******************** 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.
*****************************************************************
(Posted to FB by John Game)
A reel off prompted by the justified anger many supporters of the Syrian
revolution feel about the official positions of many on the left and in
the Labour movement:
as someone who has been an anti-Stalinist all their life I'm used to the
fact that large sections of the left are not. For me these issues are
connected to people not having enough confidence to fight for
themselves-and thus putting their hopes either in particular leaders or
particular states to do it for them. One of the truly alarming things
about the last couple of decades has been the extent to which stalinism
has re-invented itself-it had been believed by many that the end of the
Soviet bloc would kill off these kinds of illusions-I think we were
missing the point Marx once made about religion-that if you were to want
to abolish it you'd have to abolish the conditions that give rise to the
need for it-and the conditions that gave rise to the need amongst people
to look for substitutes for their own agency were not abolished by the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Hence the really shocking way in which
some even look to Putin as some kind of a saviour-an authoritarian no
better whatsoever then a Modi in India. But, and here's the problem, in
India you'll find many on the left who absolutely despise Modi but have
enourmous illusions in Putin as some kind of an 'alternative' to US
hegenomy-why?-because the dominant forms of reformism in the global
south were premissed on the idea that the weakening of the dominant
western imperialism gave space for alternatives-some of this was
reflected in the old ideas of the non-aligned movement (though its
interesting that many who espouse those ideas now once saw the
non-aligned movement as simply an illusion-as indeed in many ways it
was). All across the world this has produced a left that's fragmented,
an internationalism that's incoherent, and a dreadful paucity of a real
movement of solidarity for the actually existing and on-going
revolutionary movements we've seen over the last decade-worse then this
a constant clamour of slander and abuse directed at those who try and
raise these issues.
I believe these arguments need to be taken on, head on, and I have no
time at all for people who think its sectarian to raise these issues.
Its vital. But at the same time, I think you have to understand the
roots in despair - like all forms of counter-revolutionary ideology it
thrives on feeling of hopelessness-there were of course plenty of
sociopaths who kissed the boots of Stalin because they liked the thought
of those boots trampling on human faces forever. But most kissed the
boots of Stalin because they sincerely believed that these were the only
boots that could kick Hitler. Today we face a more grotesque situation
(what as Javaad said I once called Stalinism with Stalinism)-where
people don't even believe (well aside from the truly confused or
strange) that any of these regimes represent socialist values-but think
the best they can hope for is some sort of 'balance' - in effect a new
Congress of Vienna (a reactionary post-Napoleon balance drawn up by the
European great powers in the 19th century) this time with Putin and-who
else?-to ask the question is to reveal the ideological
incoherence-perhaps General Sisi? Or those currently locking up and
killing Trade Unionists in Tehran? Or Modi? A man who like Putin who
knows how to deal with troublesome Muslims-perhaps these people doing a
deal with America will lead to a better world? To ask the question is to
reveal the bloody aburdity of it.
Most people voting for Corbyn desperately want change and I'm with them.
But I also want to argue with them about how we can get that change. But
you can't win that argument if you line up with the dominant powers-who
have no intention whatsoever of helping anyway and never did. I also
think there is a difficulty with an understandable argument about
priorities-I wholly understand the position of people who say-My
priority is the Syrian revolution so I'll support any robber of bandit
if they'll help. But we also see supporters of the Kurds say the same
thing-its a logic which is part of the fragmentation which has led us to
where we are. That's the difficulty. I don't have easy solutions for this.
PS: I also feel that in practice-I would be happy with a British state
that never deployed its military anywhere outside its borders. What I'm
not happy with is a set of arguments systematically misrepresenting a
revolution and its struggle against counter-revolution.
I'm reminded of an old argument amongst trots about stalinists. It was
suggested that the CPs were little but agents of Moscow who wanted to
impose totalitarianism on the working class. It was conceded that some
of the leaders were indeed like that but that the reality was that the
CPs could never ever come to power against the state without a larger
collective struggle whose outcome they would be unable to control-indeed
for that reason their leaders would probably sabotage it before it came
to that. And unlike the Nazis the local ruling class would not allow
them to come to power-hence their ability to attract many who opposed
the inequities of capitalism. Therefore no matter how awful the politics
were-in practice it the material circumstances would often put people on
the same side...thinking about this much older argument (an analogy
which doesn't fit perfectly of course) is what led me to think about the
parallel with religion.
_________________________________________________________
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
