The USC next turn to claims about whether Ukraine is a nation state and so on. Given that I do not doubt that it is, and that, as such, it has a bourgeois-democratic, abstract right to self-determination my response, here, looks at the nature of the argument put by the USC. It is framed in purely bourgeois-democratic, and not socialist terms. In other words, it talks only in these abstract terms of a right to self-determination, and national independence, rather than what represents the interests of the working-class as a whole, and how it is affected by this war.
As set out earlier, that is completely at odds with the way Marx and Engels viewed matters when it came to questions of national independence in Europe, openly opposing it, as far as the small Slavic states were concerned, and viewing it purely through the lens of what they saw as coming proletarian revolutions, in respect of Poland, and the Franco-Prussian War. It is also at odds with the view expressed by Lenin and Trotsky, which itself flowed from those ideas of Marx and Engels, and from the concept of permanent revolution, in which such struggles could not be separated from the struggle for socialism.
It is specifically why, as Trotsky points out, in relation to the Chinese Revolution, and the position of the Stalinists of supporting the KMT, and apologising for it, even as it prepared to murder Chinese Communists, and in relation to Spain, where the same Popular Front strategy was adopted, Marxists emphasise the necessity for the organisational and political independence of the working-class, and only support these truly revolutionary forces, giving no support to, and standing in sharp and militant opposition to, the forces of the national bourgeoisie. Yet, it is precisely the strategy of the Stalinists of the Popular Front, in China and in Spain, that the USC promote, and one of its more well known supporters, Paul Mason, has been open about that, in his various writings and speeches, seeing the height of “anti-fascism” being the development of the Popular Front strategy at the 7th Congress of the Stalintern.
In each case, that Popular Front strategy was a disaster, and led to the slaughter of communists at the hands of the bourgeoisie (China), and of Stalinists (Spain, Korea, Vietnam etc.) Indeed, this latter case, is precisely why, contrary to John McDonnell's original article, the Left should not have been giving uncritical support to the Viet Cong, and whilst it had a duty to oppose the US war, it had no responsibility for supporting the Vietnamese Stalinists, as against supporting truly revolutionary forces in Vietnam up against both US imperialism, and the Stalinists!
Trotsky's approach to the Stalinist invasion of Poland, is relevant in that respect. Trotsky argues that “This measure, revolutionary in character – 'the expropriation of the expropriators' – is in this case achieved in a military bureaucratic fashion.” It is not based upon the self-activity of the working-class, and, the statisation of property is not the sole or main goal, but is the transformation of class consciousness. The Stalinists appealed for workers' support, but, as with Vietnam, it would “on the morrow undoubtedly be suppressed by ruthless police measures in order to assure the preponderance of the bureaucracy over the awakened revolutionary masses.” The role of the Stalinists, therefore, remained reactionary. However, he goes on, whilst that means we could not support the invasion, having happened, and property relations transformed, that does not mean we would be indifferent to them being overturned.
“Our general appraisal of the Kremlin and Comintern does not, however, alter the particular fact that the statification of property in the occupied territories is in itself a progressive measure. We must recognize this openly. Were Hitler on the morrow to throw his armies against the East, to restore “law and order” in Eastern Poland, the advanced workers would defend against Hitler these new property forms established by the Bonapartist Soviet bureaucracy.”
Or put another way, monopoly is progressive, and we do not argue for it to be broken up. However, we do not argue for capitalist monopolies, we argue for Socialism. The NHS, as a state capitalist enterprise, is progressive compared to private health insurance and provision, and we oppose it being broken up, for a return to the former. But, we do not argue for the NHS, as a state capitalist enterprise, we argue for a worker owned and controlled system of social insurance, and social provision.
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