this concrete example which must he analysed concretely if there is any desire to be true to Marxism? Only this: (1) that the interests of the liberation of a number of big and very big nations in Europe rate higher than the interests of the movement for liberation of small nations; (2) that the demand for democracy must not be considered in isolation but on a European—today we should say a world—scale.”
(The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up)
A lot of time, therefore, could be expended to try to prove that these regions either do or do not seek to implement independence, without it taking us forward at all. Either way, the USC do not deny that such bombardment occurred for eight years, by the Ukrainian state, and so it has to be asked whether this was an appropriate response, and whether socialists, should not have been opposing it. A majority in Northern Ireland, opposed leaving Britain, and becoming part of a United Ireland, but most socialists did not support the actions of the British Army in suppressing and oppressing the Nationalist Minority, actions which further drove that minority into the arms of the petty-bourgeois nationalists of the Provisional IRA.
What is interesting, though is to compare this to the position some of those that support the USC adopt, in this respect, compared to that they have adopted in the past, in similar circumstances. Let us assume that these regions clearly do seek independence. Would that justify Marxists defending that right, in the face of a war, between Russia and Ukraine, let alone Russia (and potentially China) and NATO, as this national war became transformed into an inter-imperialist war? Clearly, on the basis of what has been said earlier, the answer is no.
Engels had set out the position.
“We must co-operate in the work of setting the West European proletariat free and subordinate everything else to that goal. No matter how interesting the Balkan Slavs, etc., might be, the moment their desire for liberation clashes with the interests of the proletariat they can go hang for all I care. The Alsatians, too, are oppressed, and I shall be glad when we are once more quit of them. But if, on what is patently the very eve of a revolution, they were to try and provoke a war between France and Germany, once more goading on those two countries and thereby postponing the revolution, I should tell them: Hold hard! Surely you can have as much patience as the European proletariat. When they have liberated themselves, you will automatically be free; but till then, we shan’t allow you to put a spoke in the wheel of the militant proletariat. The same applies to the Slavs. The victory of the proletariat will liberate them in reality and of necessity and not, like the Tsar, apparently and temporarily. And that’s why they, who have hitherto not only failed to contribute anything to Europe and European progress, but have actually retarded it, should have at least as much patience as our proletarians. To stir up a general war for the sake of a few Herzegovinians, which would cost a thousand times more lives than there are inhabitants in Herzegovina, isn’t my idea of proletarian politics.”
The role played by Tsarism at that time could be seen as, today, being played by US imperialism.
The argument was pursued by Lenin.
““But we cannot be in favour of a war between great nations, in favour of the slaughter of twenty million people for the sake of the problematical liberation of a small nation with a population of perhaps ten or twenty millions!” Of course not!”
And, of course, not only does that apply to those regions, but to Ukraine itself.
In the case of the Falklands War, there was no doubt about the question whether the Falkland Islanders sought not to be incorporated into Argentina. They clearly did not. Yet, the predecessors of today's AWL, the Majority Faction of the WSL, of which I was a part, in 1982, saw no reason why such clear determination to express this independence, on their part, could possibly justify the war fought to implement it waged by Britain, against Argentina, a war that would divide the workers of Britain and Argentina, and lead to thousands of lives lost on both sides, mostly lives of soldiers, themselves, as in all wars, largely drawn from the ranks of the working-class.
No comments:
Post a Comment