Re: marxism-digest V1 #6280

["stolz" <stolz@xxxxxxx>]

> Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 12:05:51 -0400
> From: "stolz" <stolz@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: The Ukrainian Bilko
>


> MP Vadim I can asssure with certainty that this IS
> funny. Not good certainly, but certainly funny.

Agree.  Actually, the funniest of all is the rumor that some members
of Vernik's team feel genuine relief now that they no longer have to
translate into Ukrainian those "position papers" of their Anglo-American
sponsors.

>
> MP Who is this Horatio and do I owe him money?

I meant the wise man Horatio of Hamlet.

> MP The youth refered to are the Indonesians Tom
> mentioned in his post. And as for sophistication I
> happily plead innocence as to that ability. Indeed i
> gleefully leave sophistry to those to whom it is
> second nature like sociology lecturers. Or orthodox
> trots.
>
> Instead, you should've asked yourself: how is it
> possible that a college lecturer in Kiev would not be
> interested in working hard for "comparatively
> little reward"?   This lecturer's salary is what you
> spend for your kitten odor removers in a month.  But
> yes, money is not the whole thing.  The pure
> joy of political  trickstery, especially when it is
> connected to monetary rewards, the sense of power and
> prestige, even in a narrow sectarian milieu
> of Ukrainian politics, and last not least, moving
> around, getting to all those "summer schools" and
> "conferences" compliments to "Western comrades."
> But this is not a politically interesting topic.
>
> MP I suspect you are being sophisticated here and I do
> not keep cats. But the reason for Verniks actions is
> interesting politically to me. Perhaps instead of your
> cryptic remarks you could present us with your
> opinion?

There is nothing &acute;"cryptic" in my view of Vernik's motivations.
If you disagree with it explain why.


> Well, still why don't you tells us how much those
> benefits were? And what is LRP?
>
> MP How would I know the losses incured? But the SPGB
> has mentioned a loss of over Ј1,000. Whilest other
> groups would seem to have donated smaller sums. So if
> ten groups were bilked we are talking of something
> over 10,000. A useful sum and more useful in the
> relatively low waged Ukraine but no fortune.

"Relatively" to who?  Ukrainian wages can be called "relatively low" by a
Marxist from a Peru or a Bangladesh, but not by someone living in Britain.  I
am a professor in a Russian college and my monthly salary is about $120.
This cannot be called  a "relatively low" wage in the eyes of a British
citizen.  Ukrainian wages are uniformly "relatively low" in comparison with
Russian.  So I'd say Vernik is paid $80-100 per month.  10,000 pounds amount
to approximately 15 years of work for him. But, yes his reasons must have
been were more complex and I suggested at least some of them.



>
> Yes, Vernik, and not only him, was created by Western
> Trotskyists. Even his earliests experience of milking
> the Libyan embassy was only an  amateurish cat-copying
> of the Healy gang.  But his real training and I
> suspect the real corruption began only with his deeper
> understanding of what the Western Trotskyism wanted
> from him, namely, anti-Russian Ukrainian
> nationalism.  All 15 or so "fraternal" groups created
> in Ukraine by Western trotskyists or FOR them (most if
> not all of them are purely virtual)have one thing in
> common.  They are bitter enemies of each other, but
> they are one in their anti-Russian (formerly
> anti-Soviet) politics.   No, Vernik is not a trikster.
> He is a sincere Ukrainian nationalist who made pact
> with the forces who responded to his political
> instincts: a petty-bourgeois nationalist leftist, left
> anticommunist, whose school of political education was
>
> the anti-comminism and anti-Sovietism of "perestroika"
> era, which in Ukraine was accompanied by rabbid
> anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism.  He was an ideal
> candidate for most malignant strains of Western Cold
> War Trotskyism.  They both found each other.  And in
> full truth, we should give Vernik his due:
> didn't he make a political miracle?  Didn't he UNITE
> by trickery and against their own will those who have
> been always united in the only essential matter
> of contemporary politics, but whose own pettiness
> prevented them from acknowledging their unity?
>
> MP I'm afraid you don't understand just how very
> different the various groups Vernik tricked actually
> are. Some do conform to your idea of them as
> anti-communist as with the SPGB or LRP. but others are
> very pro-communist and supported the former state of
> the USSR through thick and thin.

I have no idea what you mean by "supporting"  the USSR.
Actually, in our books SPGB is a relatively less poisonous organism
than most of the rest, certainly not a match for the British SWP
or AWL, "the running dogs of imperialism," as our Maoist friends put
it in their colorful language.


In his understanding
> of their differences on such issues is far more
> sophisticated than you my friend. For example the LRP,
> or for that matter both Tom O'Lincoln and myself, hold
> that the USSR was a capitalist state and social
> formation, but the IG/L4I and the IBT hold that it was
> a workers' state. Now it might be easy to sell the
> same story to both IBT and IG but the same could not
> be done to the LRP and Tom the differences in the
> positons held being significantly different.

Well, this is clearly a case of important misunderstanding.  I never
said that in the eyes of Western trotskyists the differences between
all these abbreviations were not important.  What I said was that in OUR
eyes, and I believe in the eyes of Vernik, these diferences were of
no importance. To say this is not the same as to say that we are not
aware that these doctrinal differences exist and that they are not important
for those Trotskysists who proclaim them or that those Trotskyists are
interested in making other people, for instance in imperialistically
oppressed contries, believe in the importance of these differences.  My point
is that it is the first mark of maturity on the part of Marxists from
oppressed countries to NOT ALLOW themselves be interpreted by Marxists from
imperialist countries or take their interpretation of themselves at its face
value, uncritically.  Instead, their Marxist maturity will always manifest
itself in the most active interpretative (the same as critical) actvitity in
relation to ideologies current in the imperialist metropoly, Left ideologies,
above all, as inseparable from the imperialist context of their origin.


This is why I began by saying that your misunderstandig of what I had said
was remarkable.


Verniks
> knowledge of these differences leads me to believe
> that in some sense he is a genuine enthusiast and not
> some kind of agent. But if, as you say, Vernik is a
> Ukrainian nationalist I would hope you provide us with
> details which I will undertake to distribute to those
> directly concerned with this affair.

To distribute information is not a problem for us.  We can distribute
any information in 4-5 languages worldwide in 10 minutes. Moreover, we
strongly believe that the fact WHO distributes indormation is no less
important than the information itself.  Actually, there is no such thing as
information itself.  So if we felt any need in getting in touch with
organizations concerned we would have done already directly.  As to providing
you with details about Vernik's nationalism I can only suggest you go
straight to those Trotskyst organizations and read their materials
and "position papers" related to Ukraine.  You will find in them the
promotion of anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism.  And I stress:  not anti-
NATO Ukrainian nationalism, but anti-Russian.)  Or talk to characters like
Chris Ford. Or even simplier, since it's a tedious stuff to read and Chris
might not be in good spitrits these days, read the classics: authors like
Cliff on "Soviet imperialism" and "Bandera freedom-fighters" or the like.
These are the people who "clarified" and legitimized for Vernik and many
others their  anti-Russian nationalism and anti-Sovietism in left disguise.
>
> So this affair is not about Vernik.  And I am afraid
> that much worse "revelations" will be coming from
> Ukraine in not so distant future. And perhaps some
> very big names in Western Left politics will become
> much much smaller when we learn about their little
> games in Ukraine.
>
> MP Tell us more.....

I cannot.  Even if I knew anything else for certain I would never
share this information in such way.  What a foolish thing it would be!
Why in the world would I wish to warn suspected provocateurs or the
organizations that participate in the imperialist subversion of the peoples
of the former Soviet Union, BEFORE some one has collected enough evidence to
unmask these agents and these organizations in the court of progressive
public opinion and by doing so wipe them out off the table?!

Vadim Stolz
www.left.ru/burtsev/