Trotsky's First Speech On The Chinese Question To The Eighth Plenum of The ECCI, in Moscow in May 1927
Imperialism is that stage of capitalist development where large-scale, socialised, industrial capital dominates. Its mammoth scale requires long-term planning and regulation, not just of the individual capital, but of the total social capital/economy, via the state, and also requires ever larger, single markets, operating within the context of a world economy. Its rational form is a single global market and state. However, in the same way that oligopolies are only able to voluntarily combine for given periods, in cartels, before competition drives them apart, leading to the attempt of each to dominate the others, so, too, imperialist nation states are only able to voluntarily cooperate for given periods, before such competition breaks out between them, and they each seek to dominate, and establish a larger state, subordinated to it. Every business merger, turns out, on closer inspection, to be a takeover. As Trotsky says, in The Programme Of Peace, imperialist war and annexation is the means by which capitalism brings about this historically progressive task of destroying the nation state, and forging ever larger single markets and states.
It is, therefore, utopian and reactionary, to believe that this process has come to an end. In Europe, after WWII, faced with huge economic blocs, in the US and the USSR, and with, still, a residual, if rapidly declining, industrial power in Britain, Western European states voluntarily came together in the EEC/EU, at first dominated by France, and later by Germany, but, even here, without the formation of a state, it continually threatens to break apart, as Brexit indicated, and as the measures imposed on Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal threatened. The nation states that still persist within this framework continue to operate as such, jockeying for advantage within it, and that is consistent with the nationalist ideology of social-democracy.
It was that hope that Brexiters relied on, in their negotiations with EU officials, and its what holds back the EU in fully advancing its interests, as it remains subordinate to the more centralised and powerful US imperialism. But, the EU does pursue its own imperialist interest, as against that of the US, Britain, China, Russia and so on. That the pursuit of these interests, by all of these imperialist states, and proto-states, will lead to future imperialist wars, between them, is as inevitable as the previous imperialist wars, unless workers prevent them, by overthrowing capitalism. The NATO/Ukraine – Russia/China war is evidence of that reality that is developing as each day passes.
It is, then, liberal, pacifist, boneheaded nonsense for supporters of the USC to deny that part of NATO's strategy, in Ukraine, as in Taiwan, and the South China Sea, is not about seeking imperialist strategic advantage, just as Russia's invasion of Eastern Ukraine, and China's expanding global reach, has the same objective. Those, in the labour movement, that seek to deny that, play the same role as the imperialist leaders of the TUC, like Citrine, during the Chinese Revolution, as apologists for their own imperialism, i.e. social-imperialism. If socialists want to oppose imperialist war, and militarism, as against the historically progressive development of the world economy and world single market, it is necessary not only to oppose the militarism of one, but of all.
As Trotsky set out, in his own writings on Ukraine, opposing imperialism, there, from one quarter, could not be achieved by leaning on the support of some other imperialism, and the same applied in relation to China. The Stalinists made grand statements about the need for all workers' parties to conduct a struggle against imperialist intervention in China. However, at that very time, the Stalinists were engaged in the Anglo-Russian Committee with the TUC leaders, such as Citrine. One would expect, then, that they would insist on the TUC leaders engaging in such a struggle against the intervention of British imperialism in China, but they didn't.
“Does it not thereby objectively (in its British half also subjectively) help the imperialists of Britain in their work of preparing the war? Obviously and without a doubt.” (p 80)
And, the same is true of the USC. It opposes Russian aggression in Ukraine, but, not only does it not oppose the role of NATO militarism, in Ukraine, it actively encourages it, and apologises for it, including making liberal, pacifist, blockheaded comments about NATO having no strategic plans or motives for seeking to isolate or surround its Russian and Chinese imperialist rivals, as the world drives once more towards imperialist war on a global scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment