Hugh replies to Dave..
>
> This is almost correct. What's missing is the historical dynamic of the
> Permanent Revolution. The revolution isn't just made by the workers. And
> bourgeois democratic rights such as national self-determination and the
> right to representation are things that get the vast masses of nations to
> the barricades. They generate enormous social energy. The problem is, as
> the Permanent Revolution makes very clear, that the problems that make
> people fight *just can't be solved* without working class leadership. So
> what working class leadership does, and this is more than just "taking up"
> the issues, is to fuse the energy of the fight for social justice against
> the bourgeoisie with the fight for basic rights against reaction AND direct
> it at the bourgeois monopoly of power (capitalist ownership of the means of
> production and control of the relations of production), thus making it
> possible to remove reactionary oppression AND raise the quality of rights
> in society beyond merely bourgeois democratic limits to socialist levels
> (proto-socialist if the imperialist bourgeoisie still controls the world
> market), that is to the automatic right of all citizens to a place in the
> system of production (right to work) and to general, full and equal
> enjoyment of health, education and welfare provision regardless of income
> or position.
Unlike Dave who wants to use the AIUF to tail all sides in the Balkans on the national
question, Hugh tries to pose the theory of permanant revolution in order to defend his
leaning hard on the Kosovo nationalists. It also has a big dose of Morenoite
"bourgeoois democratic rights stuff which are not applicable in the present situation.
In fact the only real national question on the agenda is the attempt by NATO to
destroy Yugoslavia through bombings and now and invasion.
We have noticed that a great amount of "social energy" has been generated and still is
being generated on all sides in this conflict. Unfortunaly nationalist energy tied too
inter communal warfare and a bloodbath in the previous war in Bosnia and now in
Kosovo. But both wars were generated not so much by the national question in itself
but the imperialists support of different nationalists fractions to increase the slide
of the former Yugoslavia into a pre 1914 spheres of interest kind of envirionment with
foremost the Russians, Americans and Germans playing a key role in manuvering their
own positions fforward in this key part of central Europe.
So unlike Dave who wants to pass the national question through the eyehole of the
needle of his AIUF and Hugh who sees the movement as everything the goal nothing
through their differing tactical approach to the question agree to disagree.
The real difference betweeen Dave and Hugh is that Dave leans more towards defending
Serbia while Hugh wants to arm everybody on the Balkans.
Well everybody for a number of years has been armed or being helped from the outside
to get arms and rather than solving any national question (which can not be solved in
this area) we have Hugh tailing the Kosovars and Dave sitting on the fence wanting to
tail both sides but niether deal with the core question which is the only *real*
national question since NATO attacked Serbia. Their right to solve there own problems.
>
> The way Dave phrases it the workers pick and choose. The power of
> democratic demands however is such that the workers have no choice, they
> MUST get involved in the democratic struggle and lead it to a revolutionary
> solution. The dynamics of the process ensure that a successful solution to
> the democratic issues will actually go beyond a bourgeois democratic
> constitutional framework. This is the most important single lesson of the
> historical developments of this century. October, Yugoslavia, China and
> Cuba all demonstrate this, the first most clearly because of the conscious
> leadership along these lines by the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky, and
> the others because the leaderships were forced to obey the historical
> imperatives of carrying the solution beyond bourgeois democratic limits or
> face the blackest reaction and self-annihilation. Most consciously under
> Tito, least consciously under Castro and most reluctantly under Mao with
> his Stalinist vision of the democratic block of the four classes or
> whatever he called it (swept away by reality in no time at all).
This is classical Pablo/Morenoite mumbo jumbo. Where they distort and confuse there
tailing everything that moves on the ground which through some sort of dynamic motion
will lead to a successful revolution. And to argue about the various degenerated and
especially deformed workers states of being forced to follow the historical
imperatives is ridiculous. When we now see these countries being destroyed through
capitalist counter-revolution one after the other.
The blackest annilation in fact is what is going on today both in the former Soviet
Union and now Yugoslavia. In fact the NATO has dropped more tonnage of explosives on
Serbia/Kosovo then the Nazis did during the entire WW2!
>
>
>
> >By comparison, the ICL "subordinates" the national question to
> >imperialist war and then forgets about the national question. But
> >this is to misunderstand the importance of this democratic right in
> >winning over workers to internationalism. As Trotsky made
> >clear during the healthy period of the 4I in 1939 when the SU invaded
> >Poland, questions of democratic rights and war are finally
> >subordinated to the international revolution.
>
> Dave should expand on this and include the lessons of Finland 1918 and
> Brest-Litovsk as well. Please.
Try Poland at the outbreak of WW1!
>
> Not just that, but there are stirrings of this kind within the KLA itself.
> It's a dynamic movement with thousands of worker recruits with arms in
> their hands. That's a crucible, historically speaking, and capable of
> generating enormous pressure on any leadership.
Yes we have been noting the dynamics on TV! And it appears that the pressure is hardly
towards workers revolution but imperialist domination with the Kosovar nationalists
wanting to be junior partners.
>
> This is not clearly put. I think Dave means that for an AIUF to be of any
> use to workers (or genuinely revolutionary democratic forces) then the
> workers' forces have to be led by an independent revolutionary working
> class leadership. The most powerful forces, empirically speaking, in a
> front against imperialist intervention usually remain the armed forces of
> the state. In China, for instance, against Japan, Chiang Kai-Shek's forces
> were more powerful than the Red Army, and the forces of the Galtieri
> dictatorship were superior to those of the suppressed revolutionary left.
> However, the independence of the Red Army and its leadership (inadequate
> though it was in so many ways) led very quickly to the general social
> defeat of the Guomintang forces, and the independence and leadership of the
> Argentine left (including great strides in organizing within the armed
> forces) led to an enormous upsurge of democratic and revolutionary
> socialist movements, toppling the dictatorship and confronting the
> bourgeoisie and imperialism with huge difficulties in containing the
> popular will of the masses.
This stuff is really mind boggling. Especially the stuff on Argentina. In fact the war
disarmed the left and led it down the road of social patriotism and replaced the junta
with the people who always used the junta to garantee its rule. And the future juntas
are waiting in the wings if the social patriotic experiment that made this transition
possible turns in the direction of Chili and the old Unidad Popular.
>
> True enough. You can see the same accommodation to the labour aristocracy
> which is the political base of the chauvinist bureaucracy in the policies
> of the CWI (Militant) in relation to Ireland and Argentina (the Malvinas),
> for instance. Sectarianism on the party and organizational questions
> intimately linked to opportunism in relation to the bureaucracy. Using the
> class question in a narrow nationalist interpretation to avoid dealing with
> the living struggle of the poor and oppressed masses for the most minimal
> democratic rights.
This is cute. Because both Dave (foremost) and now Hugh parrot this kind of arguement
to cover up their own tailing of these movements from below. Both in fact lean towards
a popular front from tbelow by tailing mass movements from the left and pressuring
them to be more revoluitionary. Dave through the instrument of the AIUF and Hugh
through supporting everything that moves from below claiming that it generates social
energy and all that is needed is for the communists to stand at the head of these
movements in the end.
We should look in to the tactic of the proletarian united front which is counterposed
to Dave's AIUF and look at the events evolving out of February where Hugh would have
been in the camp of the Mensheviks and opposing Lenin's April thesis.
> Bob should never forget that the individual leap of consciousness he
> himself made to revolutionary Trotskyism was just that -- an individual
> leap. Our struggle is to advance the consciousness of the masses. You might
> win individual cadres by isolated flashes of insight after reading
> something good, but you can only win mass progress in the class, and
> gradual progress at that most of the time, with a patient, long-term
> transitional approach that's neither nagging nor academically correct.
> First you know what's what, but then you think about how to get this across
> to people who don't know what's what and disagree with you about it. You
> don't just smack them in the face with it and then blame them for not being
> grateful.
This is just the same arguement that Lenin had a long time ago. And Trotsky later on.
The party and its cadre are the instrument and a Leninist combat party is not only the
tribune of the masses but is the irrecounsible opponents to all forms of opportunism
in the workers movement. They complement one another. Because it is not only arousing
the masses to conciousness but leading them in a direction which actually will give
them state power.
Both Hugh and Dave want to revamp Lenin/Trotsky into there own opportunist variants.
In Dave's case the AIUF which is a left tail of the popular front while Hugh wants to
lead the popular front leaning on the movement is everything dynamics the goal
nothing. Thus if the masses move we support it. The problem is that the masses move
all the time and on the question of Yugoslavia his cherished KLA is moving as and
instrument and cheerleader of imperialism in the Balkans.
On the other hand the Russians whom Dave sees as part of his AIUF have sold out the
Serbs for their *own* potential imperialist interest.
Hugh and his cute "PS"!
>
> PS In case anyone's wondering, I see our discussions here mainly as part of
> the process of finding out what's what. The list is hardly a forum of
> people in struggle seeking the right policies, more a forum of pitting
> various policies (and approaches) against each other and seeing how they
> shape up. Seekers can learn a lot, but it's all indirect compared with
> taking part in the actual struggles of the masses.
This was cute Hugh! This arena is a battlefield for ideas. And the only advice I can
give is NOT getting in their and getting your hands dirty with "masswork". Not because
I oppose masswork but in fact understanding what where and why I am doing something to
move history in a certain direction.
This is counterposed to your Menshevik conception and based on the transitional
program which says;
The present crisis is a crisis of leadership....
This is counterposed to...
Your conception is the usual mindless activism point of view. History has show us
where this stuff can lead. Before the Transitional program was Lenin's April thesis
which put a program of struggle for state power into the hands of the party and
turning them away from just the ridiculous view you represent here.
The motor of history is the masses and its locomotive is the party and its program.
Warm regards
Bob Malecki
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