Re sub-imperialism

Fred Feldman posted a contribution to the Green Left discussion group on Yahoo on the use of "sub-imperialism" to characterize a number of countries today, such as China, Russia and India.

I replied as follows:


--- In GreenLeft_discussion@yahoogroups.com, "Fred Feldman"  wrote:

> Actually, if Green Lefters defend China as an oppressed nation against
> imperialism (not just "oppose an attack" but SOLIDARIZE WITH CHINA against
> an attack), that would be adequate since there is a basis for reasonable
> Marxists to disagree about the class character of the state. But in fact the
> trend seems to be toward proclaiming China an imperialist power (perhaps
> with the highly subjective category of "sub-imperialist" as a transitional
> characterization), which clearly implies no defense against anybody anytime.
>
> Thus a war between China and the United States or China and Australia would
> be an inter-imperialist war with "a plague on both your houses" as the
> indicated political stance.
>
> If Green Left's Marxism still includes "revolutionary defeatism" in a war
> between China and Australia, that would mean considering the defeat of
> Australia as the lesser evil in a war with China from the standpoint of
> making a socialist
> revolution in Australia.  From this standpoint, Chinese revolutionaries
> would be expected to take the same stand - defeat of their "imperialism" as
> the lesser evil.  Chinese people who took the side of their country against
> US, Japanese, and/or Australian imperialism would be regarded as traitors to
> socialism.

This shows how important the question of the character of the Chinese state is to revolutionary Marxists. Because it's so important it's crucial not to play fast and loose with the terms in which the characterization is made. To speak of a "trend" towards considering China imperialist while at the same time claiming that "there is a basis for reasonable Marxists to disagree about the class character of the state" is to play fast and loose with terms like "imperialism" and "Marxism", not to mention "reasonable".

Marxism would not "trend" towards a characterization in this way. Some Marxists might, but then the question would be how far a trending impressionist agrees with Marxist economic analysis, and whether this is "reasonable". Let's be clear. There is disagreement, even among serious revolutionary Marxists, about the class character of the Chinese state. But so far this has not been the subject of any serious large-scale debate. A key issue for those who originally held with the characterization of Deformed Workers' State seems to be how far the reforms of 1979 constitute a restoration of capital. But the bullet in this debate hasn't yet been bitten.

Why was the situation different in the mid-1930s regarding the Soviet Union? For this argument it's enough to say there was a revolutionary Bolshevik current in the USSR and the world that was strong enough and confident enough in its Marxism and place in the class struggle to bite the bullet and consider the hugely contradictory situation that had arisen after October succeeded in overturning the capitalist state of Tsarist Russia, but where this new non-capitalist state had either become capitalist once more or remained non-capitalist while displaying blatantly anti-socialist and counter-revolutionary characteristics.

I'm referring, obviously, to the Left Opposition and the embodiment of its Bolshevik leadership in Trotsky and those closest to him.

In The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky came down firmly, Marxist-style, on the side of the most contradictory alternative - a state which was at the same time non-capitalist, anti-socialist and counter-revolutionary. He did this because it best fitted the facts, and his presentation of these facts and his reasons for interpreting them as he did convinced the non-Stalinist revolutionary left that was moving towards the foundation of the Fourth International after the catastrophic defeat of the workers movement in Germany.

The closest thing this movement has had to a similar decisive intervention concerning the character of a state is Peng Shuzi's work on The Causes of the Victory of the Chinese Communist Party (www.marxists.org/archive/peng/1951/nov/causes.htm) and the debate leading to the characterization of Deformed Workers' State.

Neither Peng nor the Fourth had the theoretical or organizational authority of Trotsky or the pre-war Left Opposition, so there was little to deter impressionist non-revolutionary Lefts like Tony Cliff from proclaiming early in the 50s that The Revolution Betrayed had been mistaken, that the USSR was capitalist and that China was too. Their Marxism couldn't stand up to the combined pressure of bourgeois witch-hunting and Stalinist propaganda.

The problem for us today is that this has been happening by default within the genuinely revolutionary tradition of the Fourth and closely allied movements. The bitter contradictions digested in The Revolution Betrayed have not been understood as such. It could even be argued that the bitterness and scale of the contradictions inherent in the Chinese state and regime are even greater than those in the Soviet Union.

Whatever the case, the contradictions have not been confronted openly and massively, so the trial is not just not over, it hasn't even started.

Which presents us with a huge and responsible task.

Including the main reason for my present contribution, which is to disagree flatly regarding the term "sub-imperialism".

Fred declares that the category is "highly subjective" and used as a "transitional characterization". Maybe he meant "impressionistic" - in which case he should have said so. But "subjective" can be compared to "objective" and related to facts, which Fred doesn't do. As for "transitional", well, things change, powerful states and economies become weak and vice versa, so there is a case for terms describing such change to be labelled transitional. Trotsky and the Fourth labelled their programme "transitional" for good reasons.

Fred writes:

> The sub-imperialist category is misleading because it effectively eliminates
> the qualitative distinction between imperialism and not-imperialism,
> oppressed and oppressor nations, and it is infinitely expandable and
> basically un-scientific. If China is imperialist or sub-imperialist, why not
> Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, or even Vietnam? If India is imperialist or
> sub-imperialist, why not Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia?

But this is not so if sub-imperialism has been defined clearly in terms of transition from less powerful to more powerful, and its preconditions have been set out. In the first place, it is misleading to lump together "imperialism and not-imperialism,
oppressed and oppressor nations", simply because imperialist oppression is not the same as any old oppression of one nation (or entity) by another. So we'll ignore that, although it forms the basis of most of the arm-waving examples Fred gives. It is not in the least intrinsically "infinitely expandable", as that depends on the definition and preconditions.

For instance, sensible definitions of sub-imperialist would have to include such empirical qualities as great size, great population, and economic and military viability on a grand scale. The military viability would include things like complete impossibility of total invasion and occupation. The history of Russia gives an indication of the kind of countries that might come into consideration here. The "sub" would have to include the transitional element of not yet big enough and ugly enough to face down the US in an open confrontation, despite a desire to do so and probable capacity to put up a good fight.

There is nothing strange about any of this, and in fact the definition would enable a good description of the relative strength of such acknowledged imperialisms as Germany, Britain, France, Sweden, etc.

Lenin takes relative change between imperialist countries for granted when he writes of "aspiring imperialisms" such as Japan and Germany and compares them to the old established imperialist powers of Britain and France. And in 1900, the US was the biggest aspiring "sub-imperialism" of them all.

And the definition given here, preliminary as it is, would be able to handle the status of Korea, Thailand, Pakistan and Indonesia without pausing in its stride.

Fred concludes by writing:

> The tendency is to envision an almost exclusively imperialist world - one in
> which almost every state not directly controlled by imperialism economically
> and politically like the Marshall Islands or Puerto Rico or Chad tends to
> "rise" to imperialist or subimperialist status, becoming a challenger to
> "old" imperialist powers for re-dividing the world (like Germany in the two
> world wars) and thus one of the driving forces toward world war.  This is
> not theoretically impossible, but highly improbable in anything like the
> near future.      

Which of course is as impressionistic as the approach he is criticising. Much as most governments would dearly love to elbow their way closer to the fleshpots and bury their snouts in the trough with the US, it is farcical for them, or us, to dream of such a thing, let alone "envision" it. Put this generally, it is in fact "theoretically impossible" - at least for a Marxist Marxist - and it certainly has no bearing on whether or not one or two of the most powerful and expansive non-acknowledged imperialist countries (say Russia and India, leaving China and Brazil aside for the moment) are in a position to challenge or actually even in the course of challenging the currently hegemonic imperialist power(s).

As I understand it, "sub-imperialism" refers to imperialist potential in a country that for a variety of reasons is still clearly 'sub'ordinate to the leading imperialist countries. Some countries might make it all the way, and watch once leading countries eat their dust as they fall by the wayside. Some might just hover mid-league for ever, so to say. But we have to acknowledge change as it happens, and do our best to grasp what's going on and why. That is our duty both to the working class as revolutionary socialists and to science as thinking citizens.

Revolutionary priorities - human rights and combating bureaucracy?

On my translators' discussion list, PF replied to me:

You use the word red herring a little too liberally. If the protection
of human and individual rights and preventing the abuse of power by a
ruling party/bureaucracy are not to be the _first_ priorities in a
socialist revolution, you can revolute without me.

And I responded:

There's a place for people who have priorities besides state power in revolutions. Obviously. And obviously everybody chooses how to get involved - it can be purely political - you can be for the new regime or against it, or socio-economic too - for the new state or against it. And you can choose to keep your head down and your fingers crossed, as Stalin did during October when he was skulking in the editorial offices of Pravda preaching conciliation with the Provisional Government. And you can scoot off to your dacha and sit it out. 

Revolutions happen, almost regardless of our priorities and wishes. You can't prioritize or wish a revolution into being. And you can't wish away the violence involved. As a worker you'd be mad to be a pacifist while the counter-revolutionary white guards are shooting at you. 

The organization, vitality, democratic health and programmatic clarity of the forces involved are what determines the fate of issues like human rights during a period of revolutionary upheaval. In general, revolutionary armies have codes of conduct requiring humane treatment of civilians and enemy combatants -  often on pain of death for violations - while counter-revolutionary armies behave despicably. Pissing on enemy corpses, mocking enemy cultural values, raping and stealing, etc. Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuo Min Tang reactionaries are perfect examples of this.

When it comes to post-conflict social life the same goes. If there is a low level of organizational vitality, democracy and programmatic clarity in the leading political forces, you're in for trouble. Sometimes regardless of your priorities and wishes. It is ridiculous and unhistorical to foist the blame for the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party in power on Lenin and Trotsky. Neither creating an intelligence service nor putting down a serious mutiny are exceptionable matters in a situation of extreme social tension, let alone a war. When you have a series of deliberate constitutional changes aimed at reducing broad popular participation and increasing the power of a bureaucracy and executive working in cahoots, then you have an exceptional threat to popular rights and the healthy exercise of power. In the final year of Lenin's life it is very clear from his writings that he regarded the bureaucratic cancer creeping over the government and party-political and social life as a very high priority. In his "testament" he warns explicitly of Stalin's flaws.

Creating and maintaining a healthy political regime in a political party isn't easy. It doesn't get any easier if people with healthy instincts turn their backs on politics because it's hot in the kitchen and pots go flying. Parties (despite what Tomás claims) are where politics are forged. The heat and steel come from the masses and their interests, but the weapons (programme and strategic plan) and leaders come from the parties. 

Like I said, revolutions happen. We can choose to revolute along with them, or against them, or stand and watch. They are mass events. Mass mobilizations. You don't have to go around knocking on doors to get people out to make a revolution. That's the whole character of them - they are social eruptions. If I have a programme and leadership to offer for a revolution, then the masses in their assemblies will decide whether to take them or not. As happened throughout 1917 in Russia during the revolutionary upheaval between February and November, when the Soviets were massively democratic assemblies of workers, peasants and others who thrashed over a huge number of political and organizational matters. The victory of the Bolshevik programme and party was in no sense a manoeuvre or a coup. The Soviets were the great centres of mass decision-making where the weapons and leaders of the revolution were selected in open competition. The Mensheviks screwed up and were rejected (as was Stalin's conciliatory line towards them).

Plenty of Mensheviks ran away from the revolution when they lost favour. But it was no great hardship for many of their leaders, they just exchanged an editorial office in Moscow for one in New York and got lionized by the imperialists (Kerensky, for instance). 

There is ample prima facie proof of the popularity of the Bolshevik leadership of the revolution with the Russian people in the mere fact that over a hundred million Russians followed them in war and faced extreme hardship for three years to chase out and keep out Russian (Ukrainian etc) reactionaries and imperialist invaders. There were never enough Bolshevik commissars to whip the peasants into doing this by brute force - the Tsarist knout was a thing of the past. The peasants and peasant-workers in the army, for Christ sake, had thrown down their weapons and deserted from the Tsar's army only the previous year! And yet they took up arms again and followed Trotsky's strategic guidance and fought successfully!

Please, Paul, try and get some perspective into this period of Russian history. If the not-even-socialist half-measures of Allende and the popular upsurge of his day in power are inspiring, before Kissinger and Pinochet smashed them, then surely the real social and economic changes that took place between 1917 and 1920 in Russia are even more inspiring, especially since the many Kissingers and Pinochets of the time were soundly thrashed and sent home whimpering with their tails between their legs.

When did the USSR turn its back on Marxism?

On a discussion list I presented a mainstream of Marxist development this way: "Marx and Engels in the 1840s through the Paris Commune to the October Revolution in 1917 and on to the Left Opposition and Fourth International - it's Bolshevik-Leninist built on rock-solid Marxist (and that's Marx and Engels) foundations".

DV asked me: "So at what point does your allegiance split off (or maintain the true centre) of that line, later in the SU? And why?

And I replied:

The change in the political character of the USSR can be located most simply in the year 1924. Lenin died in January, 1924, and during the year Stalin was able to consolidate his power in the Bolshevik party apparatus, principally by opening the floodgates to new members with interests that were bureaucratic and careerist rather than class-based and socialist. The struggle against this development can be traced in the history of the Left Opposition to Stalin and the bureaucracy, which Trotsky founded in 1923 while Lenin was still alive, albeit incapacitated.

Evidence of healthy working-class socialist internationalism is abundant in the records of the first four Congresses of the Third International (ie before 1924). After 1924 the politics of the Soviet government turn against  all the principles of the Bolshevik party that carried out the October Revolution and led the successful defence of the new non-capitalist workers state against the imperialists and reactionaries of the surrounding world and Old Russia.

The best brief account of the general development can be found in Trotsky's book The Revolution Betrayed (1936)  (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm)

The Stalinist bureaucracy instituted a new regime in the Soviet Union that Trotsky and the Left Opposition characterized as politically counter-revolutionary, although on a non-capitalist economic foundation. In other words, the USSR remained a workers state, but was run by a degenerate and counter-revolutionary regime

The catastrophe of the Nazi capture of power in Germany in 1933, resulting largely from the appalling anti-Marxist leadership provided by the German Communist party following orders from Moscow - Social-Democracy was called the main enemy of the German working class, rather than Nazism - drove Trotsky and his comrades to conclude that the Third International was beyond recovery and led them to prepare the foundation of a new working-class socialist international - the Fourth International. This was achieved in 1938, and the founding document - the Transitional Programme, "The Death Agony of Capitalism" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm)- is the best short presentation of modern Marxist perspectives in the imperialist world after the victories of Stalin and Hitler. That is in a world dominated by counter-revolutionary regimes from the US to the USSR. At the same time as the world was split into two antagonistic economic camps - capitalist-imperialist in the US and Europe, and non-capitalist  (what we could call proto-socialist) in the Soviet Union.