The Alliance for Workers Liberty, is the latest incarnation of a group (the International Communist League) that I belonged to, in my youth, for 13 years. Its degeneration, therefore, saddens me in a way that the degeneration of other “Left” microsects does not. But, its degeneration occurred suddenly, before continuing in a thoroughly reactionary direction, in a way that is unusual. It is marked not only by its pro-imperialist stance, but also by its avowed Zionism, i.e. its commitment to an openly racist and colonialist ideology, which is also determinant of its overall reactionary politics.
That Starmer, Biden, Macron, Scholz and other representatives of imperialism/social-democracy (social-democracy is the form of bourgeois-democratic state in the era of large-scale, socialised capital tied to the state, i.e. imperialism) were fast off the blocks to condemn Hamas, and offer undying support to the Zionist state that has colonised Palestine, and oppressed, tortured and murdered Palestinians for over 75 years, in the face of numerous toothless UN resolutions, is not at all surprising. But, unfortunately, nor is the fact that the AWL has done so, and, in the true manner of social-imperialists, uses kitsch Marxist language to justify its thoroughly dishonest and reactionary position. In its statement, it begins with a series of demands.
“Against Hamas’s attacks
Against the collective punishment of Gaza in response
Against settler attacks in the West Bank
End the occupation: for peace and workers’ unity
For an independent Palestine alongside Israel: two states and equal rights”
Its notable that it starts with its condemnation of Hamas, rather than its condemnation of Zionist settler attacks on Palestinians, or of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, and oppression of Palestinians that is the basis of the response from Hamas. It inverts cause and effect, in order to provide an apologist defence of Zionism. The attacks by Hamas, and others are, indeed, not only reactionary, but irrational, and counter-productive, offering no solution for Palestinians, and certainly none for Palestinian workers, and only providing a further pretext for the Zionist state, and its imperialist sponsors, to launch further murderous and devastating attacks on Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere, including the potential of military strikes into Syria, and Iran, bringing with it, ever closer, the start of a global, inter-imperialist conflagration, that will destroy mankind.
However, those attacks by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and others, are the rather desperate and futile actions of an oppressed nation with little means of waging a more effective struggle. That does not mean that Marxists have to condone or support such actions. It does mean we have to recognise them for what they are, and the context in which they take place. When workers found, in the late 18th century, and early 19th century, that their livelihoods were being taken away from them by the introduction of capitalist machine production, their first response was, also, individualistic, terroristic, irrational, reactionary and counter-productive. They engaged in acts of sabotage and destruction of the machines – Luddism etc. Every worker who finds themselves in a position of being weak, and, potentially, where they are isolated, with little, effective, union organisation, is also tempted into similar acts of personal resistance, in the face of the onslaught of capital. Indeed, as Trotsky pointed out, in the 1930's, when the social-democrats and Stalinists lined up behind imperialism, and offered workers no revolutionary alternative, that drove sections of the workers to fall in behind the petty-bourgeoisie and the false solutions of the racists and fascists. It is repeatedly seen in irrational responses, such as "British Jobs For British Workers", where revolutionaries have failed to provide a credible alternative.
That we recognise and understand the material basis of such individualistic, irrational resistance, does not require us to support it, or condone it. Rather, our function, as Marxists, is to enable workers to go beyond it, but the starting point of that is to start from the conditions that lead to such actions, and to begin by analysing and condemning them, not condemning the response to them. Indeed, as Marx sets out, in The Poverty of Philosophy, it is the critique of those conditions, and formulation of the progressive response to them that forms the truly revolutionary element of the dialectic. As Marx and Lenin noted, where the petty-bourgeois moralist only sees “poverty”, the Marxist sees, also, the progressive solution to that poverty, resulting from its dialectical transcendence. That is the opposite to the bourgeois moralising of the AWL, in relation to its position on Israel-Palestine, which it uses to justify its Zionism and pro-imperialism.
Moreover, it is interesting to note the different stance that the AWL take in relation to these actions by Palestinians, compared to its attitude to similar actions by the corrupt Ukrainian state, in response to the occupation of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, by Russia. When it comes to Ukraine, the AWL are in favour of it launching attacks, on the occupying Russian forces, and of the Ukrainian state, obtaining weapons from wherever they can get them. When it comes to Ukraine, they argue that simply calling on Russia to end its occupation, is not enough, because to do so is tantamount to condoning its continued occupation, without supporting the right and ability of the Ukrainian state to militarily remove them. But, when it comes to the Zionist occupation of Palestine they use the exact opposite argument, simply calling, pointlessly, for the Zionist state not to do what everyone knows it is going to do, i.e. to implement collective punishment on Gaza, to continue its occupation of Palestine, and to continue to support the settlers in stealing further Arab lands, and carrying out attacks on Palestinians.
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