Reply to grey haired old man

[Owen Jones <owen_jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Comrade,

 I owe you this answer, although I must comment that I cannot stand tequila,
so instead drink to you with a pint of Carling.

> He was a patriot because
> he was a military and this is one of his basic traits. "Civilist"
> militaries here are either bureaucrats or agents of imperialism.

 That may be the way Peron is addressed by some, but I am hardly going to
bow down to the titles of the ruling class in respect. It is right to
address people as a comrade or a Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms (or something abusive). I am
not a fan of the Bonapartism that Peronism represented, but, perhaps
similarly to Baathism, I find it very hard to classify it considering the
manner in which it mixed the symbols and phraseology of the extreme left and
the extreme right, or what its sympathies for German Nazism represented.
Peronism of course cannot be presented as a movement of the
petty-bourgeoisie because of the extent to which it rested on the organised
proletariat in Argentina. I am also not sure to what extent Peronism
liberated Argentina from the dominance of British imperialism which the
Argentine bourgeoisie was and to an extent still is very much tied up with.

> Sorry, the data you offer do not convince me. Extract verve and you
> only say that Titograd was renamed Podgorica. Too flimsy a basis for
> such a strong indictment. If you peruse the collections of postings
> on L-I and Marxism you will find a quite different and certainly more
> complex image.

 I am not sure what you need to satisfy you that capitalism has been
restored in Serbia. The level of state ownership is irrelevant, considering
today's Croatia has a higher level. Workers' self-management no longer
exists. The programme of the ruling party is an excellent introduction to
market economics, of which I have already published excerpts - it even
boasts of being the first Stalinist bloc state to have begun the restoration
of capitalism; it is undeniably a completely bourgeois programme that is a
recipe for privatisation and suchlike. A bourgeois chauvinist party is in
government. The bourgeois parties that exist in Serbia are not bourgeois for
any abstract reason, but because there is a Serbian bourgeoisie from which
they emerge. This is a capitalism even more dysfunctional than that of
Russia, in terms of the level of gangsterism. My point about the example of
the Montenegrin capital was that the first things to suffer in a
counterrevolution are the symbols which represent the old regime.

> Well, I am a former Zionist. And so? I suppose you prefer Stalinist
> bankers over Zionist orange growers, don't you?

 Oh please. My point about Milosevic is that this former banker led a
section of the bureaucracy which whipped up chauvinism in Serbia with
absurdities like "genocide against the Serb nation" for the purpose of
restoring capitalism to Yugoslavia to form the new bourgeoisie, which staged
an effective coup d'etat against the remaining Titoists. He is a symbol of
counterrevolution, like Yeltsin, but a different breed to suit the
peculiarities of the Yugoslav material conditions. Tudjman and Milosevic
were a married couple.

> Owen, dialectics is beyond you. I did not say that "his regime
> attempted".  My point, which you have not been able to debate because
> it is hard as a solid mountain of diamond (I can become rhethorical
> myself, which does not advance my position a step but sounds
> tremendous and awesome, you see?), is that of all petty nationalisms
> in former Yugoslavia, Serbian petty nationalism is the only one that
> _in order to fulfill its own "petty" tasks_ is forced by the logic of
> things and relations to be a unifying nationalism of the Slavs of the
> South.

 Comrade, the gist of the argument I had been getting from those who
politically defended Milosevic was that he rode on a white horse into the
sunset with the noble, abstract aim of saving Yugoslavia from implosion by
the aggressive nationalists he was so hostile to. But it was the Serbian
counterrevolutionary bureaucrats who lit the fuel first to destroy
Yugoslavia. It was they who helped to whip up the nationalism of Croatia,
who feared the nationalism of the oppressor of Serbia. The printing of
currency was just part of it, but the main part was the claim that Serbia
had an inferior and oppressed status within Yugoslavia and should dominate
it. This nationalism of the oppressor ripped the country to bits.

 I think it is simplistic to suggest that the historic task of Serbian
nationalism is as the unifier of the Slavs. Indeed, Yugoslavia could only
have been united by getting this nationalism to heel, hence the measures
taken against Serbia by the Yugoslav bureaucracy. The aim of the Belgrade
regime during the war was, exactly like the Croatian regime, to acknowledge
the death of Yugoslavia and rip out as many chunks as possible using lumpen
militia. The nonsense ideological basis necessary for this included denying
the status of Bosnia as a nation. Serbian petty nationalism demands, like
that of Albania and Croatia, the existence of all Serbs in the same state -
that was what was manipulated by the Serbian bourgeoisie in the quest for
resources. I say this whilst acknowledging that now the Bosnian Serbs are an
oppressed nation, I do support their right to self-determination and thereby
unification with Serbia on a democratic basis.

> At least a fact. But stripped of circumstance. You should give some
> attention to Diana Jhonstone's history of modern Yugoslavia. It has
> been posted on many places and I find it quite convincing.

 Ugh, about how progressive the Yugoslav monarchy was. Thanks, but no
thanks.

> You forget that the situation is quite different in Yugoslavia. Let
> us assume the UK were a semicolonial country, not an imperialist
> nation which it is. In such a case, English nationalism would have to
> fight against the tendencies of Scotland to rely on foreign help in
> order to ensure that the national interests of both the English and
> Scottish peoples are met by a strong state that kicks the foreign
> interests in their very arses.
>
> Scotland would play the role of Croatia.

 Serbian nationalism, and English nationalism [in the context of the UK],
are in many senses extremely similar. When I hear a Serbian nationalist
speak it is disturbingly familiar, with certain alterations in imagery and
symbols.

 My position on Scotland is its right to self-determination, regardless. I
am opposed to its separation, but defend its right, on the grounds that this
would be detrimental to the class struggle by dividing up the English and
Welsh working class from their Scottish brothers and sisters. Maintaining
them within the country against their will would be equally detrimental to
the class struggle by turning the Scottish working class against their
brothers/sisters in the rest of the country and entrenching chauvinism.

 Yet this call for the right of national self-determination to be suppressed
by a semi-colonial country on the grounds of anti-imperialism is bollocks.
After the Great October Revolution of 1917, Russia was not a semi-colony,
but a workers' state, but still granted national self-determination to all
those peoples enslaved by the Great-Russians. This was even though they knew
that these states would be used by imperialism to surround and attack the
workers' state - as indeed they were. And if I support the right of national
self-determination for countries like Poland and Finland from a workers'
state under imperialist siege and threat of complete destruction, I would
support this right for any state, including Yugoslavia particularly with the
restoration of capitalism. To fail to call and defend the right of national
self-determination is not a Leninist position on the national question,
although that would not make anybody any less a communist or a revolutionary
- indeed Luxemburg was one of the greatest revolutionary leaders in history
and she didn't even believe in the right whatsoever.

> But the Serbs were harassed
> from the very beginning. And Milo's regime is the only one that, even
> if it may have begun by breaking away (this is not true,

 Boycotting the official currency and printing your own is NOT breaking
away???

> but I will
> accept it for the sake of the argument and to show that it is
> irrelevant), contains a multiethnic community within the borders of
> current ("rump" in the repugnant language of mainstream mind)
> Yugoslavia that is unparalleled outside these borders. Not only that,
> it is the only state in what was Yugoslavia that still tries to
> rebuild Yugoslavia. You will say "yes, because that is the interest
> of the cruel miserable Milosevic and his bourgeoisie, etc."  I will
> retort that though I do not agree with that definition, EVEN IF IT
> WERE TRUE, again, that unity would be better than the current
> disunion.

 If the peoples of Yugoslavia are incorporated against their will, this will
be detrimental for it will only serve to turn the workers even more against
each other. The Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian workers will boil with
resentment and despise Serbia even more than now. That will simply destroy
even further any chances of working class unity. A temporary separation -
and temporary it is - is desirable in the interests of working class unity.
For if Serbia were to enslave against their democratic will the peoples of
Yugoslavia, the Serbian working class would never be free and chained down
by chauvinism, whilst the nationalism of the other workers would increase to
boiling point and be directed against all Serbs, including workers. Yugoslav
working class unity might be put off for another generation yet. Have we
learnt nothing from the past? Should the Bolsheviks have maintained the
boundaries of the Russian Empire?

> The problem is that people change when material circumstances change.
> Milo, the former Stalinist banker, is now the head of a country that
> cannot but confront imperialism. Tudjman, the former Partisan, became
> an Ustasha lover since he embraced the reactionary Croatian
> nationalism. By the way, I have not seen bombings of Zagreb lately,
> nor have you, Owen. We knew to respect each other because we both
> acted according to duty during the bombings of Belgrade.

 Milosevic and Tudjman are the principal leaders of the restoration of
capitalism in Yugoslavia and the wars. The imperialist hostility against
Yugoslavia is something I am convinced of for different reasons than you or
comrade Proyect, but for something much more cataclysmic for imperialism
which I have already explained enough times.

> I can assure you that if I were Milo I would also organize
> paramilitaries against the massive eviction of half a million
> Yugoslav citizens, on the basis of their being Serbs, from Bosnia and
> Croatia, which were multinational republics before the
> proimperialists took the lead there. I would probably have gone to
> the front myself. Ah, that is my old Zionist hawkish Super Ego again!

 Comrade, there were hundreds of thousands of Serb refugees and thousands
killed. Yet Serbs made up around one quarter of the refugees, and thereby
this is a capitulation to Serbian nationalism by valuing them higher than
the others, as it would be a capitulation to Croatian nationalism to only
highlight the Croats who suffered. Thereby you defend the right of the
Tudjman regime to organise lumpen militia to "defend" hundreds of thousands
of Croats facing mass eviction? And remember that Kosovo is part of Serbia
and hundreds of thousands of Yugoslav Albanians were expelled from there,
that 2 million Albanians in a republic of ten million, i.e. one fifth, were
facing mass expulsion, so it is not as though the Milosevic regime was the
only Balkan state to maintain a multiethnic country. Some go to great
lengths to disprove it even happened, but the cruel and inhuman fact of the
matter is that if Kosovo had been part of Croatia and the same thing had
happened save for the imperialist war, you would all be bending over
backwards to prove how many millions were facing oppression at the hands of
Zagreb's pro-imperialist leaders. This is a cruel irony.

 I support not the Croatian or Serbian or Bosnian militia, or the KLA for
that matter. I support them turning their guns on their bourgeoisie rather
than workers slaughtering each other in the bloodiest counterrevolution to
occur in the East.

> To begin with, he made an _electoral alliance_ with them.

 Same with Austria with reactionaries of a more dilute flavour, but perhaps
I was wrong to join the hundreds of thousands of people across Europe who
demonstrated against the inclusion of the Freedom party. After all, it was
just an "electoral alliance" and their inclusion in government and a few
ministers here and there.

> Many
> English Trotskyists not only make alliances with the criminal
> imperialists in England, they even enter the Labor party. And I have
> seen little demonizing of them for that reason.

 I am not really sure how much you know of the British working class
movement, comrade, for these criticisms seem ridiculous. Yes, members of
British [not English] Trotskyism are today pro-imperialists, if we take a
sect I cannot stand, the "Alliance for Workers' Liberty", which had
_criminal_ positions on Yugoslavia, Iraq and Russia. But the Labour party is
a bourgeois workers' party with an intense class struggle going on within
between the bourgeois and the proletarian sections. If we ignore the Labour
party, we might as well give up struggle within the unions which are part of
the Labour movement and give Labour it bourgeois workers' character. I am
for a split in the Labour party in a period of higher class struggle, but we
need to be within to facilitate it and fight for higher class consciousness.
For I am also a member of the Socialist Alliance, who are standing
candidates across Britain against Labour - although I am going to make it
clear I am for standing against the bourgeois Labour candidates,
particularly the ministers, but am against standing against members of
Labour's internal reformist Left because in this reactionary epoch, it is
vital to form a united front between us and the reformists.

 I am not sure what you mean by compromises with the imperialists. Please
not that during the Falklands War, when one would get on a bus and people
would spontaneously break into song about "blowing up the Argies", when the
country was gripped by a chauvinistic fervour, British revolutionaries were
very brave to demonstrate and fight against the war.

>> Though clearly the former deformed workers' state is more than
>> preferable to the restored capitalism that Milosevic has given to the
>> traditionally strong and brave Serbian working class (one of the
>> reasons they had to tie them down with chauvinism)
>
> Strong and brave but stupid: they could be tied down with chauvinism,
> a chauvinism that ties down the working classes in the imperialist
> countries because it allows them to enjoy a better living than that
> of their counterparts elsewhere.

 Comrade, the way you state this is to make the workers of the imperialist
countries enemies, when the only gravediggers of imperialism will be the
proletariat of the imperialist countries themselves. This living standard
has been stagnating and declining since 1973 as it is.

> In comparison, the Serbian working
> class, to which you pay lip service, was tied down with chauvinism
> even though this chauvinism brought no good on them, it brought
> slander, demonization, economic asphyixia, bombings and depleted
> uranium. You have to be stupid to be chauvinist if these are the
> consequences. So that, in the end, you can take those compliments to
> the Serbian working class away. They do not sound nice in the midst
> of your argument.

 There is nothing particularly logical about chauvinism. The chauvinism
whipped up during the Falklands War meant the working class of Britain was
tied down, got back the reactionary Thatcher regime, and suffered brutal
attacks, with millions losing their jobs and being forced into poverty. But
chauvinism was whipped up at different times during the 1990s, but today the
nationalism of Serbia is that of the oppressed. Largely there is not only no
chauvinism left, but simply disillusionment and passivity.

> Only that the army was an army of pesants and workers.

 So is every army!

> A stupid
> detail, of course. And there were others, I will not debate on Tito
> and his regime here. The only important thing now is that Tito was an
> unifier, although he unified Yugoslavia at the price of reducing the
> size of the Serbian republic, thus leaving millions of Serbs outside
> Serbia and ready to be butchered if the unity burst as it did.

 Not just the Serb workers and peasants, but the same fate befell Bosnians,
Croatians and Albanians.

>> They can never trust their bourgeoisie in this
>> fight.
>
> So Owen Jones cometh down from Heavens with the Tables of the Law and
> tells the workers "Thy bourgeoisie will betray thou, don't ally with
> them", and he idealistically expects them to flock to his position.
> Oh yes, that is so easy. The working class will ask you simpler
> questions, such as "But if the oligarchs and the United States ally
> against Perón, I should remain isolated? "  Go and explain them,
> Owen. But don't get annoyed if they turn their backs to you and go
> away musing on the idiocy of these Leftists...

 In this epoch, the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries are so tied up
with imperialism that they are incapable of carrying out their historic
tasks which is up to the proletariat alone. If you simply want the workers
of the oppressed countries to tail their bourgeoisie in a national front
against imperialism, then you condemn proletarian revolution to the scrap
heap.

> Puzzled on your reference to my lamenting the lack of repression by
> Perón of, how you say, ah yes "the Argentine working class
> movement and in particular its most advanced arm!". In fact, my
> political group, in those times, asked that arms be delivered to the
> workers and that the unions' central CGT organized militias to defend
> the revolution. Please clarify.

 I apologise if I am wrong, but the suggestion I got from one of your
earlier posts was that communists who opposed Peron were actually on the
side of the oligarchs and the imperialists, and thereby the regime would
have been right to lock them up. I am also confused as to why you believe
Peron's rule was a "revolution" of some sort.

 We really are on the same side against imperialism, to which I oppose
without condition. My position on the war against Yugoslavia was military
support to Yugoslavia. What we were arguing about was defending Yugoslavia
as a workers' state and the political content of the Milosevic regime.

 Cheers

       Owen