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Andrew Stewart wrote: > > Per the recent controversy re: Syria, I composed this piece to provide a > brief ideological background, I think it goes very deeply into an Old Left > fight between Trotsky and Lenin. Special thanks to Louis Proyect and other > voices on this list that aided in this effort, I could not have done it > without your vital aid. > > http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/10/what-spain-in-1936-teaches-us-about-syria-in-2015/ > The theoretical issue raised by Andrew Stewart is of a great deal of interest. Stalin and Trotsky present themselves as polar opposites, but in reality both separated anti-imperialism from the class struggle and from Leninist anti-imperialism. Stewart points to Stalin's famous passage in "The Foundations of Leninism" concerning the Emir of Afghanistan and "the revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression". I analyzed this passage in detail in my article "Anti-imperialism and the class struggle" from June 2002 (www.communistvoice.org/29cEmir.html). At the time Stalin was writing, the then-Emir of Afghanistan was not a bloodstained dictator like Bashar al-Assad, but a reformer, who sought both to introduce domestic reforms in Afghanistan and to preserve Afghan independence against British imperialism. It was correct for the the Soviet Union to develop relations with the Emir's government; this did not betray the popular movement in Afghanistan. However, Stalin went overboard in painting the Emir as a revolutionary. Stalin's theorizing was a problem even then, and it later has been used as a theoretical basis for such monstrous crimes as supporting the Taliban as "anti-imperialist". Indeed, the article I linked to discusses Stalin's stand with reference to the debate on that time against those who regarded the Taliban as anti-imperialist. The same article also deals with Trotsky's stand with respect to Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Just as it was correct for the Soviet Union at that time to support the Emir of Afghanistan against British imperialism, it was correct for Trotsky to back the Ethiopian government against Italian invasion in the 1930s. But just as Stalin went overboard in painting the Emir as a revolution, Trotsky went overboard in painting Haile Selassie as a revolutionary. He dreamed that Selassie would perform revolutionary deeds that would "mean a mighty blow not only at Italian imperialism but at imperialism as a whole, and would lend a powerful impulsion to the rebellious forces of the opressed peoples". In reality, Selassie fled Ethiopia right after Trotsky dreamed that he might be a new Cromwell or Robespierre (those were strange models for a socialist to put forward in the 20th century, but that's Trotsky for you), and the Ethiopian people were left to fight the occupiers by themselves. When Selassie returned to Ethiopia, he did his best to continue absolutist rule. Thus both Stalin and Trotsky, despite apparently opposite theories, were overboard in painting various figures as revolutionaries. And both Stalin's theorizing on the Emir of Afghanistan, and Trotsky's theorizing on Haile Selassie, were used by some groups to defend the Taliban's struggle. These groups regard themselves as great anti-imperialists, but they are non-class anti-imperialists, who are dragging the good name of anti-imperialism through the mud. Leninist anti-imperialism is quite different from either Trotsky's version of permanent revolution or Stalin's version of multi-stage revolution. I wrote about Lenin's views in "An outline of Leninist anti-imperialism" (www.communistvoice.org/29cOutline.html). It is Leninist theory, and neither Trotskyism nor Stalinism, that provides a theoretical basis for a true anti-imperialist stand with regard to the current world. And such a stand shows the need to back the mass struggle against the vicious Ba'ath dictatorship, which has suppressed political life in Syria for about half a century. -- 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
