racism, eurocentrism (fwd)

[xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Sam Pawlet:

> The alliances were disastrous and it was partly because of
>eurocentrism-- socialism wasn't possible in such backward places
>independent of European revolution.

I understand your reasoning, but why is it Eurocentric to expect a
socialist revolution world wide? The main reason behind the establishment
of the Comintern (Lenin, 1919) was to export revolutions to "colonized
countries", or to "promote communism world wide". Lenin's speech submitted
to the second congress of the Third International (1920) proves this
point. so the idea was internationalist, not eurocentric, not even
Russian centric. If you mean by European revolution _Russian revolution_,
Lenin thought Russia could provide a role mother to other revolutions
since it was Russia, historically speaking, outside the west (germany),
that did the revolution. The Comintern became Russian centric under Stalin
(1935), I think, in the seventh or fifth congress of the Third
International, which Trot called "the liquidation of the comintern". Trot
resisted this domestification of communism, and criticized the idea of
"socialism in one country" without having socialism world wide. I am not
after Trot here, but he was right at this point.


>It was a conundrum. The bourgeosie
>in said countries was acting
>in important anti-imperialist ways but at the same time repressing
>(usually savagely) domestic revolutionaries. Kemal asked Lenin for aid
>to kick out the Greeks and got it, despite the situation in Russia in
>1918-1920.

Very True. I don't see the _connection_ however.Lenin's approach to
nationalist liberation movements were strategic and pragmatic. Just as
bourgeois democratic reforms are instrumental in leninist jargon, national
liberationist movements are instrumental too. Marx saw this before.Without
fully consummating bourgeois reforms (minumun wage, right to organize,
right to strike, etc..), you can not have a democratic socialist society
in the future. Whether or not bourgeois democratic rights were existing in
colonized countries is another subject matter of discussion (obviously it
did not exist in Turkey even under the new regime). So one may think
extrapolating bourgeois conditions to societies with entirely different
structures is Eurocentric. but so what? in so far as Kemal was pro-western
("not" pro-Soviet) and commited to capitalism. It was not unexpected that
he ousted the leftist opposition. Kemalist regime was anti-marxist. In my
view, Lenin's approach to national bourgeois regimes was straight forward
as he said in the speech to the communists "strategically ally with them
when necessary but DO NOT MERGE with them". This allience meant "push for
certain reforms".  Thus, Lenin was on the side of Turkish Communists
not on the side of Kemal.

Moreover, in 1918-1920 period, new regime in Turkey was not established
yet (1923). The regime was officially ottoman empire backed by British
imperialists, although the natioanalists formed their de facto government
in Ankara (1918). Around those times it was very difficult to pin down who
is what since the Ottoman empire nearly lost its legitimacy and was under
attack from different people. Communists,socialists, liberals allied in
their support to nationalists, while some did not and some were killed;
some changed sides and conspired with ottomans;some came closer to soviets
organized under the name Anatolian socialists. the anti-imperialist
struggle was constituted from a field of ideological struggles.so it is
very difficult to judge retrospectively. In a nut shell, what i can say
is that Lenin wanted to exploit this opportunity by giving guns to
Kemal.He thought he could gain the support of the leftist party line in
the nationalist front. He made a strategic mistake;it did not happene
that way, partly because (and this is important) turkish communists could
_not_ transcend their nationalism yet. but Lenin had no intention of
killing communists or allying with nationalists. If Kemal killed these
people, this is the mistake of Kemal, not Lenin!


Mine