Re: Croatia and Serbia

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Owen wrote:
>Accordingly, I would ask you two questions - firstly, why was imperialism
>never hostile - indeed it was actually friendly with - Croatia; and secondly
>if any form of "socialism" exists in Croatia?

Because it was ruled by an admirer of Adolph Hitler, who supported Nato's
wars against the Serbs. Stop talking about socialism. It just confuses
things. If Trotsky refused to use the word socialism to describe the USSR
in the 1930s, then why should we use as a category now? Societies exist in
transition between capitalism and socialism. Let's leave at that. Besides,
we don't need litmus tests. We need more facts such as these:

Financial Times, June 22, 2000:
The [Croatian] state holds more than 25 per cent stakes in about 900
companies. About 400 of these companies have been insolvent for more than a
year, while another 300 will be examined by government and privatisation
agency officials in the next few months, according to Neven Mimica of the
economics ministry. "(They will) determine which of those companies has any
market prospects or chance of surviving in a normal market environment," he
says.

> I would also like to ask your opinion on Apartheid South Africa. Since 60%
>of the economy was nationalised under this regime, does this not mean that
>imperialism should actually have been hostile to it; and secondly, if this
>was any indicator of socialism in Apartheid South Africa?

Yugoslavia had a socialist revolution. South Africa did not.

> Do you know, after the Attlee government's reforms after World War II,
>there were some on the Left who thought socialism now existed in Britain...
>
> Owen

The poor dears.


Louis Proyect

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