Bob wrote:
In the discussions of late Dave and others has brought forth the
hypothesis that Milosevich will make a deal. Now I agree that
Milosevich certainly would be prepared to make a deal. However I am
wondering if this stuff has now gone far beyond anything to do with
the actual war against Milosevich and has more to do with
inter-imperialist rivalry and NATO's future with America playing top
cop...
...But you are right. It is the Russian question that must be
discussed and it is directly connected to the other point of
inter-imperialist rivalry and a new world war...
...It appears to me that the left is driving with blindfolders on
this question, hoping it will disappear. But it won't. For example in
Russia today what would be the line of the party to the workers?
Silence?...
I reply:
Not quite silence. I have raised the question of Russia before on
this list. Below is a snippet from issue 26 March-April of
our paper Class Struggle.
Trotskyist Programme:
World Economic Crisis and the Tasks for Trotskyists.
We publish material in this issue on the worsening crisis
in Russia and in Brazil. Even the bourgeoisie now see these
crisis as part of an unfolding world crisis. But they cannot
explain it. We start by stating our basic positions on the
the main causes and effects of the crisis, and the tasks
which the crisis poses for revolutionaries
We then look at what is happening in Russia and Brazil and
the tasks posed for Trotskyists in the struggles against
imperialism and for socialism in these countries.
This analysis and the tasks which flow from them cry out
for a new Transitional Program around which Trotskyists
can regroup to build a new communist international!
Summary Draft perpectives on Current world crisis.
(1) A necessary (and invitable) slump to devalue
constant and variable capital in Japan, the US and EU will occur
in the next 2-3 years. This results from the failure of massive
devaluations in Asia, Latin America (see Brazil article) to
provide new openings for the fund of suplus fictitious capital
that has amassed in the US and EU and which is engaged in
speculating in currency, bonds, futures markets etc i.e.
which grossly overvalue company assets (constant capital)
and which will also drive down wages (variable capital).
(2) This will drive the major imperialist powers into a new
round of trade wars for control of existing and new markets.
The weakest of these capitals, Japan may be desperate enough
to stand up to the US in this rivalry and mobilise support in Asia.
The attempts by China, Japan and more recently Malaysia to use state
controls to block foreign investment and speculation may foreshadow
an Asian bloc with Japan at its centre. The EU has now entered the
critical stage of integrating a new bloc around the Euro.
(3) Russia and China and possibly India are the strategic countries
that imperialism must control to create a platform for a new period
of accumulation. They are the Western, Eastern and Southern keys to
the whole Eurasia land mass which contains the greatest unexploited
resource base. This means that imperialist pressure must mount to
extract super-profits in this region. The regimes in these states
are either bourgeois opening up to the Wes, or as in China Stalinist
bureaucrats attempting to convert themselves into a bourgeois class.
But these regimes are also torn by internal opposition to further
imperialist control. Therefore we can expect growing pressure for
economic and military sanctions (as used against Iraq, Yugoslavia,
India and Pakistan) to foment 'civil war' as the pretext for
imperialist invterention to prop up or impose imperialist dominated
regimes.
(4) Therefore, the main contradiction today will lead to new
imperialist wars for the control of Russia, China and India in
which we have to defend these countries against imperialism.
Our position should be for their victory against imperialism.
Russia, China and India are fully aware of this and are capable of
defending themselves by forming military blocs. The recent moves
towards military agreements between these states and India points to
this. It was no accident that it was done at the same time as the US
attack on Iraq.The Russian and Chinese reponse to Iraq and Yugoslavia
showed they were prepared to break with imperialism (NATO, UN etc).
(5) Like Iraq and Yugoslavia which are a "trial run" in many ways,
Russia, China and India may mobilise around reactionary nationalist
governments. There is an alarming upsurge of chauvinism, religious
communalism, anti-semitism etc in these countries. Reactionary
leadership will target labour activists, as well as national,
religious and other minorities. These will have to be defended by
international campaigns. But in relation to imperialism the defence
of these states is progressive. This is because in relation to
imperialism they are both oppressed states. Why so?
(6) China is still a DWS. Its route to restoration has been the slow
path controlled by the bureaucracy. But further pressure may slow down
and even reverse this process. But even if China speeds up the process,
converts its currency and lets the Law of Value rip, it, like Russia
today, would be a large semi-colony.
(7) Russia today is a capitalist semi-colony. Lenin regarded Russia
under the Tsar as an imperialist country because despite its
super-exploitation by European imperialism, it was politically
expansionist. Had the revolution not happened in 1917, Russia would
quickly have sunk into colonial or semi-colonial status, just like
China before the war. Today it has reverted to that status.
(8) These developments will require Trotskyists to stand firmly on
the Anti-Imperialist United Front as did Trotsky in China in the 1920's.
We bloc militarily with the national bourgeoisie to defend democracy
against imperialism, but maintain our armed independence and defend
democratic rights internally so as to prepare the ground for permanent
revolution.
(9) Trotskyist groups that want to participate in regroupment should
do so by debating the major points which determine world events at
the moment, and subject their programme to the test of these
events.
Dave Bedggood.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
