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Disintegration in the
“Post-Soviet Period”
Spartacist League Supports US Troops in Haiti!
The
devastation wrought by the recent earthquake in Haiti has riveted the attention
of the world, with the plight of the Haitian masses gaining mass sympathy amongst
broad strata of the population. The immediate urgency of the situation and the
illusions of many American's in Obama's goodwill has given the US government an
opportunity to justify its military occupation of that country in the name of
ostensibly helping its people.
While
in the past similar immediately urgent situations have lead many on the left to
also lose their bearings and support imperialist military interventions, from
the Cliffites’ support for the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland
in the late 60's, the US Socialist Workers Party's calling for sending US
troops into Boston in the mid-70's, or the widespread support for imperialist
intervention in the Bosnian civil war in the mid-90's, this time around it
appears almost everyone on the far left has recognized the US government's
imperialist rationale for Haiti's occupation for what it is and come out in
opposition. Almost everyone on the far left except for one surprising, if not
completely shocking, exception.
In
the current issue of their newspaper, the Spartacist League/ U.S. [leading
section of the International Communist League to which the Ligue trotskyste de
France belongs] has proclaimed
“The
U.S. military is the only force on the ground with the capacity—e.g., trucks,
planes, ships—to organize the transport of what food, water, medical and other
supplies are getting to Haiti’s population. And they’re doing it in the typical
piggish U.S. imperialist manner. We have always opposed U.S. and UN occupations
in Haiti and everywhere—and it may become necessary to call for U.S./UN out of
Haiti in the near future—but we are not going to call for an end to such aid as
the desperate Haitian masses can get their hands on.”
“Haiti
Earthquake Horror: Imperialism, Racism and Starvation”
Worker Vanguard #951 29,
January 2009
No
one proclaiming a Marxist understanding of imperialism, or for that matter just
some knowledge of recent history, would have any doubt as to the ultimately
predatory ambitions behind any imperialist intervention abroad. The situation
in Haiti poses no new questions that differ from previous “humanitarian”
interventions (where the SL has at least opposed the presence of imperialist
troops, if not always calling for their military defeat) that could possibly
justifiably be the cause of legitimate disorientation. The SL's article even
acknowledges
“While
reformist “socialists” like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and
Workers World Party (WWP) call for the U.S. to provide aid without the exercise
of American military might, we have no such illusions. Indeed, American forces
in Haiti have made “security” a higher priority than providing aid. While many
planes carrying aid have landed at the Port-au-Prince airport, which is now
controlled by U.S. forces, others were criminally diverted as the U.S. gave
landing priority to planes carrying military personnel.”
The
US military's widely noted obstruction of desperately needed aid and repression
against Haiti's people should only make the situation all the more obvious even
to those guided by a purely immediate empirical understanding.
Program
Generates Theory, Generates Program
Still,
the SL's claim to Marxism has forced them to attempt a theoretical explanation/
rationale for what is, at bottom, an opportunist “impulse.” Arguing against their opportunist impulse
through quotations of Lenin's State & Revolution or Rosa Luxemburg's
Opportunism and the art of the possible etc. in the circumstances are
therefore beside the point. Nonetheless, even on their own terms, the arguments
raised have a political logic, going far beyond even the immediate situation in
Haiti, which should be sending shock
waves to anyone with even remotely socialist aspirations within the SL's
demoralized milieu.
In
the course of denouncing Jan Norden's Internationalist Group who came out with
a statement on Haiti before they did, the SL argues
“The
stark reality that the IG would deny is that a) even before the earthquake,
there was virtually no working class in Haiti; b) in the aftermath of the
earthquake, not only is the state “largely reduced to rubble,” but so is the
society as a whole, including the desperate and dispossessed population; and c)
there is a military power in Haiti that is far from “reduced to rubble,” and
it’s U.S. Imperialism.”
“The
IG demands that “all U.S./U.N. forces get out,” painting the U.S.
military presence in Haiti today as aimed at suppressing a popular uprising....
The IG is cynically toying with rhetoric, blithely unconcerned with the fact
that, in the real world, if the policies they advocate were implemented, they
would result in mass death through starvation.” (Emphasis in original)
The
claim that, even before the earthquake, there was virtually no working
class in Haiti has many parallels with Stalinist arguments on China in 1927,
where proportionally speaking, it is doubtful the working class was more
developed than in Haiti, Bolivia or the many other countries the SL has written
off for revolutionary purposes. But even if hypothetically true and Trotsky's
views on Permanent Revolution needs to be re-adjusted or narrowed as the SL is
implicitly arguing, Marx (in his correspondence with Russian revolutionaries)
and Lenin's Third International still at least attempted to map out possible
revolutionary strategy for such scenarios, understanding their ultimate fate
did rest on the victory of revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries. In
the manner of Second International “Marxists” the SL in contrast argues
“The
bitter truth is that the desperate conditions of Haiti today cannot be resolved
within Haiti. The key to the liberation of Haiti lies in
proletarian revolution throughout the hemisphere, in which the mobilization of
the sizable Haitian proletariat in the diaspora can play a key
role.”
That
leaves Haitian revolutionaries with little option but to either passively wait
to be rescued by revolutionary struggles in other countries, or to emigrate.
Either way this would leave the Haitian masses as a whole and their struggles
in somewhat of a lurch, if the SL has any interest in the matter. How should
revolutionaries have, for instance, oriented to past (and future) struggles
such as the “massive discontent that drove “Baby Doc” Duvalier out of power”?
Does it, according to the SL, even matter in the bigger scheme of things?
Pointing
to the truism that the ultimate fate of Haiti (or any other country for that
matter, however economically developed) ultimately rests on the victory of
world revolution thus acts as a mechanism for abandoning Trotsky's Permanent
Revolution (or any other proposed alternative revolutionary) strategy for
possibly most of the Third World. Of course, the SL is not attempting a serious
theoretical re-evaluation, with all the political consequences consistently
thought through, but giving a rationalization for their current mood of despair
and resignation.
If,
once again hypothetically speaking, there really is not much of a working class
in Haiti, industrial, rural or otherwise, then that means there was also no
sufficiently developed capitalist class, indigenous or foreign. This raises
some questions about the nature of Haiti's economy. Also, exactly whose class
interests was the Haitian state defending? Denouncing other leftists for
opportunistically tailing Aristide, the SL lets the cat out of the bag by
quoting a previous statement that he would “play the role of groveling
instrument of the Haitian bourgeoisie.” (“Haiti: Election Avalanche for Radical
Priest,” WV No. 517, 4 January 1991) Leaving aside the question of
Haiti's class structure for the moment, who does the SL propose the Haitian
masses support if not bourgeois populist figures like Arisitde with their
current stance? They're obviously not calling for forming a Trotskyist party,
with whatever proposed strategy, in Haiti as an alternative. The Stalinists
would offer the Haitian masses their two stage strategy, of course. What would
be the SL's response?
The
SL points out that in 2004 “We pointed out that the U.S. occupation of Haiti
also represented a danger to the Cuban deformed workers state, as well as to
the militant proletariat of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of
Hispaniola with Haiti (see “Haiti: U.S./UN Troops Out!” WV No. 821, 5
March 2004).” Have those dangers suddenly disappeared? Doesn't defence of
the Cuban revolution begin at Port-au-Prince (to paraphrase an earlier SL
slogan)?
The
SL further writes
“For
liberals disappointed with the Obama administration’s policies in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the earthquake in Haiti was seen as an opportunity for the U.S. to
show a benign face. This was echoed by Obama’s somewhat disillusioned reformist
boosters, such as the ISO and WWP. The ISO demands that “Obama immediately stop
the military occupation of Haiti,” while calling for the U.S. to “flood the
country with doctors, nurses, food, water and construction machinery” (Socialist
Worker online, 19 January). Likewise, a January 14 statement on Workers
World’s Web site demands “the removal of all U.N. combat troops,” while calling
for “all bonuses from executives of financial institutions that received
bailout money to be donated to Haiti.”
“The
notion that U.S. imperialism can be pressured into serving the needs of the
oppressed, rather than its own class interests, shows boundless illusions in
the good offices of the rapacious American ruling class. Reformists like the
ISO and WWP perennially raised calls at demonstrations against the U.S. war in
Iraq demanding a shift of U.S. government spending priorities from war to
social services like education. But neocolonial domination and aggrandizement
are inherent to imperialism and no amount of pressure and pleading can change
that. “
But
if “the notion that imperialism can be pressured to serve the needs of the
oppressed” shows “boundless illusions” then why is the SL not opposing the US
military occupation of Haiti? Obviously the SL does not believe it is an
illusion since they favor the troops remaining precisely because they claim
they are serving the immediate needs of the oppressed. What other parts
of the world can US imperialism help out in? More narrowly those the SL claims
is without a sizable indigenous working class, such as say Afghanistan? Or
perhaps more broadly throughout history? The Cliffites argument on Northern
Ireland in 1969 seems highly similar to the SL's today.
“The
breathing space provided by the presence of British troops is short but vital.
Those who call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops before the men behind
the barricades can defend themselves are inviting a pogrom which will hit first
and hardest at socialists”
Socialist
Worker,
11 September 1969)
Finally
what attitude would the SL take in the circumstance of a military struggle
Haitians to drive US troops out of their country? Would the SL simply refrain
from calling for the defeat of US imperialism as they did in Afghanistan in
2001 or call for saving the lives of those troops as they did in Lebanon in
1983, or potentially even worse, especially in light of
the beneficial role the SL claims they are playing at the moment?
In
a report on the SL's thirteenth national conference, designed to prepare it's
readers for a potential future purge of Rachel Wolkenstein and her base of
supporters in the Partisan Defence Committee, the SL claims
“The
pressures of the period have helped to generate attempts to find a way to “get
rich quick,” i.e., liquidating our revolutionary, internationalist and
proletarian program in order to latch on to larger forces, hostile to the
working class and to our revolutionary purpose “
“Dog
Days of the Post-Soviet Period”
WV #948, 4
December 2009
It
seems somewhat perverse to denounce ones internal critics for “latching” on to
“larger forces hostile to the working class” (the rather small and sincere, if
on many occasions politically wrong, group of Mumia Abu-Jamal activists, most
of whom still no doubt have a better position on Haiti than the SL) when the
“larger forces” one is latching on to is ones own bourgeoisie.
Why?
Questions
have been raised by many as to the potential motives behind the SL most recent
position. Some have claimed that it is an attempt by the SL leadership to find
a way to artificially differentiate themselves from the rest of the left.
Complaints from the SL's quarter about the difficulties differentiating
themselves from other left groups since the fall of the USSR have indeed been
frequent in their literature. Others believe that, in the context of their
recent internal turmoil, the SL leadership is using the issue organizationally
as a loyalty test. Those who succeed in passing the SL's test show their true
loyalty is to the diseased cult organizationally, rather than any pretence it
makes about socialist revolution. Lastly the IG has implied the SL has taken a
dive in the face of chauvinist hysteria. While the SL certainly has taken such
dives, such as their frightened reaction to 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan in
2001, no such similar atmosphere exists in relation to Haiti at the moment.
As
more fully elaborated in a previous polemic (“IG: Trotsky's Transitional
Program or Robertson's Political Compass”, 6 May 2009) the SL based practically
its entire existence in the 1980's on the issue of defending the USSR. In the
face of its demise they have constructed a worldview in which, just as
previously all questions were seen through the narrow prism of the Soviet
Unions defence, today all questions are viewed through the narrow prism of the
Soviet Unions demise. It is not just the subjective crisis of leadership that
holds back working class struggles but a new objective circumstance where the
question of taking state power is off the historical agenda for one reason or
another.
Those
who give up on the working class are forced to look to other social forces for
salvation. During the 1980's, in a symmetrical disorientation to today, the SL
wildly exaggerated notions and fears about the dangers of the “Reagan years”
combined with their dismantling of their trade union fractions lead them to
look to the Soviet Stalinists and their military and economic might to protect
them from the ravages of imperialism. Today the USSR no longer exists and Cuba
cannot act as a sufficient substitute in the region. The recent crisis in Haiti
and the SL's reaction are, at bottom, an expression of giving up on the working
class and, for that matter, giving up on themselves.
Wohlforth and
Robertson
At
least in some ways it appears that Spartacist leader Jim Robertson has arrived
at the same place though with different tempos, as his former arch-nemesis Tim
Wohlforth. Besides the fact that both started out as oppositionists to the
Socialist Workers Party turn to Pabloite revisionism in the early 60's and both
tragically ended up leading bureaucratized anti-Trotskyist cults, it appears
that Jim Robertson is now finally coming over to Wohlforth's views on
“humanitarian” imperialism.
A
1995 SL article provocatively titled (and without humorous intent) “Wohlforth:
Who Is This Road Kill?” (Spartacist #52, Autumn 1995) states “Young
people surfing the internet might wonder who is that maniac out in cyberspace
cheering “Good Going!” to the Nato forces bombing the Bosnian Serbs...” Wohlforth also extended his support for
“humanitarian” imperialist intervention into other countries at the time such
as Somalia (which also by current SL standards had no working class and was
perhaps also in hindsight deserving of imperialist goodwill) and,
coincidentally, Haiti. Robertson is not yet quite as openly grotesque, he's
been following his arch-nemesis's footsteps at a slower pace. Being quite old
he is likely to die before he fully catches up. But perhaps today people
surfing the internet should be asking the question (with the proper Seinfeldesque
inflections and shoulder shrugs) “Jim Robertson, who IS this roadkill? and WHY
does he support sending US troops to occupy Haiti?.”
A Sinking
Ship
The
SL's thirteenth national conference report at points reads almost as a
self-obituary. After acknowledging that “We may not have an immediate
'perspective.'” the SL proclaims that their “central task” is “to arm the party
programmatically and theoretically, from Spartacist to the maintenance
of our Central Committee archive, the Prometheus Research Library, and
education of all kinds in the course of our work.” In other words preserve Jim
Robertson's legacy for future archivists. This is the logical outcome of
abandoning, implicitly or explicitly, socialist revolution as the realistic
perspective of our epoch. A leader then sets one sights lower on the
“realistic” goal of using the organization for attaining and preserving ones
personal legacy and “footnote in history”.
This
evident demoralization, drastic cut in membership size, the recent internal
turmoil with Rachel Wolkenstein and the most recent dive on a key international
issue of the day all indicate the SL is a sinking ship and there is great
awareness of the fact internally from all indications.
In
it's transformation from a revolutionary propaganda group into a sectarian
leader cult, the SL has not only destroyed many potential revolutionaries but
also managed to recruit people on the basis of their former heritage, a small
minority of whom have not yet subjectively abandoned their revolutionary
aspirations. The Internationalist Group's leadership has never given an honest
political accounting of the SL's history and the role they played in it.
Neither, in other ways, has the International Bolshevik Tendency's leadership
(particularly in relation to issues surrounding Bill Logan, but also no doubt
their current top bureaucrat Tom Riley) and, after a promising start, has been
with increasing speed driving down it's own bureaucratic “Road to Rileyville”
for more than a decade now (see “Resignation from the International Bolshevik
Tendency” by Samuel Trachtenberg, 25 Sepetember 2008). None of these groups
deserves any political confidence.
As
the mothership is sinking, and it's offshoots stagnate under their own
permanent geriatric leaderships, we appeal to all those genuinely interested in
advancing (as opposed to what is in reality narrowly “preserving”) all that was
revolutionary in the Spartacist League's heritage to discuss with us.
15,
February 2010
Related
Article
Internationalist
Group: Trotsky's Transitional Program vs. Robertson's “Political Compass”