En relación a [L-I] reply to Nestor on Yugoslavia,
el 29 Sep 00, a las 18:15, Owen Jones dijo:
>
> Comrade Nestor,
>
> As you know, or should know, I have great respect for you. However, I
> am in complete disagreement with your left-nationalist views which call for
> the working class of the oppressed countries to unite with their
> bourgeoisie against imperialism.
This is exactly what I do NOT propose. Much on the contrary, what I
say is that since local bourgeoisies in the Third World (not
oppressed countries, a different thing, small imperialist countries
may be oppressed by large ones but they are not semicolonies) are not
capable of carrying their own tasks to fulfillment it is the workers
in our countries who must do it. But, at any rate, I would unite not
only with my local bourgeoisie but with Satan impersonated against
imperialism. Nothing can be worse than imperialism.
> This despite the fact that in this
> epoch, the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries are completely
> dependant on imperialism and thereby are incapable of carrying out
> their historic tasks.
They are not dependant on imperialism. They cannot fight it, which is
not the same. The idea that local bourgeoisies in the semicolonial
world are dependant on imperialism is a nice way to establish that
there are no national struggles in the semicolonial world, that there
is only one struggle against a worldwide bourgeoisie. In the end,
what are the final results, as proven by historic record? Impotence
for workers who cannot generate an independent politics of their own.
> Yet you have made it clear that you oppose class
> independence since the proletariat by itself is too weak to fight
> against imperialism - which is distorting the truth, since this is
> really true about the bourgeoisies of the oppressed countries.
You confuse class independence (which expresses itself in the ability
to gather the whole set of oppressed classes behind you) and class
isolation. I am for strict class independence of the workers. Why on
earth do you think I have never joined Peronism, if not due to that?
Do you think that my life, as an intellectual, would have been more
difficult if I had joined the national bourgeois movement in
Argentina? Wrong. It would have been much easier, but of course I
would have thrown socialism overboard. Class independence has nothing
to do with an autistic, self-asserting exposition of "the point of
view of the class", much to the contrary: it has to do with the
articulation of a hegemonic principle that allows you to have the
mass of the formation follow you. There is a noun in Latin America,
and in Argentina in particular, the word "caudillo" (which sounds
very bad to Spanish ears, but not so in Latin America), and a verb in
Spanish, "acaudillar", which I don't know how to properly translate
to English. But our task as socialists in a semicolony is to generate
the conditions for the working class to become the master not only of
its own destiny but of that of the whole formation as well. In so
doing, the workers will "acaudillar" (that is, lead and give form,
shape and a definite meaning) the movement of the vast array of
oppressed masses.
This is what you call "following the local bourgeoisie". It is simply
"struggling against the only bourgeoisie that counts, the
imperialists bourgeoisie", YOUR bourgeoisie. As to mine, of course
they will end in the dustbin of history. But when _we_ decide to have
them there, not when your bourgeoisie prefers.
>
> Indeed, as comrade Ben Seattle exposed, you even call for
> revolutionaries who do not toe the line, who refuse to capitulate their
> bourgeoisie to unite against imperialism, to face repression.
I suppose there is a typo up there. But if you want to know what do I
think, and please don't put people such as Ben here in the midst of
our debate, yes, the day I get to power I will deal with those who -
in the name of the most "leftist" principles- put the Revolution in
danger by sending them to jail for the time being. This I was taught
both by Lenin and by the Swedish socialdemocrats.
> During the war
> against Yugoslavia, you called for the "silencing" of any Serb who dared
> oppose their regime's dirty war in Kosovo on the grounds they would be
> the most likely candidates for a new imperialist proxy regime.
They will. Moreover, they already are.
And there was not a "dirty" war in Kossovo. Those are your words,
intoxicated with BBC news. Incidentally, I have been watching some
BBC news myself these days and yes, the guys are cute, you can be
easily misled by them.
> You
> said similar things about Argentina. Which, as Ben showed, means the
> only conclusion of your logic is that the traitors of the Left should
> have their names and addresses read to the police.
To the police of a revolutionary state, yes. Even to the
Extraordinary Commission. To the police of a bourgeois state, not.
You are repeating the silly argument that the Argentinian CPers sadly
attempted to use against us in the Izquierda Nacional (while they
effectively wed the proimperialists here, and even defended the
Videla regime for long years)
> You denied this,
> but this is precisely the inevitable road your nationalism brings you
> to
I will defend my revolution against anyone, particularly against
chatterboxes.
> On this list, Milosevic has been compared to the Sandinistas. This
> is how absurd the apologia can get, and it really validates my ridicule about
> Che Milosevic.
I will not engage a debate on Ernesto Guevara de la Serna here,
because it would take us too far away. As a product of Argentina,
however, Guevara was a moralistic petty bourgeois young doctor. It
was his Cuban experience that turned him into the Che, although the
moralism of his outlook cost us in Latin America too many lives,
beginning by his own life. As to the Sandinistas, if you read them
ideologically, there was less socialism in them than in Milosevic.
Both Guevara and the Sandinistas (and the FARC today, and the
Peruvian guerrilla of De La Puente Uceda, and Fidel himself when
young, as well as Chávez today and the murdered Gaitán, among others)
are revolutionaries and embrace socialism because they are
revolutionaries. But they are revolutionaries, and historically it
has always been so and could not be otherwise, because they fought
for the national liberation of their peoples. The link with socialism
always came afterwards. If only socialists had learnt to be as great
as these men, who could mix their original patriotic revolutionary
action with socialim, and mix their original socialist ideas with
patriotic action, then we would be having a socialist Latin America
long ago. But no, they prefer to stick to the "class independence"
you cherish so much. That is the problem.
> The Sandinistas led a revolution in Nicaragua. The
> Milosevic regime led a counterrevolution, restoring capitalism to
> Yugoslavia by silencing the great Serbian working class with
> chauvinism.
Words, words. The facts are that the only remaining country in
Eastern Europe where there is still some remainder of the old times
is Yugoslavia. The weight of the proof lies on your side. As to my
assertion, I would just suggest you to read the endless (thousands, I
have them all in my hard disk) files with hard empirical evidence of
my words such as they have appeared on L-I and Marxmail.
Excuse me, Owen, the only chauvinist here is you. The idea that the
working class of an oppressed country can be silenced with chauvinism
is a typical chauvinist idea of an oppressor country. What you call
chauvinism is resistance against the chauvinism of the great powers,
and a roar of rage against the tearing apart of Yugoslavia, the late
discovery that in the end it was only the Serbians who were actually
ready to die for the Union.
> The Milosevic regime was allied with imperialism in the
> past - he was the man "we can do business with", remember, as well as
> imposing IMF austerity programmes in the interests of Western capital,
> and inviting in Greek and Italian capital. Yet Che Milosevic is a
> Sandinista, beret and all, whom we must bloc with to defend Yugoslavia
> against imperialism?
Yes. That is exactly what he is. The fact that you cannot learn from
evidence is not his problem. Of course he is not a Che, nor a
Sandinista. The Che was a Latin American who was produced by the
petty bourgeoisie of Buenos Aires and was forged in the mangroves of
Cuba, and the Sandinistas were a product of the deepest layers of
peasant Nicaragua. Milosevic is the product of Yugoslavia. Not a Che,
not a Sandinista, not even a Perón (he is to the left of Perón,
anyway). Simply a Milosevic. Ah, schemas are not easy to fit when it
comes to actual historic realities...
>
> In Yugoslavia, I am for the working class breaking from the
> chauvinism that ties it to its ruling class, which is similar to many other nations,
> not least Russia, and not allying with its bourgeoisie but rather
> building an independent workers' movement. I am for the defence of
> Yugoslavia from imperialism by the working class itself, as well as
> the defence of gains won in past which the Milosevic regime continues
> to devour. Thereby if there was no working class party in these
> elections, then the correct course of action was to boycott the vote
> or to spoil the ballot or something along these lines. Unfortunately,
> I regret that you are for the death of working class independence in
> oppressed countries such as Yugoslavia, and that you regard such
> opinions as traitorous.
Working class independence in Yugoslavia is their right to fight
against imperialism and their stooges by the means they consider
necessary, even through Milosevic even if a young British Leftist
believes that this is a display of chauvinism, thus putting himself -
unwillingly, I concede- on the same side as Tony Blair.
>
> It is also important for the working class movement of the
> imperialist countries to ally with its brothers and sisters in Yugoslavia. This is
> vital. I know comrades who have strong links with trade unions in
> Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo. It should not be forgotten that the
> Yugoslav workers' movement actually sent our workers aid during the
> Miners' Strike in the 1980s. There are particularly strong links here
> with Yugoslav miners. Indeed the Durham miners are closely bonded with
> those of Trepca, for example. Comrades here have brought miners of
> former Yugoslavia over and walked them across devastated former mining
> communities to really drum home to them what fate awaits them unless
> they fight. And when the Yugoslav working class get their gloves off,
> I should hope that we will mobilise behind them as they did with us at
> a time of need here in Britain. What will you say, Nestor? That they
> are on imperialist payrolls?
If the Yugoslav working class (the working class, not a group of
illuminated Leftists in Yugoslavia who go directly to the
slaughterhouse) attempts to assault Heavens, I will do as Marx did
when he supported the Paris commune, even though he was convinced
that they were doomed. You, on the contrary, seem prone to "lecture
others on their mistakes". I suggest you learn something from the
political action of Marx, and of his writings on the Commune and on
those who were explaining the workers in Paris what their task was.
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
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