Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Thomas via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

The Social-Democrats ideal should not be the trade union secretary, but the 
tribune of the people who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny 
and oppression no matter where it appears no matter what stratum or class of 
the people it affects; who is able to generalize all these manifestations and 
produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is 
able to take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set forth 
before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to 
clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle 
for the emancipation of the proletariat.”
-- V. I. Lenin; What Is To Be Done


It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy 
can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or 
overshadow it, etc.  On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious 
unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to 
prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, 
consistent, and revolutionary struggle for democracy.”
-- V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition; Vol. 22

T

-Original Message-
>From: Andrew Pollack via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>
>Sent: Oct 21, 2016 8:50 AM
>To: Thomas F Barton <thomasfbar...@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria
>
>  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
>#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
>#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
>#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
>*
>
>Sigh... I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole.
>Here we are again with Joe Green
>misrepresenting/misunderstanding/maliciously lying about/displaying his
>ignorance of (you all tell me which one) permanent revolution.
>The point of permanent revolution is to grasp the INTERTWINING of the
>democratic and socialist revolutions, which MEANS at EVERY STAGE supporting
>EVERY democratic demand, and NEVER abstaining from a democratic struggle no
>matter how long it takes to reveal its dialectical connection to the class
>struggle.
>And in practice EVERY MENA Trotskyist group in the revolutionary socialist
>tradition has done exactly that. ALL the groups which have issued joint
>statements, contributed to al-Manshour and Permanent Revolution journal
>etc., have theorized and acted in a way that bears NO relationship to
>Green's malicious caricature.
>
>Keep on trying to derail the class struggle, Joe, it won't work.
>_
>Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
>Set your options at: 
>http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/thomasfbarton%40earthlink.net

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria -- Reply to David Walters

[DW via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Joseph, my original description of Permanent Revolution (PR) was an attempt
to defend it (though I do) rather it was to point out what it is and what
it isn't. However, you reply back to me shows that you too don't have an
understanding of PR anymore than others do who misunderstand it.

Everyone of your examples vis-a-vis National Liberation is actually a
"proof", by *negative example*, of the general correctness of PR. You wrote
that many countries have achieved "independence" people still suffer from
exploitation. PR is very explicit that the *tasks* cannot be completed if
capitalism is not overthrown. Or, it sinks back into a neo-colonial
relationship. Every Trotskyist group historically fought for "independence"
in Latin America because they understood that the formality of independence
achieved throughout the early part of the 19th Century from Portugal and
Spain (France and England as well) would not be true independence unless,
as the Cubans did, overthrow capitalism. And that is the point of PR. Every
gain you noted is not a gain unless it can be achieved in full and without
those democratic tasks being turned back. Only a socialist revolution will
insure or at least truly lay the ground work for a permanent form of
sovereignty otherwise *impossible* to achieve under Imperialism. That is PR
and it's been proven in everyone of the examples you cited.

But it's not a perfect theory. It's a guide. Obviously countries can in
fact achieve formal independence in the age of Imperialism. The dislocation
of the very influential Indian Trotskyist organization after WWII is an
example of this. Again, "they didn't get it". They believed that the
*granting* of independence by the British was an impossibility "because of
Permanent Revolution". Certain forms of land reform (codified in the 1918
Mexican Constitution for example) can be achieved. The granting of peasants
the land in S. Korea and Taiwan by buying off the landlord class is an
example of this 'exception'.

But if one is going to discuss PR, we have to agree on what it is, not
project one' own ideological prejudices onto interpreting it.

David Walters
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria - Reply to Louis Proyect

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
> On 10/22/16 8:58 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism wrote:
> > But it's not a bastardization of Trotsky's view
> > of anti-imperialism, it's directly in line with it.
> 
> So you think it was wrong to support Ethiopia against fascist Italy's
> invasion? As I pointed out, precapitalist revolts against capitalist
> states, especially in MENA, don't fit neatly into stagist schemas as I
> pointed out by referring to Omar Mukhtar. I should add that this is a very
> old debate that pitted Eduard Bernstein against Belfort Bax:
> 

Louis, I emphatically agree with supporting the Ethiopian people against the 
Italian imperialist and fascist aggression of the 1930s. This was discussed 
last year on the Marxism list, and you were part of this discussion. True, 
you didn't agree with the distinction I drew between backing Haile Selassie 
in the way Trotsky did, envisioning that the Ethiopian emperor might well be 
a wonderful anti-imperialist dictator who would inspire all of Africa, and 
instead supporting first and foremost the Ethiopian people in their 
resistance to Italian aggression, a resistance which was upset with 
Selassie's absolutism as well as with the  fact that he fled Ethiopia in the 
face of Italian aggression. You didn't even understand the distinction I was 
making, and you claimed that it was "splitting hairs. In the concrete 
situation, one ruler (Mussolini) made war on another (Selassie). It makes no 
sense to say that you support Ethiopia but not the head of state."  But in  
the discussion on this list and elsewhere at the that time, I not only posted 
a history of the Ethiopian resistance to Italian aggression, but also showed 
how Selassie's absolutism impeded the resistance. This was not simply or even 
primarily a war between two rulers: it was a war that involved the peoples of 
Ethiopia. 

It's notable that the Trotskyist movement has had an almost complete 
conspiracy of silence about what happened in the Italo-Ethopian war. It has 
praised Trotsky's stand in this war and used it as a model, but refused to 
evaluate this stand in the light of what happened. I wonder how many 
Trotskyists even know that Selassie fled Ethiopia right after Trotsky praised 
him to the skies. 

Naturally it's a sensitive question about how Selassie should have been dealt 
with at the time of the war. It wasn't a question that the Ethiopian people 
were about to overthrow him. But the resistance wanted reforms so that 
absolutism would not continue after the war, and the Oromo people in Ethiopia 
was so angry at the national oppression represented by Selassie's rule that 
it is said that when Selassie fled Ethiopia, he was fleeing them and not just 
the Italian troops. How does one support an Ethiopian resistance officially 
led by Haile Selassie but in fact with major internal divides? Surely saying 
the war is simply a war between two rulers or two dictators is not the way to 
do it. 

So it was right for Trotsky to support Ethiopian resistance, but the way he 
did it gave rise to bad effects which we are still feeling today. It was not 
a bastardization or misuse of Trotsky's views when Socialist Action denounced 
the Libyan democratic movement.  It is  not a bastardization or misuse of 
Trotsky's views when various Trotskyist groups defend reactionary rulers in 
the name of anti-imperialism. Indeed the Trotskyist movement has even debated 
whether the example of Trotsky's stand towards Selassie would justify support 
for the Taliban. 

Moreover, there is a strong connection between Trotsky's mechanical stand on 
anti-imperialism and his theory of permanent revolution. Permanent revolution 
was bankrupt in dealing with the class and social struggles inside Ethiopia. 
It had nothing to say on this subject. That's why Trotsky praised Selassie to 
the hilt instead. And in the years since, the theory of permanent revolution 
and Trotsky's stand on anti-imperialism have worked together in obscuring the 
class struggles in various countries.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, Louis and assume that you just forgot 
the discussion on the Marxisn list  last year, and also that you forgot that 
I am part of a trend that has fervently supported the anti-imperialist and 
anti-colonial struggles from day one. You deal with many things on this list 
every day, and I understand that you might forget some things. But really, 
Louis, if you want to know my views you should look at what I have written, 
not the debates between the revisionist Edouard Bernstein and Belford Bax. 
Perhaps its time to move into the 21st century and not imagine that the 
modern criticism of Trotskyism is 

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria - Reply to Andrew Pollock

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

On 10/22/16 8:58 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism wrote:

But it's not a bastardization of Trotsky's view
of anti-imperialism, it's directly in line with it.


So you think it was wrong to support Ethiopia against fascist Italy's 
invasion? As I pointed out, precapitalist revolts against capitalist 
states, especially in MENA, don't fit neatly into stagist schemas as I 
pointed out by referring to Omar Mukhtar. I should add that this is a 
very old debate that pitted Eduard Bernstein against Belfort Bax:


http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/modernism/hardt_negri.htm

Within a few years, the Second International would become embroiled in a 
controversy that pitted Eduard Bernstein against the revolutionary wing 
of the movement, including British Marxist Belford Bax and Rosa 
Luxemburg. Using arguments similar to Hardt and Negri's, Bernstein said 
that colonialism was basically a good thing since it would hasten the 
process of drawing savages into capitalist civilization, a necessary 
first step to building communism.


In a January 5, 1898 article titled "The Struggle of Social Democracy 
and the Social Revolution," Bernstein makes the case for colonial rule 
over Morocco. Drawing from English socialist Cunningham Graham's travel 
writings, Bernstein states there is absolutely nothing admirable about 
Morocco. In such countries where feudalism is mixed with slavery, a firm 
hand is necessary to drag the brutes into the civilized world:


"There is a great deal of sound evidence to support the view that, in 
the present state of public opinion in Europe, the subjection of natives 
to the authority of European administration does not always entail a 
worsening of their condition, but often means the opposite. However much 
violence, fraud, and other unworthy actions accompanied the spread of 
European rule in earlier centuries, as they often still do today, the 
other side of the picture is that, under direct European rule, savages 
are *without exception better off* than they were before...


"Am I, because I acknowledge all this, an 'adulator' of the present? If 
so, let me refer Bax to The Communist Manifesto, which opens with an 
'adulation' of the bourgeoisie which no hired hack of the latter could 
have written more impressively. However, in the fifty years since the 
Manifesto was written the world has advanced rather than regressed; and 
the revolutions which have been accomplished in public life since then, 
especially the rise of modern democracy, have not been without influence 
on the doctrine of social obligation." (Marxism and Social Democracy, p. 
153-154)


_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria - Reply to Andrew Pollock

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

same old Maoist garbage

On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 8:22 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
> *
>
> Andrew Pollack Andrew Pollock refuses to deal with
> what
> it means that so many advocates of the "permanent revolution" has fallen on
> their face with respect to the Arab Spring, as shown by the stands of
> Socialist Action and a number of other Trotskyist organizations. Instead,
> he
> repeatedly calls me a Menshevik, either directly or by arbitrarily
> asserting
> that I uphold Menshevik positions.
>
> In October 3, Pollock wrote in reply to me:
>
> >Oy.
> >The Mensheviks are back at it.
> >Once again 90% of their argument against permanent revolution
> >is based on whether particular worker
> >organizing/mobilizing/theoretical steps are
> >possible or likely. And their answer is always No.
>
> So here he derides me as a Menshevik, simply because I criticize permanent
> revolution. And he says that I am opposed to workers organizing and
> struggling on all fronts.
>
> But for year after year, I have said exactly the opposite. Pollock doesn't
> know or care what I have written. He simply repeats a stock Trotskyist
> attack
> on a critic.
>
> Pollock comes back to the same theme, however, on October 21 when he writes
> that
>
> > ... why I get angry at Joe, [is] because he (and Sam Hamad) want
> > only democratic demands addressed
>
> A lie is a lie no matter how often it's repeated. I have stressed, year in
> and year out, that the working class should raise social demands in a
> democratic movement.
>
> What I do claim is that, due to the concrete circumstances of the Arab
> Spring, the uprisings didn't have any chance of leading to socialist
> revolution. That's very different from saying that the workers won't, or
> cannot, or shouldn't have any their own class role in the Arab Spring. In
> fact, I would argue that it's essential for the workers to realize the
> democratic nature of various movements if they are to have a chance to
> build
> up their own independent movement which not only zealously participates in
> the democratic movement but has its own socialist goals that go far beyond
> that of the general democratic movement.
>
> -- Joseph Green
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria -- Reply to David Walters

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*



David Walters wrote:

> All Permanent Revolution says/advocates/predicts is that
> in order to actually *achieve* those democratic *tasks* it will take the
> complete overthrow of the existing capitalist regime and the installation by
> the working class of Workers Government. That's it.

The prediction is completely wrong. For example, many countries have become 
independent, and most of the colonial system has collapsed. And yet there 
wasn't workers' government.

National independence hasn't brought the prosperity that people expected. It 
has also  left countries subject to political and economic domination. It has 
not fulfilled the program of radical parties, nor the promises that were made 
to the masses.

But this doesn't mean that national independence doesn't exist. It means that 
national independence, like all democratic changes, doesn't end exploitation; 
doesn't eliminate capitalism, but generally vastly expands it; doesn't usher 
us into the petty-bourgeois idea of the democratic utopia; doesn't guarantee 
that the working masses will obtain a lot of democratic rights; and so on. 
Socialism, not mere democratic changes, is necessary for working-class 
liberation.

But national independence changes the class alignments in a country, as 
various other democratic changes too. The situation in the former colonies is 
vastly different than what it was before; the struggles in these countries 
occur in a different social and economic context than before.  And democratic 
changes can also open the way for an expanded class struggle. These changes 
are of the utmost importance for the working class. To say that national 
independence or other democratic changes "will take the complete overthrow of 
the existing capitalist regime and the installation by the working class of 
Workers Government" means replacing a serious assessment of the social, 
economic, and political situation with empty Trotskyist dogma.

The idea that these changes can't take place until socialism is generally 
defended by replacing the idea of democratic changes as they occur in the 
world, with a glorified idea of democracy. It might be said that the 
democratic struggle cannot be "completed" until the socialist revolution. By 
this  means judging the completion of the democratic movement by whether so 
many democratic changes have occurred, rather than by the changes in the 
class alignments and social conditions. If a very backward and abortive 
change nevertheless results in breaking up the impetus for democratic change, 
then the overall movement will have to grow up on a new basis. Even though 
various of the old democratic demands are still set forward, the overall 
character of the movement will have changed.

Marxism showed from the start that democratic changes alone do not end 
exploitation; the working masses have to continue the struggle to socialism. 
But any truth can be exaggerated until it's nonsense. From the truth that 
democratic changes are limited and are not the end of exploitation, one can 
pass on to the claim that democratic changes can't even take place until 
socialism. 

> There are none, ZERO,
> preconditions about who or whom to support in achieving this except that to
> go "all the way", again to achieve the reason people were rebelling in the
> first place, means to break with the capitalists *politically* who may be
> part of the initial phases of the revolution and keep the working class
> independent.

And yet  one Trotskyist group after another denounced various struggles in 
the Arab Spring. If nothing can be achieved unless one goes "all the way" and 
achieve workers' government, then this does affect what to organize and which 
struggles to support.

However,  I think the statement about zero preconditions does reflect one 
aspect of "permanent revolution". It reflects the idea that I have seen 
expressed elsewhere that everything is tactical, except that the revolution 
must continue to workers' government.  I think this view has had bad 
consequences.  But that for another time. 

-- Joseph Green

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

I will deal in this note with some issues which I think apply to everyone who 
replied to my contribution to this thread,  and I will deal in separate notes 
with specific points raised by individual comrades.

I was disappointed that no one dealt with whether the theory of pernmanent 
revolution was responsible for Socialist Action denouncing the anti-Qaddfi 
struggle in Libya. It pretty clearly was, but it seems that various people 
would prefer this swept under the rug. There is a theoretical crisis in the 
left, and the left is going to deal with it seriously, it has to look at 
these examples seriously. Otherwise it's just a matter of clinging to dogmas 
of the past, and refusing to see what has to be changed.

It's not as if Socialist Action is some kind of outlier and exception. It was 
hardly the only Trotskyist group which was led astray on Syria and the Arab 
Spring by permanent revolution. I have given quotes elsewhere from a number 
of Trotskyist groups. True, some Trotskyists do support the democratic 
uprising on Syria and write useful material on it, but that's not the result 
of the theory of permanent revolution and it's not representative of the 
Trotskyist movement as a whole.

It has been charged that I have distorted the meaning of permanent revolution 
or don't really understand it. But that charge was made with respect to the 
definition of permanent revolution that came from Socialist Action: I quoted 
their own description of "permanent revolution".  Moreover, I have studied 
"permanent revolution" from the writings of Trotsky and various Trotskyist 
groups. Indeed it's notable that one comrade, while writing that my 
understanding of permanent revolution was supposedly shallow, went on to 
criticize Trotsky's formulations as well.  Apparently Trotsky didn't really 
understand it either.

The fact is that the Arab Spring is a major problem for permanent revolution. 
But the defenders of permanent revolution want to avert their eyes from this. 
One way they do it is by not mentioning permanent revolution when they have 
to go against it in practice, such as when supporting the democratic movement 
in Syria. Another way they do it is by pretending that the critics of 
permanent revolution are Mensheviks or have distorted it;  they pretend that 
no serous issue has been raised by the practice of the Arab Spring or by the 
critics of Trotskyism. There's a certain "code of silence" that is widely 
observed, in which the important thing is to rally around the "old man" or 
permanent revolution, not to test revolutionary theory in the light of 
events, not to advance revolutionary theory, not to examine why things have 
gone wrong repeatedly.. 

In line with this, it also seems that various people who commented on my 
views didn't bother to first see what my views were. Instead they repeated 
shopworn arguments from the past, and stock curses. But theory does advance 
over time, whether the Trotskyist movement cares to look at it or not. The 
fact is that Trotskyist theory is backrupt with respect to the Arab Spring, 
and so far no one I've seen has been able to produce an analysis based on 
"permanent revolution" that has stood up to the events of the Arab Spring. 
The Communist Voice Organization can reproduce what we wrote at the beginning 
of the Arab Spring, and the general framework still stands. But the 
predictions based on the permanent revolution were wishful thinking at best

-- Joseph Green




_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

In the latter part of his comment on my piece Socialist Action on Libya and 
Syria, Joseph Green says this:
To return to Hiebert's critique of the 2011 article by Socialist Action, he 
asked how long it would take to build a revolutionary party in Libya, and 
said it might be decades. 

Here's the paragraph he is citing.
This advice is not very timely. Supporters of Socialist Action know through 
their own experience that it takes years, even decades, to build a 
revolutionary party. In any case, this will not be done separate and apart from 
participation in the struggles of today. If there are people in Libya who wish 
to follow the advice of SA, how should they be relating to the struggle today? 
Should they be putting forward a course of action for Libyan working people? 
What should that be? http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2301



Of course he is free to read what I wrote and arrive at his own understanding.  
But his understanding and mine are different.  The point I was making was a 
very different one.
Responding to a current struggle with the timeless advice that we need a 
revolutionary party is not useful unless we tie it to a program of struggle in 
the present day.  The task of building a revolutionary party is never 
counterposed to participating in the struggles of the present day, however 
limited those struggles may be.

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[DW via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Andy is correct at least with regards to permanent revolution. The
characterization by Green of Permanent Revolution is like a middle-school
text book definition.

The *program* of Permanent Revolution to the degree as it's advocated and
not just, as many Trotskyists project, simply an analytical took to
prognosticate the course of a future revolution, is closer to Andy's
interpretation. All these revolutions *start as democratic ones* (struggles
for actual democracy against dictatorship, land reform, national
liberation,etc). All Permanent Revolution says/advocates/predicts is that
in order to actually *achieve* those democratic *tasks* it will take the
complete overthrow of he existing capitalist regime and the installation by
the working class of Workers Government. That's it. There are none, ZERO,
preconditions about who or whom to support in achieving this except that to
go "all the way", again to achieve the reason people were rebelling in the
first place, means to break with the capitalists *politically* who may be
part of the initial phases of the revolution and keep the working class
independent. But that latter point is on us, not the masses themselves.

Problems of Permanent Revolution: it was poorly written. It was overly
prognostic in it's structure (not unlike Lenin's writings as well in some
cases). It has zero to really say about *how* to conduct a struggle for
national liberation other than emphasis on the building the Communist
Party. There is not enough or very little about the national liberation
stage of the revolution and the tactics and strategy to be used in leading
such a fight. And Trotsky did talk about 'stages'. Trotsky rejected,
however, the *mechanical application of stages* implied in Lenin's writings
(such as in Two Tactics for Social Democracy) but rather emphasized there
is no "iron wall between stages" and one 'stage' dynamically flows into the
other as dictated by the course of the revolution. It takes a revolutionary
party that understands this dynamic to insure the completion of the
democratic revolution by way of a working class victory.

Also not talked about is the issue of Imperialist intervention because it
assumes that all such struggles are anti-Imperialist and the lines are
clearly drawn which, of course, is not always the case.

David Walters
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Sigh... I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole.
Here we are again with Joe Green
misrepresenting/misunderstanding/maliciously lying about/displaying his
ignorance of (you all tell me which one) permanent revolution.
The point of permanent revolution is to grasp the INTERTWINING of the
democratic and socialist revolutions, which MEANS at EVERY STAGE supporting
EVERY democratic demand, and NEVER abstaining from a democratic struggle no
matter how long it takes to reveal its dialectical connection to the class
struggle.
And in practice EVERY MENA Trotskyist group in the revolutionary socialist
tradition has done exactly that. ALL the groups which have issued joint
statements, contributed to al-Manshour and Permanent Revolution journal
etc., have theorized and acted in a way that bears NO relationship to
Green's malicious caricature.

Keep on trying to derail the class struggle, Joe, it won't work.
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Ken Hiebert noted that Socialist Action hadn't always opposed the anti-Assad 
struggle in Syria, but had originally been favorable to it. In regard to 
this, he gave a link to an interesting criticism he had of their stand on 
Libya. He wrote:
> 
> In September of 2011 I was taken aback by the SA statement on Libya and I
> wrote this comment.
> http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2301
> 

The last two paragraphs of Hiebert's comment in International Viewpoint were

"The statement of September 2nd has only one course of action to propose. 
'The liberation struggle in these countries also rests in the development of 
mass revolutionary socialist parties there,...'

"This advice is not very timely. Supporters of Socialist Action know through 
their own experience that it takes years, even decades, to build a 
revolutionary party. In any case, this will not be done separate and apart 
from participation in the struggles of today. If there are people in Libya 
who wish to follow the advice of SA, how should they be relating to the 
struggle today? Should they be putting forward a course of action for Libyan 
working people? What should that be?"

Now, how could Socialist Action make this sort of mistake? Well, it follows 
from their political program. As expressed "in a nutshell" (see 
https://socialistaction.org/program/ ), the following describes the only type 
of uprising they will support:

"Permanent Revolution:  This famous theory by Leon Trotsky holds that 
revolution in modern times, even in under-developed countries, has to be led 
by the working class and has to be a fully fledged socialist revolution - 
revolution cannot go through stages and cannot be made in alliance with any 
wing of the capitalist class. To be ultimately successful it also needs to be 
an international revolution. We believe that a successful socialist 
revolution will result in a workers´ government that is based on elected 
workers´ councils."

At the beginning of the struggle in Syria, Socialist Action could convince 
themselves that the struggle was an anti-capitalist one, and hence presumably 
it would develop according to the precepts of "permanent revolution". But as 
the situation developed, this would become impossible for anyone who hadn't 
been binge drinking on dogma to the point of unconsciousness. This left four 
alternatives for those who maintained a Trotskyist standpoint. 

One could renege on support for the Syria struggle; this would give rise to 
changes in position such as that by "Socialist Action". It wasn't simply an 
accident that "Socialist Action" fell backwards.

A second possibility is diehard unconsciousness, as show by the Communist 
Workers' Group of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is convinced that the  Syrian 
struggle will continue along the path of permanent revolution. Its website 
"redrave" declared recently that  the local committes are "institutions... of 
workers' democracy. They are the result of proto workers communes that if 
joined up would be the basis for an embryonic workers' state. ...  That is why 
our program in Syria is ... armed workers soviets everywhere!" 

A third possibility is to repudiate permanent revolution, but try to keep 
most of Trotskyism, as put forth in the important article by Assad an-Nar, 
"Socialism and the Democratic Wager" (see the book "Khiyana: Dasesh, the Left 
& the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution").

But a fourth possibility, almost universal among Trotskyist supporters of the 
Syrian struggle, is to fall silent on the relationship of permanent 
revolution to the anti-Assad struggle or the Arab Spring altogether. This 
allowed some activists to produce a lot of good material in support of the 
Syrian democratic struggle, but at the price of avoiding a  very important 
theoretical issue and thus leaving open the possibility of future errors in 
judging democratic struggle. This position might be supplemented by shouting 
"Menshevik" at the top of one's voice against any non-Trotskyist who pointed 
out the incompatibility of "permanent revolution" with support for the Syrian 
democratic struggle. 

To return to Hiebert's critique of the 2011 article by Socialist Action, he 
asked how long it would take to build a revolutionary party in Libya, and 
said it might be decades. Now, from the point of view of "permanent 
revolution", the only thing lacking anywhere is "revolutionary leadership".  
But once emancipated from this standpoint, one can examine social, political, 
and economic factors that underlie why it might take decades to finally have 
the envisioned revolutionary party and its firm backing by the masses. And 

Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Ken, your IV comment is great.
As for the SA articles you like before the group went sour, the author's
name is vaguely familiar. :)
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Socialist Action on Libya and Syria

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Louis Proyect said: 
Re: Eric Draitser’s mea culpa

One cannot exactly be sure why Eric Draitser wrote an article titled 
“Syria and the Left: Time to Break the Silence” but it probably marks 
the first acknowledgement that there are people who oppose the pro-Assad 
articles that he, Mike Whitney, Pepe Escobar, John Wight, Andre Vltchek, 
Diana Johnstone, Rick Sterling, Gary Leupp, Jeff Mackler, Paul Larudee, 
Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and others have been writing for the past 5 
years.

full: https://louisproyect.org/2016/10/20/eric-draitsers-mea-culpa/


Ken Hiebert replies:
Louis includes Jeff Mackler as one of those who has been writing pro-Assad 
articles for the past 5 years.
I went back and looked in the Socialist Action archive.
The articles that appeared on Syria and Libya at the time were quite good.
https://socialistaction.org/2011/03/06/us-hands-off-libya-victory-to-the-workers-and-peasants-uprising-against-qaddafi/

https://socialistaction.org/2011/05/06/syria-intensifies-repression/

https://socialistaction.org/2011/08/21/victory-to-the-syrian-peoples-uprising-usnato-hands-off/


In September of 2011 I was taken aback by the SA statement on Libya and I wrote 
this comment.
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2301

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com