On 2021-01-19 14:27, Bruce Robinson wrote:
I agree with Andreas. It is a far better example of Dmytri's much
vaunted 'proletarian internationalism' to support those in China, and
that the moment particularly Hong Kong, fighting for their rights
against the repressive and anti-working class regime.
The core idea in proletarian internationalism is to turn your weapons
against the class enemy at home, so unless you are in Hong Kong, I'm not
sure how that is an example of it.
If you are not in Hong Kong, you also have no agency there, so your
support can only be heard by your local government, so what is you hope
to achieve? Aggression by our governments towards China? What specific
support do you want to give?
I cannot see
any reason why the Chinese Communist Party should be considered part
of an international left, assuming that being on the left has
something to do with democracy, socialism and working class self
emancipation.
The party needs to be held to account by the mobilized working class,
like any instrument, it is the Chinese workers that make up a part of
the international left, and from everything we know, their demands are
being met by their government and the party, but, as the Harvard Study
also notes, that will only be true so long as the government and the
party continues to deliver on the people's demands.
As for the functioning of the Chinese Government, I once again recommend
Daniel A Bell's work, this video, introduced by Canadian cringelord
Moses Znaimer, is a good starter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OGjUCbiDY
Dmytri will no doubt denounce this as 'third way'. I
would describe myself as a Third Camp socialist as these are the only
criteria by which to measure regimes and movements against the aims
that I see as fundamental to any kind of real human liberation.
I suggest that human development figures and approval rates are probably
the best way we have to measure human liberation.
On that basis I reject having to choose between US and Chinese
imperialisms.
You don't need to chose anything, the imperialism of your own government
is on you, as you have the agency to do something about it. If you chose
not, you are not rejecting it, you are enabling it.
(There has been a recent wave of arrests in Hong Kong including many
of the leaders of the independent trade union movement. There is a
meeting on January 30th with speakers from the UK labour movement and
HK unions here: https://www.facebook.com/events/247169266771050/)
I would suggest that the Labour movement in the UK has some pressing
issues at home to address, and it's unclear to me what sort of strategy
could be undertaken by them that would improve the conditions of workers
in Honk Kong, or why I would expect the former colonial master, under a
brutal Conservative regime, with no recourse to any strategy except
aggression, to play a helpful role here.
If there is some strategy with which UK labour could help HK workers,
without heightening aggression, let me know what that is.
Meanwhile, UK labour has been bamboozled by Brexit, gutted by weaponized
bad faith charges of antisemitism and watches helplessly as immiseration
in the UK grows.
Workers everywhere have struggles to attend to.
A strategy where workers everywhere directly intervene in all struggles
everywhere is not a viable strategy. A strategy where workers everywhere
focus on their local struggles, while confronting their own governments
aggression against workers abroad is viable, and this is what
proletarian internationalism calls for.
I am not in favour of ending this discussion bureaucratically. But
what I find hard to take is the 'live and let live' attitude towards
Dmytri's contributions by some who have responded. His positions are
something the real left needs to fight against.
My positions are also those of groups like Vijay Prashad's Tricontental
Institute, do these groups also need to banished from left in your view?
"Rather than tackle the great social and economic challenges within the
US, its ruling class has taken refuge in anti-Chinese rhetoric." -- The
Country Where Liberty Is a Statue, Vijay Prashad.
[1]
https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/2-united-states-democracy/
--
Dmytri Kleiner
@dmytri
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