Marxism, Zionism and the National Question - Reform and Revolution

Marxism, Zionism and the National Question

Reform and Revolution

Lenin distinguishes three categories of countries – the advanced capitalist countries; the countries of Eastern Europe, Balkans and Russia, and the colonies and semi-colonial countries. In the first category, there were, now, no progressive national movements, and these countries oppressed others. In the second, bourgeois-democratic revolutions were taking place at the start of the twentieth century. Here, the task was increasingly seen as falling to the workers to accomplish this task, as part of the socialist revolution. This is the basis of Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution. That meant the socialists in the oppressor countries, e.g. Russia, had to emphasise the rights of nations to self-determination, or as Lenin later phrased it, the right to secede,  but that the socialists in the oppressed nations had to emphasise the need for voluntary integration of nations.

“In this connection the most difficult but most important task is to merge the class struggle of the workers in the oppressing nations with the class struggle of the workers in the oppressed nations.”

(The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)

In the colonies and neo-colonies, the bourgeois-democratic revolution had not begun, at the time Lenin was writing. Socialists had to argue for the immediate liberation of them. That process was completed in the 1960's. With that, the historical period in which the demand for self-determination had any revolutionary content comes to a close. Its use now becomes, as with its use by the chauvinists in WWI, a cloak for demands for “defence of the fatherland”, and, thereby, nationalist and reactionary. The revolutionary demand, today, is the internationalist demand for the voluntary integration of nations. It is that which also flows from the creation of a world economy, and of multinational capital.

A central aspect of that voluntary integration is the struggle for political reforms, and the rights of minorities. Lenin sets out, in contrast to the Proudhonists and others, that, in the national question, reform and revolution are not opposites, but complimentary. In order for a revolutionary break to occur, it must usually be accompanied by a period of reforms. The reforms, or at least the struggle for the reforms, take the shape of demands for equal political rights and freedoms.

Examples in more recent times are the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, or the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, as well as the Civil Rights Movement in the US. All of these political struggles, are ones in which the working-class, across nations, nationalities, or ethnic and religious divides can be united. The role of socialists in oppressor nations or groups is to emphasise the need to introduce such reforms, because, just as no nation can be free that holds another in chains, so this applies to all these other divisions. The struggle for these political reforms does not mean that the end goal should be, or will be, a revolutionary break, but it does create the best conditions in which such a break can occur, if that is what the oppressed minorities decide is required. It creates the basis upon which such a break can be peaceful, and create the least divisions of the working-class.

The example Lenin gives, here, is Sweden and Norway. In this case, the pinnacle of such reforms was the establishment of autonomy for Norway. But, this autonomy still did not mean that Norway was equal with Sweden, and so the Swedish ruling class retained privileges that were mitigated but not abolished. This is the difference between a reform and revolution, Lenin says.

“As long as Norway was merely autonomous, the Swedish aristocracy had one additional privilege; and secession did not “mitigate” this privilege (the essence of reformism lies in mitigating an evil and not in destroying it), but eliminated it altogether (the principal criterion of the revolutionary character of a programme).

Incidentally, autonomy, as a reform, differs in principle from freedom to secede, as a revolutionary measure. This is unquestionable. But as everyone knows, in practice a reform is often merely a step towards revolution. It is autonomy that enables a nation forcibly retained within the boundaries of a given state to crystallise into a nation, to gather, assess and organise its forces, and to select the most opportune moment for a declaration ... in the “Norwegian” spirit: We, the autonomous diet of such-and-such a nation, or of such-and-such a territory, declare that the Emperor of all the Russias has ceased to be King of Poland, etc.”

(The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up)

This may well be the case with Scottish independence, or Catalunyan independence, whether we believe that such independence, of itself, is a progressive development. Similarly, I would argue that in Israel-Palestine, the correct Marxist strategy, given that all Palestinians, be they inside Israel itself, or within Gaza and the West Bank, which exist essentially as vassals, and dependencies of Israel, must be a struggle, here and now, for equal political rights of Palestinians with Jews. That is a political struggle to be fought jointly by Jewish and Palestinian workers, together, and the onus in that struggle falls upon Jewish socialists in Israel to champion it. That struggle, so long as Palestinians do not have their own separate state, must include the right to vote in Knesset elections, for all Palestinians, as well as the right to send representatives to it; it involves the right of Palestinian majority areas, such as Gaza and the West Bank to administrative autonomy; it involves a right to migrate to, and move freely within, Israel and the occupied territories.

It may be that, out of this process, the Palestinians, as with the Norwegians, form themselves into a nation capable of creating an independent nation state, in which case the autonomous Palestinian parliament, as with that of Norway, could simply declare its independence, but, arising on the back of years of joint struggle, by Jewish and Palestinian workers, this would be under completely different conditions to those of suspicion and hostility that currently exists between these communities.

But, such reforms do not necessarily lead to a revolutionary break, and the establishment of a new class state. On the contrary, Lenin sets out the presumption is against the creation of any new class state, except in exceptional conditions. We are in favour of tearing down borders not erecting new ones. The Civil Rights Movement, in Northern Ireland, was not conducted on the basis of creating a new Catholic state in the North, or even of just a redrawing of the border between the North and the Republic. The Civil Rights Movement in the US was not conducted on the basis of creating a new independent black state, in the US. That had been the programme not of socialists but of black nationalist like Marcus Garvey.  The links between Garvey and the Ku Kux Klan, and other white separatists, mirror the links between Zionism, and other such nationalists and separatists like the Nazis, and indeed the relations between US Zionists, and white supremacists, today, inside the pro-Trump movement.

Rather, the strategy of Marxists is to combine the political struggle with the class struggle. Our goal is not the creation of some new class state, nor, as in the case of the social chauvinists, to defend the continuance of existing class states under cover of the demand for self-determination, as a proxy for defence of the fatherland, of national borders and national privileges, but is the overthrow of the existing class state, and its replacement by a workers' state as the only real basis upon which the rights of workers can be guaranteed, irrespective of nation, ethnicity or religion.

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The Economic Content of Narodism, Chapter 4 - Part 8

The reality of Russian agriculture was that large amounts of the peasant's production went to cover redemption payments, taxes, interest payments and merchant's profit. Of the rest, its distribution amongst the peasantry, as a whole, was not at all even. Yet, Struve ignores all of this complex of social relations, and simply notes that “production is insufficient”. 

Lenin then turns to an examination of the basis of Struve's errors, and also of the contending position of Danielson. Danielson makes the same mistake that many Marxists do. Danielson notes that the relative surplus population arises because capital introduces labour-saving technologies. That means that the same amount of output can be produced by less labour. The “freed” labour then constitutes part of the relative surplus population. But, in fact, this is not all Marx says on this matter. He talks about a process in which labour is both repelled and attracted. The introduction of the labour-saving technology does not occur in a vacuum. The introduction of this new technology, that replaces older technology – intensive accumulation – occurs alongside an accumulation of capital. Even if the new technology means that a smaller physical mass of fixed capital is employed, it processes more material, so that an increase in the accumulation of circulating capital is required. More workers, machines etc. are employed to produce this additional material. But, the rise in productivity created by the new technology causes the price of the end product to fall, and this means the demand for it rises. 

In addition, the relative surplus population causes wages to fall, and surplus value to rise, which means that the mass of profit, and so potential for additional accumulation rises. Where the new technology is introduced this releases variable-capital – and potentially fixed capital where one machine replaces two. Some of this is absorbed as additional circulating constant capital, as more material is processed, but the rest can now be used in some other sphere, including new, high profit/high growth spheres. So, what occurs is that output grows relative to labour, but this does not at all mean that labour is reduced in absolute terms. On the contrary, Marx explains how it results in a growing mass of capital, growing mass of profit, and growing level of employment. Marx's argument against those who claimed that the freed labour would simply be used producing the new machines etc. by contrast, was that there was no automatic mechanism bringing that about, and that, often, it was not the displaced workers that found work, as the expansion occurred, but their children. 

Danielson, in the same way, ignores this fact that, alongside the relative displacement of labour, caused by the growth of large-scale machine industry, goes an expansion of employment, as production and the market expands. As the market expands, its not only the large scale factories that expand. They, in turn, create a home market for a range of inputs, as well as to meet the consumption needs of their workers. This expansion of the home market means that the number of handicraft producers, meeting these needs, also expands. He, 

“disregards the parallel fact of the growth of handicraft industries, which expresses the deepening of the social division of labour.” (p 463) 

And, Lenin notes, 

“It is a known fact that our handicraft industries have grown and that a mass of new ones have appeared since the Reform. The theoretical explanation of this fact and of the capitalisation of other peasant industries is also known; it was given by Marx to explain the “creation of the home market for industrial capital” [Capital I, Chapter 30]”. (Note *, p 463) 

The “anti-imperialists” also fail to understand this basic function of the role of large scale capital in bringing about an increase in the size of the domestic market, in developing economies, and the consequent development of domestic capital. They can only see “super-exploitation”, “unequal exchange”, “dependency”, and “the development of underdevelopment”, and so fail to recognise the progressive role that this multinational capital performs.

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Marxism, Zionism and the National Question - Israel and Palestine

Marxism, Zionism and the National Question

Israel and Palestine

On the basis of this concrete analysis of existing material conditions, rather than an idealistic schema of how history should have unfolded that owes more to moralism than Marxism, it can also be seen that, whilst Marxists could never have supported the reactionary, nationalist agenda of Zionism, or the creation of a confessional Jewish state in Israel, the fact of its being created, and its current existence, creates a wholly different circumstance. Trying to reverse the situation to that before its existence would be entirely reactionary. For one thing, it would require a war in which thousands, if not millions, of lives would be lost.

The question that Marxists have to address, today, is how the workers of Israel and Palestine, and the wider Middle-East and North Africa can move forward. That Jewish socialists should emphasise the rights of Palestinians to self-determination is obvious from what has been stated above. However, the question is, how is that to be achieved given the fact that the geographical basis for a separate Palestinian state has been effectively destroyed, as a result of the separation of Gaza and the West Bank, and the continued settlement of the West Bank by Zionists.

In a world of global super states, and of multinational economic blocs, it is utopian to believe that a tiny, fragmented Palestinian state could exist as anything but a vassal of larger powers. Moreover, given the degree of enmity created between communities, how would it be possible to create two such states, without them becoming just an unstable arrangement between two heavily armed camps, essentially just freezing the existing sectarian antagonism, with larger global powers standing behind them, at any time threatening to plunge the world into global conflict? A look at Israel's relation to surrounding Arab states, such as Syria and Lebanon demonstrates that. Under such conditions, both Israel and Palestine, as with Marx and Engels description of small vassal states, would become entire reactionary nations standing in the path of further social development, in the region. In fact, they already occupy such a position, as a result of the current search after an ever distant two-state solution.

Using Marxism as a method of political and historical analysis, rather than as a mantra, requires that each instance has to be considered in its specific concrete and historical reality. The recognition of the abstract right of nations to self-determination cannot mean support for the exercise of such a right in any or every instance. The demand for a Palestinian state in place of the existing Israeli state cannot be supported, simply on the basis of a recognition of the abstract bourgeois-democratic right of self-determination, because the consequences of that would be catastrophic and reactionary in terms of building working-class unity, and the requirements for building socialism.

“What is the lesson to be drawn from this concrete example which must he analysed concretely if there is any desire to be true to Marxism? Only this: (1) that the interests of the liberation of a number of big and very big nations in Europe rate higher than the interests of the movement for liberation of small nations; (2) that the demand for democracy must not be considered in isolation but on a European—today we should say a world—scale.”

(TheDiscussion on Self-Determination Summed Up) 

We cannot support a demand for the state of Israel to be destroyed, simply on the basis of some petty-bourgeois moral argument that it should not have been created, and that it did so on the basis of oppression and subordination of the existing Palestinian population, even though all of that is perfectly true. Nor can we justify it on the basis that flowing from the inherently racist and colonialist nature of Zionism, and so of the state it created, the existing state has no right to exist. On that basis, all nation states, have no right to exist, because they are all inherently racist, and many have been colonialist and expansionist. Socialists wish to see the state of Israel disappear only in the same way we wish to see all states disappear, as a consequence of further social development, of the superseding of capitalism by Socialism, of the disappearance of all borders, as part of the voluntary association of workers across all nations.

But, as part of that struggle, it is quite clear that, even in respect of a demand for the creation of a separate Palestinian state, a struggle, here and now, for Palestinian political rights is required, waged by both Palestinian and Jewish workers, inside Israel and across the occupied territories. Until such time as any such proposed two-state solution was created, how can any consistent democrat, let alone socialist, deny the Palestinians the same democratic rights that citizens of any other state enjoy? How can they deny them the same rights as Jews in the rest of Israel? Other wise, the two-state solution demand becomes merely a semantic formulation used to continue the oppression of Palestinians and denial of their basic democratic right and freedoms.  It is just a form of words in which "self-determination" for Israel is code for "defence of the fatherland", and the continued denial of rights to Palestinians.

Even those proposing a two-state solution cannot deny the need, in the intervening period, for a series of democratic reforms that address the immediate question of the denial of rights and freedoms to Palestinians within Israel and the occupied territories. Such reforms are always the starting point, as Lenin says, for the achievement of the ultimate goal, be that goal a two-state solution, or a secular democratic federal state of Israel and Palestine. The idea that the existing, racist, Zionist state is immutable, is anti-Marxist. The apartheid state in South Africa gave way to the current multiracial state; the Catholic Confessional State in Ireland, has become a modern secular, democratic state; and in the North of Ireland, the old Protestant Ascendancy has disappeared, even if only to be replaced by a state that freezes sectarian divides, into two hostile and opposing camps, sharing governmental office. In fact, the unstable nature of that arrangement is a parallel for what would exist as a consequence of any two-state solution in Israel-Palestine.

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The Economic Content of Narodism, Chapter 4 - Part 7

Struve makes the same mistake as the Narodniks. The landlord's did not just gift land to the peasants, they had to buy it at inflated prices. So, the fact that the peasant now owns all their output only changes the form of the exploitation of their labour. In place of the Labour Service they previously undertook on the landlord's land, they must now sell part of their output to obtain money to pay Money rent, to make the redemption payments, to pay interest to money-lenders and so on. As a consequence, the part of their output that constitutes the necessary product, or necessary labour may fall, or more correctly, the proportion representing surplus production may increase, and eat into that part available to them as necessary product. Moreover, they may find themselves dependent on the Buyers-Up, and merchant capitalists, who themselves extract unpaid labour from them. 

“Even if it were proven that generally speaking the renting of land improved the position of the “peasantry,” of what importance could that be when, to use the words of the author himself, the peasant poor have been ruined by renting land (216)—i.e., improvement for some meant worsening for others? Evidently in the peasant renting of land the old, feudal and the new, capitalist relationships intertwine; the author’s abstract reasoning, which takes no account of either the one or the other, confuses matters instead of helping to achieve clarity about these relationships.” (p 461) 

Struve adopts another aspect of the Narodnik theory, when he claims that what science calls overpopulation is termed, in Russia “land poverty”. Was it true that the allotment sizes were too small? Yes, but that is irrelevant in conditions where land was being bought, sold and rented. It does not matter if you are a rich peasant, if your allotment is too small to meet your needs, if you buy or rent additional land, thereby, not only meeting your own needs, but also producing commodities for an increasing market. If you are a poor peasant, it does not matter if you get a slightly larger allotment, to meet your direct needs, in an economy where commodity production is becoming dominant, and where you cannot compete in the market to obtain the money income you need to meet your expenditure. 

“Both the Narodnik arguments about land-poverty, and the Malthusian “laws” about population increase being correlated to the means of subsistence are at fault in their abstract “simplicity,” which ignores the given, specific social-economic relations.” (p 462) 

Struve's Malthusian argument that overpopulation in rural Russia was due to population growing faster than the means of subsistence, therefore, was not proved. Struve concludes that what existed was a condition of natural-economic overpopulation, complicated by commodity-economic factors. But, Lenin says, Russia was a society in transition, and so this could equally well be rephrased for any economic phenomena as being a commodity-economic phenomenon complicated by natural-economic factors. In the case of this phenomenon of overpopulation, it provides not the slightest explanation of it in the given conditions. 

“The author’s final conclusion against Mr. N. —on and his theory of capitalist over-population in Russia reads: “Our peasants produce insufficient food” (237).” (p 463) 

A similar thing, today, is found in the explanations of global hunger, but also, in Britain, in relation to the housing crisis. Hunger is not caused by insufficient food production, but by the inadequate incomes of those that go hungry. The housing crisis, in Britain, is not due to a shortage of supply – its actually 50% higher per capita than in the 1970's – but a shortage of supply at prices those who need houses can afford. Part of the reason for that is a stagnation in wages since the 1980's, but the main cause is the hyperinflation of asset prices, caused by money printing and speculation. Builders do not build more houses at prices those who need houses can afford, because they would make no profit, or at least much less than average profit. But, they can't make that profit at lower prices because of land prices. Land prices are high because a) low yields on assets causes the capitalised value of rents to rise, b) speculation in property pushes up existing prices so that the owners of land demand higher prices for use of their land.

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Marxism, Zionism and the National Question - The Truth Is Always Concrete (3/3)

Marxism, Zionism and the National Question

The Truth Is Always Concrete (3/3)

In the 20th century, the slogan of self-determination, and national sovereignty, becomes one used to mean "defence of the fatherland", or else it is used by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists, to divert the proletariat from class struggle. For the existing large capitalist nation states, it can only ever mean the former. For the small states, it is a utopian demand, because all political independence is constrained by economic dependence, and the smaller states can only reduce their economic dependence through association and federation with other states, thereby, pooling their national sovereignty. Or else, they become vassals of larger states, acting as their proxy.

“This is a fact. And it was indicated at the time with incontrovertible truth: in 1848 revolutionary nations fought for liberty, whose principal enemy was tsarism, whereas the Czechs, etc., were in fact reactionary nations, and outposts of tsarism.”

(The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up)

Today, it is not just the large imperialist state that leaves no such room, for the small state, but also the fact that the multinational corporation, rootless and foot free, is able to muster greater economic muscle than even many of the established nation states, making their joining together in huge economic blocs the 21st century equivalent of the nation state of the 19th century. That it is capitalism, via social-democracy, that has brought this about, rather than socialism, does not change that reality, a reality itself driven by the material conditions created by mammoth, socialised capitals.

“If the concrete situation which confronted Marx when tsarism dominated international politics were to repeat itself, for instance, in the form of a few nations starting a socialist revolution (as a bourgeois-democratic revolution was started in Europe in 1848), and other nations serving as the chief bulwarks of bourgeois reaction—then we too would have to be in favour of a revolutionary war against the latter, in favour of “crushing” them, in favour of destroying all their outposts, no matter what small-nation movements arose in them...

The several demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute, but only a small part of the general-democratic (now: general-socialist) world movement. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be rejected. It is possible that the republican movement in one country may be merely an instrument of the clerical or financial-monarchist intrigues of other countries; if so, we must not support this particular, concrete movement, but it would be ridiculous to delete the demand for a republic from the programme of international Social-Democracy on these grounds.”

(ibid)

This is one reason why Marxists cannot accept the idea of liberal interventionism, even were it the case that, in some particular instance, such intervention led to the liberation of an oppressed people. By giving imperialism a free hand to undertake such actions, it strengthens imperialism against the global working-class, and undermines its struggle.

Describing the subordinate role of bourgeois-democratic demands, such as self-determination, Lenin gives the example of two large kingdoms, and a smaller one, in which there are family ties between the royal families. The example is particularly relevant in respect of the Falklands War. The people of the small kingdom seek to establish a democratic republic. If the expulsion of the monarch would then lead to a war between the two larger kingdoms, in order to restore either that or some other monarch then,

“There is no doubt that all international Social-Democracy, as well as the really internationalist section of Social-Democracy in the little country, would be against substituting a republic for the monarchy in this case. The substitution of a republic for a monarchy is not an absolute, but one of the democratic demands, subordinate to the interests of democracy (and still more, of course, to those of the socialist proletariat) as a whole. A case like this would in all probability not give rise to the slightest disagreement among Social-Democrats in any country. But if any Social-Democrat were to propose on these grounds that the demand for a republic be deleted altogether from the programme of international Social-Democracy, he would certainly be regarded as quite mad. He would be told that after all one must not forget the elementary logical difference between the general and the particular.”

(ibid)

The abstract right to self-determination can be asserted “in general”, but what position Marxists take on it in any “particular” case, can only be determined by concrete analysis. Today, the right to self-determination is used by chauvinists as a cover for “defence of the fatherland”, for demands such as “take back control”, for the imposition of immigration controls, and so on. For socialists in such nations, where they occupy or oppress other nations, for example, Britain in Ireland, Israel in Palestine and so on, the demand is raised, not because we seek separation of the oppressed nation, but because the emphasis upon the right to separate for the oppressed nation, is the necessary first step of gaining the trust of the people of the oppressed nation, for a joint political struggle against the capitalist oppressor.

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