17.10.2001

On-off-on Taliban bloc

War always puts your politics to the test. It highlights your frailties and weaknesses. Or shows your strengths. The imperialist ?war against terrorism? is no exception to this rule.

It is fair to say that Workers Power - along with its ?international?, the League for a Revolutionary Communist International - is not having a good war. In fact, if truth be told, this ?orthodox? (self-defined) Trotskyist organisation is having a very bad war. Its publications have been characterised by near farcical levels of inconsistency and confusion.

It is plain to all that there are deep divisions within WP over the war - hence the violent, almost weekly, see-sawing between its ?classical? revolutionary defencist position and other - competing - slogans/formulations which seem to represent a break from degenerate ?Trotskyism? and some sort of move towards genuine Leninism. But, true to form, the comrades cannot openly admit to this in their regular publications and journals. If, like the WP comrades, you wrongly believe that a communist organisation is one which demands of its members that they have to agree with - rather than accept - your organisation?s programme, then you are forced by necessity either to suppress or conceal disagreements or to somehow ?marry? together two (or more) mutually contradictory positions.

WP?s initial stance on the war drive was predictable enough, albeit incorrect. It was business as usual, it seemed. Thus we had comrade Stuart King on the Socialist Alliance internet discussion list writing: ?In WP we will support all those fighting the imperialist attack, be it the Taliban and other Afghan militias, the Iraqi army, Hezbollah, etc, because we want the defeat of this imperialist adventure? (my emphasis, September 18). Two days later, writing on the same e-list, comrade Mark Hoskisson supplied an apologia for the King line, arguing that White House policy ?explains why it will be correct to support an oppressed country against the US when the US tries to exact revenge for the attack - such support will weaken the main and principal enemy of the working class and the oppressed worldwide, the imperialist rulers.?

Then on September 23 at London?s Conway Hall, comrade King told the audience why WP was for the ?defeat of imperialism? and ?the defence of Afghanistan? - a line aggressively pushed in WP?s youth publication, Revolution. From now on, it wrote, ?socialists and anti-war activists will be asked to answer one question: whose side are you on? Whether you wanted the war or not, now that there is one anyway, who do you want to win??

But with the September 30 special edition of Workers Power we saw a distinctly different - and welcome - emphasis, albeit still peppered with ambiguities and theoretical tensions.

In the introductory paragraph, we read: ?The September 11 attacks were an atrocity. The killing of thousands of working people in the name of the struggle against US imperialism were a sick, futile act - and socialists condemn it.? No problem here. Unlike the Socialist Workers Party, for example, WP has taken this line from the start. Even more encouragingly we read: ?Anybody who can find an ounce of ?progressive anti-imperialism? in this sort of thinking - and in the attacks on civilians that bin Laden?s Al Que?da network has carried out - must have truly amazing eyesight!? Explicitly, the special edition states: ?There is nothing progressive in the rule of the Taliban and the terror campaign of bin Laden? - and, yes, ?Imperialism must be defeated, but so too must the Taliban be overthrown and its leaders, along with bin Laden, brought to account by the Afghan people themselves.?

Most significantly of all, the special edition contained the following statement: ?Does opposing an attack on Afghanistan mean siding with the Taliban? No. The progressive defence of Afghanistan against imperialism goes hand in hand with the fight to overthrow the Taliban? (my emphasis).

Leaving aside the slightly slippery nature of the formulation, ?progressive defence of Afghanistan? - which in this context seemed to imply an independent working class position of simultaneously struggling against both imperialism and the Taliban - this edition of Workers Power apparently pointed to a shift in the organisation?s outlook on the war. At the very least, its revolutionary defencism was seen as a liability.

Days later though, the infuriated ?old guardists? retaliated in the pages of the October edition of Workers Power, most notably in a so-called ?correction? (ie, slap-down). So we read: ?The September 30 special issue of Workers Power contained the formulation, ?Does this mean we side with the Taliban? No.? We recognise that this is, at best, ambiguous and, at worst, it appears in contradiction to the LRCI?s established position of unconditional defence of any semi-colony under attack from imperialism, as codified in the Trotskyist manifesto. While it is true that we will give neither give any political support to the Taliban regime nor cease the struggle against it, we will subordinate that struggle to the higher priority of defence of Afghanistan against imperialist attack. Consequently, we would call for the Taliban to cease its repression of other political forces committed to defence, would undertake common defence actions and, where the Taliban is in direct conflict with imperialist forces or their local agents, we would, indeed, be ?on the side of the Taliban?? (my emphasis).

With these words, WP commits itself to a ?military bloc? (?common defence actions?) with the counterrevolutionary Taliban regime. The class struggle against the mullahs and clerics will be suspended (made ?subordinate?) for the duration of the imperialist attack on Afghanistan. Obscenely, WP requests that the Taliban regime ?cease its repression? - but only of those forces committed to its ?defence?. Does that mean, for the anonymous author of this extraordinary ?correction?, the Taliban have carte blanche to continue its bloody actions against forces who refuse to offer them such support?

Before our eyes, WP is constituting itself as ?left? advisers to the barbaric Taliban regime. All in the honourable name of ?anti-imperialism? and ?Trotskyism?. Thankfully, however, it is clear that a significant number of WPers do not agree with the line carried in the October issue.

To answer its internal critics, Workers Power has a list of rhetorical questions: ?But how can you side with a force in a war without supporting its politics? Surely this is a complete contradiction?? Good question. I could not have phrased it better myself. But here is the answer: ?No, it isn?t. In the class struggle it is often the case that revolutionaries have to take sides in a conflict with forces whose leadership and policies we are completely opposed [to]. This does not mean that we endorse or prettify their politics in any way.?

In this spirit, it proceeds to give the examples of Falklands War in 1982 and Gulf War in 1991: ?In the former case WP (Britain) and the Irish Workers Group called for victory to Argentina. In the latter case the LRCI called for victory to Iraq. We did this without for a single moment supporting the dictatorship of general Galtieri, whose junta had murdered thousands of workers and leftists when it came to power. Likewise we did not express any political support for a Saddam Hussein, the butcher of the Kurds and the Shi?ite population of southern Iraq? (my emphasis).

It goes on: ?So does this mean that we raise the slogan, ?Victory to the Taliban?? Definitely not. That would be a gross accommodation to the arch-reactionary politics of the Taliban ?. We never said victory to Saddam Hussein, victory to Galtieri and the Argentinian junta, victory to Stalin or victory to any reactionary governments. We are for the victory of the Afghan forces against imperialism - not for confirming their political leadership in power.?

All this gives confusion a bad name. How can you be ?on the side of the Taliban? yet not in favour of their victory? And how can a victory for Argentina, Iraq or Afghanistan not be a victory for their respective regimes?

Casually, Workers Power then goes on to ask: ?But would a victory for the Taliban not lead to a greater reaction in Afghanistan?? Answer - ?Temporarily, perhaps. Certainly if they were the only force that stood up to imperialism. If all the anti-Taliban forces back the US invasion, or if progressives fail to oppose it, the Taliban would be in an even stronger position still.?

So, incredibly, the WP majority by inference is quite prepared to accept ?temporarily? a situation where the Taliban regime exercises an even greater stranglehold over the oppressed masses. If that is the price that has to be paid for a ?victory? against imperialism ?

In an unintentionally humorous section, WP stresses that it is not calling for a ?united front? with the Taliban. WP has noticed that they are ?still imposing a brutal dictatorship over all other forces in the country. This would make a united front practically impossible because of their absolute intolerance of any opposition and their refusal to collaborate with non-islamic forces.?

Oh dear, all deals off. Still, never mind, since, in any case, ?it would be unprincipled to enter a formal ?united front? or alliance in which the revolutionary communists were obliged to drop or hide their politics?. Yet it would not be ?unprincipled? to ?call for and support united action of all Afghan forces - including islamic forces - to repel the imperialist assault? (my emphasis). Obviously for WP there is a world of difference between a ?united front? and ?united action?.

However, a few paragraphs later, and quite mysteriously, WP talks about how the ?slogan of the anti-imperialist united front? in Afghanistan would act as ?a rallying call on the people to fight the imperialist invasion?, and could represent ?an attempt to mobilise those who are fighting under the leadership of the Taliban to force the Taliban leaders to abandon their dictatorship and broaden the basis of resistance to imperialism?.

Following on from these absurd contradictions, next we are presented with a naked example of WP?s complete separation of the military from the political. Thus, ?There is only one sense in which Taliban or bin Laden actions are anti-imperialist.? Guess time: ?Is it terrorist actions against US workers? No - we condemn them. Is it rejecting modern society and banning TV and modern dress? No - we fight against it. Is it resistance to the US/UK military attack on Afghanistan? Yes. This and only this is progressive. And it is this and only this that we support.?

Sorry, comrades. This is sheer capitulation to reactionary anti-imperialism - pure and simple.

Of course, the above formulations by WP are just a variation on the old idea that ?my enemy?s enemy is my friend? - even if it means backing forces which the Comintern used to call black counterrevolutionaries. In WP?s world, means do not determine ends, nor ends determine means. So, yes, say comrades like Stuart King, we ?defend? Afghanistan (ie, the Taliban quasi-state regime), but that - god forbid - in no way implies that WP ?are somehow political supporters of these reactionary regimes? (September SA internet discussion group).

Hopeless. For Leninists, war is a continuation of politics by other, violent, means. This should be the ABC of any Marxist understanding. As Lenin argued, wars are ?inseparable from the political system that engenders them. The policy which a given state, a given class within a state, pursued for a long time before the war is inevitably continued by the same class during the war, the form of action alone being changed? (VI Lenin CW Vol 24, Moscow 1977, p400).

As we know, WP?s theoretical justification for its ?revolutionary defencism? lies primarily in Leon Trotsky?s comments on Abyssinia and Brazil. To this purpose WP quotes Trotsky?s famous - or notoriously mistaken - 1938 comments: ?In Brazil there now reigns a semi-fascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally - in this case I will be on the side of ?fascist? Brazil against ?democratic? Great Britain.

?Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the other hand should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat.

?Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners and robbers!? (L Trotsky, ?Anti-imperialist struggle is the key to liberation? Writings 1938-39 September 1938, p34).

Here lies the historical origins of WP?s confusion. That is, an uncritical and cultist reading of Trotsky - words intended for a completely different world-historical situation: ie, one in which imperialism was still maintaining and extending directly colonial empires. Even then, has it never occurred to the WP majority that Trotsky might simply have got it wrong? Whatever the case, all this is - or rather should be - subject to open, public debate where we hear both sides of this vitally important argument.

But - regrettably - it will not happen in the pages of Workers Power. Unless there is a cultural revolution in the organisation. Without that, debate will remain concealed and subterranean, occasionally bubbling to the surface, but then only to be pushed back down again into the murky depths of what passes for an internal life.

By openly stating their disagreements the WP minority can do us all a service. Not only would they be fighting for an independent, internationalist, working class position - defeat for imperialism, defeat for the Taliban. They would also be striking a blow for the kind of party we need: one based on genuine democratic centralism.

Eddie Ford