[Marxism] Editorial from US SWP's 'Militant" following January 27 protest

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This editorial from the US SWP's Militant has some positive qualities.
First, the description of the role of the Democrats is correct.  By refusing
to use the powers of Congress to stop or limit the war in any way, they are
affirming that they, as well as the Republicans, are a war party.  

That is why they were a target, despite the illusions that are widespread
about their role, of the January  27 demonstration, which I attended, and
which should not be presented as "begging Congress" to act against the war,
as some radical groups did at the demonstration (a fine action of
50-100,000, much larger than I expected).

People have a perfect right, which we should identify with as part of
winning people to independent class and anti-capitalist politics, to demand
that the people they elected do as they desired.  Something serious to stop
the carnage that the US has brought to Iraq and at least start bringing
troops home very rapidly.

(There is no consensus around immediate withdrawal, which I support as the
best alternative and which was quite prominent in the demonstration.)

The new version of the nonbinding resolution, a compromise between the
Democrats and Republican critic John Warner, actually authorizes US
escalation in some areas and pledges Congress never to interfere with
funding, while abstractly criticizing the troop increase AS A WHOLE.

By endorsing this compromise and refusing to exercise any of its
constitutional power over war policy, the Democrats are clearly "owning" the
crime of this war.  It IS a bipartisan war, as it was from the beginning.
Lieberman can feel again a victor --  HIS party cannot defy his stand with
the administration but can, at best, whimper about it while going along. And
much more than go along in the real world.

But the Militant's argument has weaknesses, which I want to point out.

On the whole, it is a clear break from the social-patriotic errors of the
past period, where the Militant focused on the crimes of the Resistance, and
presented the occupation as unintentionally providing space for the Iraqis
to build a revolutionary party. The editorial firmly places the
responsibility of the bloody situation in Iraq in all its forms on US
imperialism, and not on those who have resisted it by their lights.

It marks the end of what I think of as the
"Listen-to-Rumsfeld,-Not-the-Liberal-Media" period, when the Militant, while
opposing the US occupation, seemed at the same time to cheer alleged
victories over the resistance forces in Najaf ("fleeing like rats"), or the
"cleansing" of Fallujah as victories for "space." 

The current editorial explicitly identifies "space" with the immediate
withdrawal of US troops, not as an unintentional progressive consequence of
their arrival.

I had come to consider the SWP as capable of many bad things, but the
social-patriotic deviation (which definitely did not originate in a Miami
machine shop) came as a shock.  I came to see what the new critter was
capable of doing.  Fortunately, remnants of the old critter remained alive.

But the new critter -- still holding the top leadership positions -- is
alive and kicking, too.

The editorial states:

The U.S. rulers are in crisis over the Iraq war. Many in the capitalist
class still flinch in face of their need to use military power to confront
the growing disorder of the capitalist world to defend imperialism's
interests. They wish they could go back to the years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall and before 9/11, a period marked by triumphalist talk of a new
era of capitalist ?peace,? ?democracy,? ?stability,? and even ?the end of
history.? 

But no section of the U.S. ruling class has an alternative to the escalation
of the war in Iraq, which is already being carried out by the Pentagon. The
only course they have in face of mounting economic vulnerability, coupled
with political and military challenges to their domination worldwide, is the
multi-theater war now unfolding under the banner of fighting "terrorism.?
That includes the stepped-up war in Afghanistan, the tightening squeeze on
Iran, U.S. Special Forces operations from the Philippines to Somalia, and
the expanding U.S. military presence throughout Africa. These military
assaults are an extension of a developing war on the working class at
home?from factory raids and deportations to murders by the police in
working-class neighborhoods.

Allow me to suggest that the Militant here is guilty of trying to decide for
the bourgeoisie how to handle the current situation rather than simply
report the divixions among them for the information (and inspiration) of the
oppressed and exploited, who find room to maneuver in divisions among the
rulers.  I think the Militant should get out of the business of determining
what is the "necessary" policy for the bourgeoisie -- party for principled
reasons and partly because their record on Iraq has not justified confidence
in their knowledge of how to solve the bourgeoisie's problems.  I think the
Militant should consider the questions that directly impact our side. For
instance; Do we need more mass demonstrations, bigger and broader than
January 27, or will strike picket lines be enough to guarantee advances for
the working class?  And if more and bigger and broader antiwar
demonstrations should not be advocated, why?a

Further, the Militant seems to be arguing that the US drive toward more war
in the Middle East is so strong that nothing can stop it from expanding, no
matter what defeats they experience, short of the direct overthrow of their
regime by the proletarian dictatorship.

There is a chance -- a slim chance but I think it exists -- that there is an
element in the bourgeosie that is so strong and so convinced that all is
lost if they retreat that the editorial is right.  

As tended to be true during the Listen-to-Rumsfeld period, the Militant
clearly seems to be arguing for the correctness of the on-to-Iran-and-beyond
standpoint and sneering at those who question it as behind the times. Those
who advocate more and more war for ever and ever are absolutely correct
because of the problems US imperialism has today (and the psychology it
fosters in such situations) right now. In that case, demonstrations are
useless symbols.  This war -- this very war, not just imperialist war in
general cannot be ended short of the decisive victory of US imperialism or
the proletarian revolution.

Contrary to the Militant, I think that tactical retreats by the rulers are
quite possible and that we should not, in effect, oppose them on principle.
I doubt that US imperialism in such straits that it must stake everything on
the non-stop extension of THIS war at THIS time, no matter what the
consequences -- like German imperialism under Hitler in World War II.  I
think this could become a general world war -- there is a dynamic like that
-- but I don't think socialists should stake everything on the ruling class
staking everything on winning and expanding THIS war indefinitely.

I really don't think "Forward ever, backward never" has become their
tactical stand.

Obviously in such a circumstance, antiwar demonstrations can be supported
but are hopeless expressions of pacifistic people who are simply behind the
new situation: THIS war can only be ended by proletarian revolution, and
will continue until the working class and the oppressed have become prepared
to overthrow the imperialist regime and replace it by a workers and peasants
government.

And after all, "we are not pacifists."

This makes me wonder about the slogans which the Militant says working
people MUST adopt in toto in THIS specific war.

That's why the response by working people must be to demand, as the Young
Socialists contingent did in its boisterous chants throughout the January 27
march on Washington: Bring all the U.S. troops home now! Out of Iraq,
Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosova, Korea, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba! Stop the
threats against Iran! Not one penny, not one person for imperialist wars!

Working people have to have a clear position on all these issues in order to
do anything effective about Iraq?  And because the war in Iraq is raised in
an undifferentiated way, without any emphasis on the current WAR in Iraq but
simply as one of many places where US troops are present), the threats
against Iran come in way down the list.

(The issue of the Militant and the article on the protest seemed to suggest
a different approach than the editorial.  The headline was "Troops Out of
Iraq," with no laundry list of imperialist occupations insisted upon.)

Where are these slogans to be carried?  On union picket lines? That seems
inappropriate.  Should they be central slogans at abortion rights or
affirmative action protests, with the demands of the protest simply thrown
in somewhere? For the Militant to bring forward these slogans in a focused
way, there have to be antiwar protests.

But the editorial does not call for any protests.  That, apparently, would
be "pacifist." And what is the point of the slogans if none of the
situations listed can be affected short of proletarian revolution, which
seems to be the clear thrust of the editorial.

Okay, we are not pacifists.  But we are not inspired prophets either, right?
Prediction doesn't replace politics for us, right? Our aim is to be
politically effective in the process, whatever the outcome we may expect.

Don't tactics and strategy have to leave open the possibility that this war
won't go on until the proletarian revolution, and the possibility that there
are things the people of the United States can do to have an impact on the
outcome, even before they are ready for proletarian revolution.





Vol. 71/No. 6      February 12, 2007 

 
No peace party in Congress 
(editorial)
 
The unanimous confirmation by the Senate of Gen. David Petraeus as the new
commander of the U.S. troops in Iraq is the latest sign that there is no
peace party in Congress. There is only a war party in Washington. It
includes both the supporters of the Bush administration and the Democrats
and Republicans who criticize the White House but have backed the
imperialist war every step of the way. The approval of Petraeus, a major
proponent of the current large-scale military escalation in Iraq, shows this
is not just Bush?s, or Petraeus's, war?it?s Congress?s war as well. 

The call to stop ?ethnic cleansing,? not the pretext of spreading
?democracy,? is now becoming Washington?s latest rationalization for its
imperialist war?as it was in the brutal U.S.-led assaults on Yugoslavia in
the 1990s. U.S. soldiers are needed today because, if they pulled out,
Iraqis would slaughter each other, we are told. But the U.S. rulers are not
increasing their troop levels to 150,000 because of concern for the safety
of the Iraqi toilers. Their goal is to prop up a capitalist regime stable
enough to allow the unimpeded imperialist plunder of the resources and
exploitation of labor in the Mideast. That is against the interests of
working people anywhere, from Iraq to the United States. 

The U.S. occupation of Iraq has only served to foster the divisions between
Sunnis and Shiites, between Arabs and Kurds, and will continue to do so. The
U.S.-sponsored Iraqi elections and adoption of a new constitution helped fan
the flames of war between bourgeois factions competing for wealth and power.
A federated Iraq, or ?soft partition,? favored by many in U.S. ruling
circles, would further institutionalize these divisions. 

In fact, imperialist domination of the Mideast is the root cause of the
existing divisions. Over decades, Washington and London backed the
capitalist forces in Iraq that rolled back the 1958 democratic revolution,
carried out systematic discrimination against Kurds and Shiites, and gave
privileges to Sunnis. 

Only the Iraqi people can confront the problems they face. They will need
time and space to develop a working-class leadership that can spearhead that
fight. To do so, they need to get the occupation troops off their backs?now.


The U.S. rulers are in crisis over the Iraq war. Many in the capitalist
class still flinch in face of their need to use military power to confront
the growing disorder of the capitalist world to defend imperialism's
interests. They wish they could go back to the years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall and before 9/11, a period marked by triumphalist talk of a new
era of capitalist ?peace,? ?democracy,? ?stability,? and even ?the end of
history.? 

But no section of the U.S. ruling class has an alternative to the escalation
of the war in Iraq, which is already being carried out by the Pentagon. The
only course they have in face of mounting economic vulnerability, coupled
with political and military challenges to their domination worldwide, is the
multi-theater war now unfolding under the banner of fighting "terrorism.?
That includes the stepped-up war in Afghanistan, the tightening squeeze on
Iran, U.S. Special Forces operations from the Philippines to Somalia, and
the expanding U.S. military presence throughout Africa. These military
assaults are an extension of a developing war on the working class at
home?from factory raids and deportations to murders by the police in
working-class neighborhoods. 

That's why the response by working people must be to demand, as the Young
Socialists contingent did in its boisterous chants throughout the January 27
march on Washington: Bring all the U.S. troops home now! Out of Iraq,
Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosova, Korea, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba! Stop the
threats against Iran! Not one penny, not one person for imperialist wars! 
 




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