Re: AUT: Re: Palestione, Israel and other ghettoes

[Scott Hamilton <s_h_hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>]

I tend to think that you are the one who is caught up
in contradictions here Chris.
You are counterposing a two stage revolution -
national independence under a bourgeois government
because it would strengthen the Palestinian struggle
and thus bring anti-capitalist revolution closer - to
the permanent revolution I advocated, yet you pull out
historical examples - China and the bloc of four
classes, the Spanish Popular Front - which are
examples of the two stage strategy in practice, and
try to use them to criticise me!

Let's have a look at your comments

The idea that the anti-imperialist capitalist class
> will side with the > working class militarily is a
rehash of Spain in > 1936-9, but there it was
> the 'anti-fascist capitalists.'  We know what that
> meant in practice, so why > revive a tired and
failed and deadly approach?

Spain was an example of a *political* bloc between
'anti-fascist capitalists', not a military bloc. The
Stalinists and a section of the anarchists submitted
to a political alliance with pro-capitalist
Republicans. Something like a two stage revolution was
envisaged - first get rid of the fascists and defeat
imperialism, then the working class will be
strengthened and prepared for a full-blooded socialist
revolution. The forces that advocated a military
rather than political bloc belonged to the
Trotskyists, who were only a smallish minority. Spain,
then, stands as an argument against the position *you*
have taken on Palestine.

Also, there is something
> oddly 'block of four classes'-ish here in the need
> to find the
> anti-imperialist anti-working class forces.

The phrase 'bloc of four classes' usually refers to
the Stalinist strategy in China of making the
Communists submit to a political alliance with the KMT
- in other words, it refers to a *political* bloc
designed to create the first stage of a two stage
revolution, ie the sort of thing you advocate for
Palestine.

This
> also has nothing to do
> with permanent revolution, since Trotsky argued that
> that involved the
> smashing of both imperialist and national bourgeois
> power, based on arming
> the working class as the state.

The working class couldn't be armed as a state until
it seized power. Trotsky advocated permanent
revolution as a way of national liberation struggles
getting the working class to power - make a military
bloc with the national bourgeoisie to defeat
imperialism, then go all the way and overthrow them.
He held up the Bolshevik revolution as an example of
the success of his model - look, he said, we blocked
*militarily* with part of the national bourgeoisie
(Kerensky's provisional government) to defeat
imperialism militarily, when Kornilov tried to seize
power on behalf of the West, but we kept our
independence and overthrew Kerensky later that year.

> Also, neither Trotsky nor Lenin made a fetish of
> national independence,
> arguing that in some cases amalgamation did more to
> strengthen workers'
> power objectively

This is true. But we are talking about national
liberation struggles against imperialism - in most
casaes, we are not even talking today about formal
national independence. Palestine must be one of
relatively few places where formal national
independence is an issue. In most places, we are
talking about economic rather than political
semi-colonies, where there is no material base for
civil/democratic rights because of the extraction of
superprofits by imperialism.

Where formal national independence is an issue, then a
key question to ask is: do the workers want it? If the
workers want it, then revolutionaries have to argue
that they fight for it *in a revolutionary manner*.
This means fusing national liberation with
anti-capitalist revolution, not putting a national
bourgeoisie in power.

The Palestinians clearly do want national
independence, and just by fighting for it they have
arguably created some of the elements of dual power
and a pre-revolutionary siutation. This is why it is
so reprehensible for anarchists to be going around
advocating that they abandon the desire for national
independence and fight for civil rights inside the
state of Israel. Doing this would mean, inevitably,
abandoning the institutions of dual power and backing
away from a pre-revolutionary situation...for what? a
hopeless and highly vulnerable struggle for civil
rights that can never be granted by a state that can
never be made secular.

The best
> work we can do is to help
> foster a distrust of solutions not emanating from
> the workers' themselves

Exactly. So why are you and so many anarchist groups
trying to undermine the intifada? The Palestinians
create dual power and a pre-revolutionary situation,
and the Western left tells them to settle for a
national bourgeois government or else civil rights
inside Israel! Thank God for the Argentineans.

It is Scott who
> is now arguing for
> workers' revolution as the immediate task, but in a
> way which augurs state
> capitalism.  It is not a reform position aimed at
> strengthening the working
> class' unity and self-organization

So let me get this straight: turning the militias and
committees of resistance into Soviets and seizing
power for these Soviets will not 'strengthen' the
working class, but independence under a bourgeois
government will?

[in South Africa a bourgeois national government
supported by two stage Stalinists]it has allowed a
process of class
> differentiation which in
> the long run will benefit the drawing of clearer
> class lines and weakening
> racial lines in some ways... Even so, if South
> Africa could do it, one might suspect that Israel
> could too.

This is an incredible view to take of the South
Africa. You completely ignore the possibility that
revolution could have come out of the national
liberation struggle, using language that could have
come straight from apologist for the South Arican
Communist Party's two stage strategy.

The SACP had huge influence in the SA working class,
but it made a military bloc with the bourgeois
nationalist ANC. The SACP
should have fought in a bloc with the ANC for the
liberation of South Africa, but should not have made a
political bloc with the South African bourgeosie by
going into an alliance with the ANC which has led them
into this wretched role in government. They should
have kept their independence and called on the South
Africa working class to turn the anti-colonialist
revolution into an anti-capitalist revolution with a
general strike, the creation of Soviets and armed
militia to defend them, etc

This sort of talk might sound fantastic, but the fact
is that the SACP had huge support from the South
African working class, a lot of influence on COSATU,
and large numbers of armed followers. It handed all of
these over to the ANC.

> did the Australian > intevention in East Timor
increase workers' power as > well as ameliorate
> suffering?  Or did it ameliorate suffering and have
> no effect on workers' > power?  Or did it ameliorate
suffering and weaken > workers' power?  In the
> first case, we should support it.

The very notion that imperialism could ameliorate
suffering. It's all downhill, I'm afraid...


Who in Argentina had put out "overthrow the
> current regime and
> establish organ of workers' power" as an immediate
> demand in October of
> 2001?

Good question. Workers Democracy, the Argentinean
group whose line on Palestine I am arguing, put
forward just this demand when it called for a boycott
of last year's elections. They were right then,
perhaps they are right now too? They  certainly seem
more credible than some of the people posting here.

Cheers
Scott



=====
"Revolution is not like cricket, not even one day cricket"

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