Re: [Marxism] Re: Australian troops back in East Timor

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Since you don't review the previous discussion, we are left in the
> dark regarding your references.

Glory be to Gmane Marxmail! Found the reference lickety-split.

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2003w09/msg00009.htm

(It's important to stress the point that there is no traditional Marxist
principle that Marxists never in any circumstances support the military
conflicts of capitalist states. Ferguson et al talk as if this were so, but
even the most cursory overview of the history of the Marxist movement shows
a number of occasions on which the founders of Marxism supported particular
military actions of capitalist states. Marx and Engels supported certain
military actions of capitalist states and so did Lenin and the Bolsheviks
in some unusual circumstances. The general proposition of the Marxist
movement is that the workers have no country, proletarian internationalism,
and a general opposition to capitalist wars and militarism, but in some
exceptional circumstances necessity has required limited tactical support
for the military action of capitalist states. The instance of such an
exception which is of most relevance is the circumstances surrounding the
occupation of the Russian port of Murmansk by German forces soon after the
Russian Revolution, in early 1918. Clearly at Lenin's instigation the
Bolshevik authorities in Petrograd sent urgent communications to the
Bolsheviks in Murmansk suggesting that they collaborate with the British
expeditionary force to remove the German forces from the port, but attempt
to achieve this without being seen to do so. Military necessity and the
interests of the revolution required such a manoeuvre. In the event, this
particular collaboration turned out badly, as it was the beginning of the
Anglo-French intervention, which the Bolsheviks did not at that stage
anticipate. This incident is recounted in documents in Richard Pipes book
"The Unknown Lenin". The reactionary anti-communist philistine Richard Pipes
recounts this incident from the hidden documents to attack Lenin for
duplicity. But actually, what the incident demonstrates is Lenin's
ceaseless revolutionary seriousness and Realpolitik. Other philistines
please note. Lenin's view on such matters was that the proletarian
revolutionary forces
had the right and duty to exploit all contradictions among the enemy
forces, and he asserted that sort of dialectical approach repeatedly, and
the same right to exploit contradictions among bourgeois forces, even
militarily, extends to movements struggling for national independence. For
instance, Lenin was a vocal and vigorous supporter of the Irish rebellion
of 1916 and the fact that the Irish revolutionaries had attempted military
arrangements with Germany fazed him not a bit.)

---

An excerpt from my response to this:

I have no idea why you need to buttress your argument with such an obscure
reference. A much more useful example is the alliance between the Soviet
Union and Anglo-American imperialism during WWII. A workers state is
obligated to make a pact with the devil in order to defend socialist
property relations. But what does this have to do with East Timor? As far
as I know, the DSP did not hold state power in East Timor. The issue is
much more closely related to the one that divided the US
and Haitian left in 1994 over whether American Marines should have been
supported in a humanitarian intervention to rescue Aristide. I believe that
the correct position is to oppose any such rescues, especially considering
in this instance the sorry track record of US "rescues" in the Caribbean
and the trajectory of Aristide. When such imperialist rescues take place in
places like Haiti or East Timor, the prognosis is extremely guarded.

full: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2003w09/msg00012.htm





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