Revolutionary Defeatism

[loupaulsen at attbi.com]

Yoshie, I'm not sure exactly what you are driving at by posting an article by 
Lenin on revolutionary defeatism in the war between Russia and Germany / 
Austria-Hungary, because of course a Leninist position on a war between an 
imperialist power and a country which it is attempting to conquer and colonize 
is significantly different (and I know very well that I'm not saying anything 
you don't know, which is why I say I don't know exactly what you were thinking 
of).

You hardly even need to be a Leninist to realize that if the imperialist power 
in which you live is out trying to conquer and enslave some smaller, weaker, 
non-imperialist country, you try and prevent them from doing that, and you 
obstruct them from achieving their war aims however possible.  Anyone who has 
seen "Dances with Wolves" can understand that.

The whole "revolutionary defeatism" dispute took place in the context of a war 
with a rival imperialist power which was big enough to significantly damage 
the Russian empire, maybe even conquer it completely.  The question was, in 
THAT kind of situation should you carry on the struggle against the ruling 
class and its government unabated, and Lenin said, "Yes, you do."

The kind of defeat which Lenin was writing about in that article was the risk 
of having German troops march into Russia.  Lenin said that even that would be 
the lesser evil.  But in this case we aren't talking about Iraqi tanks driving 
into the United States somehow, we are just talking about US tanks and planes 
being obstructed from destroying and conquering in Iraq.  You don't have to be 
very revolutionary even, to be for that kind of defeatism.  In this war you 
can have "liberal defeatism" even.

LP