Tag Archives: imperialism

Permanent Revolution (2) – beginning with Marx

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The theory of Permanent Revolution is associated with Leon Trotsky, although Marx is well known to have originated the term in his Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League in March 1850.  In this address he proclaimed that for German workers ‘their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution.’

Marx called for this revolutionary strategy even though he noted that the situation was one in which ‘the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development.’  They were to be comforted by the knowledge that ‘this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated.’

Their task was not one of immediate revolt but ‘must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organised party of the proletariat.’

Today, we are not in a situation in which the German or any other section of the working class is going to come to power, and ‘a protracted revolutionary development’ is required.  This is not admitted by many calling themselves Marxist but is imposed on them anyway.  The price paid is that they can’t consciously adjust their theoretical or strategic framework to adapt appropriately.

Today, we are again called upon to support ‘democracy’: for a ‘democratic’ Ukraine against autocratic Russia and to ‘defend the right of self-defence’ of the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’. The protests by students in US universities against the genocide carried out by this democracy is said by Antony Blinken to be a ‘hallmark of our democracy’ just as the students are attacked and locked up.  The ‘hypocritical phrases’ of the democratic bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie are thus louder now than they were when Marx called for their rejection 175 years ago, making his remarks as apposite now as they were then.

Unfortunately, much of the left has forgotten what it means to inform workers ‘of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible’ and ‘by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases’ of democracy.  Calls for national self-determination of Ukraine or Donbass simply become the hypocritical phrases by which to justify rallying behind Ukraine, because it is a ‘democratic’ capitalist state, or behind Russia, because it is fighting Western imperialism.

The capitalist character of both is rendered irrelevant by talking about ‘Ukraine’ or ‘Russia’ or the ‘people of Ukraine’ etc. while ignoring the need for the working class to ‘achieve the realisation’ of its ‘own class interests’ by ‘taking up their independent political position as soon as possible.’

On one side the Ukrainian capitalist state and Western imperialism are supported as defenders of these interests and on the other the Russian capitalist state is supposed to play the same role.  Neither can point to any independent role for the working class itself or even the existence of its own organisations that are not totally subordinated to, or in support of, their respective states.  In doing so it almost becomes superfluous to accuse them of abandoning Marxism.

The cognitive dissonance involved in defending a corrupt capitalist state, defending the massive intervention of western imperialism, and a war that continues only because of this intervention, can be seen in three defence mechanisms often employed to avoid accepting the patent contradictions: avoiding, delegitimising and belittling.

So, we get the avoidance of the implications of the points just raised and the commitment to a more straightforward campaign in support of the Palestinian people.  The arguments against support for the Ukrainian state are delegitimised by aping the propaganda of the mainstream media for whom opposition to Western imperialism and its proxy war can only equate to support for Russia.  Since this Left starts from opposition to the Russian invasion, its inability not to default immediately to support for Ukraine and the West reveals the utter irrelevance of any declared adherence to socialist politics separate and opposed to both.

Finally, the cognitive dissonance is limited through the importance of the war also being strictly circumscribed.  So, opposition to Russia becomes opposition to Russian imperialism while support for Western imperialist intervention is dismissed as the latter doing the right thing for its own reasons – without this having any significance for what it is actually doing.  The existence of a proxy war that defines a global conflict is also rendered irrelevant by the primary and over-riding issue being argued as the right to self-determination – of an independent capitalist state that had already determined its own future by allying with Western imperialism against its rival next door: not a very clever thing to do and a very reckless one for the interests of the Ukrainian working class.  The obvious danger of escalation of the conflict to a world war is also minimised but is implicit in the absolute priority given to the victory of the Ukrainian state and thereby, necessarily, of Western imperialism.

To claim that the invasion should not have taken place and is wrong.  That it should be opposed and the invaders blamed for the actions they have carried out, and for which they are responsible, is all very well but hardly constitutes an understanding of why it happened, what should be done about it, and by whom.  If you are a socialist, this socialism should have some role in answering these questions.  As has been stated many times on this blog, if you find yourself coming up with the same explanations and same policy as Western imperialism you need to deal with a lot of dissonance.  How could you start from a socialist position and end up with a policy indistinguishable in all essential and practical respects from Western imperialism? 

It is therefore relevant to look again at the ideas involved in permanent revolution to see how these should guide a socialist view of the current conflicts. 

Back tom part 1

Permanent Revolution (1) – Introduction

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The world is facing a Zeitenwende, an epochal tectonic shift, according to the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which he claims means that Germany and the rest of the EU, United States and NATO needs to protect “our open societies” and “stand up for our democratic values”.

The US Government-backed National Endowment for Democracy has reported the view that there are three possible outcomes of this Zeitenwende, or inflection point, as Joe Biden put it:

‘1. a reinvigoration and reinvention of our existing international liberal order.’

‘2. Chinese-led illiberal order.’

‘3. or the breakdown of world order on the model of Putin’s “law of the jungle”.’

The first primarily involves ensuring the strategic defeat of the second, while the second requires the failure of the first, and the third involves in various forms the results of both of these failing.

This is portrayed as a battle between democratic and autocratic systems, so while recognising that “we might all have become capitalists (with the possible exception of North Korea and a tiny handful of other countries) . . . it makes a huge difference whether capitalism is organized in a liberal, democratic way or along authoritarian lines.”

The realpolitik involved in these sonorous pronouncements is admitted by noting that in the ‘democratic’ alliance against autocracy “What’s crucial in the year ahead is for democracies to unify in a common cause to shape the global future alongside moderate, modern non-democracies that seek a more secure, prosperous, and just world.”

What we have then is not a battle of democracy against autocracy but competition between shifting capitalist alliances sharply exposed by the war in Ukraine, which the genocide of the Palestinian people has demonstrated has nothing to do with democracy of even the most diluted capitalist kind.  Far from democracy being advanced by the war in Ukraine and support for the Zionist state, the former has been employed to justify shrill predictions of war across Europe and the need for massive rearmament, while the latter has involved damning those who oppose genocide as violent antic-semitic extremists who must be violently prevented from exercising their right to march and protest.

While for many new generations this is something new, it is far too familiar to anyone with any historical understanding not to recognise.  When the world is described as turning upon competition between rival capitalist blocs, with the eruption of regional wars and threats of a much greater conflagration, we would have to be suffering from amnesia not to recall the precedents.

In World War I a rising German industrial power sought its own colonial outlets, which required domination of Europe and defeat of the existing British and French Empires.  In Asia Japan sided with these old colonial powers and the United States but then itself sought its own Empire that brought it into conflict with the old European Empires and the US in the next war.  It is uncontroversial to note that World War II was the continuation of World War I because both had the same fundamental causes even if the latter is more commonly retold as a war against fascism and Japanese barbarism.

The same dynamics lie behind the war in Ukraine and the defence of the Zionist state by its Western sponsors; also accompanied with the same ideological garbage of defending democracy against autocratic China and a barbaric Vladimir Putin.  In turn China claims only to seek its own freedom for development as a new centre of expanding capitalist accumulation, while Russia claims simply its right to its own sphere of influence, which can only come up against that of its Western imperialist rivals.  Or vice versa, if you prefer.  Having sought alliance with Western imperialism through NATO membership, Russia, like Japan before WWII, has decided that this alliance is fundamentally anti-Russian and is now in a war against its Ukrainian proxy.

Democratic capitalism in World War II did not cease to demonstrate the hypocrisy of its liberal regime through its determination to hold on to its Empires regardless of the local desire for independence. So, the end of the war witnessed the French and the Dutch etc. – following their own occupation – fight to impose their own on their colonial possessions. Today, the claims of democratic capitalism against the Russian Bear and Chinese Dragon are similarly fraudulent as the West supports a genocidal Zionist state and uses its mass media to claim that this State is really the victim.

The Second World War was facilitated by the defeat of the revolutionary uprisings of the working class in Germany and Central Europe and the defeat of mass struggles in Italy, France and Britain etc. in the inter-war period.  In Spain the democratic revolution was defeated by fascism because the struggle was led by forces that demanded that the workers go no further than support a democratic capitalism that would rather see the victory of fascism than open the door to socialist revolution.  The same calls are made today to rally round the more ‘progressive’ capitalist parties in order to defeat Le Pen, Trump and Sunak etc. except that we have already gotten Macron and Biden to show that if you vote for the ‘lesser’ evil you do indeed get evil.  In Britain the Labour Party leadership has demonstrated that democracy in its own party is to be strangled and Brexit made ‘to work’ while no promise of genuine reform is too mild not to be betrayed.

The dynamics of war are therefore the same now as they were prior to the First World War and prior to the Second.  What is very different is the absence of a working class movement able to challenge the prospect of capitalist war and promise a socialist alternative.  There is no working class alternative Zeitenwende, so no fourth alternative to the triumph of one capitalist hegemon or the other, or the mutual destruction of both.

The small left that claims to be the inheritor of the old revolutionary working class movement has swallowed the lie that Western imperialism is defending democracy in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian state should be defended because it is a capitalist democracy.  It therefore supports one of the imperialist blocs.  A smaller section within Europe supports Russia simply because it opposes the current imperialist hegemon, even though this policy simply means support to the rivals for such a status.

Competition between rival imperialist blocs cannot lead to some sort of accommodation that respects the interests of all of them in a ‘multi-polar’ world, for that is not the purpose of capitalist economic or state competition.  The bloody history of the last 150 years demonstrates that this competition rejects any limits, and that even with only a single imperialist superpower war is ever present.  Now, with the relative decline of that superpower we are returning to circumstances akin to World War I and II, so that what is at stake is not a new accommodation of regional alliances, or limited regional wars, but a global conflict.

If the fourth alternative is to be rebuilt those that are still Marxist in more than just name must set out what this is, which brings us to the ideas contained in permanent revolution.  These began with the struggle for democracy by the working class, was made famous by the requirements of the revolutions in Russia in the first decades of the twentieth century, and now stand as the banner of the camp opposed to imperialist rivalry and to the ruination of the world that it threatens, already signposted in Ukraine and Palestine.

Forward to part 2

Iran falls into the trap?

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A couple of weeks ago at an anti-war meeting in Belfast a number of speakers remarked that the state of Israel had exposed itself through its open espousal of genocidal intentions and that the Western powers were similarly damned through their support for it.  And this is true as far as it goes, which isn’t nearly far enough.

I made the observation that the open threat of genocide was a double-edged sword.  The point I made was that the ability to openly threaten such a thing was dangerous and particularly when it is then carried out! The full-blooded support of the Western powers has not even been dented either.

The renewed threat of a wider regional war has now come to the fore following Iran’s attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles.  The immediate action of the US, Britain, France and a number of Arab countries has been to come to the aid of the genocidal state.  The large number of drones and missiles has reportedly not killed anyone and it is pretty clear that this was not far from the Iranian intention, given that their attack was hardly a surprise and most of the weapons used were unlikely to breach Israeli defences.

Previously, I agreed with a large number of observers that Iran would be falling into a trap by reacting to Israel’s provocations, but it obviously believes that the repeated attacks on leading figures were going to continue; that this was damaging to its standing and that sooner or later some provocation would be too damaging to pass over.  However, none of this is enough to explain its attack, while its statement that it has concluded its actions and will stop there is designed to draw a line under the exchange.  Whether it believes this, given the purpose of the Israeli provocations, must be open to some doubt.  It must therefore believe that it can weather a war with Israel or its action is a better alternative to continuous offences and accumulation of injuries.

On the Israeli side, the attack on the Iranian diplomatic facility in Syria was a clear provocation, or an invitation to attack it, to put it another way.  It must be assumed that this is because a war with Iran will serve its purposes and it believes it can win, which is the common view of most commentators. The claimed 99% success in downing the drones and missiles is held up as evidence of Israeli military superiority, which needed only a casus belli for the Zionists to seek to impose it, one which its western imperialist supporters would immediately endorse regardless of the hypocrisy in defending the right of the genocidal state to self-defence while denying the same to Iran.

Supporters of Russia in their on-line channels have raised doubts about the more or less complete blocking claimed by both the Israeli state and Western media and have pointed to the success of the most advanced Iranian missiles in penetrating Israeli defences, while also arguing that the Iranians did not obviously seek to maximise casualties but to demonstrate intent and capability.  They argue that this explains to some degree the weakness of the impact while also pointing out the benefit of the intelligence gained in observing the response to the attack and the huge cost of Israeli success.  They also note the contribution of the Zionist state’s imperialist allies, which they claim is not certain to continue.

Whether Iran has greater offensive capacities is something that will be demonstrated should the conflict escalate.  What almost all the commentary has claimed is that Western imperialist support is conditional and that its contribution to the attack by Iran is leverage for the widespread calls to Israel by Western leaders that there should be no escalation.  And this is where the narrative stops making sense.

The Western imperialists, foremost the US, is supposed to be trying to pull Israel back from too aggressive a response to a regime it wants to overthrow.   The same US that has armed and defended Israeli genocide is suddenly resisting its attack on Iran.  Haven’t all the Western powers spent the last six months claiming to be deploring or holding back Zionist genocide?  To what effect?

We are to believe that repeated Israeli provocations have not been approved by the US.  How credible is this?  Israel is more dependent on the US now than it has almost ever been but we are supposed to believe that it went ahead and triggered a potential war with Iran without getting the ok from the US?

Is the immediate defence against the Iranian attack not evidence of support for the Israeli stance, and is the failure to denounce its provocations only the result of embarrassment at Israeli actions?  When the Biden regime once again declared its four-square support for Israel, was this a lie?   Why would the US support provocations that can only lead to war if it was not going to back Israel when it would arrive?  

The argument in response is that the US does not want another ‘forever war’ and that Biden will not want another one as he seeks re-election. But have those putting forward this argument not noted that the US has already provoked a war in Ukraine and is desperately seeking to keep Ukraine in the game, to keep the war going, and have they not also noted that a war by Israel against Iran will be more popular domestically than genocidal slaughter in Gaza, from which it might serve to divert attention?  It may seem perverse that the US, with Israel, may seek to claim the moral high ground by commencing another war but they have already done so in Ukraine and Gaza.

It is impossible to ignore that just as Ukraine is a proxy for US imperialism in its rivalry with Russia and China so is Israel a proxy in its rivalry against Russia’s Iranian ally.  The prospect of war between Israel and Iran has immediately involved Western imperialism directly and such continued support would make more obvious the reality of a world heading to a conflict between the old imperialist hegemonic alliance led by the United States, with its mostly European satraps, and the new capitalist rivals headed by China and Russia, supported by Iran and North Korea.

The duty of socialists is to oppose these wars and oppose the dynamic to a world conflagration. We should therefore oppose the drive to war by Israel and its imperialist sponsors and point out their prime responsibility for the current escalation.  In doing so we must oppose the old imperialist hegemonic alliance and also oppose the claims of its rivals. These claims are not those of liberation but of their right to carve out their own ‘fair share’ of the wealth of the world created by its workers, who they both compete in exploiting.

This is a lesson forgotten by those ‘leftists’ who either support Ukraine or Israel and, on the other side, those who think themselves ‘anti-imperialist’ for supporting the new upstart capitalist powers in the shape of China and Russia. There is no ‘fair sharing’ involved in capitalist competition, not with the workers exploited or with rivals.  What there is is permanent instability and conflict that inevitably erupts in war that working people pay for with their lives.  Such are the lessons of history.

What future for Palestine?

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What is going to happen to Palestine?  The sense that the catastrophic situation is almost hopeless and that nothing can be done is reflected in the short video by the Scottish blogger Craig Murray. The question was addressed from a Marxist viewpoint in Boffy’s Blog and we are obliged to consider whether he is he right about the future of the Palestinian cause.  We can start to do this by looking at what is currently happening and what the past has to tell us about how we got here.

The invasion of Gaza was for months defended as ‘Israel’s right to self-defence’, with no one appearing on television being allowed to open their mouth before it being demanded that they agree and condemn Hamas.  This ‘right’ was said to involve targeted strikes against Hamas and avoidance of civilian casualties, still claimed today by Zionist apologists but now with zero credibility.

It took no time at all before it became clear that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) invasion was an exercise in mass murder, with the specific targeting of journalists who could report on it, aid workers who could feed the besieged population and medical staff who could treat the sick and wounded.  It was claimed that hospitals were not being attacked and were not going to be attacked until now there are effectively none left.  The targeting of journalists, aid workers and medical staff had its rationale in defending lies, starving the population and targeting the sick and injured so that nothing was out of bounds and no hope would remain.

Civilians, particularly children and women, became the main casualties in the ‘war against Hamas’. Advised by the IDF to move to ‘safe’ areas, they were then bombed.  Millions were forced to leave their homes that had been totally destroyed and made to move further and further south in what had all the appearance of ethnic cleansing.  Each atrocity merged into the next and the intensification of the viciousness of the IDF was made more cynical by the lies that accompanied each one of them.

The International Court of Justice found that there was a plausible case of genocide although the majority of world opinion had already arrived at this conclusion some time before and had demonstrated this though thousands of protests across the world.  The speed of the killing and the callousness of the Zionist state left no room for illusions as to what was being carried out.  

There was incredulity and horror when the death toll rose and rose to dwarf that of the Hamas attack on October 7th, while no crime seemed too atrocious for it not to be followed by something worse.  Liberal illusions that an ICJ judgment might stop or even moderate the killing were swiftly dashed as were vague expectations that the pogrom might expend itself. Many hoped that there would be some sign of it ending but such hopes were repeatedly dashed by each new greater atrocity.

The reaction of Western governments was to repeat Zionist lies about forty beheaded babies and systematic rape etc. and continue to plead ‘Israel’s right to self-defence’.  Biden went out in front by claiming to have seen the evidence and calling into question the number of dead Palestinians, the total of which is now many times the number he denied.  The Western media sought to sow distrust of the scale of the killing through mandatory reference to the source of the numbers coming from the ‘Hamas-run’ Health Ministry.

The Zionist state was clearly breaking international law, as is all Western state support for it.  This includes not only political cover but continued supply of weapons and ammunition; posting a naval armada around Gaza and beyond to defend it, and attacks on those such as the Houthis who carried out armed actions against Western shipping going to and from the Suez canal.

Far from attacking the forces that were committing genocide, a course of action no one in the world remotely expected, the US and British attacked those trying to stop it,  Upon unproven allegations by the Israeli state, already repeatedly shown as pathological liars , a dozen Western powers stopped their aid going into Gaza.  Now the inevitable famine is accelerating, food aid is blocked by the IDF and this week seven aid workers have been killed.  The acme of cynicism can be seen by the US dropping tiny amounts of aid from aircraft while supplying the bombs that the IDF drops to kill the same people. 

Each atrocity causes more dismay and outrage and each Zionist lie more anger and frustration as they are propagated by the Western media.  The majority of the world knows that what is happening in Gaza is genocide and that each atrocity leads not to a step back but to a new level of barbarity so that the word is no exaggeration.

No step has been too barbaric for the western powers to row back and sanction the Zionist state while ‘international law’ is exposed to be whatever these powers decide.  Reliance on the UN, always a liberal illusion, is exposed as so much handwringing. Who is going to impose sanctions and punishment?

The Arab regimes that were set to come to terms with the state of Israel before October 7th are dogs that have barely barked with no intention to bite.  Iran is keen to stay out of war and for its own state interests is wise to do so; its conflict with the US has been subject to agreed limits but Israel increasingly shows that these are not theirs and is attempting to provoke a wider conflict. Those with the mistaken belief that the Israeli state is somehow losing the existing ‘war’ might consider all this.

So, who else is going to stop the genocide because it is not over yet, and any pause–like every other Zionist imposed ‘peace’–will simply set the scene for the next war.  Even the declared objective of destroying Hamas is a project to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as in any way politically relevant, leaving nothing to prevent whatever next steps the Zionist state decides to take.  In the West Bank the repression of the Palestinians has accelerated as more land is expropriated and the Zionist settlers are allowed to do the IDF job for it, egged on by a Government of rabid racists and fascists.  The remaining Palestinians within Israel will suffer more discrimination and oppression. 

Knowing this, the answer to the question – what is going to happen to Palestine? – is that the objective of politically crushing Palestinian resistance of any sort will continue and all and every measure will be employed as the Zionist state, supported by the US, to achieve this objective.  The population of Israel has moved sharply to the right and is now dominated by rabid racism, leaving even ‘liberal’ Zionism and those calling for peace small and isolated.

With the continued support of Western imperialism the Zionist state will continue its policy of erasure of the Palestinian people so that no state of their own can be realistically conceived. The so-called ‘two-state’ solution has been dead since it was first proposed by the United Nations in 1947 and then buried by the Zionist movement alongside the occupations by Egypt and Transjordan. The current genocide is perfectly consistent with the Zionist project and its enactment going back to this time and before.  The extreme brutality and targeting of civilians is nothing new, as is the disproportionate violence inflicted following any form of Palestinian resistance.  The supremely cruel and brutal response after October 7th could not be unexpected.  It has stretched the previous murderous violence of the Zionist state but it is not qualitatively different from the policy of ethnic cleansing upon which the Zionist state was first constructed.

That this state has been able to so openly flout the pretences of the Western powers to defend human rights and lawful behaviour is because the Zionist state is an outpost of Western imperialism itself; it is its son of a bitch.  Israel relies on this imperialism, especially the US.  Who can the Palestinians rely on that can weigh against the overpowering position of the Zionist state when it has this support?

It is obvious that by themselves the Palestinians cannot win an independent state and that the solidarity movement cannot make the difference unless it were able to neuter the intervention of the Western powers. This might allow the workers and poor of the Arab world to join together to overthrow their own regimes and the Zionist state. Is there any sign that the support of Western imperialism has been in any way significantly damaged?

Let’s take the example of our own county: Ireland is supposed to be a beacon of support for the Palestinian cause but what is its contribution to the prevention of genocide?  The UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese put it plainly and honestly:

‘There’s this tendency to be very supportive with rhetoric, as Ireland has, but when it comes to taking concrete actions, there is zero. Not a little. Zero. The countries that have been most outspoken, like Ireland, what have they done in practice? Nothing. And this is shameful. It is disgraceful.’

Talk is cheap and the talk from many political forces in Ireland is very cheap, and they have not been challenged.  Without challenge the cheap talk will continue until it is realised that those speaking it are part of the problem, not simply some inadequate or unsatisfactory opposition.

Socialists have an aphorism that the main enemy is at home, and this applies to those in solidarity with the Palestinian people, because the states that ensure Zionism can get away with genocide are the same states in which they live.  The task therefore is not to plead with these states to stop Israel or to believe that some sort of pressure will do the job but to oppose their own states and build towards their own revolution.

If the solidarity movement really believes that genocide is being carried out, then it must face the reality of what has happened and accept all the consequences the word entails for its victims: ‘the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group’.  In the West the potential alternatives to two of the main supporters of this genocide are President Trump and Prime Minister Starmer, just as rabidly pro-Zionist, if not more so, than Genocide Joe and Sunak.  This is more or less the case across the Western capitalist world.  

In Ireland Sinn Fein sups with the devil on St Patricks day while being treated as part of the solidarity movement. Everyone is to boycott Israel but Sinn Fein is permitted to party with those providing the weapons through which the massacre is carried out. A solidarity movement that accepts such actions is not a solidarity movement at all. We don’t need a movement that accepts the hypocritical claims of concern from those responsible for genocide and excuses those who similarly express weasel words of sympathy while being careful not to challenge those behind the slaughter.

If a genocide supported by every bourgeois political force in Western capitalism does not teach the movement that this alliance as a whole is the enemy then expressions of solidarity will go no further than demonstrating opposition and an inability to do anything about it. What is required is not pressure, because what is the price to be paid for ignoring it? it is not simply disavowal of the current leaders, because the alternatives standing by as replacement are no better. And it is not BDS, because imperialism has made it clear that far from boycotting Israel it is supporting it and will continue to do so. It is not the working class that controls the societies and economies of imperialism, its investment and trade, so it is not we who will determine what relationships imperialism will have with the Zionist state. Such victories as the BDS movement might have can only be steps towards the organisation of something more fundamental that points towards taking control out of the hands of the capitalist class.

Building a working class alternative to all these forces is required in order for pressure to be threatening, for displacement of current political leaders to be meaningful, and for actions against links with the Zionist state to become an instrument towards the working class taking control.

All the liberal institutions of this world have been exposed, and so have the spurious claims on behalf of an alternative capitalist alliance formed around China and Russia; as if they represent something radically different that will stop what is happening.

If there is another road besides organising a working class movement for socialism that defeats imperialism and its allies then what is it? And if it does not yet exist do we build it or accept the consequences of genocide?

Supporting the UK-Ukraine Security Co-operation Agreement

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Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS

The Ukrainian and British Governments have just signed a security agreement that is supposed to be the first of many to follow with other Western countries.  What attitude should the supporters of Ukraine take to this agreement?  Should they support it?  After all, it promises an increase in military commitment from £2.3bn in 2021 and 2022 to £2.5bn in 2024, and the pro-Ukrainian left supports the provision of arms to Ukraine because it knows that without it the country would already have lost the war.

The main objective of the Agreement is ‘to ensure Ukrainian Armed Forces and security forces are able to fully restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders,’ which is precisely the objective of the Ukraine supporting left.

Of course, the agreement is also ‘committed to implementing the full set of policy requirements as set out in the IMF programme’, with Ukraine being able to ‘attract private finance, boost investor confidence, tackle corruption and create a fair and level playing field for all parties, including through a reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).’  This is all to be ‘underpinned by a strong private sector-led economy. The UK will seek to build a modern, resilient and sustainable Ukrainian economy that is integrated into global markets, is not susceptible to hostile Russian influence . . . ‘

This is obviously an imperialist charter but the intervention of the Western powers is usually dismissed as ‘of course’ the West is intervening ‘in its own interests’, which is taken to effectively bat away the problem, although how it does so outside the world of the pro-Ukraine left remains a mystery.  Would not NATO membership, as supported in the Agreement, swiftly follow ‘victory’?  Not to mention widespread privatisation and exploitation?  This is after all, what we mean by the West intervening ‘in its own interests’. In what way then is this a victory for the working class, unless the continued integrity of the Ukrainian state is paramount to this Left as it is to the Ukrainian ruling capitalist class and Western backers?

This left is keen that Ukraine is not saddled with onerous debt and the Agreement has an answer to this – ‘the Participants reaffirm that the Russian Federation must pay for the long-term reconstruction of Ukraine’, so that’s sorted?  Well, the idea that Western countries such as the US and Britain will pay to restore Ukraine and scrub its debt, when the debt of these countries themselves has exploded, is another mysterious eventuality of the pro-Ukraine left.

Since military victory against the Russian invasion is the absolute priority, it is hard to see how this Left, including its British component, cannot support this Agreement.  Since they advocate that everything else must wait until this success there can be no reason for it not to be welcomed.  Besides, stating support for some of it and not for others is a bit like saying that I want the chocolate from the chocolate cake but not the sugar, butter, eggs and flour – good luck with that!

In fact, opposing it because of the clear imperialist intentions of Britain within the Agreement implies that Ukraine also cannot be supported because these intentions are agreed and shared.  Unfortunately, prioritising support to Ukraine then means endorsing British imperialism, its partner in agreeing all the measures promised.  In fact the Agreement declares that Ukraine will defend the British state should it be attacked! And why not? (section 5.7) By supporting the capitalist Ukrainian state which in turn supports the British imperialist state, by one remove, so does this British Left. 

The Agreement caused some apprehension because it said that ‘in the event of future Russian armed attack against Ukraine, at the request of either of the Participants, the Participants will consult within 24 hours to determine measures needed to counter or deter the aggression.  The UK undertakes that, in those circumstances . . .  it would: provide Ukraine with swift and sustained security assistance, modern military equipment across all domains as necessary. . .’

It was thought that this might mean any new incursion by Russia into Ukraine, such as around Kharkiv or from Belarus, would cause direct British troop involvement, but this seems not to be the case.  This would entail war between Britain and Russia. The British would need the US on-side and the US to believe that NATO would not fracture in such a situation with some European states perhaps considering that it was not in their interests to suffer the costs of fighting for Ukraine.

The Agreement also implies the threat to confiscate the estimated $300bn in assets of Russia currently frozen in the West, mainly in Europe; the latest wheeze that could save Western countries from an expense it is more and more unwilling to bear.  The Russians have called this piracy, and it is difficult not to accept this description.

The pro-war Left might point to Western hypocrisy, especially its current support to Israel, but again, in the circumstances of absolute (that is unqualified) support to Ukraine, pointing to hypocrisy would be the height of their opposition.  They could, I guess, say that two wrongs do not make a right and that therefore Russian ‘imperialism’ should be made to pay.  What they can’t do is damn all the capitalist pirates and villains in the conflict because that again would include the West and its Ukrainian proxy.

Ukraine might not actually see much, if any, of this $300bn as much of it would go to the US (primarily) and other Western arms manufacturers to pay for past, current and future arms purchases.  What isn’t military hardware would go to Western contractors in Ukraine, with no doubt something for the local oligarchs and some reduction of the burgeoning Ukrainian state debt.

The Agreement’s objective to ‘fully restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders’ is a recipe for slaughter and bloodshed on a massive scale.  The summer 2023 Ukrainian offensive led to the massacre of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, and they didn’t even reach the first of three defensive lines.  The offensive was called off because of the losses.  To think that a new offensive can succeed is to support the press-gang of hundreds of thousands Ukrainian workers, men and women, many of whom have either fled the country, hope to escape, or hide in their homes out of fear of being apprehended on the streets by the recruiting commissars of the Ukrainian army. Even with this conscripted-against-their-will army Ukraine cannot succeed.

An interview with two supporters of this objective, who believe it can be achieved – one from Ukraine and one from Russia – declare that ‘we have to end the Russian invasion as a priority.  They state that ‘the government’s stance is clear about fighting for the sovereignty of Ukraine’, and that the war ‘is, first and foremost, a people’s war for national liberation’.  ‘The key priorities of the state should be based on the protection of people’s interests, fostering social cohesion, and promoting global solidarity against oppression.’

They repeat the maxim that ‘the Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves; they are the main victims in this conflict. This label of ‘proxy war’ doesn’t give any agency to the Ukrainians themselves.’  Yet it is acknowledged that, for the working class ‘there are not really other viable options in terms of separate fighting militias and units at the moment.’

The objectives and conduct of the war are thus in the hands of the Ukrainian state, in so far as it is not in the hands of its Western sponsors.  Thus, the ‘agency’ we are to bow down to is that of this state, including its conscription of workers to be flung onto the front in meat-grinder assaults. The agency of Ukrainian workers does not stretch to having their own militias, never mind determining the objectives of the war and how it is to be conducted.

This is not considered a problem because ‘the sovereignty of Ukraine’, that is, the sovereignty of the Ukrainian capitalist state is what must be defended for these ‘socialists’; not that of the working class.  They believe that the Ukrainian capitalist state can be made to base itself ‘on the protection of people’s interests, fostering social cohesion, and promoting global solidarity against oppression.’ What capitalist state has ever displayed these features?

The Agreement is further evidence that the Ukrainian state is basing itself on Western imperialism and that such lofty and fanciful views are preposterous and unbelievable, including its aspiration to ‘a hundred-year partnership.’

The Ukrainian interviewed believes that ‘some on the left . . . put an ideological lens on the war that obscures rather than clarifies, but actually obscures the situation for real people on the ground.’  Except hundreds of thousands of dead are not just ‘on the ground’ but underneath it, while tens of thousands more are disfigured and disabled above it.  The coerced conscription of the unwilling, who are not prepared to die for their state, is forcing many to hide while hundreds of thousands of refugees will not go home. It is the supporters of Ukraine who give no evidence of appreciating the bloody consequences of the war while displaying total innocence of any understanding of its capitalist character.

The interviewee, Vasylyna, asserts that the war ‘is, first and foremost, a people’s war for national liberation’, while she admits the workers cannot even organise themselves in their own defence: since when did British imperialism ever support ‘a people’s war for national liberation’?

Oppressor and Oppressed (7) – solving national oppression

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in The Programme for Peace Trotsky states that:

‘The “deliverance” of Ukraine does not at all constitute the fundamental aim of the Allied governments. Both in the further progress of the war and after its conclusion, Ukraine will become but a pawn in the great game of the capitalist giants. Failing the intervention of the third power, Revolution, Ukraine may as a result of the war either remain in Western bondage, or fall under the yoke of Russia, or be divided between the powerful robbers of the two coalitions.’

Of course, Trotsky spoke of Belgium and not Ukraine, and of it being divided between Germany and Britain and not the West and Russia, but these are the only differences.  If some ‘socialists’ pretend that the victory of the US and NATO, or of Russia, will not witness the subjugation of the Ukrainian working class to the impositions of one or the other, or more likely both, they no longer understand how the world works.

Plans are already being advanced to sell off what is useful to the Western powers who have forked out so much money and weapons to ensure the Russians are defeated; the Russian main interest is that no sort of Ukraine is ever strong enough to be an effective ally of Western imperialism.  Of course, supporters of Russia see no harm in this but their concern for the working class is so subliminal they do not stop to consider the consequences of this for the Ukrainian working class. Heads they win and tails you lose, unless you stop playing the imperialist game.

As Trotsky put it ‘The independence of the Belgians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians and others is regarded by us not as part of the Allied war program . . .  but belongs to the program of the fight of the international proletariat against imperialism.’

The supporters of the capitalist state of Ukraine defend its reliance on Western imperialist weapons so their claims to stand for any sort of Ukrainian independence are something of a joke; while the supporters of Russia defend the destitution of that part of Ukraine not to be annexed on the grounds of the primacy of the security of the Russian capitalist state.  Their claim that the Russian intervention is some sort of protection of (part of) the Ukrainian population is also a joke, akin to the claims of many Western ‘humanitarian’ interventions of recent history.

In both cases the outcome of either policy is light years away from socialism or any move towards it.  Trotsky put forward three possible outcomes of war:

‘Theoretically, three typical possibilities may here be considered: (1) a decisive victory of one of the parties; (2) a general exhaustion of the opponents without decisive sway of one over the other; (3) the intervention of the revolutionary proletariat, which interrupts the “normal” development of military events.’

To work towards the last, to whatever extent possible, is the task of socialists.  At the very least they must understand that this is the alternative they must strive for:

‘As regards the third possible issue of the war, it seems to be the clearest. It presupposes that while the war is still on, the international proletariat rises with a force sufficient to paralyze and finally to stop the war from below. Obviously, in this most favourable case, the proletariat, having been powerful enough to stop the war, would not be likely to limit itself to that purely conservative program which goes no further than the renunciation of annexations.’

We have already seen that for Lenin the correct view on annexation is that it ‘is violation of the self-determination of a nation, it is the establishment of state frontiers contrary to the will of the population.’ (Lenin, The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up) while the correct approach is the ‘freedom to settle the question of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede’ (The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)

Trotsky notes that the French “socialists” had approached the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine from Germany by reducing ‘the consultation of the population of Alsace-Lorraine to a shameful comedy: first occupying (that is, acquisition by force of arms) and then asking the population’s consent to be annexed. It is quite clear that a real consultation presupposes a state of revolution whereby the population can give their reply without being threatened by a revolver, be it German or French.’

He goes on: ‘The only acceptable content of the slogan “without annexations” is a protest against new violent acquisitions, which only amounts to the negation of the rights of nations to self-determination. But we have seen that this democratically unquestionable “right” is being and will necessarily be transformed into the right of strong nations to make acquisitions and impose oppression, whereas for the weak nations it will mean an impotent wish or a “scrap of paper.” Such will be the case as long as the political map of Europe forces nations and their fractions within the framework of states separated by tariff barriers and continually impinging upon one another in their imperialist fights.’

‘It is possible to overcome this regime only by means of a proletarian revolution. Thus, the centre of gravity lies in the union of the peace program of the proletariat with that of the social revolution.’

‘We saw above that socialism, in the solution of concrete questions in the field of national state groups, can make no step without the principle of national self-determination, which latter in its last instance appears as the recognition of the right of every national group to decide its national fate, hence as the right of peoples to sever themselves from a given state (as for instance from Russia or Austria). The only democratic way of getting to know the “will” of a nation is the referendum. This democratic obligatory reply will, however, in the manner described, remain purely formal. It does not enlighten us with regard to the real possibilities, ways and means of national self-determination under the present conditions of capitalist economy; and yet the crux of the matter lies in this.’

‘For many, if not for the majority of the oppressed nations, national groups and factions, the meaning of self-determination is the cancellation of the existing borders and the dismemberment of present states. In particular, this democratic principle leads to the deliverance of the colonies. Yet the whole policy of imperialism aims at the extension of state borders regardless of the national principle . . .’

‘ . . . the national-separatist movement very often finds support in the imperialist intrigue of the neighbouring state. This support, however, becomes decisive only in the application of war might. As soon as there is an armed conflict between two imperialist organisations, the new state boundaries will not be decided on the ground of the national principle, but on the basis of the relative military forces.’

‘. . . even if by a miracle Europe were divided by force of arms into fixed national states and small states, the national question would not thereby be in the least decided and, the very next day after the righteous national redistributions, capitalist expansion would resume its work. Conflicts would arise, wars and new acquisitions, in complete violation of the national principle in all cases where its preservation cannot be maintained by a sufficient number of bayonets. It would all give the impression of gamblers being forced to divide the gold justly among themselves in the middle of the game, in order to start the same game all over again with double rage.’

‘The right of national self-determination cannot be excluded from the proletarian peace program; neither can it claim absolute importance. On the contrary, it is, in our view, limited by deep, progressive, criss-crossing tendencies of historical development. If this “right” is by means of revolutionary power, set over against the imperialist methods of centralisation which place weak and backward peoples under the yoke and crush national culture, then on the other hand the proletariat cannot allow the “national principle” to get in the way of the inevitable and deeply progressive tendencies of the present industrial order towards a planned organisation throughout our continent, and further, all over the globe.’

The war in Ukraine is not the product of either the revolutionary power of the working class against narrow nationalist claims, or the international development of ‘the present industrial order towards a planned organisation throughout our continent’, and Ukraine is being destroyed not built up. Both the West and Russia are developing their industry for the purposes of increasing the means of destruction in a capitalist rivalry over how their respective developments are to weigh against each other in the current and future wars.  Were a war of ‘progressive tendencies of the present industrial order towards a planned organisation throughout our continent’ to occur it would not entail the incorporation of Ukraine into the European Union but would have the aim of also including Russia.

To contemplate this would involve two further considerations involving the breaking away of Europe from subordination to the United States, and the misgivings of China that a new European capitalist power might seek to exercise its power against it.

Liberals appear to labour under the illusion that, despite the whole history of nation states being one of revision of borders, the settlement since World War II is inviolable; except of course when it suits their purposes, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, break-up of Yugoslavia and expansion of Israel.  The example of Ukraine demonstrates that there is no final and settled solution to the national question, or to the wars asserting national rights, within capitalism, which turn each claim to national rights into a claim for exploitation.

This does not, of course, absolve us from attempting to address each question concretely in its particularities to advance democratic measures in so far as we can, but it does indicate where the ultimate resolution lies.

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Forward to part 8

Oppressor and Oppressed (6) – the enemy of my enemy is also mine

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In a previous post I noted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a relatively small army meant that it did not, and could not, hope to annex the whole country and that its limited claims of annexation in the east of the country demonstrated the intention not to annex the whole country.  And all this is true as far as it goes.

Russia, however, has expanded its mobilisation, increased its military budget, and made clear that its war aims include denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine in order that it can no longer pose a threat to Russian security or be an accomplice of NATO in threatening it.  So, while its strategy and objective is not primarily one of territorial gains, its key objective is the attrition of the Ukrainian armed forces.  It has these aims because it would, as I have also said before, be no great victory for Russia if the Ukrainian state were to lose only the regions that could be controlled by a pro-Russian population while it remained free in the greater part of the country to rebuild its army and join NATO.

Leftist supporters of Russia think its war aims are justified, thereby making their idea of the interests of the working class synonymous in this case with the interests of the Russian State, just as leftist supporters of Ukraine do the same.  In the case of the latter, they ignore that this means supporting the project of US imperialism to weaken Russia as a step towards the encircling of China.  In other words, they claim to oppose the war by supporting the advance towards an even greater one.

By claiming that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates that it is an aggressive imperialist power intent on taking over Ukraine it justifies that country’s armed defence by the US and NATO and gives carte blanche to acceptance of the same claims by other capitalist states in the Baltics and Poland etc.  In doing so the rest of the NATO alliance is thereby validated.  You can’t support imperialism just a little bit, only here and not there. You can’t tell the workers of Eastern Europe, In Poland or Baltics etc. that their enemy is their own ruling class and that they should oppose the aggressive NATO alliance if you have just rejected those claims next door in Ukraine.

But supporters of the Russian state must also accept the logic of their position.  In order to achieve the war aims that they have bought into they must accept the means necessary to achieve them, just as supporters of Ukraine have supported NATO intervention as an inevitable consequence of their defending that state.  The removal of any potential threat to the security of the Russian state from Ukraine means the crippling of that country and an effective Russian veto on its political leadership.  Genuine socialists will not fret over the weaknesses of any particular capitalist state, since we seek their overthrow and replacement by the rule of the workers through their own state, but the subordination of one capitalist state by another requires oppression that socialists do not support.

In the case of Ukraine it is necessary for Russian war aims that it lack the industrial capacity to create its own arms industry of the required size, and that it lack the human resources to effectively fight.  The attacks on industrial infrastructure and the massive decline in population is evidence of growing Russian achievement of these objectives.   The population of the country fell from 41.2 million in 2021 to 34.7 million in 2023.  In 1999 52.3m people lived in Ukraine; the dramatic fall in population has therefore not been mainly the result of the war but of the disastrous effects of the introduction of capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Once again, the main enemy of working people is proved to be its own ruling class, which now sends them into war or exile in pursuit of war aims that are to the benefit of Western imperialism.  The future looks even bleaker.  This does not however absolve the Russian state of its responsibility for the invasion and its consequences.

If it is alright to inflict this oppression on Ukrainian workers, then leftist supporters of Russia cannot claim to defend the interest of the working class in any general and universal sense, since Ukrainian workers are no less a part of the world working class than any other.  If the interests of the Russian state can permit this because of some primary objective of defeat of US hegemony, why would this not equally permit suppression of the Russian working class, as is currently the case?  And if this war is only part of a larger picture of preventing the US ultimately dominating China, why isn’t the Chinese capitalist state permitted to bolster itself by suppressing the Chinese working class as well?  Between them the so called socialist supporters of Ukraine and Russia can effectively justify the suppression of the working class of the whole world.

By supporting Ukraine in its maximalist demands, and US support for them, the pro-Ukraine Left has effectively signed off on the extension of Russian war aims to the more or less ruination of the country, as the only effective way to neutralise it when it has become a proxy for the US and NATO. They may believe that Ukraine is determining the nature of the war but by it being utterly dependent on Western imperialist support it is the objectives of this imperialism, and its capacities to deliver on them, that determines its nature and its outcome, and also the political character of this left’s support for it.

So what are the implications for those opposing the war and presenting negotiations as the means towards peace?  If the US seeks war in Ukraine it is not on behalf of Ukraine but itself, and if Russia seeks subordination of Ukraine to its security interests, what concern does either have for its people?  These are the competing interests that will frame any negotiations because these are why the war started, will ultimately determine its result and thereby the outcome of any negotiations.

In any event, Ukraine as a state and its people will be the plaything of greater powers.  Russia can have no interest in a ‘Minsk 3’ deal that leaves its war aims unachieved while Ukraine has also rejected a ‘Minsk 3’.   Russian proposals to the US before the war were not consistent with US policy of its substantial and definitive defeat and if implemented would have signalled acceptance of Russian regional influence.

To argue for negotiations that could only be concluded by these parties is to argue for some temporary pause in their mutual antagonism, which would have to involve removal of the antagonism itself to be any way permanent, which in turn would mean the end of great power rivalry and competition among the largest and strongest capitalist powers.  In other words the removal of capitalism itself.

The role of socialists is explain all this and to warn against the designs of both parties, including the Ukrainian state that has made itself a willing proxy of Western imperialism, before and after commencement of the war.  What you don’t do is pick one oppressor rather than another that therefore necessarily requires an oppressed.

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Oppressor and Oppressed (2) – Palestine and beyond

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Buchenwald Concentration Camp survivors arrive in Palestine in 1945.

If ‘it is all very simple. We support the struggle of the oppressed’ it should not be difficult to identify who they are, and usually it isn’t, but not always.  What their oppression consists of is sometimes harder and how it is to be remedied harder still.  When I say harder, I mean that there is usually more dispute about it, not that there is something intrinsically difficult to determine but rather that there are fundamental differences about how it may be remedied, which in turn determines how it is understood.

For example, intersectionality identifies multiple oppressions and their combination but in doing so also identifies multiple oppressors and a hierarchy of oppression that can act to divide the oppressed into competing groups, with no joint and common project to overcome their oppression.  This series of posts deals with national oppression but even here these problems are raised.

Current events in Palestine illustrate some problems.   Jews are among histories victims and their treatment by fascism during the Second World War has become symbolic of their whole history of oppression.  The state of Israel has appropriated this symbolism to assert its legitimacy and rights, except these rights include the claim to Palestine as a state for the Jews, a Jewish state.  This has included the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population, a project that continues to involve dispossession and genocide.  The history of oppression and continued antisemitism against Jews is waved like a shroud to justify the claims of the Zionist movement, which proclaims a political programme and practice that involves oppression of the Palestinians.

These claims were accepted by many and it has taken decades of Palestinian oppression to reverse the sympathy many have had for the Jewish state. It should not have taken so long and stands as a warning against too simple an understanding of oppression and the claims of the oppressed. History is not a tale of good versus evil.

Marxism poses the working class as the force that can create the conditions for the ending of all oppression, whether based on class, sex, race, nationality or religion etc.  Since none of these will be ended without struggle it proposes a political programme to encompass all of them and sets out principles to judge the policies and strategies to pursue them.  As Marx once said, philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it.  To change it we have to interpret it correctly.

If we take the two wars currently raging in Gaza and Ukraine we are faced with the prospect of their expansion; so we need to understand the context in which they developed and how they might spread.  The war in Ukraine had not even begun before the United States threatened China by imposing economic sanctions, first by Trump and then by Biden, with warnings that it will intervene militarily in Taiwan.  Biden has now talked about an ‘inflection point’ in history, a decisive turning point affecting the whole world.  

Western powers have invested so much armed support to Ukraine they have admitted running out of some types of ammunition while promising to rectify this through massive rearmament, reminiscent of the build up of arms before the First and Second World Wars. A US general has predicted the possibility of war with China by 2025.

To think, therefore, that the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are unrelated events and are not expressions of the potential for a world-wide catastrophe is to feign woeful ignorance.  A response that starts from identifying the oppressed in Gaza and Ukraine and championing their cause does not get near understanding the stakes involved and what is necessary in response.

The Palestinian people are facing ethnic cleansing that in its purpose and execution is bleeding into genocide.  At a recent Palestine solidarity demonstration in Belfast a Palestinian speaker repeatedly thanked Israel for demonstrating its open commitment to destruction of the Palestinian people and to its murderous character, its dispensing with the normal lies and deception practiced by Western politicians.

This open declaration of barbarism would not be possible without the support of Western imperialism that demonstrates its full agreement to Israeli actions and revealing its own murderous character.  Rule by the capitalist class in most Western countries has ordinarily been based on some level of consent, or at least acquiescence, but their support for Zionist genocide is tearing a veil from the ugly face of capitalism.

This is the reason for the opposition to demonstrations in support of the Palestinian people, because they are objectively, and more and more subjectively, demonstrations against western governments and by this fact western imperialism.  In circumstances where this imperialism, under the hegemony of the United States, threatens ever wider and even greater cataclysmic conflict in pursuit of US hegemony, this threatens the support or acquiescence of their own working classes and thereby US dominance.

As we have said before, the Palestinian struggle is not just about Palestine– the world-wide demonstrations of support are proof of this.  The current slaughter is the continuation of the Zionist project and the Palestinian people are calling for a permanent solution before it completes.  By themselves the Palestinian people cannot prevent it and both an immediate and lasting ceasefire and creation of a free Palestine can only arise from a wider political struggle and revolutionary process.

This involves not only opposition to the Zionist state but to the reactionary Arab regimes that oppress their own people and seek increased collaboration with Israel.  Identifying the Palestinian people as oppressed does not identify how they can be free from oppression.  To be on their side means recognising this by including the vast majority of the Arab people in a struggle against their oppression.  Sweeping away the reactionary Arab rulers also includes disposing of the reactionary leadership of the Palestinian Authority. 

If the ending of one oppression is to succeed, and not to lead to another, it means embracing Jewish workers in Palestine, while also recognising that this necessarily involves the defeat of Zionism, with its project of Jewish subordination of the Palestinians and other Arab populations.  The argument that the possibility of a future oppression means that the current Zionist one must be accommodated or conciliated must be rejected; the possibility of a future oppression can never justify acceptance of current oppression but rather helps define how it should end.

The support given to the Zionist state by western imperialism means that even this is insufficient.  At the end of the day only the defeat of this imperialism, which can only be definitively carried out by its working class, can remove the decisive support available to the Zionist state.  The demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people are therefore part of the same struggle that must become conscious of its own nature.

This is what imperialism fears most.  I remember being on the million-plus demonstration against the Iraq war in London, alongside many others across the world.  They did not prevent British involvement because the demonstration illustrated that the passive slogan ‘not in my name’ only dissociated the demonstrators from the actions of their governments but, by remaining at simple appeals to their ruling class, did not advance any project to remove them.

We can see from the barbaric oppression of the Palestinians that recognition of their plight as an oppressed people is only the first step.  The next are to understand how this oppression was created, how it persists and how it can be removed only by going beyond appeals to those supporting the oppression to end it.  Already, workers in Barcelona and Belgium have decided to take things into their own hands by blocking the supply of arms to Israel.  The extension of this across the world would be an enormous step towards ending the destruction of Gaza and attacks in the West Bank and against their own ruling class.

The oppression of the Palestinians thus raises many wider questions because it has a long history and involves the rest of the world.  No solution is possible that ignores this history or what is happening elsewhere.  War is an inevitable product of capitalism and these wars are the most recent of the very many wars that it has created, and will continue to create, unless a movement is created not simply to opposes this or that oppression but the system that perpetually creates all of them.

For many young people the oppression of the Palestinian people has opened their eyes to the need for political action to defend an oppressed people but their failure to take similar action in the much bigger war in Ukraine, or to appreciate the potential for even greater conflict, shows that they need to learn the lessons from the failures of their older generations, who opposed oppression but have failed to end it.  So it is not quite ‘all very simple’?

‘We support the struggle of the oppressed’ is good but there is an enormous problem when you oppose western imperialist intervention in Palestine but sit back or support it in Ukraine.

A look at the war in Ukraine is next.

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The enemies and friends of Palestinian Liberation (2)

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Demonstration in solidarity with the people of Palestine in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

US imperialism has made it clear that the Israeli cause is not just its cause but that of imperialism as a whole, encompassing its other proxy – Ukraine.  This country in turn has been happy to endorse this alignment, with Zelensky seeking a photo opportunity with Netanyahu but with Israel showing reticence only because its relations with Russia are not one of open antagonism.  An indication of the reactionary character of Russia and an embarrassment to everyone, including those leftists whose ‘anti-imperialism’ involves support for Russia.

On the other hand, many friends of the Palestinian people start sometimes from humanitarian concerns or some sort of more or less consistent and considered opposition to Western imperialism and its Zionist proxy. 

So who are the real friends of the Palestinian people might seem to be a reasonable question.  In answering it we have already seen from the previous post that we cannot identify who these are simply by accepting their word for it. We need to determine who might be expected to support the Palestinian people based on their own interests in doing so and what this support amounts to and its objectives might be.

So, just as every Arab country and people is composed of ruling classes, for whom the Palestinians are a problem, so too are there working classes and other subordinated sections of the people who genuinely support the Palestinians and have demonstrated this support.  But the Palestinian people themselves are also divided into classes, including a working class and other subordinated and marginalised people, for example in refugee camps, as well as a Palestinian middle class and bourgeoisie.

It has been the policy of the Arab states to turn the Palestinian movement into replicas of themselves, with a relatively privileged and corrupt leadership, which is why the Palestinian Authority lost Gaza and is now more and more discredited in the West Bank.  This has led to the growth of Islamic fundamentalist movements with their own state sponsors. A recent article in the ‘Financial Times‘ by a former British ambassador to Lebanon recommends that imperialism make its own attempt to fashion a Palestinian movement – “the US and Europeans have recog­nised that they need to rebuild main­stream Palestinian lead­er­ship, hav­ing cast them adrift.”

So, everyone wants to help the Palestinians, even the imperialists who are helping the Zionist regime murder thousands of them, or is happy to stand aside and parrot Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’, when what they actually mean is its right to commit mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Those who defend the democratic rights of the Palestinian people cannot therefore avoid the question of what sort of Palestine they want to solidarise with – an end to the current siege and offensive is only the most immediate task.

If we believe we can build a movement that can make a difference then it also needs to develop its own views and policy on the role of imperialism, the Arab states, Islamic fundamentalist regimes and movements, and the position of Jewish workers. This is what is meant by saying, as we did in the first post, that ‘the question of Palestine is not only about Palestine’. Even when it is about Palestine we should have a view on what sort of Palestine we want.

Arguing that it is none of our business is mistaken on two counts. First, it will not stop every other force, from imperialism to Islamic fundamentalism, seeking to create its own version of Palestine, and second, solidarity is a two way street. This means unless we think the Palestinians will always be purely victims we must allow their agency, and we want their actions to be in solidarity with the struggles of workers in the rest of the world who are, and will, come to their aid.

This means we need to consider what sort of Palestine solidarity we need. The same corruption, deceit and reactionary outlook that infects the Arab regimes, and the Palestinian movement itself ,exists among those in the West supporting Palestine, partly reflecting their class interests and partly, in some cases, awful politics.  Let us look at Ireland as an example.

The Irish state, and its people generally, are known to be the most pro-Palestinian in Europe, the Irish President, who has only symbolic powers in the main, voiced his opposition to von der Leyen’s declaration of unconditional support to Israel when she quickly visited it.  Yet who is stupid enough to believe that the Irish state, so dependent on the United States and its multinationals for its financing, will do anything effective to support the Palestinian cause and hinder Western imperialist support for it?

Or take the prominent participant in recent demonstrations supporting the Palestinian people – Sinn Fein.  It will most likely soon be a participant in Government in the Irish State. Is it going to use its position to effectively challenge Israel or its imperialist backer?  To ask the question is to answer it.  In the past it has had secret “below the radar” meetings with Likud, ‘explaining’ that it made its criticism of Israel’s policies in private, exactly the same boast of von der Leyen, Biden, Sunak etc. etc. More recently, it joined with the rest of the Irish establishment in welcoming Joe Biden to Ireland.

The only force that has an interest in solidarity with the Palestinian oppressed is the working class, and this is because their interests are aligned in opposing imperialism and the oppression that accompanies it.  Empathy with oppression is fine, but unless solidarity is a two-way street based on mutual interests it will not be strong or lasting.  Unfortunately some on then left are unable to express this solidarity consistently, because they either support western imperialism in Ukraine or also support the Zionist state itself.

Joe Biden has been congratulated by bourgeois media commentators for wrapping up the aid package for Israel with that for Ukraine, to out-manoeuvre Republicans in Congress, but it places a question in front of those on the left who oppose Israel but support Ukraine – do you support it?  Responding that you would wish to see the objects of this aid treated separately neither answers the question nor addresses the nub of the matter, which points to their inconsistent opposition to imperialism or in other words, inconsistent support.

If the Palestinian people are in the maelstrom of the world-wide imperialist conflict, the question to be put is how would it be possible to end their oppression without also ending this wider conflict, for as long as imperialism exists, so will war.  The eruption of the largest war in Europe since World War II and the renewed ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, with war also threatened in China and Taiwan, shows that this is not an idle or academic question.  It is one that requires and defines political movements and programmes.

It is not the first time the socialist movement and the working class has been placed with the choice.  In World War I the socialist movement split over ‘defence of the fatherland’ with most backing their own capitalist state in the war.  Today, much of the left has repeated the betrayal, mostly rallying to Ukraine and de facto Western imperialism, while another part supports Russia, ludicrously under the banner of ‘anti-imperialism’.

Neither has argued that the working class must maintain an independent position opposed to both, or argued that the only answer to capitalist war is socialism.  None of their various claims–for ‘self-determination’, ‘anti-imperialism’, or even ‘Free Palestine’ include any credible argument that these lead to socialism or are part of a socialist programme.  Nor could they– how could Western imperialist support for capitalist Ukraine, or support for Hamas, or other Arab states, or the Iranian state, lead to such an objective?  Yet many who support ‘Ukraine’ or the Palestinian cause claim to be socialists.

A socialism that is always deferred, to come to the fore at some future undefined point, while others in the meantime limit and define the political character of any solidarity, is blind to its own impotence.

The alternative programme is permanent revolution, which was first enunciated by Marx after the revolutions of 1848 and further elaborated by Trotsky after the Russian revolution in 1905 and put into practice in the revolution in 1917.  A future series of posts will look at how this has been, and should be, understood.

Back to part 1

The enemies and friends of Palestinian Liberation (1)

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The hypocrisy and cynicism of Western imperialism is nauseating.  Biden, Sunak, Macron and Scholtz, not to mention von der Leyen all visited Israel to express their solidarity with the Zionist regime that over the last few decades has made it clear that the political solution these politicians claim to support is dead.  The seizure of land on the West Bank by settlers and killing of those getting in their way destroys any illusions that a two-state solution is remotely being considered.  This, and the increasing Zionist violence inflicted on the Palestinian population, is part of the explanation for the armed action of Hamas.

This was roundly condemned by these leaders whilst Israel had already begun to commit mass murder and destruction in Gaza.  The rest of the world is supposed to be brow-beaten into acceptance of this ethic cleansing through demands that they accept Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’, a right never invoked on behalf of the Palestinians.

As they became aware of mounting horror and opposition to the Zionist regime’s exercise of this ‘self-defence’, they called for humanitarian relief for the imprisoned population in Gaza, with Biden claiming he had won such a concession, before he cleared off back to the US to announce proposals for a $105 billion package of support for Ukraine’s war against Russia and Israel’s mass murder.

The cheque given to Israel, to ensure it could afford its mass killing, was underwritten by endorsement of its murderous siege, with the fig leaf of the opening of the border to Egypt of some relief from the blockade of food, medicine, water and fuel. The population of the north of Gaza was told to move south, as if this was a move to safety and access to humanitarian aid.

Moving south, they were bombed and have met with such pitiful amounts of help it is cynicism of extraordinary proportions.  The promise of relief by Biden was as much a part of the war on the Palestinians as the endorsement of ethnic cleansing.  The sending of aircraft carriers and other battleships by the US and Britain is a signal that the pogrom being carried out by Israel will receive their protection.  The mass protests, despite the propaganda of the capitalist media and threats of prohibition, demonstrate that in many imperialist countries working class people do not swallow the cynical policies of their leaders.

This demonstrates that the Zionist regime is increasingly no longer regarded as an innocent victim and that many want to express their support for a people subject to unimaginable oppression.  Opposition to the Zionist state is growing in the West but even this short resume of what has happened in the last few weeks reveals a bigger picture.

While the focus of many has understandably been on the immediate death and destruction meted out by the Zionist state, the actions and words of Western imperialism reminds us that the question of Palestine is not only about Palestine.  Israel is a settler colonial state sponsored by western imperialism, although also supported upon its creation by the Soviet Union, a testament to the reactionary nature of Stalinism.

The tyrannical Arab regimes are likewise creations of Western imperialism, which determined the borders of their countries for its own purposes.  Having just read some Marxist analysis of the Palestinian struggle from the early seventies, I was reminded that one such regime turned on the Palestinian movement and crushed it within its borders, in Jordan in 1970.  The recent recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain, demonstrates again that these regimes are utterly reactionary.  Just before the latest events Israel was in negotiations to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, which no doubt would have had some empty and worthless gestures towards the Palestinian ‘problem’ as part of the deal.

From the point of view of these regimes the Palestinian people are indeed a problem – that their populations are bitterly opposed to its oppression while they seek to advance their state interests, including through improved relations with the Zionist state.

In the past these Arab states were so weak, venal and corrupt that their subordination to Western imperialism was abject.  Their support for the Palestinians involved sponsoring their organisations as mirror images of themselves, cut down as in Jordan in 1970 when they became too big and powerful.  While these regimes have grown stronger and US imperialism has declined, so increasing their room for manoeuvre in protecting their own interests, these interests do not involve saving the Palestinians.

It is not a coincidence that the major opposition to Israel and immediate potential support to the Palestinians comes from a non-Arab regime–Iran–which is opposed by US imperialism and the Zionist state because it has asserted its own interests against them.  US imperialism has attempted to reverse its decline by provoking conflict, including marshalling its subordinate allies across the world in economic and military conflict with the enemies that might benefit most from its eclipse.

This has involved the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, further expansion of its military alliance in Europe, and expanding economic sanctions against China.  The assertion of US authority in the Middle East through full commitment to Israel is part of the attempt to protect its imperial role in the region.  The opposition of Iran, the more muted opposition of the Arab regimes, and the increasing role attempted by China are all regional aspects of the ratcheting up of imperialist competition and conflict across the world.  The Palestinians in Gaza are currently in the maelstrom of all this, symbolised and made vital by Biden’s proposal for a $105 billion package to support Ukraine’s war and Israel’s mass murder.

Forward to part 2