[Pen-l] Proletarian _Inter_nationalism

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: raghu  


-------------------------

On Tue, Charles Brown
wrote:
> I forgot to mention that
> the fascists were oppressing the
> working classes of all Europe -
> French, German, Italian, Spanish,
> Polish, Czech, et al .- as well as Soviet.
> So, the war against fascists and the
> US CP support of it was very much
> proletarian internationalist, the broader
> view, the interests of the working class
>  as a whole, common interests independent
> of nationality.


Charles,
What do you make of the brief period Aug 1939 - Jun 1941, when the
USSR made an alliance with the Nazis? I understand it created quite an
uproar among communists in the West who felt shocked and betrayed and
didn't know what to make of it.
-raghu.

^^^
CB: Good question.  It was a 
non-aggression pact, not an 
alliance. The difference is
 important. Non-aggression 
means if either is attacked by
 another country the other will 
help defend. It is not an offensive 
alliance, like NATO. 

More importantly, the SU had
 made strenuous efforts to get a
 non-aggression pact with the 
other imperialist countries, Britain, 
France and the US , before this. 
The Brit-French-US refused, as
 they had refused to support the 
revolutionaries against the fascists
 in Spain. 

Finally, the Nazis are only 
the "full Nazis" with hindsight. 
Concretely in the 1930's
The Soviets had to see all the 
imperialist nations as potential
 threats, and a lot more
equally than we do in hindsight. 
The US and Britain had 
invaded the SU during the Russian
 Civil War
 to overthrow the Russian Rev in 1919.
 It was not as clear then as now
 which of the imperialist nations 
was the greatest threat to the SU.

There
was some possibility that all of 
the imperialists nations might have 
united against
the SU. There had been a blockade
by all of them, an international
 capitalist
blockade  against the SU up
 to about 1930.

So, the pact was in part an
 effort to divide the much more powerful
 imperialist
enemies, divide and survive.

This was not entirely, unsuccessful,
in that , obviously, Hitler had some
unsettled accounts of inter-imperialist
rivalry with France and
Britain , and _did_ invade France
first. This might also have been 
strategic in defending his "rear" before
invading the SU. But nonetheless,
the non-aggression pact may have
had some partial influence in 
steering the Nazis West first, which
gave the SU some time to build up 
defenses, brought the most Westerly
imperialist nations against Germany early,
thereby contributing to the US et al
allying with the SU during the actual
big fighting of WWII.
,
Finally, in terms of Machiavellianism,
do we really think the famously, oh, what
 shall we call them, "street" smart, real
 politikally ruthless CPSU of that moment
had no skepticism about the Germans'
promises in the pact, treaty ? Real naive
bunch , that Political bureau, eh ? 





This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l