Re: [Marxism] Role of Socialists (was The Chinese occupationofHaiti)

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 19, 2008, at 10:42 AM, Pance Stojkovski wrote:
>
> ...But it seems there's a difference of opinion among the radical  
> left on how
> to combat the imperial powers. There are (at least) two major camps  
> in the
> radical left: one camp says US imperialism is the main enemy. Just  
> one fact
> alone stands out - the military budget of the U.S. is more than the  
> rest of
> the world's military budgets combined! Alliances with progressive  
> elements
> including segments of the national bourgeoisie are an important  
> tactic for
> combating U.S. aggression. These are only temporary alliances - our  
> ultimate
> goal of socialism is never subsumed by this alliance.
>
> The other camp says imperialism is equally bad whether it's US  
> imperialism
> or "our own" national imperialism. A pox on all their imperial  
> houses. No
> alliances. Forward to socialist revolution.


If this has a familiar flavor, its because the phenomenon of "social  
imperialism"--self-proclaimed "radical leftists" discovering  
"progressive elements" in their own imperialist ruling classes and  
using that "discovery" as justification for naming some *other*  
imperialist power as the "main enemy," has existed for more than a  
century. It was revealed in all its loathsome nakedness in August 1914  
when for the pro-German social imperialists the Tsar was the main  
enemy and for their pro-Russian-French-British-American-Japanese  
counterparts it was the Kaiser.  It dominated the so-called "Cold War"  
with the pro-Stalinists justifying the crimes of the Russian rulers by  
the phrase "US imperialism is the main enemy" while their social- 
democratic counterparts were justifying US crimes with the phrase  
"Stalinist imperialism is the main enemy." The resulting deep division  
in the working class is the basic reason all attempts at liberation  
have been, sooner or (a little) later, crushed.

Anti-imperialism means opposition to imperialism.  No matter whose  
imperialism.  Social imperialism means claiming that some other empire  
is "worse" than the empire one wants to support.  Marxists recognize  
that, as in the Great and Good and Cold Wars, the element of conflict  
in inter-imperialist relations is everywhere and always overshadowed  
by the alliance of different national sectors of international  
capitalism against any possibility of socialist revolution anywhere-- 
even in the land of the bitterest enemy.

Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to  
be called Zeus."

Herakleitos of Ephesos




________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu