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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Just to note the real hypocrisy of the Workers
World folks in the present "antiwar movement"-- they were vociferous supporters
of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, in fact denouncing <FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>Gorbachev and Shevardnadze for ending the war and
apologizing for it. They dismissed their views as "bourgois
pacifism." The WWP's contempt for "bourgois pacificism" and those who
would "humiliate the military" might come as a surprise to many of the people
attending their "antiwar" rallies. I'm attaching Sam Marcy's 1991 analysis
of a late 80s speech by Shevardnadze where he defends "defensive war" in the
name of the Soviet national interests - a line of argument I am sure George Bush
would find quite comfortable for his own purposes.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Full cite at <A
href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/1991/sm910117.html">http://www.workers.org/marcy/1991/sm910117.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<H4>Afghanistan and bourgeois pacifism </H4>
<P>It was precisely then that Shevardnadze publicly brought up the subject of
Afghanistan in a speech attacking the Soviet role there. While supposedly aimed
at the Brezhnev leadership, it nevertheless undermined the Soviet armed forces.
<P>Shevardnadze presented the Afghanistan issue in the framework of democracy.
The anti-imperialist struggle of the oppressed people, to which the USSR had
been pledged since the days of the revolution, was all but denigrated. In fact,
the bourgeois restorationists for whom Shevardnadze spoke actually identified
the principle of revolutionary solidarity as the problem in their increasing
attacks on the Soviet Union's history of anti-imperialist aid over the decades.
<P>In the public discussion about the Soviet role in Afghanistan and the
difficulties encountered in the Afghanistan struggle, it was all but forgotten
that the U.S., Britain, France, West Germany, Pakistan and also China were
arrayed against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and still are.
<P>When the foreign minister of the USSR discussed Afghanistan, he should first
have noted the Soviet Union was called on for aid by a sister country. There was
an imminent danger of counter-revolution, which among other things was a direct
threat to the USSR because of Afghanistan's geographical proximity. So the
Soviet intervention had a defense aspect.
<P>Instead, Shevardnadze's comments were in the spirit of bourgeois pacifism,
and they helped open the door to the bourgeois "independence" forces then rising
in Eastern Europe. His attack was devoid of any progressive content, any
revolutionary spirit. It was a move to humiliate the military forces and a
blatant appeal to win favor with imperialism.
<P>None of this--including glasnost--evoked a lively spirit of revolutionary
defensism of the USSR. Instead, it degenerated into bourgeois pacifism.
<P>It got to the point where Lt. General V. Serebriannikov, a well-known
military publicist, wrote an article accusing "certain writers and publicists"
of expressing "decadent and cowardly thoughts which sow the seeds of pacifism."
In an analysis in the Summer 1988 issue of <I>Foreign Affairs,</I> F. Stephen
Larrabee, a member of the National Security Council under Jimmy Carter, wrote,
"Under the guise of glasnost, he [Serebriannikov] charged, these writers
`virtually compete with one another to put forward the most sensational and
venomous revelations.' " </P></DIV>
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