The debate on the war on the Tendance Coatesy blog has given rise to lots of references to other past conflicts that the supporters of Ukraine spin to argue that we should now support it today. A typical one includes the following:
‘The arguments to support Vietnam against the US and the Spanish Republic against the fascists were not that the forces leading these struggles were good. It is that expelling the US from Vietnam, and preventing the victory of Spanish fascism, were very far from a matter of indifference from a working-class, socialist point of view.’
The first problem with this is that the poster (a better word would be imposter) has argued that the forces leading the struggle in Ukraine are good and this includes the Ukrainian capitalist state and western imperialism. As we noted in the previous post, he argues that imperialism is defending the working class.
That is the first point.
The second point is that, yes indeed, Marxists were not indifferent to the struggle against US imperialism in Vietnam or the Spanish civil war against fascism, but these show how far away his position in support of ‘Ukraine’ is from the Marxist position on these wars and the current one.
Marxists opposed US imperialism in Vietnam and worked for its defeat and opposed fascism in Spain with the same objective. In the former, Vietnam was a colony fighting for independence, and no matter how many times supporters of Ukraine claim it was a colony they cannot claim that it still is, although one poster on Tendance Coatsey didn’t appear to understand the difference between the past and present tense. Ukraine was and is an independent capitalist state and it is not the job of socialists to defend independent capitalist states in whatever wars they engage. Would, for example, the pro-Ukraine left still be supporting it if it still had its armed forces occupying Iraq alongside the United States?
In Spain a bourgeois democratic government was being challenged by a mass workers movement that had the potential to overthrow this government and create a workers’ state. Supporters of Ukraine can’t point to an independent working class movement in that country, and far from wanting to overthrow the Ukrainian capitalist state they want us all to join imperialism in supporting it and ensuring it is armed to the teeth. The difference is very clear and, absent malign motives, it is difficult to see why this is always missed and ignored. In Spain the obvious task was to defeat the fascist insurrection, not as an alternative to overthrowing the bourgeois Republican government but as part of the same process of permanent revolution.
What Marxists did not do (or should not have done) was politically support either the bourgeois Republican Government in Spain or the Stalinist Viet Cong in Vietnam. What was necessary then and necessary now is the independent organisation of the working class that will fight against its enemies both foreign and domestic. What left supporters of Russia fail to appreciate is that if there was an independent working class movement in Ukraine it would not be supporting the Russian invasion but fighting it and it own capitalist state. The invasion by the Russian state is not about the liberation of Ukrainian workers, as its treatment of its own amply demonstrates. How this would be done would be a question of tactics but absolutely excluded is support for one’s own capitalist state and failure to organise against it on the grounds that it is doing what you want it to do already.
In Spain, it was support for the bourgeois government that ensured that the fight against fascism would not succeed, while in Vietnam the Stalinists repressed the Marxist movement and you can now visit the country as a tourist to view its capitalist society, although perhaps without seeing the sweatshops.
Vietnam was fighting a war against colonialism while in Spain the fight against fascism was to open up the possibility of socialist revolution. In Ukraine the war was provoked by the moves by that state to join the world’s premier imperialist military alliance, and there is nothing progressive about this. In so far as Ukrainian workers have needed to defend themselves they have needed to do so to prevent their state taking this course before the war; they need now to oppose the war in whatever way they can, and either in ‘victory’ or defeat they will need to resist the predations of western imperialism once the war is over. The reactionary character of the Russian invasion is illustrated by the fact that winning Ukrainian workers to the second and third tasks is now immeasurably harder because of it.
‘Ukraine’ is so far away from any notion that it is involved in a progressive war that we have hundreds, if not thousands, of far right Russians fighting for it against Russia because, it appears, Russia isn’t reactionary enough for them! And this is the ‘Ukraine’ socialists are supposed to support!
That such repugnant outcomes are advanced is the result of the lack of any class analysis by the supporters of ‘Ukraine’ who wrap the interests of the working class within its capitalist state, which itself is embraced by western imperialism, leaving the pro-Ukrainian Left supporting western imperialism and searching for spurious and fraudulent arguments to defend themselves.
So, we get such comments that there aren’t enough imperialist troops in Ukraine to justify calling it a proxy war, when everyone and their dog knows Ukraine would have ended the war long before now without imperialist intervention. And we get the apologetics for the prominent role of fascism by saying that they really only get a small vote, which reminds me of all the loyalist paramilitaries in the north of Ireland who don’t bother to vote for they own political fronts but for the DUP because this mainstream party adequately reflects their reactionary views. In this, as in so much else, the pro-war left is protected by the bourgeois media, which censors the many indicators of fascist sympathies within the Ukrainian armed forces, and regurgitates the moral outrage that feeds the war and imperialist interests.
Back to part 1
Forward to part 3
Sráid Marx 
You are right, also, about the dishonest nature of the discussion, a part of which, I can’t help believing also explains why some comments posted to it, have a habit of simply disappearing. But, also, there is the fact that there are accusations of lying, and demands for evidence, which when provided, are then simply ignored, with no recognition of the evidence being made, let alone a retraction of the accusation of lying. This seems a common behaviour of sections of the Left, no doubt made wore by Twitter.
I can think of two recent examples. Some weeks ago, the same Jim Denham, challenged the idea that there was little difference in terms of the level of freedom and democracy in Ukraine compared to Russia, again basically calling me a liar for having made that claim. I made it, because I had recently read your previous post setting out the data on that, and so I searched out your earlier posts, and quoted it back to him – I can’t remember if I quoted the data or posted a link to your post or both. But, of course, have disproved his accusation, he simply moved on with no apology or even recognition. Yet, even now he, and other pro-NATO apologists continue to push this lie that Ukraine is some kind of beacon of freedom and democracy.
In the thread you have referenced, I pointed out that Denham’s gang, the AWL, took a different line when it came to Iraq, where they opposed calls for invading US troops to leave. Denham perversely, again challenged me to provide evidence of that, or else he said, he would have to call me a liar. I say, perversely, because, at the time, I was still writing posts on the AWL website, and had access to their discussion documents, at a time when a Minority Faction around Dave Broder, opposed precisely this position that the AWL had adopted! So, I have copies of all the documents and discussion on their website, and screen grabs, from that time. I quickly grabbed two pieces of evidence as required.
First, I cited a piece of one dialogue I had with Clive Bradley, who was defending the AWL’s position of opposing calling for Troops Out Now, from Iraq, And, to show this was not an aberration, I immediately quoted a second from an interaction with the AWL’s Sacha Ishmail, where he again defended the position of opposing calling for Troops Out.
But, if you look on Coatesy’s thread, you will see that having immediately demolished Denham’s charge that I was lying about what their position was, he simply drops it, and moves on. he again doesn’t acknowledge the reply or try to argue against it, nor does he retract his charge of lying, or recant his position. There is nothing, just like a troll, moving on to the next accusation. All of this kind of behaviour is symptomatic of decadent petty bourgeois organisations, in which open rational debate has disappeared, in favour of leader worship and a bunker mentality, gang like trench warfare against anyone outside the given gang. Its just like the kind of bureaucratic degeneration of Stalinism in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Left discussions on blogs and Facebook are like student debates where the task is to score points and deliver put-downs. There is therefore no real debate and the various posts could almost be arranged in any order and they would make just as much sense. As you say, evidence is provided and the relevant quotes from historic Marxists are supplied but there is no counter-argument much less rebuttal. There is no room for subtlety or development when facing simple assertions accompanied sometimes with references to the works of these Marxists that don’t even say what is claimed.
The only debate I can think of that was respectful was between two academics and the type of respect given arose from they’re both being professors. Marxist journals are edited and written by a long list of university staff. They become more and more unreadable, esoteric and divorced from class struggle and political programme. They may have been proletarianised to an unprecedented extent but the mass production of ideas doesn’t involve an increase in quality.
Your argument about Ukraine already being an independent State is an odd one for me least. The supporters of Ukraine are saying that Russia is trying to take what national independence it has away from it, this is why they put so much store on the early march on Kiev, indicating that Russia intended to turn Ukraine into a colony or even a neo colony of Russia.
What is neglected is that the western backers of Ukraine are only doing the same thing, turning Ukraine into a dependency of the EU and Washington. There is an excuse that says that Ukraine would be better off becoming a dependency of the West than becoming a neo colony of Russia because at least it would be more prosperous in the long run, and enjoy free and democratic elections human rights. This is based on the ‘noble lie’ that western imperialism is determined by a long standing love of democracy.
Looking back over the last twenty years Ukraine has been fought over internally as to which political direction the country should take aim at. The governments have come and gone, first pulling in one direction then pulling back the other. Looking back at the voting patterns the people too have been turning one way then the other. What is new is that the Fascist far right in Ukraine have now succeeded in injecting an element of ethnic identity into the vexed equation, not unlike far right elements in Ulster injected a strong dose of religious hatred into our own vexed equation. When this identity hate politics takes a grip all rational sense goes out the window.
The more rational people in Ukraine’s should have argued for true Independence and military neutrality, instead of ganging up to side emphatically with one or other of the external forces of Russia on the one side and the Western imperialist on the other. One might maintain that such a position was bound to be a utopian one, that Ukraine was always certain to be become a clone of Russia or a clone of the West. Maybe it is correct to think that the external powers were too powerful and expansive to permit Ukraine to exercise a neutral balance between Russia and the West.
One would like to think that true political independence and military neutrality is still a worthy thing to have, if it is not than it won’t be long before Ireland and other neutral countries are incorporated into Nato and their young men thrown into the thick of wars that are in the last analysis about human greed and the lust for gold (profit). For this reason I don’t it is a good idea for socialists to denigrate the ideal of Political independence and military neutrality because they reason that if economic autonomy
is impossible in a world capitalist mode of production then political autonomy is a non starter. This in my book is not prudent advice to be dishing out when the wealthier section of Irish society are in a rush to join the Nato club.
It is utopian to think there can be any such thing as true independence and neutrality. That is part of what is wrong with the argument of the pro-NATO Left. The world is divided into competing capitalist politico economic blocs, and that competition has been stepped up considerably in the last few years. Its what is behind the new restrictions on technology sales and so on to China, the US Inflation reduction Act that impacts investment in the EU and so on. Every country has to choose to align with one of these blocs and conform with its rules and regulations in order to trade, and basically that means trading with the one that is closest to you, which is why Brexit was nonsense.
That can’t be changed so long as capitalism/imperialism continues. As Trotsky sets out in The program of Peace, this process itself is historically progressive, even if he methods of imperialism, i.e. war and annexation, are not the means we would choose. So, because we oppose those methods, we do no simply acquiesce in imperialist wars. But, nor are we pacifists, because, for the reasons described above, we know its utopian to believe that, so long as capitalism/imperialism exists, this drive to ever larger single markets, and the destruction of nation states will continue, an so will wars and annexations to bring it about. We oppose those wars not on the basis of pacifism, but on the basis of international socialism, of in each case pointing to the need to overthrow capitalism, to turn the war between nations into a civil war in each country, of classes, of the workers turning their guns on their own ruling class.
The idea that Ireland is actually neutral or independent, even now is an illusion, as Sraid Marx has set out in numerous posts. Ireland is part of the EU, and currently, the EU is aligned with NATO/US imperialism. Its not necessary to be formally part of a military alliance to be part of a given imperialist bloc, i.e. part of a given politico-economic formation, such as the EU. In fact, what it shows, here, is the contradiction in the EU, as still a proto-state. As the contradictions between the global camps intensifies, the EU will be led towards the need to develop its own EU Army, as with any other state, because of its diverging interests from those of US imperialism. In other words, it becomes an EU state, and Ireland as part of that Federal State, would be a contributor to its armed forces.
We mobilise against imperialist wars not as pacifists and utopians, but as a means of mobilising workers for international socialism. The method of Marx set out in The Poverty of Philosophy is useful. Trotsky applies it in various places in this vein. Capitalism is progressive. It revolutionises the productive forces, creates national markets, and a global economy, and it creates the working-class. Imperialism develops the global economy even more, and destroys the nation state in order to create bigger single markets and multinational states, whose logic would be a single world state, were it capable of achieving it without destroying mankind first. To this extent, imperialism is progressive in the sae way that capitalism is progressive.
However, to do what it does, capitalism proceeded by also exploiting workers, and to be begin with doing so in most egregious fashions. Should Marxists then have said, capitalism is progressive, and so we should not oppose its exploitation of workers? Of course not. One of the aspects of its progressive nature is its creation of a working-class, and it is the struggle of this working-class and against its own exploitation that is a progressive factor. Why? Because, in struggling against that exploitation, although at the start, the workers cannot end it, but only ameliorate it, via preventing their wages falling, and so on, it acts to form them into a class for themselves, with the assistance of Marxists who enable them to see their own specific class interests, and need to to go beyond the existing capitalist relations. In fact, what they show them is not that the solution resides in ending their exploitation with notions of obtaining “the full fruits of their labour”, but the need to exploit their labour even more, i.e. to raise the rate of surplus value significantly so as to create the size of surplus product that would enable them to vastly increase the accumulation of capital/means of production, so as to raise productivity and, thereby raise living standards. They do this not by reducing their exploitation, but by increasing it, which they become happy to do, because they now appropriate those benefits themselves, rather than them being appropriated by capital.
The same with imperialism, as Trotsky sets out in The program of peace. We oppose imperialist wars not because we think that they can ben avoided ended whilst capitalism exists, nor because we think that the aims of those wars of destroying existing nation states is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, we think its a good thing. We oppose them, in the same way we support strikes, and oppose the attacks of employers on their workers, as a means of mobilising workers to go beyond capitalism/imperialism, and to recognise the need to end the current system of imperialism/capitalism.
You write that:
‘The supporters of Ukraine are saying that Russia is trying to take what national independence it has away from it, this is why they put so much store on the early march on Kiev, indicating that Russia intended to turn Ukraine into a colony or even a neo colony of Russia.’
But the Russians invaded with too small a force to occupy all of Ukraine and the march on Kyiv at the start of the war was proof that they wished to achieve their more limited objectives through imposing a deal in negotiations. This is undoubtedly a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence but unless you haven’t read any of my coverage of the war, this isn’t the issue for the working class of either Ukraine or the wider world.
It is the self-determination of the working class that is the objective of socialist politics not nations. It is this view that demonstrates that socialism is based on the understanding that class divisions are the most fundamental and not that of nations or states.
Had Russia sought to occupy the whole of Ukraine, socialists would have opposed this as requiring massive restrictions on democratic freedoms that would have impacted massively on the Ukrainian working class, among others, and among other things, but this implies no inconsistency in our approach, since we have opposed the invasion from the start.
The US and Britain predicted the invasion because they knew that Russian red lines were crossed, so they also are responsible for the harm done by the war, as is their opposition to the possible peace deal in March 2022 and subsequent opposition to negotiations and repeated escalation of the war, with Ukrainian workers paying for it in deaths, destruction and emigration. The Ukrainian state has been the tool of western imperialism but its supporters absolve it and western imperialism of all responsibility for their role and go so far as to support them.
The objectives of the Russian invasion are stated as to ‘de-nazify’ the country and ‘de-militarise’ it. This means a Kyiv regime no longer under constraints by its virulent anti-Russian far-right, including its armed fascist units, and a state too weak to form a threat; the result of which would be a Ukraine that is not a member of NATO. The western powers continual declaration that Ukraine will become a member, and the Ukraine regime’s repeated claims that it already is de fact and should be de jure, are statements that the war will continue until victory or until it can be frozen to allow another tilt later. This is what they did after the war in 2014.
You write that:
‘One would like to think that true political independence and military neutrality is still a worthy thing to have . . ‘
Whether one would like to think this or not, the war in Ukraine and the subsequent attempts by western imperialism to brow-beat every other country to support it, is a massive lesson that wishful thoughts are no substitute for facing reality. It is also a lesson that wars are not due to some innate ‘human greed and lust for gold (profit)’, but confirmation that imperialism has never ceased to be an aggressive system that repeatedly drives to war by its very nature. Since imperialism is the name we give to the form of the world capitalist system, the socialist argument that only the end of capitalism can offer the promise of an end to war is proved once again.
That we should not expose the hollowness of national independence in Ireland for fear of undermining its neutrality is precisely the opportunist nonsense that should be opposed when we have just witnessed the giant lesson that such independence is a myth.
Irish neutrality is a myth, although it is obviously better that it does not make an explicit declaration for NATO, so fighting for something that doesn’t exist is a waste of time. Non-membership of NATO doses exist and we should oppose membership, which would probably require getting rid of the State’s declared neutrality, and for this reason we will ‘defend’ it. But Irish people are not stupid enough to think their country is free to do what it wants and is acutely aware of its dependence on US multinationals. They won’t buy any nonsense about ‘real’ independence and what they should be told is that they should not tie themselves to the war policy of western imperialism.
The answer is to point out the real cause and nature of the war in Ukraine; the lies and hypocrisy and responsibility for it and where it lies, and the only possibility of ending war lying in socialism. A first step to which, in current circumstance, is opposing the war.
That so-called socialists reject all of this shows how far they have betrayed the politics they claim, and ridding this politics of such false prophets is a necessary step to presenting it as should be.
Irish neutrality is not a myth, it has a documented history. There are plenty of people around who would like to transvalue into a myth by pointing to the fact that De Valera’s Government cooperated on a small scale with the British during the second world war. There is all the difference between providing some intelligence reports than being a fully fledged participant in the European war. There are always those who will try to make the most out of not following a rule of some sort without exception with a view to making a mockery of the rule.
Your other more serious point about the weight of US multi-national investment in Ireland is important but not decisive for me politically. Do we know the political stance of these tech firms, are they all of one mind on foreign affairs, are they here to stay because Ireland is sympathetic to NATO, are they to be a constant presence in Ireland going forward or will they move to another location. All questions you can’t claim to know the answer to accept on the basis of conjecture. After are not these big tech firms so dominant in Ireland credited with being Woke, and not just by critics on the right.
When it comes to conjecture this is the crux of the matter. Your conjecture about the near future is that global capitalism will continue to destroy the rational basis of the nation State. Your future entails fewer viable small States, replaced by handful of Giants, likely federations and maybe a socialist federation of Europe. Yet socialist federalism has already shown to be a failure, the Soviet Federation failed, the Yugoslav federation failed and now the US version of federalism is in crisis. It is my conjecture that the EU will not even make it to the point of a likely Federation, Germany will go its own way, this is my own conjecture about the near future in Europe. Germany will stop subsidising the weaker EU members.
I hold to a perspective, that I call historical realism, meaning that for now and into the near future the nation State will continue to be the main rung of Politics, this despite the world having an international trading arrangement. I see the world trading system as being of a more fragile nature than the system of nation States. This is not a concession to an ideology called Nationalism it is no more than an historical perspective on how things are.
I am well aware of the many pitfalls of Nationalism and Nationalist ideologies, just finished reading Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson, last month I read National Liberation by Nigel Harris, both sold as books critical of nationalism by Marxists. Harris ‘s arguments resemble your own more than you might care to like, given he was a member of the Socialist Worker tendency when he wrote it. My thoughts about both books varied, preferred Anderson’s book as it was not preoccupied with betting everything on the economics trends. My final word on both works was case for the disappearance of nation State not yet proven.
Irish neutrality during the Second World War was described in a recent book on the subject as involving cooperation with the Allies “so broad that it wouldn’t be covered by even the most flexible definition of neutrality”. This was considered necessary “lest London take matters into its own hand”. From 1952 to today, the British Air Force is approved to fly over Irish air space to keep tabs on the Russians, while during the Cuban missile crisis a decade later data on Soviet aircraft passing through Shannon was shared with the US. Irish forces have operated under NATO command since 1997 under the Partnership for Peace umbrella, which is seen as a step towards full membership. Since 2001 three million US troops have transited through Shannon which an Irish judge in the high court considered incompatible with neutrality. The reaction of the Irish State during the war in Ukraine is yet another proof at the vacuousness of neutrality; only a fool could believe it hasn’t picked sides.
As for the role of US multinationals; you seem to believe what exactly? Whatever ‘the mind’ of these multinationals, I’m sure that it involves inclusion within the EU and the Western imperialist alliance considered more broadly. The annual forelock-tugging jaunt to Washington every 17 March is a vivid display of the essential relationship. The current offensive against China has placed US multinationals in an invidious position and they are trying to work out how to negotiate the sanctions on China where they have lots of investment and markets. The sanctions on Russia have also hit individual US and European firms but the capitalist state is ultimately the representative and power of collective capital to which individual components must submit.
You state that I ‘conjecture about the near future . . . that global capitalism will continue to destroy the rational basis of the nation State’ but don’t say what this ‘rational’ basis is. The ‘conjecture’ is not a forecast but an extrapolation of exiting developments extending over decades that a comment from Boffy explained in another comment; there is no need to repeat it. This internationalisation of the system does not just involve trading, as you appear to believe, but includes the internationalisation of the division of labour, of production, and development of international political and military organisations and alliances. Again the war in Ukraine is vivid demonstration of this on a world scale; I would have thought that this would be impossible to miss. The disintegration of the Soviet and Yugoslav federations were not failures of federation per se but precisely their inability to compete internationally with imperialism.
You claim your ideas are not a concession to nationalism but your support for Brexit belies this, while the failure of that project to deliver any of the promises made by its Right and Left supporters appears not to have led you to any revaluation of the ideology behind it. The argument against Brexit is precisely the inability to assert any way forward within the nation state, especially for the working class, while the argument in favour of war on behalf of the national sovereignty of Ukraine is yet another damnation of its reactionary character.
The pro-Nato social-imperialists have referenced Trotsky’s “learn To Think”, in which he uses a wholly hypothetical example of what would happen in a war between France and Italy, in which Italy offers arms to Algerian rebels fighting a national liberation war against France. The Italian workers should ensure that the weapons get to the rebels, he says, even though that would weaken France, and so benefit Italy.
But, what they miss is that Trotsky, as with Lenin, as set out in The Theses On The National and Colonial Questions assumes in this example that the “rebels” are, in fact, Algerian workers and poor peasants, organised by an Algerian Communist Party! Otherwise, as the Theses state, the communists would have no business supporting them, as Trotsky points out and emphasis in criticising the position of Stalin/Bukharin in supporting the KMT in China. Those revolutionary forces, the theses state are focused as much on fighting against heir own national bourgeoisie as they are against French imperialism, and for the reasons the Theses, PR, and Trotsky in relation to China sets out, i.e. the national bourgeoisie is intimately connected to imperialist capital.
Trotsky in attacking Stalin/Bukharin for supporting the KMT, and subordinating the Chinese workers and communists to it, in the way the social-imperialists do today, in relation to Zelensky (Chiang Kai Shek), and his capitalist government (KMT), not only points to the theses requirement to struggle against all attempts to give such bourgeois forces a communist cloak – which is exactly what the USC etc does – but also points to the other distortion that the Stalinists imposed. The Theses do state that the above mentioned communist, revolutionary forces – who are the only ones that Marxists can support – can, if required form a temporary, tactical alliance with bourgeois-democratic forces, in action. However, Trotsky points out, when Lenin said this, he meant not with the bourgeois-democratic parties, as the Popular Frontists propose, but directly with the petty-bourgeois masses. he says,
“Lenin, it is understood, recognized the necessity of a temporary alliance with the bourgeois-democratic movement, but he understood by this, of course, not an alliance with the bourgeois parties, duping and betraying the petty-bourgeois revolutionary democracy (the peasants and the small city folk), but an alliance with the organizations and groupings of the masses themselves – against the national bourgeoisie.”
The USC and those like Denham by contrast adopt the Stalinist/Bukharinist position set out in Stalin’s theses, and lambasted by the Trotsky.
“How did Stalin evaluate the perspectives of the revolution led by his ally, Chiang Kai-shek? Here are the least scandalous parts of Stalin’s declaration (the most scandalous parts of it were never made public):
“The revolutionary armies in China [that is, the armies of Chiang Kai-shek] are the most important factor in the struggle of the Chinese workers and peasants for their liberation. For the advance of the Cantonese means a blow at imperialism, a blow at its agents in China, and freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of organization for all the revolutionary elements in China in general and for the workers in particular.”
The army of Chiang Kai-shek is the army of workers and peasants. It bears freedom for the whole population, “for the workers in particular”.
What is needed for the success of the revolution? Very little:
“The student youth (the revolutionary youth), the working youth, the peasant youth – all these are a force that can advance the revolution with seven league boots, if it should be subordinated to the ideological and political influence of the Guomindang.”
In this manner, the task of the Comintern consisted not of liberating the workers and peasants from the influence of the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, of subordinating them to its influence. This was written in the days when Chiang Kai-shek, armed by Stalin, marched at the head of the workers and peasants subordinated to him, “with seven-league boots”, towards. the Shanghai coup d’état.
Obviously Denham has not learned to apply his Stalinism in such a clever manner as Stalin himself, and simply blurts out in public his scandalous declarations.
Trotsky argued in line with the Bolsheviks position on the national question, with PR and so on that its only these revolutionary forces that can be supported, precisely because our aim is not bourgeois-democracy or national self-determination, by international socialism. As in 1917, the bourgeois revolution is folded into and subsumed within the proletarian revolution, which is our aim, and only reason for supporting such struggles. But, that can only be the case if these revolutionary forces exist, and can grow within that process of permanent revolution.
Trotsky certainly never argued for imperialism to intervene in any such struggle for the benefit of workers. In his writings on the Balkan Wars, he vehemently opposed any such ideas as put forward by Russian Liberals. But, nor did he call for imperialism to provide weapons to bourgeois governments, engaged in such wars either. In China, Trotsky argued not for arming the KMT, the governing capitalist party, and enemy of the revolutionary workers, but the arming of the communist workers and poor peasants to defend themselves against it, a requirement whose validity was shown when the KMT organised its coup and slaughtered thousands of communist workers.
In Spain, Trotsky criticised the hypocrisy of “democratic imperialism” which spoke of its hostility to fascism, even though it had welcomed Mussolini and Hitler coming to power, to beat down the Italian and German workers, but which failed to arm the Republic government, and whose PF governments such as that of Blum in France, adopted a neutral stance between the elected government and Franco. But, Trotsky also never called for those governments to arm that Republican government. Why would he, any more than he had faith in the KMT in China?
The Republican government was a capitalist government to which the Stalinists, and the centrists and reformists had subordinated the working-class, just as they did to the KMT in China and as the USC does in Ukraine today. The Republican government, like the KMT, in so far as it had modern weapons kept them to itself, and denied them to the workers who were actually fighting Franco’s forces. It did so, for the same reasons as did the KMT, to be able to put down the workers if need be. The same is true in Ukraine. For all the fantasy of the USC etc. about the war being fought by “ordinary Ukrainians”, whoever that might be, it is being fought by the Ukrainian capitalists state and its army, with the workers being denied adequate arms, arms training, independent organisation and so on, precisely because that could pose a problem for the Ukrainian oligarchs and their state. The same applies in mirror image to that argument put by pro-Putin social-imperialists.
In Spain, the Stalinists were supplied with arms from the USSR, and again kept them to themselves, so as to use them against their left opponents and revolutionary workers.
Trotsky and Lenin’s position on all these things is the diametric opposite to those put forward by the social-imperialists like Denham. Denham’s position is that of Stalin/Bukharin, Stalino-imperialism, or more correctly given the total capitulation of these elements, should be called what it is bourgeois-liberalism, or worse, neo-conservatism, as with their mentor James Burnham. Of course, it could be even worse than that, given the deep pockets of the bourgeoisie, and its organisations like the CIA.