re: New Politics (reply to Alex)

["Tom O'Lincoln" <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I suggested that "bureaucratic collectivism" was linked to a certain
approach to the Middle East, and Alex asked how. Apologies for not replying
sooner, but I've been on one of my visits to scenic Canberra, the
Sacramento of the South.

I doubt if I can explain my thoughts fully without long digressions into my
own "Cliffite" theoretical background - and I really don't want to debate
state capitalism right now - but here goes:

At its most basic: "bureaucratic collectivism" says Russia and America are
both class societies, and that we should stand instead for a "third camp"
represented by the working class. Similarly the Schachtman/Matgamna line is
that Israel and the Arab states both represent evil forces, and that the
alternative to both is the working class of the region, including Israeli
workers. Therefore we want to relate both the Arab workers and Israeli
workers. To relate to the latter, we have to reassure them we don't want to
"drive the Jews into the sea", and so we arrive at the need to guarantee
the rights of Jews equally with Arabs.

Now I was quite happy with the slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow", but
I think the theory of state capitalism gave it a far better underpinning.
If we understand the stalinist states as capitalist, we don't really have a
triangular setting. We just have workers versus different forms of
capitalism. The trouble with the Schachtman idea that Russia had a
different class nature to America is that there was no way of establishing
whether Russia was more progressive than the west, equally reactionary, or
worse. And in fact Shachtman himself evolved through all three of these,
ending up with the idea that stalinism was barbarism and on that basis
supporting western imperialism. His theory didn't provide one essential
theoretical anchor: the need first and foremost to challenge our own ruling
class. Similarly with "even-handedness" in the Middle East: I don't want to
drive the Jews into the sea either, but the starting point is to defend the
oppressed against imperialism - not to reassure members of the oppressor
nation.

I think this background also helps us understand why Workers' Liberty have
recently campaigned both against war *and* against Muslim fundamentalism -
equally. Once again it is abstracted from the key responsibility to
challenge our own rulers before anything else.