Ironically, given the original usage of the term “Third Camp”, by Lenin and Trotsky, to mean the independent camp of the proletariat as against one or other camp of warring imperialists, in WWI, and the attempt by the social-patriots and social-imperialists to drive workers into support for their own bourgeois ruling class, the Third Camp of the petty-bourgeoisie, does the exact opposite, as most clearly seen in recent times, in the support for NATO imperialism, and the imperialist state in Ukraine, in their war against Russian imperialism. It again forces the global proletariat to forego its own interests and to line up behind one of these two opposing camps of the bourgeoisie, distinguished only by these superficial political facades of “democracy” or “authoritarianism”. The AWL is the manifestation of this second trend.
The irrationality becomes manifest in the Ukraine-Russia war where the AWL/USC claim not only to be opposing Russian authoritarianism, but also imperialism, and do so by lining up behind NATO/Ukrainian imperialism, i.e. a reductio ad absurdum, in which “anti-imperialism” is also “pro-imperialism”. In reality, as Trotsky's analysis of the Chinese revolution showed, “anti-imperialism”, where it is not in the form of an independent proletarian struggle for socialist revolution, via permanent revolution, is always based upon an alliance with, and so subordination to, some other imperialism. He also made that point in relation to Ukraine, and to Czechoslovakia.
“Only hopeless pacifist blockheads are capable of thinking that the emancipation and unification of the Ukraine can be achieved by peaceful diplomatic means, by referendums, by decisions of the League of Nations, etc. In no way superior to them of course are those “nationalists” who propose to solve the Ukrainian question by entering the service of one imperialism against another. Hitler gave an invaluable lesson to those adventurers by tossing (for how long?) Carpatho-Ukraine to the Hungarians who immediately slaughtered not a few trusting Ukrainians. Insofar as the issue depends upon the military strength of the imperialist states, the victory of one grouping or another can signify only a new dismemberment and a still more brutal subjugation of the Ukrainian people, The program of independence for the Ukraine in the epoch of imperialism is directly and indissolubly bound up with the program of the proletarian revolution. It would be criminal to entertain any illusions on this score.
The worker and peasant masses in the Western Ukraine, in Bukovina, in the Carpatho-Ukraine are in a state of confusion: Where to turn? What to demand? This situation naturally shifts the leadership to the most reactionary Ukrainian cliques who express their “nationalism” by seeking to sell the Ukrainian people to one imperialism or another in return for a promise of fictitious independence.”
“It is impermissible to consider a war between Czechoslovakia and Germany, even if other imperialist states were not immediately involved, outside of that entanglement of European and world imperialist relations from which the war might have broken out as an episode. A month or two later the Czech-German war – if the Czech bourgeoisie could fight and wanted to fight – would almost inevitably have involved other states. It would therefore be the greatest mistake for a Marxist to define his position on the basis of temporary conjunctural diplomatic and military groupings, rather than on the basis of the general character of the social forces standing behind the war.”
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