[Marxism] Re: "U.S. troops consolidate victory in Fallujah"

[l.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx (Lueko Willms)]

.    On  28.11.04
  wrote  joeandcaroline@xxxxxxx (Joseph Callahan)
     on  /ALIST/MARXMAIL
     in  BAY3-DAV18ACDC0A6CDB5D90E891B4DFBC0@xxxxxxx
  about  [Marxism] Re: "U.S. troops consolidate victory in Fallujah"


JC>    In the 1980's Barnes proclaimed that the U.S. would never win
JC> another war.

  I was also thinking of that quite often. It is quite comforting to  
build on that assumption.

  But one should not make predictions on the future, and never say  
never (this also applies to F. Engels' 1848 articles on the  
possibilities of the slavic peoples of Eastern Europe).


JC> Now Barnes flips to the opposite extreme proclaiming
JC> imperialism irresistible without what he considers "revolutionary
JC> leadership."  He's wrong both times.

  While the former proclamation can be used for a comforting outlook  
in the future, just as a religious belief that one day we will all be  
saved, and be it in heaven, the clash with reality may either lead to  
a correction of such a preditiction, or to further turning away from  
reality in order to preserve the respect for the sources of wisdom.


JC>    Looking back on it, even I underestimated the damage done by the
JC> SWP adopting positions that were quite obviously false from a simple
JC> factual standpoint.  Such as the pronouncements in 1990-91 that "the
JC> U.S. broke its teeth" in the first Persian Gulf War,

   That was a prediction that "they will break their theeth", which  
was not really tested because Bush sr. stopped short of conquering  
Basra and Baghdad.

JC> or that "U.S. imperialism lost the Cold War," and there is still a
JC> workers' state in east Germany etc.

   This resulted from counterposing an element of truth against the  
despair which broke out among many leftists, even some of the most  
antistalinists. It was the movement of the masses which broke  
themselves lose from the burocratic shackles, but the time was  
apparently not yet ripe for class conscious workers to lead the fight  
for workers and farmers governments, leaving the power to the existing  
(Germany) or emerging capitalist classes, and imperialism.

   It was the mass movement in East Germany which brought down the  
Berlin wall, not any military offensive from the West.

   Noting the contradictory nature of the events should have been the  
starting point for a deeper analysis of the workers state, the  
overturn of the late 1940ies. The view that "nothing has really  
changed, since a real counterrevolution would have occured with  
bloodshed" was obviously not enough to fully understand the events and  
the real nature of what we called workers states, or rather deformed  
workers states.

   It seems to me that Celia Hart is starting that analysis; she had  
first hand experience during her time in Dresden, GDR.


Yours,
Lüko Willms                                     http://www.mlwerke.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@xxxxxxxxxxx -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

"Es sind nicht die Generäle und Könige, die die Geschichte machen,
sondern die breiten Massen des Volkes"                - Nelson Mandela

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism