International solidarity with the Ethiopian struggle against Italian invasion and occupation was very important and inspiring, and should never be forgotten. So it's good that Proyect posted a link to Molly Crabapple's article "Hidden Fighters: Remembering America´s black antifascist vanguard". This article also gives some idea of the struggle in Ethiopia, but it has a rather partial account of the war, and is seriously mistaken when it states that Ethiopia surrendered to the Italian fascists. (Crabapple writes "On April 30, 1936, with the entire Ethiopian Air Force destroyed and the country days from surrender...")
Surrender never happened, although the imperialist countries acted as if it had. Selassie may have fled Ethiopia as the capital Addis Ababa fell in May 1936, and not returned until 1941, but the Ethiopian people kept fighting the entire time; their struggle was a forerunner of the resistance wars that would soon take place in certain countries in Europe in World War II. The left celebrates the other resistance wars in World War II that took place in Asia and in Europe, but it is inconvenient to various trends to assess, or even remember, the war of the Ethiopian Patriots (Arbegnoch), as they called themselves, and the positive and negative lessons of this war. But African lives matter, and the history of the struggle against the Italian fascist occupation matters. Various political trends have had their reasons for identifying the struggle solely with Selassie and the official army, as did the imperialist League of Nations. The radical left, however, should instead bring to light the full history of the war against Italian invasion and occupation. This would bring out many important issues, such as the role of national oppression in the Ethiopian empire in alienating the Eritrean and Oromo peoples and thus weakening Ethiopian resistance to invasion. (Ethiopia under Haile Selassie really was an empire in the full sense of the word.) And it would note the defeat of the efforts of the Patriots to obtain reforms in the Ethiopian monarchy, and the consequences of that defeat. While the defense of Ethiopia inspired African Americans and others, Haile Selassie himself left a legacy that wasn't anti-imperialist, despite Trotsky's prophesy, but imperial, and this legacy lingers to this day in one war after another involving the nationalities, as is still happening today in Ethiopia. The point, of course, wasn't that the Ethiopian government should have been opposed during the struggle against Italian invasion and occupation, but that support for the Ethiopian government should have been accompanied by a realistic attitude towards Selassie. This would bring up a number of delicate questions in agitation and action, but it is what communists should have found ways to do. It was necessary to deal with similar delicate situations in other partisan wars in World War II, and Ethiopia was no exception. Glorification of Selassie has paved the way for such mistakes as the memorable activist Sylvia Pankhurst supporting, after the Italians were kicked out, Ethiopian domination of Eritrea; this is a domination which would result in decades of more bloodshed, more warfare. Pankhurst's unfortunate error is in line with Trotsky's assessment of Haile Selassie, but goes against what happened during the Second Italo-Ethopian war, and also goes against what has happened since. And, if we shift from considering Crabapple's article to what has been written by the Trotskyist movement, we see a steadfast refusal, to this day, to examine what happened in the Second Italo-Ethiopian war. As I wrote several years ago: "it´s been 79 years since Selassie fled Ethiopia in 1936. But the Trotskyist movement is still silent about this. It is astonishing to see one Trotskyist article after another that discusses Trotsky´s stand on Selassie, and fails to mention that Selassie fled. For example, an article in 2006 in Socialist Worker was devoted to discussing Trotsky´s stand on Ethiopia, and not only never mentioned that Selassie fled, but glorified his military role with a picture captioned 'Emperor Haile Selassie inspecting his troops during the invasion'. The famous three-volume biography of Trotsky by Isaac Deutscher ignored Ethiopia completely. Pathfinder Press published volume after volume of Trotsky´s writings, including the letter that praised Haile Selassie as an anti-imperialist: it footnoted this and that, but neglected to mention Selassie fleeing Ethiopia, the partisan war in Ethiopia, or what happened after Selassie returned." (from "The sad story of Leon Trotsky and Haile Selassie, part one", http://www.communistvoice.org/DWV-150831.html -- a brief overview and timeline of the struggle against Italian occupation can be found at http://www.communistvoice.org/DWV-150908.html). On 11 Nov 2020 at 15:18, Louis Proyect wrote: > > In August, twenty thousand black and white protesters marched > through Harlem chanting "Death to Fascism!" and "Italian and > Negro > people, unite in a common front against war!" Union leaders, > Communists, Pan-Africanists, priests, and the Rabbi Michael Alpert > all delivered speeches before the Harlem rally-days after a > hundred > black and pro-Fascist Italian residents battled each other with > homemade weapons in the streets of Jersey City. Black Communist > Party members in Harlem and Chicago´s South Side organized the > Joint Committee for the Defense of Ethiopia, and on August 31, > 1934, Communist organizer Harry Haywood defied rampant police > violence to lead a series of spontaneous demonstrations that blocked > traffic and burned Mussolini in effigy. In his memoir, Haywood wrote > that "the defense of Ethiopia had now become a fight for the > streets > of Chicago." Communist-organized dock workers refused to load > Italian ships. In the famous, aptly named Abyssinian Baptist Church, > Adam Clayton Powell raised funds for Ethiopia while delivering > passionate speeches in support of the country´s resistance to > Fascism. > https://thebaffler.com/salvos/hidden-fighters-crabapple > _._,_._,_ > > > -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#3457): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/3457 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78192048/21656 -=-=- 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. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
