04.02.1999
Mistaken position
James Paris of the US Marxist Workers’ Group argues that the CPGB’s refusal to “defend Iraq” is an error that can be corrected
A recent article by comrade Mark Fischer in the pages of the Weekly Worker (January 7) opens a debate on the question of defencism - what it is, and how you apply it. This debate developed from discussion between the CPGB and the Marxist Workers’ Group around the recent imperialist bombing of Iraq.
For the MWG, the issue of revolutionary defence is a question of method. Wars and revolutions are acid tests for Marxists. World War II graphically drew out the differences within social democracy - separating out the Marxists from the chauvinists and reformists. The implosions in the USSR and eastern Europe, specifically the August 1991 coup, separated out the proletarian communists from the petty bourgeois ‘democrats’ who masqueraded as ‘Marxists’. Such is also true of the ongoing conflict between US/British imperialism and Iraq. All manifestations of petty bourgeois pacifism, social-patriotism and adventurism (not to mention opportunist tailing of the Ba’athists) came out during the Gulf War of 1990-91. And these failures in method continued to develop in the ensuing years.
The current debate with the comrades of the CPGB allows us an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the Marxist method, and to attempt to influence the development of a corrective trend.
To begin tackling this question, we must begin with a Marxist understanding of defencism: what it is and what it is not. Marxists have always understood that there are two types of war: 1) progressive wars - wars of national liberation, anti-imperialist wars; and 2) reactionary wars - wars of redivision of the world, inter-imperialist wars. A Marxist organisation develops its position on war based on the analysis of the class relations in all wars. By class relations we not only mean the subjective elements of the wars (regime, ideology, etc) but also the objective elements (relations between oppressed and oppressor, questions of markets, etc).
The seminal work on this question was Socialism and war. The position was outlined by Lenin and Zinoviev very clearly in 1915: “The period between 1789 and 1871 left deep traces and revolutionary reminiscences. Before the overthrow of feudalism, absolutism and foreign oppression, there could be no thought of developing the proletarian struggle for socialism. When, in speaking of the wars of such periods, the socialists always recognised the justice of a ‘defensive’ war, they had in view of the above aims: namely, a revolution against medievalism and serf labour. Under a ‘defensive’ war the socialists always understood a ‘just’ war in this particular sense. (Wilhelm Liebknecht once expressed himself in this very way.) Only in this sense did the socialists recognise, and so recognise at present, the legitimacy, progressivism, and justice of ‘defending the fatherland’, or of a ‘defensive’ war. For instance, if Morocco were to declare war against France tomorrow, or India against Britain, or Persia or China against Russia, etc, those wars would be ‘just’, ‘defensive’ wars, no matter which one was the first to attack. Every socialist would then wish the victory of the oppressed, dependent and unsovereign states against the oppressing, slaveholding, pillaging ‘great’ nations.
“But imagine that a slaveholder possessing 100 slaves wages war against a slaveholder possessing 200 slaves for a more ‘equitable’ redistribution of slaves. It is evident that to apply to such a case the term ‘defensive’ war or ‘defence of the fatherland’ would be an historical lie; in practice it would mean that the crafty slaveholders were plainly deceiving the unenlightened masses, the lower strata of the city population. It is in this very fashion that the present-day imperialist bourgeoisie, when war is waged among the slaveholders for the strengthening and consolidation of slavery, deceive the people by means of the ‘national’ ideology and the idea of defence of the fatherland” (our emphasis, VI Lenin CW Vol 18, Moscow 1930, pp220-221).
So, what does this mean? Lenin was attempting to show through example what kind of different wars exist under capitalism. For him and the Bolsheviks, wars of “oppressed states” against imperialist powers (France, Britain, Russia) were “just”, “defensive” wars. In other words, they were wars that Marxists “would … wish victory”. Lenin goes on explain the nature of inter-imperialist wars. He is clear to show that wars “waged among the slaveholders” are wars between competing imperialist powers, fighting to redivide the world. Further, he shows how the imperialist bourgeoisie uses “defence of the fatherland” as a means to deceive the working class, and that Marxists need to expose these lies.
But then why do Marxists defend “oppressed states” against imperialism? Why do Marxists consider them “just” wars? Marxists defend these states against imperialism for two reasons. First, we unconditionally oppose the movement of imperialism toward further subjugation of oppressed peoples around the world. Second, the defeat of imperialism in a fight with oppressed states weakens the base of imperialism at home and around the world, and allows an opening for the working class to fight capitalism.
Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the October Revolution and Marxist theoretician, wrote on this:
“Maxton and the others opine that the Italo-Ethiopian war is ‘a conflict between two rival dictators’… They thus define the character of the war by the political form of the state, in the course of which they themselves regard this political form in a quite superficial and purely descriptive manner, without taking into consideration the social foundations of both ‘dictatorships’. A dictator can also play a very progressive role in history: for example, Oliver Cromwell, Robespierre, etc ... Should a dictator place himself at the head of the next uprising of the Indian people in order to smash the British yoke - would Maxton then refuse this dictator his support? Yes or no? If not, why does he refuse his support to the Ethiopian ‘dictator’ who is attempting to cast off the Italian yoke?
“If Mussolini triumphs, it means the reinforcement of fascism, the strengthening of imperialism, and the discouragement of the colonial peoples in Africa and elsewhere. The victory of the Negus [Ethiopian king Haile Selassie - JP], however, 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 oppressed peoples. One must really be completely blind not to see this” (our emphasis, LD Trotsky, ‘On dictators and the heights of Oslo’ Writings 1935-36 New York 1977, pp317-318).
The crux of this debate, according to comrade Fischer, stems from the question of whether military support of Iraq is the same as political support to the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein. According to Fischer,
“The fine distinction such comrades attempt to draw between military support for the Iraqi regime and political support is entirely spurious. After all, war is the continuation of politics by other, violent, means. And surely taking sides with Saddam Hussein is a political act by the various Trotskyist sects. The defensive measures that the Saddam dictatorship may take against imperialist attacks are designed to secure the conditions for its continued rule as an anti-working class despotism. There can for us be no question of a military bloc with - or, what is the same thing, political support to - such a reactionary regime.”
With this opening, comrade Fischer confuses the issues of military and political support. Of course, according to the comrade, there is no fundamental difference between the two. Moreover, for him, the differences between Iraq and the US are quantitative - a simple matter of degrees. We believe that this exposes a severe lack of Marxist understanding. The confusion inherent in these positions - the inability to discern between oppressed and oppressor states - shows the centrist character of the CPGB as it stands. It negates the Leninist understanding of war, as well as the understanding of imperialism and the world division of labour.
Comrade Fischer’s position is not new to us. Some members of the MWG were at one time in the Communist Party USA. The more savvy members of the CPUSA used the same argument as the comrade from Britain for the same reasons (though not for the same ends). In fact, the position is a hallmark of ‘official communist’ parties. And it is still just as non-Leninist and false. However, from the CPGB, it is not designed to justify support for a ‘negotiated solution’ by the United Nations. In our opinion, the CPGB’s argument against defencism is an opportunistic vestige of the ‘official communist’ parties’ old practices.
The central question behind the argument around Iraq is whether or not the latter is an oppressor (imperialist) or oppressed (semi-colonial) state. In his book Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism Lenin outlined five essential features of imperialist capitalism. They are:
“1. The concentration of production and capital developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
“2. The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this, ‘finance capital’, of a ‘financial oligarchy’.
“3. The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities.
“4. The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves.
“5. The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capitalist powers is completed” (VI Lenin Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism New York 1945, p89).
Even a cursory glance at Iraq shows that it does not fit these five features. Iraq does not export capital, it has not formed international capitalist monopolies and it has not divided the world alongside the “greatest capitalist powers”. For Lenin, these five features were decisive criteria. For us, they fulfil the same role.
But, if Iraq is not an imperialist power (even a minor power, like Canada or Greece) then what is it? While at times Iraq has played the role of imperialist proxy in the Middle East (eg, the Iran-Iraq War), it is fundamentally an exploited state - an oppressed semi-colonial state.
For comrade Fischer, what is defining the “anti-defencism” of their position is not the position of Iraq in the world division of labour, but rather the ruthlessness of Hussein’s Ba’athist regime. He writes:
“Viewed in this way, we would ask our ‘defencist’ comrades - what possible progressive content does the Ba’athist regime embody? If there is none, what justification can there be for siding with it against imperialism?”
Here the comrade makes the same mistake as Maxton in the piece by Trotsky quoted above. Comrade Fischer elevates form (the lack of “progressive content” in the Iraqi regime) over content (the semi-colonial character of Iraq). This is a superficial and impressionistic argument. It ignores the relationship of imperialism to the rest of the world, and reduces the argument to moralistic appeals of ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
The Communist International was able to develop a clear position on the work of member sections in the colonial and semi-colonial countries: “The refusal of communists in the colonies to take part in the fight against imperialist tyranny, on the pretext of their supposed ‘defence’ of imperialist class interests [ie, rejection of defencism due to the reactionary nature of the semi-colonial leadership - JP], is the worst kind of opportunism and can only discredit the proletarian revolution in the east … The working class of the colonies and semi-colonies must be firmly convinced that it is only the overall intensification of the struggle against great power imperialist oppression that can promote it to revolutionary leadership. On the other hand, it is only the political and economic organisation and the political education of the working class and semi-proletarian layers that can increase the revolutionary scope of the anti-imperialist struggle” (Theses, resolutions and manifestos of the first four congresses of the Third International London 1983, pp414-415).
In other words, only through a consistent struggle against imperialism and imperialist attack can a communist organisation win political leadership. Only through a consistent defence of semi-colonies against ‘great power’ countries like the United States and Britain can the Marxists win leadership in the struggle. Communists see imperialism’s need to capture markets (a question of content) as paramount to the bloodthirsty regime of a semi-colony (a question of form). This is not to say that we do not take form into account. On the contrary, this is where the question of the difference between military and political support comes into play.
Comrade Fischer uses the example of the Bolsheviks’ struggle against Kornilov as a means to defeat the position of the “defencists”. In this, the comrade constructs straw man after straw man to demolish the position. He writes: “Replying to this idea, Lenin starkly stated that ‘you do not conclude agreements or make blocs with people who have deserted for good to the enemy camp’ (VI Lenin CW Vol 25, p251). And further still: ‘A Bolshevik would say, “Our workers and soldiers will fight the counterrevolutionary troops if they start an offensive now against the provisional government; they will do so not to defend this government ... but to independently defend the revolution as they pursue their own aim”’ (ibid p251-252).
“Thus what Lenin is outlining here is the fight for proletarian political independence. The revolutionary proletariat will fight to defeat the Kornilov counterrevolution as a precondition for the fight to make its revolution. If that struggle happens to parallel the struggle of forces loyal to Kerensky then this is a purely episodic, coincidental phenomenon. In no way does it imply a ‘bloc’ - political or military - with the provisional government which remains the enemy of the revolution.
“The position of those who advocated cooperation, a certain alliance between revolutionaries and the military forces of Kerensky, would in effect have tied the proletariat to the coat tails of this anti-revolutionary government. In the context of the politics of revolutionary Russia at this time, this was a grave opportunist mistake, but at least explicable. After all, the provisional government was a product of a revolution and contained people who regarded themselves as Marxists.”
In order to argue this, let us break it down into its component statements.
First, comrade Fischer uses quotes by Lenin to attempt to justify the anti-defencist position. Unfortunately for him, though, the comrade accidentally stumbles upon the Marxist understanding of defencism. We agree with Lenin when he writes:
“A Bolshevik would say, ‘Our workers and soldiers will fight the counterrevolutionary troops if they start an offensive now against the provisional government; they will do so not to defend this government ... but to independently defend the revolution as they pursue their own aim’.”
This is the essence of the Marxist position of revolutionary defencism. We do not defend Iraq to shore up the bloody Ba’athist regime. On the contrary, we defend Iraq to further prepare the groundwork for the revolutionary proletarian overthrow of the Ba’athists, and the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship.
And, “if that struggle happens to parallel the struggle of the forces” of Saddam Hussein, “then this is a purely episodic, coincidental phenomenon”. But, unlike comrade Fischer, we understand that this very position is a “military bloc”, the only kind of bloc allowed between proletarian and non-proletarian forces.
Military defence in no way “advocates” - either explicitly or implicitly - any kind of “cooperation”. A Marxist military force would not “cooperate” with the Ba’athist forces beyond simply coordinating attacks against imperialist forces. In a sense, revolutionary defencism is a military application of the united front. There only exists the most basic of coordination, and the Marxists “support” the Ba’athists in a war against imperialism like a rope supports a hanged man.
As we said above, such defencism is predicated with the understanding that our work is designed to strengthen the independence of the proletariat. The victory of imperialism, and successive stalemate, has done nothing to strengthen the resolve of the Iraqi proletariat. On the contrary, it has served to demoralise the working class and tie it to the Ba’athists. A defeat of imperialism would have added boldness and strength to the actions of the working class in Iraq, giving impulse to moving beyond - that is, to fight Saddam Hussein.
Finally, we feel compelled to ask comrade Fischer: if the Kornilov revolt took place in the absence of soviets, would Marxists have still mobilised to fight him? Or, by the logic of your position, would you declare a pox on both houses and let the Kornilov fascists take control? The same question can be asked around the Spanish Civil War: would you have declared dual defeatism between the republic and the Franco fascists?
As an aside, we would like to clue comrade Fischer in on the rest of the quote he uses to justify his anti-defencist position. It reads:
“… a Bolshevik would tell the Mensheviks: ‘We shall fight, of course, but we refuse to enter into any political alliance whatever with you, refuse to express the least confidence in you. We shall fight in the very same way as the social democrats fought tsarism in February 1917, together with the Cadets, without entering into any alliance with the Cadets or trusting them for one second ...’
“It is all too advantageous for the Mensheviks to put about false rumours and allegations to the effect that the government they support is saving the revolution, while in reality it has already formed a bloc with the Kaledins, is already counterrevolutionary, has already taken a great many steps, and is daily taking further steps, to meet the terms of this bloc with the Kaledins” (first paragraph - our emphasis; second paragraph - emphasis in original, VI Lenin CW Vol 25, p252, Moscow 1977).
If we were interested in a psychological understanding of comrade Fischer’s argument, we might say that he was polemicising in denial. The reason for this would be due to the established positions of the CPGB, which run counter to the position of the comrade. For example, the CPGB has an historical position of defending forces like the Irish Republican Army against the military might of British imperialism. This position alone would be enough to expose the contradiction. But - and perhaps more important - the position of the CPGB on Iraq is another example.
On their internet website, the CPGB raised the slogan “Hands off Iraq!” as opposed to “Defend Iraq” (our demand) or “Defend the peoples of Iraq”, the slogan they counterposed in the course of our discussions around the joint statement. Both of the demands they raised - “Hands off Iraq” and “Defend the peoples of Iraq” - are objectively defencist slogans. Calling for “Hands off Iraq” can be taken two ways. It can be a weak, pacifist slogan or it can be seen as a weak call for defence.
The call to “Defend the peoples of Iraq” appears to fall in the defencist category within the context of imperialist bombing. However, how can it be taken seriously unless it is understood to mean that proletarian internationalists would be episodically aiming their guns in the same direction as the Iraqi armed forces? To distinguish this slogan from a defencist position makes sense only if it is to argue a pacifist point of view. We do not believe this is the case with the CPGB, but comrade Fischer’s polemic is clearly muddled by such influences. In many ways, the position of the CPGB is similar to that of Trotsky and the Inter-District Group in the early years of the World War I: they are essentially internationalist, but prone to lapses into social-pacifism.
Far from falling into the CPGB’s stereotype of “Trotskyist sects”, the Marxist Workers’ Group bases its method on Bolshevism and the Bolshevik-Leninists of Trotsky’s time. It is ironic that the ‘Leninists’ of the CPGB and the ‘Trotskyists’ of the MWG have reciprocal positions on war and imperialism from Lenin and Trotsky in 1914-1915.
This brings us to the ‘fine distinction’ between the position of the Bolshevik-Leninists of the MWG and the Trotskyists. The final straw man it is necessary to contend with is where comrade Fischer attempts to draw parallels between our position and that of the various “Trotskyist sects”, like the rotten and doubly-misnamed ‘International Bolshevik Tendency’.
The comrade quotes a part of the IBT’s statement on the bombing where they say:
“The international working class has a side in this struggle - and it is with Iraq, and its government, against the British and US pirates” (Fischer’s emphasis).
Like comrade Fischer, we would also take exception with the statement of the IBT for precisely the same reasons. The IBT, making a mistake very common among the centrists, does confuse military defence and political support. Like the milieu they emerged from, the Spartacist/Healyite/Shachtmanite tradition, the IBT confuses the masses with the leaders. Like their mentors in the Spartacists, they equate the revolutionary actions of the masses - done in spite of their reactionary leadership - with the leaders.
For the Spartacists, it led to “hailing the Red Army [sic!] in Afghanistan” and an obituary for former USSR leader Yuri Andropov. For the IBT, it led them to giving implicit political support to the neo-Bukharinite restorationist leadership of the CPSU during the August 1991 coup and now to the bloody Ba’athist leadership of Iraq. But the situation can also work in the polar opposite direction. Both the Spartacists and the IBT refused to call for a general strike during the Ontario teachers’ strike of 1997. While the teachers demanded “general strike!”, the centrist dilettantes of the IBT declared, “It’s all cut and dry”, and the Spartacists whined about how the “union bureaucrats” would be in control of any general strike.
The Spartacist/Healyite milieu is characteristic of the ‘orthodox’ post-World War II Trotskyist movement. This includes their petty bourgeois composition, ‘r-r-revolutionary’ abstentionism, hyperpropagandism, and general centrist muddle-headedness.
We understand that the history of the British workers’ and socialist movement has a wing that traditionally confused military defence with political support. The British Workers’ Revolutionary Party took this trend of centrism to its extreme by openly acting as the franchise for the Iraqi Ba’athists and Libyan nationalists. So we do understand if Marxist organisations attempt to correct this historical revisionism. But we caution comrades not to bend the stick too far in the opposite direction. Such a move can be viewed as capitulation to British imperialism and ‘little England chauvinism’.
For us, there is a methodological root to comrade Fischer’s position. This root, this failure, has plagued the workers’ and socialist movement for decades. In essence, it is the loss of dialectical method: the failure to see contradiction and analyse how these contradictions create motion. Because of this failure of method, comrade Fischer cannot make use of these contradictions to move the struggles of the working class forward. Moreover, because of this failure, he cannot interact with these contradictions in concrete ways.
Building a revolutionary working class party requires understanding and taking advantage of contradictions in bourgeois society. This includes contradictions and divisions among the capitalists. Moreover, Marxists must be able to exploit these contradictions to the benefit of the working class in order to move closer to the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship. However, comrade Fischer’s failure to see, understand and exploit these contradictions lead to dangerous conclusions and methods. Instead of seeing the contradictions and differences between imperialist bombings and the actions of Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athists, comrade Fischer equates Hussein’s actions with the actions of US and British imperialism.
Thus the only thing left to base an analysis on is moralism. Moralism is a concrete expression of the larger ideology that is promoted by the bourgeoisie. This is an ideology that rests on formal logic, as opposed to dialectical analysis. It is imposed on the working class every day, in countless ways, by the capitalists in power. The working class is indoctrinated in this method from birth, and taught by all institutions in society that this is the only way to view the world. But bourgeois ideology has changed and evolved throughout history to meet the needs of the ruling class.
The various ideological changes in society have a direct relationship to the various periods of development of capitalism. But one fact always remains: the bourgeoisie needs this ideology in order to maintain itself in power; the working class must reject this ideology in order to take power. The bourgeoisie can afford to stand on moral and idealistic appeals; the working class cannot. The job of the revolutionary party is to provide the working class with an alternative method of viewing the world - a scientific and Marxist method.
At the root of the analyses of most of the groups in the workers’ and socialist movement is the same bourgeois ideology: moralism instead of materialism, formal logic instead of dialectics. Thus, while different individuals and groups, like the IBT and comrade Fischer, may come to very different sounding conclusions, and may formulate things in ways that sound diametrically opposed to each other, the effects are really two sides of the same coin. The IBT does not politically fight Hussein while the latter is under attack, and comrade Fischer does not fight him at all because he rejects a struggle out of hand.
It reminds us of leftists on a picket line, yelling “shame!” at the scabs, but not doing anything to stop them. They are either doing this because they are tailists of the union bureaucracy or they see everything as “cut and dry”. A Marxist does not give moral propaganda, but leadership. Anything else is only an impotent appeal - nothing more. If we were to extend the logic and use comrade Fischer’s method consistently, he would abstain from supporting strikes, and reject calls for general strikes, because they would be led by the union bureaucracy. He would say, ‘Not orange against green, but class against class!’ in Ireland, and abstain in a war between British imperialism and a semi-colony like Argentina.
This method, although it may seem very ‘leftwing’ at first glance, poses some very rightwing dangers. Whether the form is open political support or abstention, the content is the same: a rejection of the Marxist method of the workers’ united front, because of an inability to identify contradictions between leadership and base. Ultimately, this is a methodological rejection of the need to build workers’ councils (soviets) unless the leadership is somehow magically ‘pure’ revolutionaries.
If the CPGB adheres to comrade Fischer’s position, if they ever want to lend military support to a force, they will have to give political support as well. They will have to subordinate their programme, or simply abstain from almost all of the struggles today. That will be the choice facing them. If it is taken to a logical conclusion, they will either sink into an isolated oblivion or sacrifice their programme on the altar of the popular front.
Comrade Fischer, it is not too late to change your current course! A principled defence of Iraq and other semi-colonies against imperialism can be raised without slipping into tailism and opportunism.
Since coming into contact with the CPGB in 1997, we regarded them as one of the healthiest and most dynamic organisations in the British workers’ and socialist movement. We have always seen the CPGB as worthy of revolutionary respect. This is why we have attempted to answer the arguments of comrade Fischer in a comradely, pedagogical and comprehensive manner, and not simply denounce him as a ‘Stalinist’ (which he is not) or a ‘capitulator’ (which he does not appear to be). We see this article as a contribution to the development of Marxist method. And we hope the comrades of the CPGB see it in the same light.
All organisations make mistakes in the course of intervening in the class struggle. The comrades of the MWG have made their fair share; and probably will as time goes on. But the difference between a Marxist and a revisionist organisation is that Marxists recognise their mistakes and attempt to correct them; revisionists compound their mistakes with more mistakes, cloaked in either ‘orthodoxy’ or a ‘new word’.
We regard the position of the comrade Fischer as a mistake - a mistake that can be corrected.