Paul Mason engages on this fictional romp through history, in order to attack “campism”, but seems entirely oblivious to the fact that his own position is the most blatant form of campism! He writes,
“Campism, then, is antithetical to most British left traditions”.
But, of course its not! The position of the vast majority of the British labour movement, in 1914, was based on campism. It supported the camp of British-French imperialism against the camp of German-Austrian imperialism, and the same was true in WWII. In fact, in his previous writings, Paul Mason has given support for that campist position in WWII, arguing that it was a war in which a “democratic-imperialist” camp was engaged in a war against a “fascist-imperialist camp”, in which workers should support the former.
And, its that campist position that he and the USC adopt today in relation to the NATO/Ukraine war with Russia. It is utterly ludicrous for him to have written this long rant attacking the campism of those in the camp of Putin, because if he looks at them, he only sees beaming back at him the reflection of his own image. They have placed themselves in the camp of Putin and Xi, whereas he and the USC have placed themselves in the camp of NATO/Zelensky. In both cases, that is not a consequence of some Leninist theory of the inability of the working-class to be able to overthrow capitalism, but a consequence of demoralised and debauched petty-bourgeois elements who long ago abandoned the principles of Marxism-Leninism, if they ever understood them, and who have collapsed into the reactionary politics of petty-bourgeois moralism and Kantianism.
The absurdity and contradictions in Paul Mason's apologism for the NATO imperialist camp he has chosen to support, shines out even within this single article. He writes, for example, of the post-war world in which US imperialism has held hegemony as
“the post-1945 order based on universal human rights and international law.”
Well, that description of the world would come as a surprise not only to millions who suffered still, as colonial slaves for a couple of decades after it began, but also to millions in Latin America suffering from US intervention, as well as in Vietnam, and elsewhere, including recently those kept at Abu Ghraib. Nor was there much evidence of deep concern for human rights and international law in the role of Britain in Northern Ireland. The contrast between his image of sweetness and light, brought by the benevolent despot of US imperialism, was even too much for himself to maintain, as a few paragraphs later, he admits,
“And if you were a victim of the CIA-backed coups and assassinations that scarred the post-war period, or of the deep racism of most Western countries”
That is of course, the same CIA that was the tool of that same US imperialism that was the guarantor of “the post-1945 order based on universal human rights and international law.” Really, if you are going to tout yourself out as a professional propagandist for NATO imperialism, you ought to try to get your narrative straight, at least within each article. But, even then, he can't stop his ideas contradicting each other from one line to the next. Having admitted that this rules based order founded on human rights, under the auspices of US imperialism/NATO is actually characterised by serial breaches of human rights and international rules by that very US imperialism/NATO, he argues for us to continue to place faith in it, and to reform it, and utilise it for future progress!
“The alternative logical response – to work for the reform of capitalism through social-democratic or Green parties; to advance social justice through self-organisation; and to promote the international rule of law - is unthinkable to many people stuck in a Leninist time-warp.”
Its not clear whether he means an actual Leninism, here, or the fictional Leninism he constructed in order to pursue the narrative of his article. Either way, it fails for the simple reason that social-democracy and reformist socialism has failed for more than a century, for the simple reason that the ruling class are not going to simply allow the working-class to reform it away, and will use the capitalist state to prevent them from doing so.
Salvador Allende followed that Stalinist/Menshevist Popular Front tactic promoted by Paul Mason, and the result was a CIA backed coup against him, that left him with a bullet in his head. The US similarly overthrew Mossadegh in Iran, in 1953, and installed the dictatorship of the Shah, and that was only because his nationalist government threatened US oil interests. Even the mild social-democratic government of Harold Wilson faced the possibility of a coup by the British ruling class. Yet, Paul Mason would have us believe that it is only Lenin and Leninists that, “override democracy, or carry out extra-judicial killings”, despite himself also having admitted the “ CIA-backed coups and assassinations that scarred the post-war period”.
Indeed, Paul Mason, himself, seems happy to proceed on the basis that the ends justify the means, and to follow in the tradition of former right-wing labour movement bureaucrats, when he tells us that, in response to UCU members, at their conference, passing a motion rejecting support for the camp of NATO/Ukraine, its top bureaucrat should “rightly” seek to “neuter” it.
But, at least Paul Mason does apply the logic of his own campism to its conclusion. He has previously described his support for the growing war preparations of NATO against Russia and China, globally, and sets out the implications of that, here, too.
“As for the PLP let’s be clear: Labour’s election manifesto will back increased defence spending, continued support for arms to Ukraine, a strengthened NATO and nuclear deterrence, and every Labour parliamentary candidate will be required explicitly to support that. It is therefore reasonable for to ask every Labour MP to make a statement in support of those policies now.”
Of course, this is embarrassing for those of his allies inside the USC, who have struggled might and main to avoid having to accept the logic of their own campist position, and admit its requirement to support NATO's global war drive, and the need to back much increased UK state defence spending. As Sraid Marx has commented in the past, the contradictions they face in their position have become more and more sharpened by the day, and Paul Mason, at least, has done the great service of highlighting the sharpening nature of those contradictions once more.
According to Paul Mason, Leninism believed, even in 1920, that the workers could not overthrow capitalism, and so needed to turn to various other forces. I have set out why that is nonsense, but let's take one of the examples he gives, that of support for Chiang Kai Shek, and the Chinese Kuo Min Tang, in the 1920's. He does not seem to understand, despite his years in Workers Power, that these events were the subject of a great political struggle within the Comintern between the Leninists represented by the Left/United Opposition, as against the Stalinists/Bukharinists, supported externally by the Menshevists. Trotsky and the Left Opposition fought relentlessly against the position of Stalin/Bukharin to subordinate the Chinese communists within the Kuomintang. It certainly was not their position that such forces were a substitute for workers revolution.
If you want to make an historical comparison, it is, in fact, Zelensky that occupies the same role that Chiang Kai Shek occupied. According to Paul Mason, and the USC, Ukraine is involved in a war of national liberation against Russia, just as China was involved in a war of national liberation, against Britain and other colonial powers. Trotsky pointed out that the Kuo Min Tang was a Chinese bourgeois party, just as Zelensky's government is a bourgeois government representing the Ukrainian oligarchs. Trotsky pointed out that the KMT was not truly an anti-imperialist force, because the bourgeoisie it represented was tightly connected to imperialist capital, and its "anti-imperialism" would always lead it to ally with one imperialist power in order to oppose another, and would do so, particularly against the Chinese workers and peasants themselves.
That scientific Marxist analysis, by Trotsky, of such conditions in the 1920's, can be seen to be not just valid, but observably manifest, in Ukraine today. Zelensky's capitalist government, is patently tightly enmeshed with imperialist capital, as is the Ukrainian capitalist ruling class it serves. Its "anti-imperialism" against Russia, involves a total alignment with US imperialism, and against the interests of Ukrainian and Russian workers alike, as well as the interests of workers in the EU, suffering the economic consequences of the war.
But, in fact, what Paul Mason falsely claims was the position of Leninism, was not even the position of the Stalinists either. The position of Stalin/Bukharin, as with the Menshevists, was that the order of the day in China was not proletarian revolution, but purely bourgeois-democratic revolution, the same position they held in February 1917 in Russia, and essentially the same position they held in proposing the Popular Front in France in 1934, and in Spain, though this was, then, more to do with trying to appease “democratic imperialism”, and seeking its support against any threat of attack against the USSR. In fact, their position, based upon the “stages theory”, of a need, not for proletarian revolution, but for a prolonged period of bourgeois-democratic development, and social-democratic reform, is far closer to Paul Mason's current proposals, for “the reform of capitalism through social-democratic or Green parties; to advance social justice through self-organisation; and to promote the international rule of law”.
He says,
“Once you delegate the task of overthrowing capitalism from workers to “anti-imperialist” dictators, by the same moral logic you can overlook the gross violations of human rights in Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and Russia - and even the destruction and atomisation of China’s underground labour movement.”
That is true, but, likewise, when you delegate the task of defending workers' interests to the capitalist state, let alone to NATO, as Paul Mason proposes to do, you end up denying the existence of a corrupt, anti-working class regime, and its association with fascists in Ukraine (See: Paul Mason Chokes On A Gnat, But Swallows A Camel), and you end up allying yourself with the criminal behaviour of NATO across the globe, forced into a contradiction of, on the one hand, talking about an international rules based system and human rights, and a few paragraphs later having to admit to its use of coups and assassinations!
And, that NATO imperialism has not been slow to install, or align itself with, other dictators and vile regimes across the globe, for its own global strategic advantage. As it used to admit, “He may be a bastard, but at least he's our bastard”. But, in aligning himself with that NATO imperialist camp, no matter how he might squirm and contradict himself, he is aligned with those bastards, and responsible for the crimes of NATO too. Its why his associates in the USC, have been so keen to try to act like Pontius Pilate, and wash their hands of any such close association with NATO, whilst just as much looking to it to do their dirty work.
Paul Mason says,
“The whole reason Putin has moved against Ukraine now is that – unlike in Russia – Ukrainian society is rapidly moving in a democratic, Western direction.”
But, as Sraid Marx has set out, that is simply untrue. Even western liberal sources have described the negligible differences between Ukraine and Russia in relation to measures of corruption, freedom and democracy, and, like Russia, those indicators have been getting worse in Ukraine, not better. But, again, that is just the sort of denial of reality Paul Mason is forced into, in order to justify his collapse into the camp of NATO/Ukraine.
The reason Paul Mason's article is even more frantic, and irrational than his previous missives, is set out in this final quote.
“Ukraine is about inflict a major military reversal on Putin, and his supporters in Britain are going to start doing even crazier stuff than they’ve done so far.”
The reality is that a year ago, he was telling us also that Putin and Russia were imminently going to be routed, complete with maps and diagrams illustrating the point. Nor was it going to be just in Ukraine/Russia, but would symbolise a global defeat for both Russia and China. It came along with other NATO propaganda that Putin was mad, that he was months away from dying from cancer, that a palace coup was imminent and so on. It all failed to materialise, and instead, Russia consolidated its position in Eastern and South-Eastern Ukraine. For the NATO campists, it was inevitably a defeat, as they tied their fate not to that of workers, but to that of NATO/Ukraine, and by implication of Russia.
All of the additional high-tech weaponry that the NATO campists demanded be poured into Ukraine failed to make any difference, as Putin did not do what they had been demanding he do, which was to press further into Ukraine. And, as I set out recently, all of that additional weaponry is next to useless in an offensive capacity in conditions of modern warfare, because tanks can be taken out by infantry carrying shoulder launched missiles, as can aircraft, and aircraft and missiles can be taken down by anti-missile systems. The NATO campists, like Paul Mason are becoming frantic that Zelensky has not launched the counter-offensive he promised, and the NATO weaponry that Paul Mason promotes is being shown to be very expensive scrap.
Workers in Britain and across the globe should be demanding that instead of wasting money on these means of destruction, governments, be they in Britain, the US, France, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, China or anywhere else, should be addressing the cost of living crisis, by putting those resources into meeting workers' immediate needs. Instead of the campists, on both sides, driving the world into Armageddon, they would be better to back workers in opposing their own states and governments in demanding higher wages, better public services and investment. The Main Enemy Is Still At Home!
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