Re: Reply to comrade Mac

[Owen Jones <owen_jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Comrade,

 I have to say that this post is very short of any political substance,
Marxist class analysis or historical detail, and merely full of oh-so-clever
personal quips, and the small chunks of meat available are muddled eclectic
analysis. At least I attempted a Marxist analysis of the situation, even if
you think I was high on caffeine at the time.

 Firstly, what exists in North Korea is not socialism. I suggest you read
what was meant by socialism in pre-Stalinist Marxist literature. What
existed in the USSR was a transitional society, stuck between capitalism and
socialism and sharing characteristics of both. The USSR had two courses; to
progress to socialism, which would come about by the removal of the
bureaucracy which was an obstacle to such by a new workers' revolution,
political in character rather than social; or a reversal, that is the
restoration of capitalism by the bureaucracy to supersede their privileges
for direct private ownership of the means of production to form the new
bourgeoisie. Actually Trotsky was not entirely accurate; he did not expect
the Soviet bureaucracy - whom he saw as a temporary phase in the world
revolution - to last after the Second World War, but in the end it emerged
strengthened with domination of Eastern Europe, and his writings were not
vindicated for many decades later.

 You seem to have some illusions in the North Korean bureaucracy as
consciously defending "socialism" for some abstract moral purpose. People
who enjoy the finest wines and food, who have servants and maids, who have
carnivals in their name and expensive presents on a daily basis have no
interest in defending what you define as "socialism" for the hell of it,
because they are morally hostile to capitalism and believe in the liberation
of all humanity. The role of the Stalinist bureaucracy in any such state is
purely centrist - that is, the defence of state property to the extent they
rely on it for their privileges and power. We revolutionaries defend the
state property of the workers' states unequivocally, but as history has
shown, the only real defence of a workers' state can be to call and fight
for a workers' political revolution, otherwise capitalism will be restored.
As indeed Trotsky predicted, capitalism was restored or is being restored in
all of the deformed workers' states. Thereby the only real defence of the
workers' state is to call for a revolution to put the working class in power
and remove the bureaucratic rot. I say this in the full knowledge that this
is very unlikely to happen, and beyond doubt the result of its absence will
be a restoration of capitalism, almost certainly a la Deng.

 I am very confused by your noble assertion that the reason the North Korean
bureaucracy is so repressive is "perhaps a result of the bourgeois media".
Its repressive nature is due to the intense instability of the ruling caste,
not some abstract external reason. It fears the working class, and rightly
so. And no, North Korea was made with very little "local" participation;
there was no working class revolution, but Korea was stormed by American and
Soviet troops who divided it along the parallel. Both the north and south
are artificial creations. Yet in the same manner as the Napoleonic troops
liberated much of Europe from semi-feudal slavery, the Stalinist troops
undertook social revolution from above in the North, which was a giant step
forward for the working class of Korea and indeed Asia as a whole.

 My dispute with the North Korean bureaucracy is not over an incorrect
perspective they have, or a programmatic difference. This is an idealistic
way of examining things, when in reality the behaviour of the bureaucracy is
governed by material circumstances. My dispute with the North Korean
bureaucracy is over the right of the working class to rule, and for them to
be liquidated politically as a caste - a dispute over their very existence.
They have no interest in working class rule, or world revolution, or the
liquidation of the state. Thereby if Our Dear Leader and a few of his
friends are pinned up against the wall and a few rounds of bullets implanted
in their skull by the revolutionary workers of Korea, that will be a great
day for the workers of all the world.

 I would argue that Cuba is much more under siege than North Korea, the
latter now having sanctions lifted by American imperialism, whilst Cuba
remains under total blockade. Even if it were true, the Cuban bureaucracy is
benevolent even in a period of total siege by the most powerful imperialist
country on the planet just miles off the coast, because of the higher
cultural level of the Cuban proletariat, the fact they actively participated
in the construction of a workers' state, and their social weight.

 The fact the imperialists are subjecting the north to siege does not mean I
stand with the bureaucracy against the working class. I defend the workers'
state from imperialism and from counterrevolution. The fact the USSR was
under siege by imperialism does not mean I abandon calling for the removal
of the bureaucracy by the working class. To do so would be to betray the
class. The fact they have failed to "build the perfect workers' democracy"
is really irrelevant, but the fact is they enslave the workers of northern
Korea, suppress them politically and allow the peasantry to die by the
million whilst they enjoy the greatest privileges. They are an obstacle to
the progression to socialism, and one day, unless removed, they will commit
capitalist counterrevolution. Hence the fact I am opposed to them.

 I regret the fact that you steep so low as to accuse me of being a
revolutionary theatre critic to hide my own irrelevance. I am a young
communist who is extremely active in the revolutionary movement, who
actively participates in the class struggle. If I can only criticise once I
have led a revolution then I am stumped. But to me your praises of North
Korea, Yugoslavia, etc. seem utterly pretentious, brain dead, unthinking,
and hagiographic, as well as playing to a specific audience. As a Marxist, I
know to ruthlessly criticise all that exists - and I meant EVERYTHING.
Eclectics are useless, you know.

 On Stalinophobia, which you accuse me of due to my hostility to the DPRK
bureaucracy. Stalinophobia was first coined by Trotsky against those who
were hostile against Stalinists, not the ruling bureaucracies of Stalinist
states. For instance, those who showed hostility to the Stalinized Communist
Parties of the West. I myself see Stalinists as misguided comrades, but
comrades nonetheless, who I am more than prepared to work with but to win
them over from their illusions. They bare no responsibility for the crimes
of Stalinism and indeed simply believe they never happened. In this day and
age, Stalinists like those of the 1930s in the advanced capitalist states
are rare, and tend either to be teenagers trying to get attention and look
rebellious who also devil worship, like Marilyn Manson, etc., or simply
sickos who like blood (like David Copeland, the Nazi Soho nail bomber, who
was a blatant attention seeker who said his chief inspirers were Adolf
Hitler, Josef Stalin and Saddam Hussein). However, this is different from
struggling against the Stalinist bureaucracy, a struggle whose most famous
partisan was Leon Trotsky, but there were many, many others.

 I apologise for getting mixed up with the Kims, but hereditary leadership
has never really been my bag. The North Korean dictatorship is really a bit
of a family business though, don't you think? However, you have not looked
to correct my apparent ignorance of North Korean history since you have
explained none yourself; if you try to knock down an argument you must seek
to replace it by another, otherwise this is rather Marcusian in style. Your
look at the policies of the North Korean leadership, calling for me to look
at it and say "some good, some bad" is your eclectic thinking showing
through again by the way. However then you imply that for a Marxist analysis
I need to look at how the WPK reacted to the 11th Congress and suchlike,
i.e. looking idealistically for ideological credentials of a ruling
bureaucracy, really shows your own ignorance. I really must ask, how much
exactly Marxist literature have you actually read?

 I do not elevate Trotsky to the level of a superhuman being. He was
extremely flawed as an individual, almost impossible to work with, and the
movement spawned in his name is often pretty sick. The construction of the
Fourth International in the period of the worst working class defeat in
history made its implosion inevitable, despite the heroic struggle of
Trotskyists in the USSR and Vietnam in particular, where they were all
butchered by Stalinism.

 Perhaps you could post a brief synopsis of "Tito and Titoism". I am more
than happy to do so with the books I have read on Yugoslavia. My point about
the Workers' Aid comrades was that they are active on the ground in
Yugoslavia, and work closely with the Serbian workers' movement. They
actually know Serbian workers, which is better than you or I. Thereby they
have more legitimacy to speak than comfortable Western leftists like you or
I.

 Cheers

       Owen