[Marxism] My intro comments to the statement by Albanian independence fighter (clearly separated from Michael"s intro)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, it's early in the morning and I failed to separate my introductory
remarks from those of my comrade Michael Karadjis. So here are my
introductory remarks alone. Michael's comments and the statement by the
Albanian leader who, unlike many others, is still fighting for independence,
not "independence."  So here is my intro:

Following these comments, I include the introduction by Michael Karadjis,
followedby this valuable statement on the current situation by a Albanian
leader who is still fighting for independence, not for privileged client
status under an occupation regime.

I see this statement as an important and positive development, although I
think Karadjis' endorsement runs counter to his tendency to see the course
followed by Albanian leadership as a process of "self-determination," which
Lenin said consisted exclusively of independence, although I think Trotsky
saw the matter more broadly.  Neither I believed would have viewed the
current situation in Kosova as an advance toward self-determination.

Note the meaning of this stance. Kurti was prepared for a longer, in some
ways more difficult struggle for Kosova independence, in order to achieve
the real thing, while the KLA opted for supposedly leaping over the
obstacles by supporting imperialism seizing Kosova from Yugoslavia, and
supposedly turning it over to the KLA. That is, he supported a continued
struggle for independence, rather than accepting the supposed gift of a
phony "independence" which has placed the KLA in the baggage train of the
occupiers.

Kosova was not liberated by the KLA.  It was seized by US imperialism as its
prize in a war on Yugolavia, such as it was at that time.

Supporters of the Karadjis position make light of my placing the
"independence" (actually imperialist slavery) won thus far by Kosova in
quotes. They insist that the US seizure of Kosova, supported and called for
by the KLA, was not an act of aggression against Yugoslavia. Since the
current process of "self-determination" can only exist under imperialist
occupation, they are forced to accept the presence of imperialist and
imperialist-backed forces as the price of continuing to advance
"self-determination" on this line including through the cynical declaration
of "independence." 

For them, in fact, "self-determination" -- yes, in quotes, for it is a fraud
on the ground -- is a principled question and imperialist occupation, while
clucked at, is basically a secondary and tactical question.

And to cover their position, they make the claim that I favor "handing over"
Kosova from the Americans and their Albanian allies to the main enemy -- the
Serb government. That is because I favor the complete, immediate,
unconditional withdrawal of imperialist and imperialist-organized foreign
forces from Kosova, regardless of the immediate effect on the current
process of "self-determination" or independence.

They try to paint me as a Albanian-phobe Serbophile who wakes up screaming
from dreams of "Greater Albania" while they tilt toward the Serbophobe line
of the imperialist media, and wake up screaming at dreams that Milosevic was
not the Serbian Hitler -- what else could be the meaning of Karadjis'
charges that Proyect was a "holocaust denier" because he questioned some of
the facts that went into the imperialist war propaganda against Serbia,
some of which were simply not true. 

Proyect has his own problems -- although, like Karadjis, he has his
strengths as well -- but my crime is that I place the issue of Kosova
independence in the framework of an actual, living world struggle against
imperialist domination, whereas the defenders of the declaration of
independence as a step forward place self-determination and independence for
Kosova outside and above that framework, which provides ideological
reinforcement for turning the struggle for self-determination and
independence into a process of "self-determination" and "independence"
through imperialist occupation.





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