* Introduction by Joseph Green
* Sectarian propagandism by Bob Pitt (who, in the name of anti-imperialism, opposes denouncing both sides in the US-Taliban war )
* Neither Taliban nor imperialism by Ian Donovan Introduction
by Joseph Green (from Communist Voice #28, January 2002) http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/28cTaliban.html .
. It might seem strange that any leftist could doubt the reactionary nature of the Taliban. This ultra-fundamentalist regime springs from mujahedeen circles which were funded for over a decade by the CIA to fight a dirty war in Afghanistan in the 80s and early 90s. But since Sept. 11, there has been some groups who don't believe that both sides in the US-Taliban war are reactionary. Instead they hold that the Taliban is carrying out an anti-imperialist struggle. They generally have to accept that it is reactionary domestically, but hold that it is carrying out a progressive, anti-imperialist struggle internationally. This includes such groups as WWP in the US, the SWP in Britain, and various "left" Trotskyist groups. Some of these groups also believe that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, however misguided and unfortunate, were some sort of anti-imperialist or progressive act.
. But it isn't always easy to see what the larger groups involved in coalition-building, such as the WWP in the US and the SWP in Britain, actually believe on this question. Certain smaller "left" Trotskyist groups may declare outright that they stand for the "military victory" of the Taliban, but the coalition-builders avoid such declarations. Instead they write almost exclusively about broad demands, like an end to the war and stop racism and stop repression. Their stand on the Taliban or the Sept. 11 attacks is mainly reflected by their opposition to slogans outright condemning these things. So often one finds that discussions about their stand degenerate into people wondering if they really say this or that, or really mean this or that.
. Thus it is useful to examine an open debate on this issue. The CP of Great Britain is a party that broke away from its pro-Soviet past, although it still thinks the late Soviet Union was "bureaucratic socialism", if not desirable socialism. Its paper, the Weekly Worker, has a lively correspondence section where the issue of the Taliban has been vigorously debated. While the CPGB opposes both the Taliban and Western imperialism, the Weekly Worker accepts letters with varying viewpoints. (The Weekly Worker may be found at < http://www.cpgb.org.uk>.) Following this introduction are two letters from this debate, from Trotskyists of different trends, one (Ian Donovan) arguing against the Taliban and one (Bob Pitt) arguing that anti-imperialists must desire the victory of the Taliban.
. Pitt's letter vehemently supports the Taliban, and talks of the "progressive content" of a Taliban victory. He enthusiastically compares the struggle of the Taliban to a progressive anti-colonial revolt.
. He also deals with why people haven't heard more about such pro-Taliban views. He makes it clear that groups such as the British SWP hold these views, but hide them in their mass work. He supports such secrecy, writing that it would be a mistake to "organize an anti-war movement around slogans such as 'Victory to the Taliban' or even 'Defend Afghanistan, defeat US imperialism' ". (He thus indicates that what he, and others of like mind, mean by "defending Afghanistan" in the current Afghan war, is defending the Taliban. ) It's not because he doesn't believe in these slogans, but because few other people agree with them, and because they would alienate the liberal, trade-unionist and reformist forces.
. So Pitt holds that the only slogan should be "Stop the war". For that matter, although Pitt doesn't draw the point out further, it isn't simply a question of what slogan should be used in some big demonstration. Groups such as the British SWP lower most of their agitation to this same general level. Pitt likes to present matters as if the pro-Taliban stand is the sign of real militancy against imperialism. . But Pitt, the SWP of Britain, and WWP water down the content of anti-war work to something that is, broadly speaking, acceptable to the liberals.
. Pitt also makes it clear that the issue isn't just the attitude to the Taliban, but towards the attacks of September 11. He points out that the SWP and SLP don't want anyone to condemn the terrorist attacks of September 11.(1) They will say things about the tragedy of September 11, but they draw the line at actually condemning it.
. Many people might believe that when a group, such as the WWP, talks about how horrific September 11 was, that this means condemning it. It may thus surprise them to hear that, say, WWP activists opposed, at some coalition planning meeting, that a demonstration include a condemnation of September 11 as one of its principles. But this distinction between regret and condemnation is typical of many pro-Taliban groups. Pitt points out that "groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Labour Party, while making it clear that they oppose terrorism and deplore the loss of civilian lives, have avoided using the word 'condemn' in relation to the September 11 events. " Pitt clearly supports this policy and seems to think that it is "racist arrogance" to condemn the September 11 attacks because this would supposedly mean stopping the masses from "enter(ing) into struggle against imperialism".
. Ian Donovan, in reply, argues vigorously that one has to look at the class nature of the Taliban in particular, and of the fundamentalists in general. He looks more concretely at their general political role in the world than Pitt does, and raises many issues that Pitt sweeps under the rug.
. However, despite their differences, both Donovan and Pitt, being Trotskyists, share some common assumptions. For example, they both accept Trotsky's stand on the anti-colonial struggle. Pitt argues that this stand shows why it is correct to see the Taliban's struggle as anti-imperialist, while Donovan argues that Trotsky was writing in a different historical situation. It doesn't occur to them that Trotsky might have been just plain wrong on this question, as on so many other key questions of Marxist theory.
. In this respect, they debate the relevance of Trotsky's stand concerning Ethiopia. Trotsky didn't just advocate that Ethiopian resistance to the Italian invasion of the mid-30s was correct. He went further, and was full of praise for the supposed revolutionary virtues of the Emperor Haile Selassie (the "Negus"). Pitt chose the case of Ethiopia in order to make an analogy between Haile Selassie and the Taliban. In "On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo", which has his main comment on Ethiopia, Trotsky wrote that certain politicians say that the Italian invasion was just "a conflict between two rival dictators", Haile Selassie and the fascist Mussolini, which should be of no concern to class-conscious workers around the world. Trotsky contradicted this, and said that Ethiopia should be supported. So far, so good. But he did so by writing that "A dictator can also play a very progressive role in history", and going lyrical over the wonders of a "victory for the Negus".(2) Although Trotsky claims to be discussing the "social foundations" of different dictatorships, he has no comment whatsoever on the different classes in Ethiopia or Haile Selassie's relation to them. Pitt takes this to mean the reactionary nature of the Taliban today is just as irrelevant as Trotsky found the tyranny of Haile Selassie to be in its day.
. In fact, Haile Selassie was a modernizer of sorts, but for the sake of strengthening an autocratic regime. The peasants, who were the vast majority of the population, labored under backward, feudal, oppressive conditions. This was also a regime of Amhara chauvinism that suppressed the other, non-Amhara, peoples of Ethiopia. It was not surprising that Haile Selassie could not repeat the Ethiopian victory of the Battle of Adwa of 1896, where Ethiopian independence was maintained by defeating an invading Italian army. It was the job of communists, if they really wanted to help build the anti-colonial movement, to point out the class factors involved in Ethiopian weakness,. Even if, somehow, Italy had suffered immediate defeat, one of the tasks of communists would have been to debunk the idea that the Selassie regime provided a model for anti-colonial struggle elsewhere.
. But Trotsky didn't even try to deal with the class issues involved in Ethiopia. He couldn't do so (and later, after Selassie's defeat, he never, as far as I am aware, reconsidered his stand and drew any lessons from this defeat). Moreover, it isn't at all clear that support for Ethiopia followed from any of Trotsky's general principles, such as "permanent revolution" or denial of "two-stage revolution". Trotsky instead argued, in effect, that in this case, all these things should be thrown aside. Many contemporary Trotskyists take this to mean that any regime at all in any lesser country in contradiction with an imperialist country should be supported.
. Ian Donovan won't criticize Trotsky for being the source of this mechanical rule. Instead he advocates that it only applied in the days of old-style colonialism (or to any presently remaining cases of direct denial of national independence). He points out that the development of the bourgeoisie in the former colonial world, and makes a number of important observations. But he goes overboard and establishes a new mechanical rule. This rule is that a backward country should never be supported in a struggle against an imperialist power, unless it is a case of a struggle to "overthrow imperialism as a system", which would require overthrowing the capitalist ruling classes themselves.
. But what about situations such as, for example, Nicaragua resisting the U. S. -organized contra war in the 1980s? More generally, what about democratic revolutionary struggles that wouldn't break the dependent countries free of the economic bonds of imperialism, but would nevertheless improve the social conditions and pave the way for a more extensive and organized class struggle by the proletariat? Such struggles still exist. This is not what the Taliban was doing in Afghanistan; it's not what Iraq's Saddam Hussein is doing: it's not what Serbia's Milosevic was doing. But such struggles do keep coming up. One has to make a concrete assessment of the actual politics behind each war and of the class relations in each country, and not simply apply a mechanical rule.
. Now, in practice, no matter what his theory, Donovan undoubtedly supported various progressive struggles in the dependent countries, such the overthrow of the dictator Somoza and resistance to the contras. But his Trotskyism gives him no consistent basis to do so. His Trotskyist perspective leads to the view that, under current world conditions, to support anything but the breaking of the economic chains of imperialism is opportunism. From his Trotskyist perspective, anything else is "two-stage revolution", a horrible crime for a Trotskyist.
. So Donovan probably would have to convince himself that these struggles were really breaking out of the entire economic system of imperialism. He would have to paint them in socialist colors. (He wouldn't necessarily call them "socialist", as this would violate the Trotskyist principle that there can't be "socialism in one country". But he would have to present these struggles as somehow overcoming capitalism or imperialism, although without achieving socialism. ) This would be a mistake, because painting up these struggles as essentially socialist means overlooking the specifically socialist tasks that are needed to preserve proletarian independence in the midst of these struggles, such as maintaining the independence of the proletarian trend, both organizationally and ideologically, from the governing party.
. Thus, as far as their theory goes, both Pitt and Donovan end up championing mechanical rules. Pitt's rule leads to backing any reactionary regime, so long as it is in contradiction with the US. Donovan's rule leads to denying that any struggle of a dependent country could be progressive, other than the outright overcoming of capitalism. Both rules stem, ultimately, from Trotskyism's inability to make a concrete analysis of the class issues in the dependent capitalist countries. Both rules contradict the Leninist position which, back in the colonial days as well as today, put emphasis on a concrete assessment of the class developments inside the colonial and dependent countries.
. But, theory aside, Donovan points out how Pitt's depiction of Taliban anti-imperialism amounts to utter fantasy. Pitt in turn gives one a good feeling for what the section of pro-Taliban apologists among the coalition-building groups are saying. It is important to know that there are pro-Taliban apologists, because this explains some of the events in the anti-war movement and because the pro-Taliban stand undermines the struggle against the "war on terrorism", and undermines solidarity with the class-conscious activists around the world. It is also important to refute such apologetics as part of overcoming the crisis of revolutionary theory in the left. <>
Notes:
(1) There may be a question as to what the stand of Arthur Scargill's SLP of Britain actually is. Apparently it began as Pitt says, but, according to the article "SLP split" in the Weekly Worker of Nov. 8, a majority of the National Executive Committee overruled Scargill on Sept. 22, and condemned the attacks of Sept. 11. But what was the result? Almost a month later, the SLP circulated among its membership an internal Information Bulletin which contained the NEC statement condemning the attacks. But, the Nov. 8 Weekly Worker says, it doesn't seem that the the SLP had yet made its new stand public. (Pitt, too, doesn't seem to have seen any change in the SLP's stand.) For that matter, Scargill's original statement on the Sept. 11 attacks was still on the SLP web site, www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk.. And so it is as of early Jan. 2002. It is interesting that this site is run by a diehard pro-Stalin grouping in the SLP. On this question, and not just this question, Stalinism and Trotskyism have a good deal in common. (Return to text)
(2) "On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo/A Letter to an English Comrade, April 22, 1936," Writings of Leon Trotsky [1935-56], Pathfinder Press, pp. 317-8. (Text)