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Louis Proyect wrote on March 17:
On May 9, 1916, there appeared, in Berner Tagwacht, the organ of the
Zimmerwald group, including some of the Leftists, an article on the
Irish rebellion entitled "Their Song is Over" and signed with the
initials K.R. [Karl Radek]. It described the Irish rebellion as being
nothing more nor less than a "putsch", for, as the author argued, "the
Irish question was an agrarian one", the peasants had been pacified by
reforms, and the nationalist movement remained only a "purely urban,
petty-bourgeois movement, which, notwithstanding the sensation it
caused, had not much social backing..."
To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by
small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary
outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie WITHOUT ALL ITS
PREJUDICES [italics in original], without a movement of the politically
non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression
by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national
oppression, etc.--to imagine all this is to REPUDIATE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
So one army lines up in one place and says, "We are for socialism", and
another, somewhere else and says, "We are for imperialism", and that
will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously
pedantic view would vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a "putsch".
V.I. Lenin, on the Easter Rebellion
*****************************************
Though apposite to the day of writing, your Lenin citation about the Easter
Rising is based
upon a completely misconceived hiostorical comparison, as was your earlier
Lenin quote
concerning the Gapon movement of Bloody Sunday, 1905.
Despite the fact that it may have been manipulated by the Okhrana, the Gapon
protest
was an attempt by an incipient workers movement to gain redress for the
grievances of the workers
and the people. The Dublin Rising was an attempt by a band of rebels of a small
oppressed nation to
strike a blow for national emancipation from the world's leading colonial
power. However partial, illusory or narrow the
consciusness of the people who led these struggles, they contained at their
core
a purpose that Marxists also endorse and hence could participate support and
participate in in
one way or another..
The Maidan movement is a dirrerent story. The people participating in it may
have been justly
aggrieved by the corruption and brutality of the Yanukovych regime, but they
also had a very definite idea
about the solution: throwing in their lot with one of the competing imperialist
camps, which seeks to open the
country's doors to foreign investment, deepen capitalist exploitation and debt,
and bring it into a military alliance.
To be true to their own convictions, Marxists in Kiev, unlike in 1905 or 1916,
would have to argue not only
against the methods, leadership and illusions of the movement, but against its
very aims. It is impossible to
participate on this basis. Most political activists in Ukraine are, if not
fascists, hardcore anti-communists,
who tend to swallow whole Western propaganda about the virtues of democratic
capitalism. Their consciousness is based
mainly (though not entirely) on their bitter experiences with Stalinism. But
to understand why they think this
way shouldn't blind us to the extremely baneful consequences that acting on the
basis of their beliefs entail.
Pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist politics lead such movements to place
themselves at the disposal of the
actual capitalists and imperialists who are waiting in the wings to take
advantage of the situation.
Jim
a purpose that Marxists also endorse and hence could participate support and
participate in in
one way or another..
The Maidan movement is a dirrerent story. The people participating in it may
have been justly
aggrieved by the corruption and brutality of the Yanukovych regime, but they
also had a very definite idea
about the solution: throwing in their lot with one of the competing imperialist
camps, which seeks to open the
country's doors to foreign investment, deepen capitalist exploitation and debt,
and bring it into a military alliance.
To be true to their own convictions, Marxists in Kiev, unlike in 1905 or 1916,
would have to argue not only
against the methods, leadership and illusions of the movement, but against its
very aims. It is impossible to
participate on this basis. Most political activists in Ukraine are, if not
fascists, hardcore anti-communists,
who tend to swallow whole Western propaganda about the virtues of democratic
capitalism. Their consciousness is based
mainly (though not entirely) on their bitter experiences with Stalinism. But
to understand why they think this
way shouldn't blind us to the extremely baneful consequences that acting on the
basis of their beliefs entail.
Pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist politics lead such movements to place
themselves at the disposal of the
actual capitalists and imperialists who are waiting in the wings to take
advantage of the situation.
Jim
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