Bourgeois nationalism vs. the class struggle

["Ben Seattle" <Left-Transparency@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

It is time for me to close out my activity on this list.  Before
I left I thought I should make a few comments.  My time is
limited, and is needed for other projects, and I will not attempt
to prove that all views I present here are correct.  However it
is better to at least summarize my views than to remain silent.
Néstor will not be online until Monday and, out of respect for
his dedication and seriousness, I will stay here at least long
enough to give him an opportunity to engage me in reply.

                   *         *         *

One of the most striking features of this list has been the
support for the ideology of bourgeois nationalism.  I have seen
this in a great many posts although the comments of Néstor and
Jarad have done more than most to catch my attention.

Make no mistake, I consider the views of Néstor and Jarad to be
valuable in many respects: they provide useful information [1]
and perspective as well as lend insight into some of the
weaknesses of leftist currents around the world.  Here, however,
I will focus on the weaknesses.

----------------------------------------
Néstor the mild
----------------------------------------

Néstor -- Sept 7:
> Look, Owen, in a semicolonial country a Left that during
> bombings from imperialist armies does not side with the
> government against the imperialism does not even deserve
> the name of Left. That simple. They are either children
> playing games or traitors. I suggest that they be locked up
> so they can go on playing their games. Others would
> suggest shootings for high treason. As you see, I am mild.

Néstor -- Sept 10:
> My party has been awarded, by the mass of anti-Peronist
> Leftists, the badge of "Red whores of Perón" in the 50s.
> I thought that civilization had finally prevailed. This kind
> of stupid optimism is, I reckon now, unworthy of a
> revolutionary. Civilization will prevail when we, the "red
> whores of the besieged rulers of the Third World", come
> to power.

Anthony on August 31 contributed a truely outstanding post [2] in
which he summarized the history of nationalism and helped to
outline why the marxist movement has had such a history of
problems with this topic.

My view is that the class struggle always comes first and
foremost in the thinking of genuine marxists.  When marxists
support the right to self-determination for Kosovo, Chechnya or,
for that matter, Scotland, they do it for one particular reason
above all others: that such a stand assists the development of
the class struggle by reducing the mistrust that exists between
the working class in the oppressed and oppressor countries.  The
bourgeoisie practices the politics of "divide and rule" while the
working class, on the other hand, needs unity against its common
enemy.  When this fundamental class perspective is lost activists
are left with a "realpolitic" in which national entities are real
and concrete while classes are abstract and insubstantial.

The results of this kind of disorientation can often be seen on
this list.

The Malvinas war
------------------

Consider, for example the 1982 war between Argentina and Britain
over the Malvinas/Falklands islands.  This war was initiated by
the Argentine military junta in order to increase its prestige
and popularity and divert attention from the internal class
struggle in Argentina.  In the wake of the 1976 military coup,
between 15,000 and 30,000 people had been kidnapped, tortured and
murdered in the name of "National Security".  These mass
disappearances at the hands of the military junta had discredited
it and led to significant unrest.  In addition, in 1981,
inflation had reached 600% and real wages had declined by 19%.
Massive labor demonstrations had taken place in late March 1982.
It was in response to this that General Galtieri ordered troops
to the islands in early April [3].

Marxists hold that war is a continuation of politics by other
means.  The Malvinas/Falklands war represented a desperate effort
by the Argentine military junta to escape the crisis that was a
manifestation of the class struggle.

I have little specific knowledge of the Argentine left but I
think it is safe to assume that some leftists in Argentina were
swept up in the nationalist frenzy to support the war effort and
others would have concluded that the struggle against the
military dictatorship was primary and should not be diverted by
this kind of patriotism.

Néstor (as I interpret his September 7 remarks, above) appears to
suggest that those leftists who continued to oppose the military
junta while it was at war with Britain should have been put in
prison.  If Néstor were true to his conviction then logic would
demand that, in the circumstances of this war, he help with this
process by supplying the local police with the names and
addresses of more "traitors" to be "disappeared" in the name of
patriotism.  I am skeptical that Néstor would actually do such a
thing but I point this out to show how removed Néstor's ideology
has become from the class stuggle.

The Iran-Iraq war
-------------------

On the other side of the world, during roughly the same period,
leftists in Iran were being arrested for opposing the religious
dictatorship.  Iran was at war with Iraq, which had attacked Iran
with the support, encouragement and direction of US imperialism.
The war against Iraq had begun as a war in defense of the 1979
Iranian revolution which had toppled the Shah Pahlavi  (who, as
everyone on this list is well aware, had been installed in power
by the CIA in 1953).  But the war against Iraq changed its
character in the following years as it was used by the
reactionary theocracy to crush the left and consolidate their
rule.  As the campaign to hunt down and exterminate leftists
developed in Iran, one of the organizations, the pro-Moscow Tudeh
party, capitulated to this campaign and cooperated by supplying
names of leftists to Khomeini's police.  Thousands of  leftists
were imprisoned and executed.  Since these executions took place
while US imperialism was helping to fund this war (ie: supplying
Iraq with millions of dollars in phony "agricultural loans") and
to provide aerial reconnaissance to help Iraqi artillery,
missiles and bombs find Iranian targets--the executions of
leftists would undoubtedly (by Néstor's logic) be "justified" in
the name of defending Iran against US imperialism and its Iraqi
attack dog.

Again, I doubt that Néstor, in these circumstances, would have
cooperated with such a campaign against the left.  But others,
with orientations and ideologies similar to Néstor did cooperate
(and, eventually, shared the same fate as the leftists they had
betrayed to the death squads of the theocracy).

The concept of "traitor" is itself interesting when compared to
the views of Karl Marx--who said that the workers of the world
have no country.  Of course Néstor has made it clear that he is
not in favor of shooting the "traitors" -- only throwing them in
prison.  Néstor lets us know that he is "mild" in comparison to
the fascists. But what Néstor appears to forget is that once
leftists are imprisoned by reactionary nationalists--their fate
is not determined by confused leftists such as himself.  I
conclude that Néstor is very confused and is not in a position to
lecture anyone about who should be arrested.  And this confusion
naturally follows anytime that nations are held to be more
concrete and real than classes.

----------------------------------------
Milosevic the gentle
----------------------------------------

The recent posts on this topic began with a lecture from Jarad
Irael to a Yugoslav activist, Andrej Grubacic, who participates
on the crash-list.  Andrej's reply, in my view, was completely
correct:

Andrej Grubacic (from Yugoslavia) -- Sept 5:
> I know only too well how nationalism is being used
> in class manipulation. And I am witnessing Milosevic
> crimes- I am not saying that he is the most brutal
> dictator?- every day. He is not more brutal than
> Salvadorian death squads or Turkish government,
> but where are those comparisons taking us exactly?
> People are suffering under Milosevic boot. This is
> enough for me.
> ...
> We must tolerate a great level of complexity here,
> but giving support to Milosevic certainly isn't a best
> choice to fight US imperialism, i.e. to help people in
> Yugoslavia.

Néstor joined in, as an wise, experienced, grey haired activist
giving advice to a naive and stubborn young one:

Néstor -- Sept 6:
> What will you do when one of the bands you hate
> begins to promote the downfall of Milosevic? This
> is the choice you will have to make. You will not
> be able to remain neutral. There is a lesser evil there.

Jarad Israel was active in this thread also, which had originally
sprouted as an offshoot of Jarad's criticisms of Noam Chomsky for
"vicious lies" and "providing a left cover for NATO" (ie: by
saying that Milosevic had committed numerous crimes).  Jarad had
challenged Chomsky to prove that Milosevic had committed crimes
and Chomsky replied that he had more important things to do than
to prove to Jarad's satisfaction that Milosevic was a criminal.

Chomsky, in my view, is completely correct to refuse to waste his
time trying to prove anything to the satisfaction of Jarad
Israel.  I consider Milosevic a criminal also and I will not
waste my time on such a hopeless task.  It is a hopeless task
because Jarad's ideology leads him to filter out all facts which
contradict what he wants to believe.  Proving something to Jarad
would be like making a painting for a blind man.  I spent three
hours reviewing articles at Jarad's site at www.tenc.net .  Three
hours is a precious amount of time for me.  I was late for work
and short of sleep so that I could check out Jarad's site.  Did I
learn anything worthwhile?  Yes.  I found that Jarad's site was
valuable because it is helpful to find a collection of truths,
half-truths and lies from one side that systematically oppose the
collection of truths, half-truths and lies that I have been
hearing from the other.

I learned, for example, why all the Albanian workers had been
fired from the Trebca mines.  Turns out this was more than simple
racism by the Serbian leadership.  Apparently the Albanian
workers were very unhappy with the Serbian authorities and were
engaging in numerous acts of sabotage against the profitable
operation of the mines.  Interesting.  It must have been more
than a few isolated acts of sabotage because they fired all the
Albanian workers.  The Serbian authorities must have found that
they could not trust the Albanian workers.  But could there have
been a  _reason_  that the Albanian workers were not happy with
the Serbian authorities?

I think there was a reason.  But I did not see any reference to
that reason in the three hours I spent at the emperors' new
clothes.

I also found out that (according to tenc) the hundreds of
thousands of Kosovar refugees that flooded across the borders had
not been forced from their homes at gunpoint by sometimes very
brutal Serbian militias.  No, this was all the work of the KLA.

Jarad later added, in reply to Tony Abdo--who attempted to bring
the discussion back to the planet Earth, that "If anything,
Milosevich has been too gentle." [4].

Jarad is a good man but his ideology leaves him in a weak
position to understand either (a) the conflict in the Balkans or
(b) how to build an anti-war movement.

Néstor and Jarad may be right that the US-Soros sponsored
opposition movement could be a worse deal for the Serbian working
class than the continued rule of Milosevich.  I do not know.  I
am highly skeptical of anythiing I hear from Néstor and Jarad and
I am highly skeptical of anything I hear from the bourgeois media
where I get 99% of my news.

----------------------------------------
Must we choose the lesser evil?
----------------------------------------

What I do know is that there is an alternative to "lesser of two
evils" politics.  The alternative is to take a stand that is
genuinely independent.  Néstor says that no such independence is
possible.  But Néstor also says that the independents (who will,
above all, oppose the many crimes of their "own" ruling class)
belong in jail--so I do not think that Néstor is particularly
deserving of credibility on this score.

Lenin's party took part in many kinds of "united front tactics"
in a wide variety of conditions.  This is not the place or the
time to discuss united front tactics and the various tactics that
can be used in this or that situation.  I will rather bring up a
single instance of this.  In August 1917 the Bolsheviks "took the
side" of Kerensky against Kornilov.  Kerensky was clearly the
lesser evil in this situation.  This tactic by the Bolsheviks was
immensely successful.  Without it the October revolution might
never have taken place.  At no time, however, were illusions in
Kerensky promoted.  On the contrary, the Bolsheviks in their
written and verbal agitation made it clear--they would defend
Kerensky against Kornilov today--so that they could overthrow him
tomorrow.  And the Bolsheviks were heard  _l_o_u_d_  _a_n_d_
_c_l_e_a_r_.

That is the perspective that we will not hear from our
nationalists.  Néstor can from time to time claim that the "red
whores of the besieged rulers of the Third World" will "come to
power" tomorrow.  But he is dreaming.  The leaders of the working
class tomorrow are those who work for its class independence
today.

________________________________________
Information war wants to be free
to serve the working class

Ben Seattle
----//-// 16.Sep.2000
www.Leninism.org

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----------------------------------------
Notes
----------------------------------------

---[1]---

In spite of the considerable ideological shortcomings
of Jarad Israel, the following information that he
provided is most useful:

Jarad -- Sept 5:
> You ignore the most important fact about Yugoslavia
> internally: that the US and Western Europe are doing
> everything possible to distort its political life. That
> includes openly distributing $100,000,000 to opposition
> elements in Yugoslavia.  As the website editor of B292,
> whom I interviewed, told me (this is on tape) B292 is
> not the ONLY place that gets this US-Soros money.
> "There's a list." he said. "Everyone gets it." One hundred
> million dollars in Yugoslavia, an impoverished country
> with 4% of the US population and where $150 is a
> good MONTHLY salary, has the influence of a trillion
> dollars in the US.

> US officials openly discussed in the July 29, 1999 Senate
> hearings on destablizing Yugoslavia  (see
>  http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/hearin.htm )
> the details of their use of the "democratic" opposition
> arguing that their manipulation of the "independent"
> opposition is just another part of the  attack on Yugoslavia,
> similar to the bombing of Serbian TV.

---[2]---

Date: Aug 31
Subject: Forwarded from Anthony (on self-determination)
www.mail-archive.com/marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg11490.html

--(excerpt below)--

> My own not very precise measuring stick has two sides:
> we support the oppressed against the oppressor, no
> matter what. Argentina against Great Britain. East Timor
> against Indonesia. Chechnia against Russia. Russia
> against the USA and NATO. Vietnam against the USA.
> Kosovo against Serbia. Yugoslavia against NATO.
>
> Second, we judge these struggles by how they affect the
> growth and development of the working class, as an
> independent, self-conscious force in society. At this point
> in history this may seem like a pipe dream - but it isn't.
> Any defeat for US imperialism, and to a lesser extent
> any defeat for the second rank imperialisms- demonstrates
> to the workers that there enemy can be defeated - and
> thus encourages the class struggle. So even a victory by
> a reactionary theocratic movement, like the one in Iran,
> can advance the class struggle in some small measure.
>
> Following these guidelines is of course, not very easy. As
> in the case of Kosovo. Imperialism - especially its most
> advanced and adroit representative in the USA - has made
> an art, and almost a science, of using petty bourgeois
> nationalism to its advantage against its imperialist rivals,
> and against the real interests of the people of the countries
> whose nationalisms - at this or that moment - coincide with
> the interests of imperialism.

---[3]---

Chronicle of the Falklands / Malvinas
History and War of 1982
http://www.yendor.com/vanished/falklands-war.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN
    %3D0374519501/thevanishedga
    lle/002-9984876-7780005
    (URL above has been broken into three lines)

---[4]---

Date: Sep 10
Subject: WHAT crimes?
www.mail-archive.com/marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg11798.html

Tony Abdo had written:
> But Milosevic has been behind some very brutal programs,
> and trying to deny this is a case of overstating Yugoslavia's
> defense. People get very suspicious when they think that
> you are overstating a defense. So why do it?

Jarad replied:
> What very "brutal polcies" ?.The statement is simply untrue.
> If anything, Milsoevich has been too gentle.  A little of US
> Grant would go a long way. Now he seems a bit tougher.
> Excellent.
>
> The "brutal policies" argument relies on the impression given
> by the newspapers. Of course, when [one] challenges
> impressions created by the media, one upsets people.  Who
> said it would be easy?  Abdo asks, why do it? Because
> these "impressions" are used to neutralize opposition to war.
>
> Chomsky's articles on Yugoslavia rely on those impressions
> - he never clearly states what "crimes" he is talking about
> because "everyone knows".  Abdo does likewise. I said
> to Chomsky: either present evidence of these terrible
> policies, or apologize and stop doing it.  Ditto Abdo.


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