[Marxism] Re: Australian troops back in East Timor

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jun 18, 2006, at 8:39 AM, Ozleft wrote:

> This view is simply false. There are instances in which Marx,
> Engels, Lenin and Trotsky supported military actions by imperialist
> states, or formed tacit alliances with them. These instances are
> rare, but they do exists, as I spelled out in the previous
> discussion on Marxmail.

Since you don't review the previous discussion, we are left in the
dark regarding your references. However, any case that Lenin and
Trotsky supported alliances with imperialist states would have been
between the Soviet Union and an imperialist state. It would have been
a state to state relation in defense of the interest of the Soviet
Union.

Trotsky in several instances wrote from "on high" about the interests
of the working class in certain outcomes, without ever endorsing an
adaptation to one or other ruling regime.

In no case would they have supported an imperialist state intervening
in another state for the purported purpose of protecting the citizens
of that state from their own rulers. Such an instance would not have
been rare, but impossible.

From time to time, some writers on this list have interpreted the
actions of the Cuba leadership in state-to-state relationships as
being an endorsement or criticism of particular policies for working
class parties within, let us say, Bolivia or Venezuela. In my
opinion, this is an incorrect interpretation. While the Cuban
leadership may not write with the clarity on this as Lenin or Trotsky
on such matters, it seems to me that they have taken a hands-off
attitude regarding strictly internal policies of socialist
tendencies, whatever their own opinion may be.

Brian Shannon




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