Yes, Churchill Was A Villain

The Tory media have gone almost apoplectic at John McDonnell having the nerve to state the truth that Winston Churchill was a villain not a hero.  Of course, right-wing Labour MP's have been quick to distance themselves from McDonnell's comments, with Rachel Reeves on "Politics Live" ridiculously proclaiming that "Churchill won the war", before announcing that the gin soaked, colonialist, racist and anti-Semite Churchill was a hero of hers!  Even Tory peer Danny Finkelstein had the honesty to declare that Churchill was a racist.  Finkelstein is wrong, however, to claim that without Churchill he would not be alive, just as Andrew Neill on "Politics Live" was wrong in suggesting that without Churchill, Britain would have lost the war to Nazi Germany.

Taking these latter aspects of Churchill first, in relation to his supposed role in winning the war, it falls into that attitude to history much loved by the elites of raising the importance of individuals in history to ridiculously untenable levels.  But, even besides the fact that victory in the war could not be placed at the feet of one individual, which thereby denigrates the role of the millions of ordinary people who actually fought and died in that conflict, the truth is that Churchill in WWII, was responsible for pushing through multiple strategies, against the professional advice of his generals, which then resulted in disaster.  Those failures followed from Churchill's pursuance of his own pet projects, just as in WWI, his support for the Gallipoli campaign had resulted in disaster.

The truth is, of course, that Britain was effectively defeated in WWII, by the time of the disastrous and chaotic retreat from Dunkirk.  No doubt, if the Tories have a propagandist of equal calibre to Churchill, today, they will describe a similar disastrous, and chaotic retreat from Europe, resulting from a No Deal Brexit, in similarly ridiculous terms to the way, Dunkirk has since been described as some kind of "victory", purely because tens of thousands more British soldiers were not killed or captured during that debacle.  As Churchill himself said, history is written by the victors, and as he also said, he would write that history.  Had Hitler pushed on at that point, the British Army would have been mostly destroyed at Dunkirk, and the door would have been open for an invasion of Britain.  Hitler held back, probably because he continued to hold out the possibility of forming an alliance with Britain, against his real target, the USSR.  Germany had been holding talks with Lord Halifax, for precisely that ambition.  

In many ways, Churchill was rather like, the lucky generals that Napoleon described.  It was not his military strategy that was significant, but the failures of Nazi Germany to press forward its advantage, along with its own strategic blunders, such as moving from the bombing of arifields to the bombing of cities during the Battle of Britain.  Hitler, no doubt believed that there was a strong chance that Churchill would be dumped, as he still was not trusted by the British Tories.  In a similar way to the potential for Corbyn's Labour Party to come to the aid of a floundering Theresa May today, over Brexit, so too it was Attlee's Labour Party that put Churchill into Downing Street in 1940.  Even after he became Prime Minister, the Tories did not allow him top become Tory Party Leader, such was their distrust and distaste for him.  And, by 1940, Britain had been defeated in more or less every encounter with the forces of Nazi Germany, and, by 1942, with Japan in South-East Asia, again in the latter respect due to the failed meddling of Churchill.  Hitler hoped that Britain holed up in its island prison, cut off from the outside world, despite the still dominant role of the Royal Navy, which proved increasingly incapable of stopping German U-Boats from sinking vital supplies coming across the Atlantic, would be starved into submission, and that it would sue for peace, with Halifax replacing Churchill, supported by those same Tory newspapers, like the Daily Mail, that before the war had been vociferous champions of Mussolini's fascists, and Hitlers' Nazis, and with the Nazi supporting Edward VIII restored to the throne.  

The idea that Britain won the war, is historical nonsense, and the idea that Churchill won the war, is even more historical nonsense.  By 1940, Britain was already defeated, but Hitler miscalculated by not turning that defeat into reality, and instead turning his attention away from Britain towards his real target, the USSR,  In the same way that Britain was effectively defeated by 1940, so too, Nazi Germany was effectively defeated by December 1941.  It was defeated at the point that the USSR turned back the German army, outside Moscow, in a similar way to how the Tsar's forces had turned back those of Napoleon in 1812.  From the point that the USSR, using forces it had pulled from the East, after the threat from Japan had disappeared, as Japan through its focus in to different channels, after its defeat in 1939, by the USSR, at Khalkyn Gol, the USSR continued to push the German forces backwards.  Nazi Germany was defeated not by Britain, but the USSR, which lost 30 million people in the process of doing so.  It was facilitated in that by the supplies of materials sent by the US, after it entered the war, which enabled the huge soviet war machine, to produce armaments and military equipment in unprecedented quantities, to back up its huge armed forces, and to do so with some of the most effective machines developed during the war.

It was only effectively after the USSR had defeated the German military, and after the US entered the conflict at the end of 1941, that Hitler's error in not invading Britain, was exposed, as it meant that his forces were now tied up, and any possibility of an invasion of Britain was out of the question, and huge deployments of US forces, material and weapons flowed to Britain, enabling it to re-enter the war actively, and with most effect in North Africa.  If Churchill could be credited with anything it is with his relentless efforts to bring the US into the war on the side of Britain.  But, it was the USSR and the US that won the war, not Britain, and certainly not Churchill.

Had Churchill not been Prime Minister, then its impossible to say whether some other Prime Minister would have been able to get US support.  It is at least possible that some other Prime Minister might have been able to have sued for peace.  Hitler had told Halifax that if Britain gave him a free hand in Europe, he would leave Britain's colonies alone, for example.  Either way, after Germany's forces were defeated by the superior forces of the USSR in December 1941, and after Germany declared war on the US, in support of its ally Japan, after the US declared war on Japan, the writing was on the wall for both.  At worst, Britain might have faced several years of occupation, and a Vichy style government, as France experienced.  That would have tied up even more of Germany's forces, weakening it in the main fight against the USSR.  But, the defeat of Nazi Germany would still have happened at the hands of the USSR.

So much, for Churchill's war efforts that lead people like Rachel Reeves to see him as their hero, and leads Finkelstein to forgive him for his well known, white supremacism, racism, and anti-Semitism.  And, indeed, given Churchill's well known anti-Semitism, that has been brushed under the carpet in more recent times, it is odd that Finkelstein should see Churchill as a saviour of Jews like him, and without whom he thinks he would not be alive.  The fact is that Churchill like much of the British ruling class and aristocracy during the 1920's and 1930's, were ardent proponents of both Mussolini and Hitler, as they took on the growing forces of the organised working-class in their countries, and acted as a bulwark against the USSR.  British governments did little to support Jews across Europe, as they came under renewed pogroms from anti-Semitic forces, like the Nazis, despite widespread reports of what was happening.  Even the much hyped role of Britain in respect of the evacuation of Jewish children, via the kindertransport, fails to mention the inadequate degree to which that was undertaken, and the opposition even that faced from within the establishment.  And, of course, the main Zionist forces in Palestine, themselves saw Britain, and its colonialist politicians like Churchill as more of an enemy than Hitler, which is why they sought to form an alliance both with Nazi Germany, and with Mussolini's fascist Italy.

A look at Churchill's statements and actions show that he was a white supremacist bigot, and racist, as well as an anti-semite, whose views were extremist even for his day.  Using words that could equally have come from the mouth of Goebbels or Hitler, Churchill, as an MP arguing for British expansionism wrote,

"the Aryan stock is bound to triumph". 

When 14,000 black Africans died in British concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War, he wrote only 

“of his "irritation that Kaffirs should be allowed to fire on white men" . 

When the Kurds rebelled against British domination he wrote, 

"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes...[It] would spread a lively terror." 

Churchill argued that a couple of hundred of Gandhi's supporters should be stood against a wall and machine gunned to send out a message. And his solution to Gandhi was, that he 

"ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back." 

The economist Amartya Sen has shown that it was British policy that led to a terrible famine in India in 1943, which led to 3 million Bengalis starving to death. British officials begged Churchill to send food supplies to the area, but reminiscent of Tory policy in Ireland during the potato famine, Churchill refused. He said, 

“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion” 

He complained that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits", and also said the plague was "merrily" culling the population. 

When dying desperate people dragged themselves into the cities, Churchill responded with jeers. This hero of the Tory Party was a truly vile man, fitting of the party who's hero and representative he is. That Labour MP's like Rachel Reeves can revere him as their hero, just shows the extent to which they have fallen into the wrong party, in pursuit of their careers.

More Dodgy Data

It has been a common complaint during the EU Referendum debate that the data and information provided by both sides has been unreliable, or even deliberately deceptive.  That complain was again raised today on the Daily Politics as, Andrew Neil quizzed Tory MP Sarah Wollaston over her decision to switch from being a supporter of "Leave" to supporting "Remain".  During the discussion another bit of dodgy information was put forward, and it is an example of something I have discussed before.

During the interview Wollaston said that one of the things that had changed her mind was that her father had recently required the services of the NHS.  Not just that, and "Leave's"  use of dodgy data over the £350 million per week sent to the EU, which "Leave" say could go to the NHS, had changed her mind, she said.  The other thing, she said, was that her father, who is now 81, had trained as a mine clearance diver, and so the issue of avoiding further wars in Europe was important to him, and had influenced her thinking.

During the rest of the interview there were various further references to that, including by Andrew Neill, who spoke about her father's obvious bravery during the war.  Well, as soon as the reference was made, it was obvious to me that this was another piece of dodgy data.  I have no reason to doubt Wollaston's claim that her father trained as a mine clearance diver, as a teenager, and still less to doubt that she knows how old her father is.  But, then if as she says he is 81, that means he was born in 1935.  That then means that when war broke out he was 4, and when the war finished six years later, he would still only have been 10 years old!!!

So, he may well have trained as a mine clearance diver, but either he did that at a very, very young age, to have played any part in WWII, and the claim that he trained as such in his teens is wrong, or more likely he trained in his teens, but actually that would not have been until around 1951-3, nearly ten years after WWII finished.  That's not to say that he didn't perform those functions during some war, but it is pretty impossible for it to have been WWII.

What was more surprising was that also being interviewed was historian Andrew Roberts, who also failed to question the information.  As I have pointed out before, that is what happens when so many people in these positions are so young that anyone over the age of 60 is considered old, and anyone aged 75-80, is considered truly ancient, who must have been around to take part in the war.  Its a symptom of the fact that the war itself is now slipping further and further into actual history, but the references to it, in the media make it seem more recent than it actually is.

Its a bit like I was saying to someone recently that for those of use who grew up at the time, the music of the 60's, seems still like its modern music, but the fact remains that its now more than half a century old.

Andrew Neill should have recognised that someone only 81 could not conceivably have played any role in WWII, but in general could we now recognise that no one younger than 90 could have played any significant role in the war, which means that there are very few people who actually did still around.  Just because people seem relatively old compared to younger people does not mean that they are that old.

A Tale Of Contradictions - Part 2

Imperialism 2

In other words, even by the end of the 19th Century, the big industrial bourgeoisie had recognised that the very ideology of social-democracy that arose on the back of the Trade Union consciousness of bargaining within the system, could also be used to further its own interests against its small-scale competitors, and to create the kinds of conditions of stability, and social peace it required for effective Capital accumulation, under conditions where the now massive scale of investment required some degree of certainty, and where risk had to be minimised. The political implications of that in Britain are again described by Engels.

“The Reform Bill of 1831 had been the victory of the whole capitalist class over the landed aristocracy. The repeal of the Corn Laws was the victory of the manufacturing capitalist not only over the landed aristocracy, but over those sections of capitalists, too, whose interests were more or less bound up with the landed interest-bankers, stockjobbers, fundholders, etc. Free Trade meant the readjustment of the whole home and foreign, commercial and financial policy of England in accordance with the interests of the manufacturing capitalists — the class which now [These words belong apparently not to Bright but to his adherents. See The Quarterly Review, Vol. 71, No. 141, p. 273.-Ed.] represented the nation. And they set about this task with a will. Every obstacle to industrial production was mercilessly removed. ...

“The manufacturing capitalists set about the realisation of this their great object with that strong common sense and that contempt for traditional principles which has ever distinguished them from their more narrow-minded compeers on the Continent. Chartism was dying out. The revival of commercial prosperity, natural after the revulsion of 1847 had spent itself, was put down altogether to the credit of Free Trade. Both these circumstances had turned the English working class, politically, into the tail of the ‘great Liberal Party’, the party led by the manufacturers. This advantage, once gained, had to be perpetuated. And the manufacturing capitalists, from the Chartist opposition, not to Free Trade, but to the transformation of Free Trade into the one vital national question, had learnt, and were learning more and more, that the middle class can never obtain full social and political power over the nation except by the help of the working class. Thus a gradual change came over the relations between both classes. The Factory Acts, once the bugbear of all manufacturers, were not only willingly submitted to, but their expansion into acts regulating almost all trades was tolerated. Trades Unions, hitherto considered inventions of the devil himself, were now petted and patronised as perfectly legitimate institutions, and as useful means of spreading sound economical doctrines amongst the workers. Even strikes, than which nothing had been more nefarious up to 1848, were now gradually found out to be occasionally very useful, especially when provoked by the masters themselves, at their own time. Of the legal enactments, placing the workman at a lower level or at a disadvantage with regard to the master, at least the most revolting were repealed. And, practically, that horrid People’s Charter actually became the political programme of the very manufacturers who had opposed it to the last. The Abolition of the Property Qualification and Vote by Ballot are now the law of the land. The Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 make a near approach to universal suffrage, at least such as it now exists in Germany; the Redistribution Bill now before Parliament creates equal electoral districts-on the whole not more unequal than those of France or Germany; payment of members, and shorter, if not actually annual Parliaments, are visibly looming in the distance and yet there are people who say that Chartism is dead.”

Preface To The Second German Edition of “The Condition Of The Working Class"

The lessons for this Big, industrial Capitalist class was clear. The most effective means of Capital Accumulation was via the creation of Relative not Absolute Surplus Value. Under such conditions, a portion of the additional Surplus Value created could be shared with the workers, who bargained within the system, and were thereby persuaded that it could continue to meet their needs. The rising living standards of workers, who increasingly formed by far the largest group of consumers, also meant that Capitalists producing consumer goods had a domestic market for their products – a similar process is occurring in China, and other parts of South-Asia today. Where were similar conditions to these to be found? Not in the Colonies, but in Europe and North America. The initial fundamental requirement for this Big industrial Capital to invest was the existence of a bourgeois democratic state like the one it had at home, and which guaranteed the same kinds of social peace, and stability it had become used to. And, as a further incorporation of that Social-Democratic ideology, from the beginning of the twentieth century that Big Capital had seen the importance of the role of a large State in providing that level of security. Rather than risk workers developing their own independent organisations for the provision of Education, Health, and other forms of Social Security, the Big Bourgeoisie saw the advantage of providing those things itself through its State. If it wanted economic security for itself, then in part that economic security, and social stability also required that the workers had a feeling of security too. Having scrapped the small-scale Truck systems of the individual small Capitalists, they instituted their own massive Truck System in the form of National Insurance, and the deductions from Income Tax to cover State Education.

Of all people, the right-wing Libertarian, Frederick Hayek, whose ideas guided Maggie Thatcher and Keith Joseph sums up this approach in his book, “The Road To Serfdom” where he writes,

“... but there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity for work, can be assured to everybody. Indeed, for a considerable part of the population of this country this sort of security has long been achieved.

Nor is there any reason why the State should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance, where in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks, the case for the State helping to organise a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.” (p90)

He goes on to talk about the risks arising from the economic cycle, and the role that could be played in dealing with such risks via Monetary policy, which he says would not contradict Liberal values. In fact, in the US that was already the case in 1940 when Hayek wrote his book. The Federal Reserve had been established in 1913, and its clear purpose was to provide price and economic stability by the use of Monetary Policy.

The driving force of Capitalism is the accumulation of Capital, via the production of profit, primarily from Relative Surplus Value. It has found that the most effective conditions for achieving that are those described above. That is a kind of Social-Democratic Welfare State, which acts to provide the optimum level of economic and social stability in which long-term investment, and planning can take place. Bourgeois democracy, is itself fundamental to such an arrangement, because it is only through it that the frustrations and concerns of the majority of society, and in particular, of workers can be safely channelled, thereby avoiding the kinds of uncertainty in which investment cannot effectively take place, or where if it does, much larger returns are required to cover its risk premium. It is not surprising then, that the US never showed any great interest in that old decaying form of imperialism, of Colonialism, because by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was that new dynamic, Big industrial Capital that most clearly dominated the US, and before long it had found the form of organisation in the multi-national corporation of best exporting Capital around the globe. In fact, far from wanting to adopt that Colonial model the US set itself early on as its opponent, seeing in it the remnants of all those old, bureaucratic and monopolistic practices that typified feudalism, and against which the bourgeois revolution had been waged. If US Capital was to spread itself around the globe that had to go. Its reported that towards the end of WWII, Roosevelt had even proposed to Stalin an Alliance for that reason against Churchill, who he despised as a “drunken imperialist”. In the end, that was not necessary, because Europe had been so shattered by the War, and was so dependent on the US, that there was no way they could hold on to their Colonies, and had to accept the terms dictated to them by the US, including the dismantling of their old Empires.

Back To Part 1

Forward To Part 3

Proletarian Strategy - Part 6

The Weakest Link

In Part 5, I made the comparison between the strategic nature of a Workers State, and a Co-operative. Both represent a physical manifestation of Workers Property, of territory that can be won and held, and developed as a power base by workers. In the first case that is true not just in the sense of property in the form of enterprises, but in the fuller sense of actual geographic territory. There is another similarity. Lenin argued that the Russian revolution occurred because it was Capitalism breaking at the weakest link. It was easier for the Russian workers to carry through the revolution, precisely because of the condition of Russian Capitalism and the weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie. But, for the same reasons, it would be more difficult to construct Socialism – or even to compete effectively with the surrounding Capitalist States – than for a more developed economy. Similarly, the most frequent places where workers might establish Co-ops will be where they have been led to as a result of that firm collapsing. In a vibrant, dynamic, and profitable firm the existing Capitalist owners are not likely to voluntarily hand ownership to the workers. That doesn't make it impossible. Most such firms are publicly listed companies, and can be bought out. Indeed, I've suggested that if workers had control of the £800 billion in their pension funds, they could mobilise these funds to take over such companies on a strategic basis, and then use these companies as further leverage to take over further companies. But, as yet, we have not won that basic democratic right to control the money in our pension funds. The other alternative is to use the funds in the Co-op Bank, but currently there is no real workers democracy exercising control over the Bank, or the Co-op. As with the Trades Unions and Labour Party, a key part of working-class strategy involves a struggle for greater democracy within the Labour Movement.

However, as I have suggested, the development of modern industry has led to a situation in which the old argument about size being a limit to entry does not necessarily apply. The most profitable, most dynamic industries in the modern economy are those involved in high-technology of various kinds. Many of these industries require little in the way of Constant Capital (buildings, machinery, materials), but do require very highly skilled, complex labour-power. In fact, many of them are based on, and have been developed by Universities and their academics. There is considerable scope here, for a determined socialist, co-operative strategy. By developing worker-owned co-operatives in these enterprises, the kinds of problems encountered by the Worker Co-ops of the 1970's can be avoided. In addition, as the Lucas Plan demonstrated, the fact that workers take over a firm in a failing industry does not mean that they have to simply try to make what is failing under Capitalism succeed. Workers can switch existing production to other channels, where the specific benefits of a Co-op can be maximised.

Of course, none of that in any way suggests that none of these Co-ops will fail, or that there is some kind of linear progression. That is not true of any War, or very few. Every war sees advances and retreats. Territory is gained, and territory is lost. But, it is a very strange War, in which one side decides on principle, not to attempt to seize and hold on to territory for the fear of losing it! In many ways, this is the distinction that Gramsci made between a “War of Position”, and a “War of Movement”. In reality, people only adopt a strategy of war of movement, or guerilla tactics, because they begin from a position of weakness, a position in which they have no territory of their own to base themselves in and upon. That was the position that workers found themselves in, having been deprived of their means of production. But, it is ridiculous to make a virtue out of necessity, and refuse to establish your own territory. And unless you are an Anarchist, any force that did establish its own territory would not want to see it as just a piece of property in which everyone simply went about their activities as individuals. As soon as possible, it would be necessary to establish some form of Government, it would be necessary to establish means of making decisions, and of enforcing them. It would be necessary to look at how best production could be organised to strengthen your defences, and war fighting ability. It would be necessary to make alliances with others, and to consider how your forces could be combined to best effect. And, any kind of strategy would have to look at where further advances could be made, how the enemy could be undermined.

That is the whole point about the strategy that Marx and his followers adopted in relation to Co-operatives. Just as Trades Unions were rallying points to assemble the troops for the task of conducting battles that could establish some meaningful progress for workers, some advance that they could hold on to, so the Co-operatives were not the end in themselves, but the territory that the workers need to seize in order to make these further advances. The workers in the Co-op would need to establish a form of Worker Democracy to make the decisions, just as a force having seized territory would need to establish its method of decision making. In fact, the extent to which that form of Workers Democracy was seen by Workers as furthering their interests, the more it would be a reason for workers having secured it to defend it, and at the same time would be an inspiration to workers still exploited by Capital, to want to emulate it. That was the experience of the French Revolution, which even on the basis of a limited bourgeois democracy gave French workers something to defend, and acted to inspire workers in Britain. The same was true of the Russian Revolution. One of the biggest factors that led Peasants to support the Bolsheviks against the Whites, was the experience of how quickly the Whites reinstalled all of the cruelties of the old Tsarist system in those areas they were able to recapture. In WWII, as with any such War, a central aspect of strategy was to ensure that lines of communication were kept open, and that territory captured that was under attack could be supported. The same is true for a strategy of developing workers property. As Marx pointed out, the whole point of each Co-op being an integral part of a National Federation, was that not only could the surpluses be centralised so that they could be used to expand the number of Co-ops, and the degree of the economy in the Co-op sector, but it also meant that any individual Co-op could be provided with resources to overcome a short-run setback, rather like the system of Lend-Lease operated by the US towards its Allies in WWII. Moreover, the more different territories combining to provide such mutual support, means that the normal operations of specialisation, and exchange can operate. Similarly, a wide range of Co-ops involved in a range of activities can support each other, each using its specialisation to provide at lower costs for its partners within the Federation.

Back To Part 5

Forward To Part 7

A Reply To "Dave" On The Politics of The SWP & Fighting Fascism

This post is a reply to "Dave" following on from a discussion we have been having here


”For those of honest mind please read the following article (Daly Mail vs the Nazi’s) in the current edition of socialist worker, I think it makes my point:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19454”

What point exactly is it making??? For one thing its confused. I think there actually has to be a debate about the nature of the BNP, as the Weekly Worker suggest. On the one hand, I have myself pointed to the fact that the BNP has within it many thugs, and you do not have to look far to find thuggish behaviour from BNP members. Until recently, I too stood by the classical view of the BNP as a fascist party. However, having read some of the articles in the WW recently, I am prepared to take a more open view. I think to be saying to people that this is a classic “Nazi” party, when it has NOT been going out in an organised way to smash up Left meetings or Trade Unions as the Nazis did, when it is speaking out vehemently, against groups like the EDL, who are engaged in such activity, could simply undermine the left, in the eyes of workers, who look at those statements and compare it with the reality and find a mismatch. Certainly, we can make the point that it is doing this in order to win electoral support, but does not the fact of how such a process changed the Front National – and in a different context Provisional Sinn Fein, or in yet another the way in which electoralism changed “Socialist” parties, and changes individual “socialist” politicians – cause us to engage in a more in depth analysis of what the BNP is?

At the same time the SWP’s position is thoroughly confused. At the same time as running such stories attacking the bourgeois press and bourgeois parties, it then puts the leading representatives, like David Cameron, of that same bourgeoisie, on its platforms, or attaches their names to its campaigns. It even advises people on demonstrations, it has called, not to attack the racists of UKIP! Trotsky referred to such bankrupt politics when he said that once you start down this road you always end up giving your support to, or going into alliance with, ever more reactionary politicians, because there is always some “greater evil”, measured against which these politicians are themselves the “lesser evil”.

What is more such politics reflect the fact that the SWP does not operate on the basis of class politics, but works on the basis of a world in which politics is compartmentalised. Over here there is “industrial politics”, over here there is “Anti-racism”, over there there is “Women’s Work” or “LGBT Work”, over here there is “Anti-Imperialism”. And what it does is to say different things in each area. When its working in the “Women’s Work” area, for example, it will promote itself as the champion of women’s rights. The same when it is working in the LGBT area it will be the greatest proponent of Gay and Lesbian rights and so on. But, when it is working on anti-racism it will refuse to pursue these issues, for example as it did in Bradford a few years ago over the question of grooming, and will even accuse others of Islamophobia, for doing so themselves. When it is working in the area of anti-imperialism, for example supporting the murdering mullahs in Iran or Iraq, it will refuse to challenge the fact that these same people are murdering socialists, trade unionists, women and gays and so on. The reason it does this is quite clear. Rather than locating its politics on the basis of class politics, it bases itself on “building the party”, and in each area of work simply says whatever it thinks that particular milieu wants to hear. It acts in accordance with your policy of “diplomacy”, subordinating its politics to the need to not upset possible recruits. But, what this “diplomacy” actually amounts to is nothing more than the kind of Opportunism that the adherents of the Second International were guilty.
The piece also is politically inadequate for another reason. It attacks – quite correctly – the racism of the gutter press (which for reasons I set out in my blog I don’t think necessarily DOES reflect the interests of the Capitalist class, which requires social stability, and cheap imported labour). But, it is arrant nonsense to suggest that the support for the BNP is based solely on the ravings of the Daily Mail, or the reactionary politics of mainstream parties. The BNP have been picking up workers votes, because many of the least well-off sections of the working class feel that they have been shat upon from a great height. They believe they don’t have jobs, decent houses, school places and so on, because of immigration. They are, of course, wrong, but simply telling them they are wrong is not enough. They need someone to provide them with a solution to those problems – a political solution.

But, and this was one of the main points I have previously made, it is quite clear that neither the UAF, nor the other anti-fascist organisations that base themselves on trying to build Popular Frontist opposition to the BNP can possibly provide such a solution. The SW article certainly offers none does it? The UAF etc. cannot offer such solutions precisely because doing so means advocating CLASS politics, and if the UAF did that then the David Cameron’s, the Teddy Taylor’s, and all the Bishops, all the bourgeois Nationalists who want to oppose the BNP by pretending to be better Nationalists would disappear in an instant.

“Imagine how they feel when you present your immigration ideas! Imagine what that does to the image of socialism in their eyes but you are correct not to pander to ignorance and the SWP are correct also.”

What on Earth are you talking about? How can my position of holding to a clear class politics and arguing against Immigration Controls cause any confusion? My position is clear. I see workers as the revolutionary class. It is the job of a Marxist to stick with the workers even where they hold reactionary ideas, precisely because the task is to divest them of those ideas. I do not make acceptance of my ideas a precondition for sticking with the workers, but I do insist on the need for Marxists not to abandon their ideas. Compare that with the sectarianism of the SWP over the LOR strikes, where they recognised that those who argue for “Import Controls”, and “British Jobs 4 British Workers” are “proponents of racism”, and on that basis refused to support workers in struggle against the bosses!!!!! In fact, one reason they did that – along with many of the other sects whose natural recruiting ground is amongst the petit-bourgeois, student and intellectualist milieu where having “right-on” politics in respect of racism is paramount – was precisely fear that they would lose support and potential recruits.

“I am not sure they do anymore actually. They have evolved into banter, that is my impression. Just like the jokes against the Germans.”

I think you are deluding yourself if you do not believe that these jokes were only possible because they took as their starting point entrenched stereotypes. Its rather like the bloke who said to me down the gym the other week that he was not a racist, and then went on to tell me that he’d been reading Obama’s book, and related that “his father was like all these blacks and couldn’t keep his dick in his trousers.” I suppose that’s just banter too!

“As I said shame some do not see through this sham!!!”

I think it’s a shame you are not prepared to consider whether more analysis is required.

“Your response to my Bakunin jibe was thoroughly confused. I will try to summarise as best I can my take on this immense topic.”

I’m not confused at all, its your politics that are confused, because you start from some principal, and then completely abandon it when it comes to its application!

”I do not agree with the pro imperialist position of the AWL for a variety of reason, but I think Marxists should have opinions on international matters.”

Who would disagree with that?

“Of course those opinions must be based absolutely on the interests of the class struggle. We should also distinguish a conflict between imperialists and those wars of domination by imperialists against weaker states.”

But, the SWP does not do that. On Ireland back in the 60’s it started from a thoroughly workerist position refusing to take on the National Question and British involvement, because it was unpopular amongst British workers at a time when bombs were going off. Then it completely changed course and became cheerleaders for the Provos. Its statements about “We are all Hezbollah Now”, i.e. we are all a bunch of clerical-fascists, have nothing to do with basing yourself on the class struggle and everything to do with basing yourself on trying to win recruits in its currently chosen milieu!

Moreover, what does imperialism against weaker states mean? Was Germany a weaker state when it had been occupied and placed under domination by Britain and the US, for example? Moreover, even having made this distinction what are the political conclusions that flow from it. I’ve given the quote from Trotsky about a war between Brazil and Britain. But, his more detailed position is illustrated by his position in relation to Japanese Imperialism and China. The SWP’s position on these issues is effectively that of Stalin. That is they subordinate their own politics in order to enter a Popular Front with bourgeois nationalist forces – “we are all Hezbollah”. Compare that with Trotsky who opposed submersion of the Communist forces in the KMT, whilst at the same time arguing for support for the KMT and Chiang Kai Shek against Japan. But, what did that “support” consist of. It consisted of offering to forge a military alliance against Japanese Imperialism, whilst maintaining the clearest political and organisational demarcation from the KMT, in fact, sharpening the criticisms of the KMT, pointing out that it could not be relied upon to fight a battle to the death with Japan, that it would turn on the workers and so on.

He was, of course, absolutely correct, because having used the Communists, just as the Stalinists and Communalists used the SWP in Respect, Chiang turned round and massacred the Communists, just as the Stalinists and Communalists turned on the SWP. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

”Marx allowed himself to have an opinion on the war between Germany and France that led to the Paris Commune and at the same time he tasked the international to “put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with Ireland”.”

But, Marx’s solution was not to submerge class politics in bourgeois Nationalism. Marx was a Centralist. He was only reluctantly in favour of the separation of the Irish and British workers in order to resolve this problem. Even then he favoured a federal Ireland and Britain in order to try to maintain the unity of the class. And start to finish, even though he was writing before the much fuller discussion of the National Question by later revolutionaries like Lenin, his solution was based on the working class providing the answer. Compare that with the SWP’s kowtowing to the reactionary politics of all kinds of clerical-fascists and bourgeois Nationalists at the expense of class politics.

”On the Second World War I agree with many of your factual observations but looking back after the event we should see the differences in the warring states and recognise that for many people this was seen as a ‘just’ war against the evils of fascism. Here I am not talking about the people who fought in the war but subsequent generations who look back with hindsight. So bringing this back to the debate in question I regard the word Nazi as synonymous with ‘evil’ Fascists and not ‘evil’ Germans.”

And I have said I disagree, but apart from that disagreement, I would suggest to you that the concomitant of that is to give credibility to the very idea that this WAS such a War. It is to give credence to the idea that there WAS a common cause between British Workers and British bosses against this evil Nazism. In going along with all the crap about trying to deny the BNP Nationalist symbols like the Spitfire and Churchill, the SWP does lend credence to the idea that there was something to be proud of in such an imperialist War, and does suggest that the Spitfire and Churchill were “ours”. But, of course, the job of a Marxist is to do the exact opposite, to shatter that myth. The SWP, cannot do it, because today in its Popular Frontist organisations it IS in bed with those very same bourgeois forces!!!

“I do not think Marx would have looked at this conflict and concluded that they were all as bad as each other so it didn’t matter what the outcome was. He often voiced his preference of sides in such conflicts.”

Firstly, Marx was writing prior to the world being divided into competing imperialist powers. Secondly, he was writing prior to the fuller discussion of the National Question by socialists at the beginning of the twentieth century. And yes, in any particular conflict Marxists have to take a view based on what furthers the interests of the working class. Lenin gives the classic example of that when he speaks about subordinating the bourgeois democratic freedoms that might be fought for in a small state to the interests of the workers in two larger states who might be dragged into a war, as a consequence of a struggle for those freedoms.

”To quote Marx verbatim “You see what a caricature he [Bakunin] has made of my doctrines! As the transformation of the existing States into Associations is our last end, we must allow the governments, those great Trade-Unions of the ruling classes, to do as they like, because to occupy ourselves with them is to acknowledge them.””

This has nothing to do with the argument you are trying to make. Of course, Marxists do not simply throw up their hands, and say what Governments do in International Affairs is none of our business! Who is suggesting that??? Of course, Marxists oppose Wars and so on, but Trotsky was, of course, correct, and Marx I’m sure would not have contradicted him, when he said that such wars may not be OUR wars, but we will have them unless we are strong enough to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish our own state, because at the end of the day control over the military flows from control of that state!

”Your interpretation of my position I think shows you do not look at these events with the class struggle in mind, as your absurd implication that I would support the USA against Vietnam shows. Actually the opposite would be true.”

But, given what you said in your previous post about not being neutral between “fascist” and “democratic” regimes, and what you have repeated above there is nothing absurd in that conclusion at all. It flows logically from your position. Was not the US a bourgeois democracy of the kind you see as a lesser evil compared to fascism. Was not North Vietnam a Stalinist dictatorship, and didn’t Trotsky describe Stalinism as differing from Fascism only in its greater brutality? As you approve of the “diplomatic” alliances between workers and bourgeois to fight fascism then why should that not include an alliance with democratic bourgeois from other countries prepared to help in fighting the good fight? That is the logic of your position even if you are reluctant to accept it.

”For example, I wouldn’t support an attack on Iran but I would welcome an end to the clerical dictators by an uprising within Iran, even if the outcome was a more liberal ruling class. This would allow us to establish better links with the advanced workers in Iran. An attack by the West would set back that possibility for generations.”

That is exactly what the Stalinists proposed in their stages theory, and upon which they advocated the Popular Front. But, as I said, if this liberal bourgeoisie can be allied with in this way, then why not the liberal bourgeoisie of Britain and the US. Those who have taken your argument to its logical conclusion such as the Labour Friends of Iraq, argued precisely that, and like you pointed to the fact that we should not have been neutral between a victory for “democratic” Britain as against “Fascist” Germany in WWII. The AWL, whilst not completely taking the argument to its logical conclusion like LFIQ, at the same time, argue that this democratic imperialism was trying to establish some form of bourgeois democracy, in Iraq, as it had done in Germany and Japan. They too argue that this will allow “better links with the advanced workers in Iraq”. It is, of course, all nonsense, but it is far more consistent nonsense than the argument you are trying to make.

Pot And Kettle In Row Over Colour

Pot




Kettle



The Daily Mail today ran a large story attacking Nick Griffin as a "bigot". This is a bit like Adolph Hitler slagging off Benito Mussolini as a fascist!!! Were it not for papers like the Daily Mail, the Express and other gutter publications, spewing out bile, day in day out, for the last several years, in attacking Asylum Seekers and Illegal Immigrants, then its likely that the BNP would not have gained much of the traction it has. In fact, its a classic example of the contradictions that run throughout Capitalist society.

The Daily Mail is caught between trying to be a profitable newspaper, whose readership are the largely backward and ignorant sectors of society, the disgruntled middle classes and so on, whose general powerlessness leads them continually to look to someone weaker than themselves, some scapegoat on which to vent their frustration. To such people, stories about someone supposedly getting something they are not entitled to are red meat. If that someone is Johnny Foreigner, then, often, all the better. In order to keep such people happy, then papers like the Mail pump out a steady stream of stories, usually of the kind that any intelligent person would immediately call into question, but, which feed the bigotry and paranoia of Mail readers. Yet, at the same time, the Mail, like all the other Capitalist press is a part of the complex machinery of Capitalism's headfixing industry, and has to remember that it has to look after the interests of Capital, and in particular Big Capital, as well as pandering to the reactionary notions of the small businessmen and middle classes who make up its readership.

The small back street businessman might feel he is quite happy in his insular world on this "septic isle" to quote Del Boy, without need to relate to the wider world, and still less to the impositions of the Brussels bureaucracy, but the real Capitalists, the people to whom papers like the Mail are ultimately responsible, cannot afford to go along with such fantasies. To them, there is no existence outside the world of Global Capitalism, or outside their integration into the bloc of European Capital. And, for these Capitalists, the reality has been, over the last decade, that the British economy needed a steady stream of imported cheap labour. As unemployment fell, it became impossible to force indigenous workers to take on the low paid, low status work that needed to be done, and which was only profitable at such low wages. The alternative would have been to engage in the creation of mass unemployment and an almost complete dismantling of the Welfare State in order to force workers to take whatever job, and under whatever conditions, the bosses deigned to give. That would have caused a massive amount of social unrest, which would have been counter-productive for Capital.

Yet, importing cheap labour also caused social unrest, and papers like the Mail profited from it, by selling papers on the back of the unrest, just as the BNP grew on the back of that unrest. So long as the BNP remained just some small organisation that acted as a release valve for that unrest, so long as it was just a few immigrants getting beaten up by racist thugs, like those on this week's Panorama, the Mail and its clones could continue to feed the bigotry, and continue to sell more papers on the back of it. But, it has become clear that the growth of the BNP, the fact that it now has two MEP's has become uncomfortable for Capital. Capital has decided to rein it in. Hence the invite to Griffin to "Question Time", where the bosses agents hope to snare him - though on past performance they may have overestimated their own abilities in that regard - hence the newspaper attacks, hence the attacks on the BNP by the ex military top brass, hence the anti-BNP campaign launched by a number of prominent ex servicemen like Simon Weston, which is apparently being organised by some Tory activists, hence the leaking again of the BNP's membership list, probably by agents of the State working on the inside, and also probably hence the EDL.

The Capitalists only need fascist parties like the BNP when there back is against the wall. At the moment it is not. Capital is strong, bourgeois democracy is strong, despite all the broo ha ha over MP's expenses, whilst the working class is still yet weak, and its leaders almost non-existent. For now, the BNP represent a bigger danger for Capital than does the working class. During the 1970's and early 80's that was not the case. Then, it was the working class that was strong, and Capital was on the back foot. In a Programme a few years ago about the Secret State, an ex Special Branch officer recounted how, they alone, had 250 Trade Union leaders on their books as paid informants. Every Left organisation was riddled with police spies, or spooks of one form or another. Those of us, on the Left, took it for granted that our phones were bugged, and all my post arrived already opened. One comrade who worked at the Post Office told me that Special Branch had their own facilities for engaging in such action.

Its pretty certain that the State is engaged in similar actions inside the BNP and other fascist groups now.

The Daily Mail's attack comes on the back of the BNP responding to the Generals by comparing them to Nazi War Criminals. They have a knack for irony if nothing else. They argue that the Generals were as guilty as Blair and co for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. To an extent, of course, they have a point. When most people think of the idea of "Defending Britain", they think of defending the people of Britain. Of course, that is not what Capital means by that term, nor what its State means either. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were nothing to do with defending British people, but were to do with defending the global interests of British Capital! But, the row, in part, erupted over the BNP's use of WWII imagery, and, of course, WWII was just as much about defending the global interests of British Capital as was the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Britain did not declare war on Germany because Britain had been attacked. Indeed, during the 1930's the negotiations and machinations between the various powers was such that Britain and Germany could easily have been fighting on the same side! We now know that the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, who nearly became Prime Minister, even after the War had begun sent representatives sympathetic to Germany, to discuss with Hitler, a proposal that if Germany left the British Colonies alone, Britain would leave Europe to Germany!

And, of course, during the 1930's, that same Daily Mail was an enthusisastic supporter of Hitler, and of Mussolini, praising them both for their efforts in crushing the working classes of their respective countries. Indeed, that other WWII icon used by the BNP, Winston Churchill, was himself a well-known and rabid anti-semite. Finally, the remaining icon used by the BNP was the Spitfire. Living only a a mile from where the inventor of the Spitfire, Reginald Mitchell, was born, I feel some pride in the machine as a piece of technology. But, although its imagery is closely associated with the Battle of Britain - wrongly because the Hurricanes played a much larger role - the fact is that the same Spitfire was used by the British State to also keep in chains millions of British Colonial slaves throughout the Empire.

The reality is that in terms of Nationalism the BNP are probably more consistent in their ideas than are the Daily Mail, or even the military top brass. For them Nationalism is merely a tool to be utilised to further the interests of Capital. If the BNP want these Nationalistic images I say let them keep them, the interests of the working class lie not in such Nationalism and warmongering, but in Internationalism and the solidarity of workers against the bosses whatever their Nationality, colour or creed. The BNP and the Daily Mail and their ilk all deserve each other. They are all the enemy of the working class.

Global Zero - Deja Vu

Richard Branson has joined with others in a new venture called Global Zero whose intention is to rid the world of nuclear weapons over coming years. It seems a honourable venture, but for anyone that has studied history it is more like deja vu all over again.

States do not fight wars because they have weapons, nuclear, chemical or otherwise. Just the opposite is the case. They build arsenals because they fight wars! Moreover, it has always been the case that the main demand for disarmament, especially in periods of rising tension, has come from those that have the most developed means of producing weapons, and the biggest stockpiles of weapons. That might seem surprising, but a simple consideration of the facts shows why it isn't.

In every war throughout history the decisive weapons have been those developed in the course of the war. Every War begins with the use of the weapons that were used at the end of the last war, and ends with the weapons that will begin the next. It is no surprise that states with large stockpiles of legacy weapons see an advantage in trying to get all their potential adversaries to get rid of their weapons, for the cost of getting rid of their own old stockpiles. After all, they know that their productive and scientific industries will before hostilities begin provide tem with the basis of creating newer, better weapons than those they have so generously given up.

Countries such as Pakistan, India and other less developed states might have difficulty in cranking up production of such weapons when they have given them up, but does anyone really beleive that within weeks of a non-nuclear world entering another War, the US or any other advanced economy would not already have new, more deadly nuclear weapons ready to hurl at its opponents?

No, the threat of nuclear annihilation cannot be removed by such, no doubt, well-meaning ventures, it can only be removed by getting rid of the causes of such wars, not the weapons they are fought with. That means getting rid of Capitalism, and its most warmongering manifestation - Imperialism.

As, I have said before the situation we are in now is almost a clone of the situation that existed at the end of the 19th century, a situation that led Frederick Engels to identify that the world was headed inevitably towards a World War between the competing Capitalist powers. Throughout the 19th Century, Britain had strode the World like a colossus. Its economic power was unbounded, and on the back of that economic and industrial power rested its military hegemony. The 19th century saw booms and slumps within the world economy, and saw the emergence of the 50 year Long Wave cycles analysed by Kondratiev in the 1920's. But, the overarching power of Britain meant that the natural drive to war that stemmed from them at their point of conjuncture, as the Long Wave Boom came to an end, was mitigated, and constrained to minor conflicts. The overarching power of the US sicne World War II has played the same role, which is why the end of the last Long Wave Boom in 1974 did not lead to such a War.

But, by the end of the 19th Century, when the new Long Wave Boom began in the late 1880's, Britain's hegemony was lost. New more dynamic economic powers such as France, Germany, and the US had emerged that challenged Britain's supremacy. As Engels describes, the Germans had effectively infiltrated British manufacture and marketing, and used their contacts and knowledge to win for themselves markets away from Britain. A general prosperity meant that the scramble for markets and sources of raw materials was conducted largely within the confines of economic competition. Prosperity meant that competition for necessary raw materials could be fought out by simply paying a higher price, whilst still being able to make a handsome profit.

It is when the Long Wave Boom ends around 1914 that the strains that this creates become intolerable. It has been becoming increasingly impossible in the dying years of the boom to simply pay higher prices and still make handsome profits. Eventually no profits at all. In order to continue economic competition will no longer suffice. Britain, no longer the dominant economic power remains the dominant military power, and uses its military power to make up for its declining economic power, uses it to maintain its grip over its colonies, its protected sources of supply, and markets. Its competitors demand a share for themselves. War becomes inevitable. The same pattern can be seen now. The US has long since lost its position as the world's most powerful economy. It remains the largest economy, just as was Britain, but not most powerful. Even its size has largely been a mirage, a bloated, obese body gorged on cheap credit. But like Britain, it remains the most powerful military force, and its actions in Serbia, in Iraq and so on, demonstrate that it is more than prepared to use that military power to further the interests of US Capital, of creating strategic US positions around the world to maintain its control over important resources, and markets ready for when economic competition has to give way to the logical extension - military competition.

In the run up to WWI there was no shortage of people, particularly in Britain that proposed disarmament, and other pacifist slogans. Almost, to a man, the same people when War was about to break out sided with their own ruling classes and backed their side in the War. Even the socialists, the supposed Marxists - though they were nothing of the kind - who had organised hug Conferences, and demonstrations against the War, caved in. Only a few - the Zimmerwald Left - refused to be dragged along. But, in opposing the War, they still did not allow themselves to be dragged along by the kind of Pacifism that Branson's venture epitomises, and which shamefully most of the so called revoluitonary Left also advocates today. They made clear that Imperialist War was the necessary and inevitable consequence of Capitalist competition. It was not possible to prevent such wars by reformists measures, by street demonstrations, Parliamentary motions or other such devices which sought to control the actions of the Bourgeois State. As Leon Trotsky put it, workers can only control the actions of the State if they control the State.

But, the necessary conclusion from that is that such wars can only be prevented if workers take control of the State, and that means they have to overthrow Capitalism itself. It was necessary not to oppose the War by pacifist measures, but for socialists to become the best soldiers to fight alongside their fellow workers and explain this to them, and thereby ultimately to show that the answer to War was to turn their guns on their own rulers. That was to be revoluitonary defeatists, to advocate not the military victory of your opponent, but the revolutionary overthrow of your own rulers using the very weapons they had put at your disposal. In 1917, the Russian soldiers having done that to the Tsar, shouted across th trenches to their German comrades, "We have done our bit to end this War, by throwing out our Tsar. Now you do the same and throw out your Kaiser, then we can all go home."

Yet, despite the terrible tragedy of WWI with the loss of life of tens of millions of working people that simple lesson was not learned. In the run up to WWII it was not only the pacifists and reformsists that advocated the same kind of disarmamanet, and anti-war Conferences and demonstrations. Those who were supposed to be the heirs of Lenin and the Zimmerwaldists were at the forefront of such diversions. To his credit Trotsky opposed such moves. He called on socialists to engage in military training, to attempt to bring it under Trade Union control, to be the best soldiers and so on, and to build revolutionary nuclei within the armed forces so that at some point during the War, just s had happened in WWI, the forces would become available for a revoluitonary overturn in one or more of the contending adversaries countries. Yet, even within the ranks of the so called Trotskyists, certainly in the ranks of those that veered between the Trotskyists and the Stalinists and reformists, this posiiton was not at all universal.

Today, it is not at all so. The statism that infects the whole of the Left almost without exception leads to the kind of Pacifist nonsense that suggests that War can be stopped by Public Opinion, by mass demonstrations, by Conferences, or even by limited strikes. The implication is that the foreign policy of the capitalist State can be controlled by the working class, just as the implication is given that Workers can exercise "Workers Control" over capitalist property nationalised by that State without the working class being on the verge of ovethrowing it. The whole history of the twentieth century shows it cannot.

Workers can only exercise control over property when they themselves own that property, and even then the bouregoisie will try to use its State to frustrate even that. Less still can they control the State and its actions unless they own that State, unless it is their State. If the working class - indeed humanity as a whole -is to avoid a catastrophe on unimaginable scale when the current Long Wave Boom ends around 2020-2025, that lesson has to be relearned, and relearned quickly.

Marxists, The State and War

Yesterday, I wrote a short blog about the utter confusion of the AWL in relation to the Financial Crisis and how Marxists should respond to it. See: Wonderful Logic . The confusion arose out of their statist Lassallean politics, which in place of attempting to mobilise working class self-activity to resolve workers problems can only see the bourgeois state as the means of effecting solutions. There was more utter confusion in the article in the ludicrous economic theory presented there e.g. the idea that the needs of workers could be met by that State if it simply printed more money! That, of course is not the economics of Marx or even Lassalle, but the economics of John Law or Isaac Pereire, described in Capital by Marx as shysters.

The AWL’s politics in this as in pretty much everything nowadays was really bad, but in reality not much worse than most of the rest of the Left. Permanent Revolution tends to have a better grasp of economic theory, and a better understanding of the crisis, but they too are in thrall to Lassallean statism as much as the AWL. They too have nothing to say to workers, for example, in danger of losing their homes or unable to obtain homes, other than to recommend them to petition the bourgeois State to carry out good works on their behalf. See: Here .

I want to contrast the positions of both groups in the light of this Lassalleanism also in relation to the question of War. Take the AWL’s position above in relation to the Banks, and its method of arguing in relation to Iraq. In Iraq it says, “Marxists cannot demand that the Capitalist State (Imperialism) leave because, absent a sufficiently strong working class, the consequence of such a demand being fulfilled will be, in practice, the destruction of the Iraqi Labour movement.”

So, when the AWL raise the demand for the Banks and finance houses to be nationalised, do they assume then that in Britain, here and now a strong enough Labour Movement exists, and is mobilised, to ensure not only that such nationalisation occurs, but occurs in such a way as to benefit workers, that these institutions are placed under workers control and so on!!!!! If they do, then they really are flying around the cosmos with Posadas looking for extraterrestrials. But, if they do not – and from everything else they say they clearly don’t – believe that to be the case, then how, using the same argument they apply to Troops Out of Iraq, can they raise a demand, the consequence of which they KNOW must have the opposite consequence of that they seek???? In other words the only way that nationalisation of the Banks etc will occur here and now is for the purposes, and on the basis on which it has ALREADY occurred, that of serving the interests of the Capitalist class. For a Marxist as opposed to a Lassallean that comes as no surprise, because contrary to what the AWL now appear to believe about the nature of “democratic imperialism” and its good works, the function of the Capitalist State is precisely to do that to act in the interests of the Capitalists, not the workers!

The reality is the AWL know this, but having given up on the working class they raise these demands not as demands placed in front of the working class, but as recommendations to the bourgeoisie on whose actions they have now come to rely. They cove themselves with Leftish verbiage and demands they know the bourgeoisie will not implement simply as a cordon sanitaire so that they can say at some future point, well we didn’t ask them to do this, or we said they should do the other as well, but they didn’t.

The AWL’s position in Iraq really means relying on the the bourgeois state on “democratic imperialism” to fight the workers battles, because they have no faith in the workers being able to do that. Permanent Revolution, however, do call on the workers in Iraq to fight their own battles, and reject the idea that imperialism can do that for them, or that it is a lesser evil compared with the workers clerical-fascist opponents. But, as my debates with them recently – see link above – have shown their Lassalleanism shows through in the question of War as much as in their calls to the bourgeois state to resolve workers housing problems.

In one of those discussions Bill Jefferies commented, in response to my point that their demand for the State to intervene over the housing question was no different from the AWL’s reliance on the bourgeois State in Iraq,

“Was it "unlikely" in fact "highly unlikely" in fact "so unlikely that it was virtually inconceivable" that the bosses would drop their plans to attack Iraq.

It was.

Should we have refused to campaign against the war? Or stated on every leaflet, "although we oppose the war, there's really very little chance of success, we don't think there's anyway the capitalist state will alter its essence and halt the attack, sorry to shatter your illusions. By the way we want street blockades and strikes which could get you arrested and sacked."

The utter confusion of the Lassallean statism is exposed here as clearly as in the AWL’s demands in relation to the financial crisis. On the one hand we are told that although PR start by knowing that the bourgeois state will not accede to its demands the purpose is really not to obtain its accession to them anyway. It is in reality all just a pantomime through, which the working class can see that bouregois State exposed because it does not accede to them! Yet, they object to beginning that process with what ought to be the very obvious action for anyone wanting to so expose that State on that basis, that is to pointing out from the very beginning precisely the fact that it was “so unlikely that it was virtually inconceivable" that the bosses would drop their plans to attack Iraq.” They feared raising such propaganda for fear of “shattering the illusions” of those who might take part. The very illusions the whole pantomime they tell us was to be staged to bring about!!!!

So, in reality in calling for “Troops Out” in Britain what PR are left with is similarly a demand addressed not to workers, but to the bosses. For a Marxist a demand for “Troops Out” addressed to workers in Britain could only mean a demand that those workers engage in a campaign of strikes and other measures to frustrate Britain’s war drive, and thereby assist their Iraqi comrades fighting that Occupation. In other words all those kinds of actions, like those of the US dockworkers, which Bill thinks workers in Britain should not be called upon to undertake,

“By the way we want street blockades and strikes which could get you arrested and sacked."

as he put it sarcastically.

In other words, PR are left with nothing more than bourgeois pacifism in Britain, pointless demonstrations to call on the bourgeois State to do things it will not do, and they know it will not do, just like the demonstrations the pacifists organised before WWI, or the pacificists, Stalinists, and Social Democrats organised prior to WWII. It has nothing to do with Marxism.

For a Marxist the demand “Troops Out” addressed to Iraqi workers is a demand for those workers to build factory committees, workers defence squads and so on in order to build the necessary infrastructure for a revolutionary war against the Occupation. For a Marxist the demand “Troops Out” in either country can never be a demand let alone a request made to the bourgeoisie. It is a demand addressed to workers NOT to rely on the bourgeois State to recognise it as their enemy, and to take matters directly into their own hands.

The Lassalleanism of the Left has led them into all of the same pacifistic mistakes of the Left in the past. Prior to WWI only a few Marxists avoided that mistake. The Zimmerwald Left refused to get drawn along behind all of that pacifistic nonsense of calling on the bourgeois State not to go to War. They knew that that was precisely what the Capitalist States were going to do whether they demanded otherwise or not, whether they held huge demonstrations against War or not. The task of Marxists was to oppose the War by direct working class action, by socialist Parliamentarians refusing to support War Credits and so on, but knowing, and saying so openly, that War could not be prevented short of an overthrow of the bourgeois state, by turning the guns on your own ruling class. That was precisely what revolutionary defeatism meant, and nothing more.

The idea that workers can control the foreign policy or the military policy of the capitalist state is dangerous nonsense as Trotsky outlined. He wrote,

"Where and when has an oppressed proletariat “controlled” the foreign policy of the bourgeoisie and the activities of its arm? How can it achieve this when the entire power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie? In order to lead the army, it is necessary to overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize power. There is no other road. But the new policy of the Communist International implies the renunciation of this only road.”

See Here

Yet, this is what the Lasalleanism of both the AWL and PR leads to. PR want to “control” British foreign policy by street demonstrations, and so on to persuade the British State to withdraw the troops. The AWL wants to control British foreign policy by demanding that it act “progressively” in Iraq.

Whilst, independent working class action in Iraq CAN force the withdrawal of imperialist troops, especially if supported by the international working class, it can only do so by smashing the State structures created by imperialism, and replacing them with new state structures not tied to imperialism. In Britain, workers cannot force the withdrawal of British troops against the will of the British State, similarly, without smashing the British State, as Trotsky outlines above. They can engage in actions such as strikes and so on to undermine the British State’s role in Iraq, but it will not be their actions which cause a withdrawal. Rather it will be the actions of Iraqi workers. Imperialist forces will leave for one of three reasons. Either they are militarily deafeated and forced out, or else the economic, military and political cost becomes too high, or imperialism has acheieved its objectives.

The position Trotsky took prior to WWII in his advice to revolutionaries compares starkly with the statism and pacificsm of those who call themselves Marxists today. His position was this. Just as with WWI the War was coming and inevitable. It could not be stopped by pacifistic demonstrations and conferences such as those the Stalinists were supporting which attempted to control the foreign policy of the capitalists states – see quote above. War could only be stopped by revolution, and revolution nearly always came after War had begun. Rather then, he argued, that when the bosses State called for military training workers should accept that call on the basis of it providing the necessary training to turn the guns on the bosses. Just as Marxists should seek to be the most conscientious, most skilled workers in a plant in order to gain the respect of other workers, Marxists in the armed forces should seek to be the most skilled, the most brave for the same reason. That way in both cases they are more likely to be listened to, and although, he says, that when the Marxists forewarn the other workers, fighting alongside them, of what is to come, of how the bosses State will betray them, they will not be listened to, when their words come to pass the workers will begin to listen to them, they will be able to begin to form a nucleus of worker soldiers around them, and that is how the guns do come to be turned on the bosses. That is how revolutions begin. They do not begin by making appeals to the bouregois State, like Oliver Twist asking “Can I have some more please.”

What If The AWL Quoted Trotsky Correctly?

Before I went away Llin Davies contacted me to say that the posts she had made to the AWL website in relation to the debate over “What if Israel Bombs Iran?” had all been deleted. Nothing new there then as this seems to now be the way that the AWL deal with debate – either shout down your opponent, censor their views, or of they are a member of their organisation demand an oath of allegiance in front of a star chamber. Llin posted me to ask if she could post her comments here as an article and I agreed, but it was difficult while I was away, and for a period unable to get an Internet access to arrange the details. Llin’s post is given below.

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The main reason I posted a comment on the AWL site, in respect of the debate over an Israeli attack on Iran, was a comment by Mark Osborn, which was so blatantly a falsification of Trotsky’s position in relation to the Second World War that I didn’t think it should be left to go unchallenged. I have since seen many more instances where the AWL completely misrepresent the views of Trotsky, and do so in a way that means that they must understand that they are misrepresenting him, that this is no longer a question of simple mistakes but an indication of a systematic distortion for their own sectarian ends.

Mark Osborn wrote,

“Nevertheless, the Trotskyists who followed Trotsky’s lead on this clearly recognised that, while they could not support the Allies, there was a real difference between, for example, German Nazi imperialism and the imperialism of the US.”

See: Here .

Ironically, his comment was titled “sects and lying sects”. Is this true? Did Trotsky, make such a distinction between “Fascist” imperialism, and “Democratic” Imperialism? No, it is not at all true. In fact, the very opposite is the case. I wrote back to say so, and as evidence quoted Trotsky’s criticism of the Palestinian Trotskyists, a criticism levelled for the very reason that the Palestinians WERE making the very distinction that Mark osborn attributes to Trotsky!

Trotsky, wrote,

“We maintain that in the quarter of a century that has elapsed since the outbreak of the last war, imperialism has come to rule even more despotically over the world; its hand weighs more heavily on events during peacetime as well as wartime; and finally, that under all of its political masks, it has assumed an even more reactionary character. In consequence, all the fundamental rules of proletarian “defeatist” policy in relation to imperialist war retain their full force today. This is our point of departure, and all the conclusions that follow are determined by it…..

Monarchist reaction in the last war, they state, was not of an aggressive historical character, it was rather a survival, whereas fascism nowadays represents a direct and immediate threat to the whole civilized world. The struggle is therefore the task of the international proletariat as a whole in peacetime as well as wartime. It is only natural if we become suspiciously wary: such a narrowing down of revolutionary tasks – replacing imperialism by one of its political masks, that of Fascism – is a patent concession to the Comintern, a patent indulgence of social-patriots of the “democratic” countries….

They focus their attention on fascism, as the immediate threat to the world working class and the oppressed nationalities. They hold that a “defeatist” policy is not applicable in those countries which may be at war with fascist countries. Again, such reasoning over-simplifies the problem, for it depicts the case as if the fascist countries will necessarily be found on one side of the trenches while the democratic or semi-democratic are on the other. In point of fact, there is absolutely no guarantee for this “convenient” grouping. Italy and Germany may, in the coming war as in the last, be found in opposing camps. This is by no means excluded. What are we to do in that case? Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to classify countries in accordance with purely political features : Where would we assign Poland, Rumania, present-day Czechoslovakia, and a number of other second-rate and third-rate powers?

The main tendency of the authors of this document is apparently the following: to hold that “defeatism” is obligatory for the leading fascist countries (Germany, Italy), whereas it is necessary to renounce defeatism in countries even of doubtful democratic virtue, but which are at war with the leading fascist countries. That is approximately how the main idea of the document may be worded. In this form, too, it remains false, and an obvious lapse into social-patriotism….

They do not take sufficiently into account the fact that in the epoch of decaying capitalism shifts and semi-shifts of political regimes occur quite suddenly and frequently without altering the social foundation, without checking capitalist decline. On which of these two processes must our policy be based in such a fundamental question as war: on the shifts of political regimes, or on the social foundation of imperialism, common to all political regimes and unfailingly uniting them against the revolutionary proletariat? The fundamental strategic question is our attitude toward war, which it is impermissible to subordinate to episodic tactical considerations and speculations….

But even from the purely episodic standpoint, the above-cited idea of the document is incorrect. A victory over the armies of Hitler and Mussolini implies in itself only the military defeat of Germany and Italy, and not at all the collapse of fascism. Our authors admit that fascism is the inevitable product of decaying capitalism, in so far as the proletariat does not replace bourgeois democracy in time. Just how is a military victory of decaying democracies over Germany and Italy capable of liquidating fascism, even if only for a limited period? If there were any grounds for believing that a new victory of the familiar and slightly senile Entente (minus Italy) can work such miraculous results, i.e., those counter to socio-historical laws, then it is necessary not only to “desire” this victory but to do everything in our power to bring it about. Then the Anglo-French social-patriots would be correct. As a matter of fact they are far less correct today than they were 25 years ago, or to put it more correctly, they are playing today an infinitely more reactionary and infamous role….

If there are chances (and there indubitably are) that the defeat of Germany and Italy – provided there is a revolutionary movement – may lead to the collapse of fascism, then, on the other hand, there are more proximate and immediate chances that the victory of France may deal the final blow to corroded democracy, especially if this victory is gained with the political support of the French proletariat. The entrenchment of French and British imperialism, the victory of French military-fascist reaction, the strengthening of the rule of Great Britain over India and other colonies, will in turn provide support for blackest reaction in Germany and Italy. In the event of victory, France and England will do everything to save Hitler and Mussolini, and stave off “chaos”. The proletarian revolution can of course rectify all this. But the revolution must be helped and not hindered. It is impossible to help revolution in Germany otherwise than by applying in action the principles of revolutionary internationalism in the countries warring against her….
But the Czech working class did not have the slightest right to entrust the leadership of a war “against fascism” to Messrs. Capitalists who, within a few days so safely changed their coloration and became themselves fascists and sub-fascists. Transformations and recolorations of this kind on the part of the ruling classes will be on the order of the day in wartime in all “democracies”. That is why the proletariat would ruin itself if it were to determine its main line of policy by the formal and unstable labels of “for fascism” and “against fascism”….

That policy which attempts to place upon the proletariat the unsolvable task of warding off all dangers engendered by the bourgeoisie and its policy of war is vain, false, mortally dangerous. “But fascism might be victorious!” “But the USSR is menaced!” “But Hitler’s invasion would signify the slaughter of workers!” And so on, without end. Of course, the dangers are many, very many. It is impossible not only to ward them all off, but even to foresee all of them. Should the proletariat attempt at the expense of the clarity and irreconcilability of its fundamental policy to chase after each episodic danger separately, it will unfailingly prove itself a bankrupt. In time of war, the frontiers will be altered, military victories and defeats will alternate with each other, political regimes will shift. The workers will be able to profit to the full from this monstrous chaos only if they occupy themselves not with acting as supervisors of the historical process but by engaging in the class struggle. Only the growth of their international offensive will put an end not alone to episodic “dangers” but also to their main source: the class society.”

See: Bulletin of the Russian Opposition

Could Trotsky’s words be any clearer here in affirming that there could be NO question of making a distinction between imperialism in its “fascist” mask as opposed to its “democratic” mask? No, there could be none. Yet, in reply, Sean Matgamna tried to quote back this very piece to prove that Trotsky here WAS arguing for such a position. He quoted, one passage from the above,

“If there were any grounds for believing that a new victory of the familiar and slightly senile Entente (minus Italy) can work such miraculous results, i.e., those counter to socio-historical laws, then it is necessary not only to “desire” this victory but to do everything in our power to bring it about. Then the Anglo-French social-patriots would be correct.”

To suggest that because eventually democracy was established in Germany and Italy Trotsky WAS arguing for such a distinction. But, of course, in 1939, Trotsky did not know that such an occurrence would happen so he could hardly be basing his opinion on an event he did not know would occur! Far from it, he believed the opposite would be the case.

Is it just an accident that Sean in trying to make this argument left out the very next sentence of Trotsky from that quote, which says,

“As a matter of fact they are far less correct today than they were 25 years ago, or to put it more correctly, they are playing today an infinitely more reactionary and infamous role….”,

and thereby completely reverses the meaning which he wants to attribute to Trotsky’s words?

You will not find that post of Sean, because it, along with my original post to which it was replying, have simply been deleted, clearly because they are so damning to the AWL’s position.

Sean also tried to argue that because Trotsky had been wrong about democracy not being established in Germany and Italy that meant that it was necessary to rethink Trotsky’s position, but then the AWL cannot have it both ways, either Trotsky’s position was what they claimed it was, in which case no re-evaluation is necessary, or else when they claimed that Trotsky distinguished between “fascist” imperialism and “democratic” imperialism they were blatantly misrepresenting him in order to claim him for their position. In order to further muddy the waters, and misrepresent Trotsky, Sean also referred to Trotsky’s writings in relation to the Third Period.

The reply to that line of argument is really three-fold. Firstly, to establish beyond doubt what Trotsky’s position was in relation to the Two Masks of Imperialism, Secondly, to distinguish between what Trotsky said in relation to the Third Period, where he was talking about relations WITHIN a particular State, and what he says in relation to imperialist war between states, and finally to look at what the actual experience of the period after WWII was.

Again all of the posts on both sides relating to this have been deleted, so I can only provide here the points I made in relation to the argument.

I responded to the first point by providing a long list of quotes from Trotsky just from his writings for 1938-9, some of which even use the term “the two masks” in describing imperialism in its “fascist” or “democratic” form, as identical. As Trotsky makes clear time and again, what is important is not the superficial political regime which acts as a mask, but the economic and social base on which that regime stands. Time and again the AWL, as adherents of the Third Camp, fall into that trap of basing themselves on that superficial analysis of the political regime rather than the class nature of the State.

The list is given below.

1. Page 18 of Writings 1938-9 is all about this synonymy.

2. "Fascism is a form of despair in the petit-bourgeois masses, who carry away with them over the precipice a part of the proletariat as well. Despair as is known, takes hold when all roads of salvation are cut off. The triple bankruptcy of democracy, Social Democracy and the Comintern was the prerequisite for fascism. All three have tied their fate to the fate of imperialism. All three bring nothing to the masses but despair and by this assure the triumph of fascism." (p19)

3. "Three hundred fifty million Indians must reconcile themselves to their slavery in order to support British democracy, the rulers of which at this very time, together with the slaveholders of “democratic” France, are delivering the Spanish people into Franco’s bondage. People of Latin America must tolerate with gratitude the foot of Anglo-Saxon imperialism on their neck only because this foot is dressed in a suede democratic boot. Disgrace, shame, cynicism – without end!" (p20)

4. The following quote could be used completely in relation to an attack by Israel on Iran.

"The democracies of the Versailles Entente helped the victory of Hitler by their vile oppression of defeated Germany. Now the lackeys of democratic imperialism of the Second and Third Internationals are helping with all their might the further strengthening of Hitler’s regime. Really, what would a military bloc of imperialist democracies against Hitler mean? A new edition of the Versailles chains, even more heavy, bloody and intolerable. Naturally, not a single German worker wants this. To throw off Hitler by revolution is one thing; to strangle Germany by an imperialist war is quite another. The howling of the “pacifist” jackals of democratic imperialism is therefore the best accompaniment to Hitler’s speeches. “You see,” he says to the German people, “even socialists and Communists of all enemy countries support their army and their diplomacy; if you will not rally around me, your leader, you are threatened with doom!” Stalin, the lackey of democratic imperialism, and all the lackeys of Stalin – Jouhaux, Toledano, and Company – are the best aides in deceiving, lulling, and intimidating the German workers." (p21)

Virtually nothing has to be changed here other than the names of Ahmedinejad for Hitler, and Matgamna for Stalin.

5. "The Czechoslovakian crisis revealed with remarkable clarity that fascism does not exist as an independent factor. It is only one of the tools of imperialism. “Democracy” is another of its tools. Imperialism rises above them both. It sets them in motion according to need, at times counterposing them to one another, at times amicably combining them. To fight against fascism in an alliance with imperialism, is the same as to fight in an alliance with the devil against his claws or horns." (p21)

6. The following quote sets out what Trotsky believes should be the position adopted towards the agents of “democratic” imperialism in the workers movement such as the AWL.

"The struggle against fascism demands above all the expulsion of the agents of “democratic” imperialism from the ranks of the working class. Only the revolutionary proletariat of France, Great Britain, America, and the USSR, declaring a life and death struggle against their own imperialism and its agency, the Moscow bureaucracy, is capable of arousing revolutionary hopes in the hearts of the German and Italian workers, and at the same time of rallying around itself hundreds of millions of slaves and semi slaves of imperialism in the entire world. In order to guarantee peace among peoples we must overthrow imperialism under all its masks. Only the proletarian revolution can accomplish this." (p21)

All the above from “Phrases and Reality”

7. "And what does democracy signify in Great Britain? The maintenance of what exists, that is above all the maintenance of rule of the metropolis over the colonies. The same is true in relation to France. The banner of democracy covers here the imperialist hegemony of the privileged minority over the oppressed majority.

In the same manner we cannot speak of fascism “in general”. In Germany, Italy, and Japan, fascism and militarism are the weapons of a greedy, hungry and therefore aggressive imperialism. In the Latin American countries fascism is the expression of the most slavish dependence on foreign imperialism. We must be able to discover under the political form the economic and social content." (p26)

8. "In certain circles of the intelligentsia at present the idea of the “unification of all democratic states” against fascism enjoys popularity. I consider this idea fantastic, chimerical, capable only of deceiving the masses, especially the weak and oppressed peoples. Really, can one believe for even a single moment that Chamberlain, Daladier, or Roosevelt are capable of carrying on a war for the sake of the abstract principle of “ democracy”? Had the British government loved democracy so much, it would have given freedom to India. The same is true of France. Great Britain prefers the dictatorship of Franco in Spain to the political rule of the workers and peasants, because Franco would be a much more pliant and reliable agent of British imperialism. England and France have given Austria to Hitler without resistance although war would be inevitable if he so much as dared touch their colonies.

The conclusion is that it is impossible to fight against fascism without fighting against imperialism. The colonial and semi-colonial countries must fight first of all against that imperialist country which directly oppresses them, irrespective of whether it bears the mask of fascism or democracy." (p27)

9. "This bureaucracy does not trust the masses but fears them. It seeks rapprochement with the ruling classes, especially with “democratic” imperialists. To prove this reliability, Stalin is ready to play the role of policeman throughout the entire world." (p27)

That seems to sum up the AWL position in Iraq and elsewhere, though without Stalin’s ability to actually play a significant role.

The above quotes from “Fight Imperialism to Fight fascism”

10. "In order to understand correctly the nature of the coming events we must first of all reject the false and thoroughly erroneous theory that the coming war will be a war between fascism and “democracy.” Nothing is more false and foolish than this idea. Imperialist “democracies” are divided by the contradictions of their interests in all parts of the world. Fascist Italy can easily find herself in one camp with Great Britain and France if she should lose faith in the victory of Hitler. Semi fascist Poland may join one or the other of the camps depending upon the advantages offered. In the course of war the French bourgeoisie may substitute fascism for its “democracy” in order to keep its workers in submission and force them to fight “to the end.” Fascist France, like “democratic” France would equally defend its colonies with weapons in hand. The new war will have a much more openly rapacious imperialist character than the war of 1914-18. Imperialists do not fight for political principles but for markets, colonies, raw materials, for hegemony over the world and its wealth." (p32)

11. "In wartime all differences between imperialist “democracy” and fascism will disappear." (p32)

12. "Those working class “leaders” who want to chain the proletariat to the war chariot of imperialism, covered by the mask of “democracy,” are now the worst enemies and the direct traitors of the toilers. We must teach the workers to hate and despise the agents of imperialism, since they poison the consciousness of the toilers; we must explain to the workers that fascism is only one of the forms of imperialism, that we must fight not against the external symptoms of the disease but against its organic causes, that is, against capitalism." (p32)

13. "I am not sufficiently acquainted with the life of the individual Latin American countries to permit myself a concrete answer on the questions you pose. It is clear to me at any rate that the internal tasks of these countries cannot be solved without a simultaneous revolutionary struggle against imperialism. The agents of the United States, England, France (Lewis, Jouhaux, Toledano, the Stalinists) try to substitute the struggle against fascism for the struggle against imperialism. We have observed their criminal efforts at the recent congress against war and fascism. In the countries of Latin America the agents of “democratic” imperialism are especially dangerous, since they are more capable of fooling the masses than the open agents of fascist bandits.

I will take the most simple and obvious example. In Brazil there now reigns a semi fascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!" (p33)

All the above from “Anti-Imperialist Struggle is key to Liberation”

See: here

14. "The United States only exists as a “guardian of liberty” for Haya de la Torre: we see in that country the most immediate danger and, in a historical sense the most threatening." (p101)

15. "to base a strategical calculation upon the idea that the United States is a permanent defender is something else. We consider the opportunist position not only erroneous but also profoundly dangerous because it creates a false perspective and hinders what is the real task, the revolutionary education of the people." (p101)

16. "Can it be that Haya de la Torre simply proceeds from the premise that the imperialist domination of the United States is a “lesser evil”….The “democracy” of the United States at the present time is nothing more than one expression of its imperialism." (p102)

17. "It is self-evident that one who considers the North American imperialist bourgeoisie the “guardian” of the colonial peoples liberty cannot seek an alliance with the North American workers." (p102-3)

All the above from “Haya de la Torre and Democracy”

18. "The attempt to represent this brawl of interests and appetites as a struggle between “democracy” and “fascism” can only dupe the working class." (p233)

19. "The Social Democracy and the Comintern are concluding deals with democratic imperialism “against fascism” and “against war”. But their “lesser evil” inescapably retreats before a greater evil." (p342)

The above from “Ten Years”.

Those quotes, just from one volume, should I think prove the point. No wonder the AWL deleted such an indictment of its method and its politics.

Having done that, what of the argument about Trotsky’s articles during the Third Period? In fact, what they have done is to misrepresent things as much as they did with the above quote, which turned Trotsky upside down by leaving out the vital last sentence from the quote. Of course, Trotsky distinguished in Germany between fascism and social democracy arguing they were not twins. But, that argument has nothing to do with distinguishing between “fascist” imperialism and “democratic” imperialism in a conflict BETWEEN states as the above quotes show. And Trotsky was talking here of the difference not between fascism and democracy, but between the Nazis and the Social-Democrats.

If we take the argument about fascism and democracy itself, for example in relation to Spain, then again the AWL’s argument is not that of Trotsky but that of Stalin and the Popular Front. In telling workers that “fascism” is a “greater evil” than “democracy” as opposed to two different masks for the same class oppression they drive the workers towards an alliance with the bourgeoisie as surely as did Stalin in Spain. Trotsky in Spain as much as in France for example in the “Action Programme” does not tell workers to fight for bourgeois democracy as a “lesser evil”. In fact, if you read what he says he is not actually arguing for a defence of bourgeois democracy at all; he is arguing for socialist revolution under cover of an inclusive struggle for bourgeois democratic freedoms. How could he do otherwise, the whole basis of Permanent Revolution is that, in the age of imperialism, bourgeois democracy can only be secured via proletarian, rather than bourgeois, revolution. Nothing of what he says either in relation to Spain or France is about defending bourgeois democracy per se. He does not speak about the struggle for bourgeois democracy being via alliances with the bourgeoisie, as the AWL end up with in terms of Israel/Iran, or imperialism in Iraq, or with Yeltsin in Russia, or Imperialism in Serbia, in Tibet and so on, but in violent opposition to that bourgeoisie, which will, even in its Liberal democratic form, tomorrow throw off that mask in favour of the fascist mask. He does not speak of waging that fight through bourgeois democratic means such as through Parliaments, but through the establishment of Factory Committees, Peasant Committees, and Workers Militia. He speaks, particularly in Spain, of a struggle for bourgeois democratic freedoms by the workers seizing the factories and property of the bourgeoisie!

The Action Programme for France

Again Trotsky stands on the opposite side of the barricades to the AWL.

Turning to their argument that we have all the experience of the period after the War which Trotsky’s writings could not address. They say Trotsky was wrong in his prognostication to the Palestinians. True, but was the general thrust of his argument correct? In Germany, the post war regime was hardly democratic was it? It was stuffed to the gills with former Nazis!!! They occupied prominent places not just as politicians but as high ranking Civil Servants and judges with the full approval of the imperialists! Whilst accommodating Nazis there were laws against socialists, which, for example, legally blacklisted them from various jobs, and that law remained in force as late as the 1970’s, it also covered censorship of various socialist ideas.

See Here

Or as its put here:

“Simpson, Christopher. The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. New York: Grove Press, 1993. 399 pages. Reprinted in 1996 by Common Courage Press, Box 702, Monroe ME 04951, Tel: 800-497-3207.

It's common to read biographies of men who waged war during the first half of the century, when issues were clear and warriors could be heroes. So when Christopher Simpson takes a look at two cases of genocide -- the slaughter of Armenians in World War I and Hitler's holocaust -- it's a surprise to discover that things are not so simple. Allen Dulles, for example, helped a number of Nazis to escape, and worked for the greater glory of postwar Germany, which also meant a better bottom line for the German industrialists he represented before the war. While later claiming to be unwilling victims of the Nazis, these industrialists were happy to contract with the SS for forced labor from concentration camps, because it was profitable. They got off easy at Nuremberg; the Allies felt that rapid reconstruction would be a hedge against revolution in war-ravaged Europe.

The larger point of this well-documented book is that complicity in genocide ranged far and wide, on both sides of the front in both wars. When it came time for accountability, international tribunals were stymied by the same machinations of privilege and power that started the problem in the first place. The structure of international law is weak, and easily overruled by elites who simply want to "get on with business."”

We also have as late as the late 1960's the attempt assassinate the student leader Rudi Dutschke because of his role alongside the Trade Unions to oppose the Emergency Laws which withdrew basic consitutional rights.

In France, the post war regime of De Gaulle was hardly a model of democracy nor its continued role in Algeria and other colonies. Let’s not forget DeGaulle’s Coup D’Etat in 1959 either. Nor was Britain a model of democracy in relation to its colonies and its tactics in Aden or against the Mau Mau. Japan has had a corrupt one Party state effectively under the rule of the LDP, for the last 60 years nearly.
Sean himself has written of the fact that in Britain what we have is an elected Dictatorship as opposed to bourgeois democracy. I seem to recall having read one of his articles somewhere where he also described De Gaulle’s regime as Bonapartist, and one of their comrades I have a vague recollection of claiming that Bonapartism was a normal condition for capitalism. Bonapartism might not be fascism, but its not bourgeois democracy either!

So, which version do the AWL want to have us believe; the version that “democratic imperialism” spreads bourgeois democracy and sweetness and light, or the version that Bonapartism and a decay of bourgeois democracy are endemic.

Finally, let us do what Sean asks and look at the experience of imperialism in the post war period and see how much “democracy” it has spread.

1940’s – handed over millions of people in Eastern Europe to Stalinist totalitarianism.

1950’s – supported corrupt and brutal military dictatorships in Korea and Vietnam and elsewhere. Overthrows democratic regime of Mossadegh in Iran, and installs Dictatorship of the Shah. In Latin America overthrows nationalist governments that challenge interests of US big business, and installs and supports corrupt military and semi-fascist dictators. British and French imperialism in conjunction with Israel launch invasion of Egypt, not for any democratic reason, but purely for profit and control of the Suez Canal.

1960’s - US imperialism takes over from French Imperialism in supporting military Dictatorship in South Vietnam, drops more bombs on Vietnamese than whole of Second World War, bombs non-combatant nations in Cambodia and Laos, paving the way for Pol Pot’s murderous regime in Cambodia. US having for a long time supported the corrupt Batista Dictatorship in Cuba, tries to put him back in power when Castro overthrows him. US continues to interfere in Latin America and support a range of fascistic and military regimes. France continues its less than democratic policy in Algeria and other colonies. Various imperialist powers support a range of fascistic and militaristic regimes in Africa from Haille Salassie to Idi Amin to Mobutu.

1970’s – US imperialism threatens to “destabilise” Italy if its people elect “Communist” government in democratic elections. Britain dismisses “democratically” elected Gough Whitlam Labour Government in Australia. US continues its less than democratic support for the military regime in South Vietnam, and its even less than democratic bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. (Of course, the AWL’s mentor Max Shachtman supported that action, whilst the ideological creator of the “Third Camp” – James Burnham - had by that time gone the whole hog, and was supporting fascistic politics.) US continues to support Dictatorship of the Shah until he’s overthrown. US continues to intervene in Latin America. British imperialism introduces the not very democratic system of “internment” read concentration camps in Northern Ireland, a part of the State which hardly qualified as meeting basic bourgeois democratic norms for the Catholic population to begin with.

1980’s – US actively supports Dictatorship of Saddam Hussein including provision of conventional and chemical weapons in order that he can conduct a proxy war against Iran who whilst hardly qualifying as bourgeois democratic does unlike Iraq at least hold elections with competing parties. US does deal with Iran in Iran-Contra scandal in order to provide arms to the extreme right-wing and murderous contras in Nicaragua. US supports the semi-fascist regime, Death Squads and all in El Salvador. US invades Grenada because it doesn’t like the government there. Makes films about its great wartime success there to cover its defeat in Vietnam. US imperialism through its ally the military Dictatorship in Pakistan provides arms, and assistance to the clerical-fascist gangs in Afghanistan that seek to overthrow a Soviet backed modernising regime, and put in its place a medieval theocratic regime that murders and rapes gays and women. Creates its own Frankenstein in the form of Bin Laden. Imperialism in general continues to support militarist and fascistic Dictatorships around the world for example in Saudi Arabia, and other undemocratic regimes such as Jordan, Kuwait and other Sunni Arab oil states.

1990’s – Imperialism invades Iraq. Its long running active support for Apartheid in South Africa, however, does come to an end.

Yes, they are right we should take all that into consideration of the experience of “democratic” imperialism over the last 6o years, in assessing the two masks of imperialism – the democratic and the fascist.


Llin Davies