What do marxists think of the attempts by imperialist governments to
interfere in the internatl affairs of Austria?
They are trying to control the negotiations between the bourgeois parties
to prevent Jorg Haeder's Freedom Party from forming a coalition government.
The Freedom Party represents a nationalist bourgeois and petty bourgeois
reaction to the tendencies of imperialism, and has elements of
anti-semitism and other forms of chauvinism in its culture.
As Lenin said, imperialism may be progressive in relation to pre-monopoly
capitalism.
It is so in this case.
But how will the authorities on marxism square this with a view that to be
thoroughly anti-imperialist in the world today it is necessary to oppose
the imperialism of the leading countries in every respect, and to uphold
national sovereignty as an absolute right?
A conundrum for the experts.
Chris Burford
London
