Re: [Marxism] "While we trade abstractions, people are dying?" (was, me bear-proof?)

[Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>]

Reading some of the criticisms of the criticisms of Mugabe, I'm sadly 
reminded of the arguments I often heard about Russia from die-hard 
Stalinists. Their position was basically that any criticism of the 
Soviet Union objectively supported the position of the Western 
imperialists. This seemed to me at the time - and still does - to be 
simply a mirror image of the argument that "my enemy's enemy is my 
friend" - and is just as false.

I was reminded of this today while reading some of Trotsky's comments 
after the victory of the Nazis in Germany:

"The so-called friends of the Soviet Union (left democrats, pacifists, 
Brandlerites, and the like) repeat the argument of the Comintern 
functionaries that the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy, i.e., 
first of all criticism of its false policies, 'helps the 
counter-revolution.' This is the standpoint of the political lackeys of 
the bureaucracy, but never that of revolutionists. The Soviet Union both 
internally and externally can be defended only by means of a correct 
policy. All other considerations are either secondary or simply lying 
phrases."
(Trotsky: "To Build Communist Parties and an International Anew", 
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-ger/330715.htm>)

I realise that not all people on this list identify with the Trotskyist 
tradition in any sense, but some of those who have argued for uncritical 
support for Mugabe do come from this tradition. Perhaps they should 
remember some of the better aspects of the tradition before the epigones 
got their hands on it. Who the epigones are/were I leave up to you - it 
will probably depend on the particular tendency or tendencies you were 
politicised in.

Einde O'Callaghan

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