John Lacny wrote: > I don't have much time, but I should clarify a few things. I also am short of time, and apologize for the delay in my reply, which is partly due to problems with my internet service provider. > > First off, I am not hewing to the trot line of "military but not > political support," or some such thing. You're right that I should > clarify this, because there IS a great deal of slander directed against > the Kosovars on the far left these days. I tried to clarify, apparently insufficiently, that I didn't identify your position with that of WWP etc. I appreciate the fact that your stands on the governments in China, Serbia, etc. are different. However, your plan for agitation seems to involve a coalition with these forces in which these differences are set aside as not relevant for the time because nothing can supposedly be done for Kosovo anyway. Or do you envision some way of raising this difference in the middle of this agitation? And how can this be done if one is afraid to deal with the issue of the right to self-determination? > (By the same token, there is a > lot of nonsense on the liberal left, which several years ago was holding > up the government of the Islamic fundamentalist, Alija Izetbegovic, as > some kind of last holdout of multicultural democracy and pluralistic > tolerance.) My standpoint is to support the development of proletarian trends, not to glorify the existing political trends. This is true with respect to Bosnia as well as Kosovo. That still leaves the question of assesing the central Bosnian government. My impression was that the war and then the Dayton Accords resulted in a dramtic deterioration in its policies. > I was involved in an exchange on the Marxism List some months > ago in which I criticized Diana Johnstone's CAQ piece as soft on Serbian > chauvinism. That's interesting. For the category of one of the most odd things written about Yugoslavia and Kosovo, I too would nominate "Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass", posted a few days ago on the list. (This is the same article by D. Johnstone that you are talking about, no?) . I was astonished at an article that went so far as to propose that monarchy in Serbia bore a different character from monarchy elsewhere, Serbian monarachy being supposedly progressive. Meanwhile, in the name of not demonizing whole nationalities, it proceeded to demonize the Albanian Kosovars and Bosnian Muslims. It looked at matters from the point of view of which nationality is supposedly best, rather than of the different class stands that exist inside every nationality. Meanwhile it ignores the actual developments in Yugoslavia.It seems that some forces on the left have an infinite capacity to overlook the internal problems in regimes they like and to blame everything on foreign forces. I considered posting something on this piece on PEN-L, but it really would take time to write I don't really have. Is your critique something you could post here? I at least would like to see it. If you don't post it, may I request that you at least send it to me? > This is a problem on the radical left, and my hunch is that > you place special emphasis on things like Kosovo because you are trying to > go after some of the prejudices of the left when it comes to regimes like > this. Both you and your comrade Ben Seattle have produced some > interesting stuff in this vein. > > All of this said, I must insist that my comparison of Kosovo with > "plucky little Belgium" does not constitute "slander." To say that the > Kosovar struggle is being manipulated by the Western powers for propaganda > purposes does not constitute a denial of the oppression that the Kosovars > are experiencing. However, it does question the usefulness of stridently > calling for "self-determination for Kosovo!" at a time when the Big Powers > are preparing for war against Serbia. One problem is that you tend to equate anyone's call for the right to self-determination as playing into Western propaganda. If we follow that logic, then it has to be followed consistently. And that means that one would have to regard that talking about the threat of the Serbian military being bombed would amount to playing into Milosevic's hands. Moreover, as is clear in the current negotiations, the West does not support the right to self-determination. They are not giving that slogan. They are insisting on autonomy. Their rationale is that they are stopping the spread of the bloodshed, holding back the current warfare, and seeking an end to any future bloodshed. This is the main gist of their propaganda. Since the Western powers don't want to annex Kosovo (and their troops wouldn't be there for that purpose), and since they have in fact held down the level of bloodshed a bit, it requires some thought as to how to expose what they are doing. One of the key things is that they are inflaming the situation by imposing deals that don't solve the underlying problem, such as the right to self-determination. (The Dayton Accords, for example, stopped the warfare, but left a situation which is highly unstable and which has been conducive to the wide spreasd of chauvinism throughout Bosnia.) > > You say that my strategy means abandoning Albanian villages to > destruction. I have to admit the grim reality that it does, just as > opposing Allied intervention in World War I would have meant abandoning > Serbia and Belgium to the tender mercies of the Central Powers. It's > cruel, but it involves a calculation that a full-scale war would be even > worse. The main way socialist solidarity was manifested in World War One was solidarity between revolutionary socialists of each country, and not in stopping this or that military operation. How indeed would it have possible to stop such operations? Naturally each war has its own particularlity. In World War I, even before the war the Basle Resolution pointed out that the threatened war would result in revolutionary situations throughout Europe. Thus the main task of revolutionary socialists was directed to actually bringing about revolution in their own country. There are a number of differences between WW I and the present situation in Kosovo. For one thing, WW I didn't center on Belgium or Serbia. But the present situation in Kosovo really does center on Kosovo.. > > Of course I am in favor of working-class unity and the > encouragement of proletarian trends in the former Yugoslavia. It's just > that you haven't answered my question as to what exactly this would entail > for leftists living in the United States. Forgive any possible melodrama > on my part, but what is to be done? It involves agitation, direct links, taking up common tasks (including theoretical ones), etc., according to the strength and possibilities of the forces involved. Let me point out a concrete matter regarding leftists in the United States. Any demonstration in the region I live in, would be seen by many Albanian Kosovars, Serbs, Croats, etc. They live here, and they have live contacts with their former homelands, indeed, they go back and forth between these regions and here. If the line given amounted to abandoning the Albanian Kosovars and ignoring the bloodshed in their area, and also neglects to support the Serbs who are fighting against the current Serbian policy, while only agitating on the suffering that afflicts the Serbian military and Inner Serbia as part of its war on Kosovo, it would have a very clear meaning to these communities. It would not be taken as a mere tactical stand reflecting all that can be done at the moment. It is perfectly clear to these communities that the analysis concerning these problems affects whether and how they will support their compatriots back home and what trends they will support back home (and they will find concerete ways to do so). If the left abandons one people after another, how long before there is no one left to support the left? Comradely regards, Joseph Green