Well Dave,
Why am I not surprised? Guess its because the LCmcri got this theory of the
anti imperialist United Front and try to push the world through it. However
the new regime and class it represents in Russia after the counter
revolution will not I believe let itself be attacked by a United
imperialism. They will be jockeying for one side of the other but in their
*own* interests.
As they are doing in the present war.
Warm regards
Bob Malecki
>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.
>
>
>
>
>
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