Re: Malvinas

[Xxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/11/01 7:05 PM,marxism-digestowner-marxism-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:

> Ah, and just to put a full stop to all this nonsense. On a recent posting,
> Xxxx
> explained that he considered Argentina and Britain on the same, "advanced
> capitalist", level. In Marxist terms this means that Argentina is an
> imperialist country at the same level as New Zealand or Australia. Then, I
> would like Xxxx to explain why did he favour (as he told us on a different
> posting) the victory of Argentina against Britain, and even went the length of
> advising us (ill-starred advice, but good-willed I guess) on the means to do
> it!

Actually, what I said, after comparing Argentina with *New Zealand* (not
Britain) was (with emphasis added for Nestor's benefit):
-----
In other words, Argentina is an advanced country with an advanced economy.
***It may not be at the rank of the US or European countries*** but it is
certainly not comparable to the economic situation one finds in much of the
Third World. Like Canada, Australia or New Zealand much of the economy is
owned by American and European interests but this no more makes Argentina
neo-colonial than it does Canada, Australia or New Zealand.
---

I don't know how you take "it may not be at the rank of the US or European
countries" and read it as "Argentina and Britain (are) on the same 'advanced
capitalist' level".

Argentina and Britain were not at the "same" level of advancement, just as
Russia and Germany were not on the same level of industrialisation during
WWI, indeed, Russia was just emerging from feudalism, was clearly Germany's
inferior and was suffering from German territorial encroachment, yet anyone
who argued like Nestor that because of this the conflict between Germany and
Russia was not an imperialist war but, a war against imperialist Germany and
oppressed Russia would have been labelled a Menshevik. Perhaps a fitting
label for Nestor?

As for the PRC and Hong Kong (I don't know why you bring Taiwan into it) I
will repeat, the Stalinists cum capitalists in Beijing are not Marxists in
any recognisable sense so I don't see why you look to China and Hong Kong as
a precedent.  Why not look to Soviet Russia which, under Lenin, recognised
the right to self-determination and the need to have republics join in a
union on a *voluntary* basis? Or are you afraid that if you read Marx and
Lenin too closely you'll find that there is no basis for the bourgeois
nationalism you are trying so hard to justify? If you prefer Deng Xiaoping
over Lenin and Marx, so be it, but then don't condescendingly lecture others
on the *true* meaning of Marxism or Trotskyism for that matter.

As for my "advice" the point was that if Argentina had a socialist
revolution it could then win a war on that basis and then offer the
Falklands a socialist federation on a *voluntary* basis.

Nestor, the expert Leninist, protested earlier against the argument for
arming the working class etc by saying (apparently in complete ignorance of
anything Lenin wrote on war and revolution ie turning the imperialist war
into a civil war)
> Who on Earth would have armed the "working class", if not the government? And
> then, what does it mean to "overthrow the military dictatorship" who gives us
> the arms? Thus, by implication, the idea is that you start a civil war in a
> country under foreign attack.

Nestor, apparently embarrassed by the exposure of his ignorance has yet to
reply to my response which was:

Isn't that what Lenin called for (and what the Bolsheviks did) in Russia?
---

Nestor, if you want to be a bourgeois nationalist or somehow integrate your
bourgeois nationalism with Marxism, you can try, but then don't pretend to
be a Marxist, let alone a Trotskyist, and accuse others of being impure or
negligent. You've made quite a number of clear social chauvinist statements
in this exchange such as:

> We shall return. And, by the way, according to our law, there are some
> thousands of Argentineans on the Islands today: Argentina grants full
> Argentinean citizenship rights to everyone born on our territory, and the
> Malvinas make no exception.

according to "our law"? Surely you mean the bourgeois law of the Argentine
state?

> we Argentineans are
> the only people on the world who are crazy enough to love that parched piece
> of
> land in the midst of the Ocean.

Love? Word I'd expect a bourgeois patriot to use in regard to his country's
land, not a revolutionary Marxist.

I'm sorry Nestor but much of your phraseology and argumentation has much
more in common with flag-waving bourgeois patriotism than with Marxism (even
the Deng Xiaoping variety you seem to have become fond of in your desperate
attempt for a Marxist analogy). Perhaps you should just go off and sing your
national anthem and leave the lecturing about Marxism to others?


Xxxx


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