James wrote: --- "I have to accept that they were coming out of the same tradition"
Really, Sebastian? What tradition is that? The tradition of evil police state dictators, slaughtering opponents left right and centre? The tradition of the millions imprisoned in the Gulag or of the police spies in the Stasi - let's face it, it is not exactly the moral high ground.
So obviously, stinking of the corpses of tortured oppositionists, it is important for Sebastian to blur thelines between right and wrong "there is no clear line between the good and the bad guys in this case". Well, forgive me for stating the obvious, but as Harold Pinter said, when the electrodes are attached to your testicles, the lines between good and bad are pretty damned clear.
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I don't know wich eastern european tortured leftist oppositional authorized you to be his official speaker. Calm down, it was our risk in 1989 and before - not yours. (Trough we did never compared our risk to real stalinist times - the Stasi had long ago stopped physical torture). And may be you should go in a dispute on selling political prisoners to the west with other guys on this list.
But what about the clear line? In the case of torture the line is quite clear. But we could take a closer look on one comrade of mine, Ryszard Nazarewicz, born in the 1921 in Poland, member of an unauthorized by the Komintern Communist Youth Group in occupied Warsaw, later member of the Moscow authorized new founded PPR.
Form 43 on active in communist guerilla groups in central poland, by the end of warfighting in this area head of the counterintellegence of a guerilla brigade. From this point up to 1956 Officer in State Security Adminstration he took part in the civil war against the anti-communist underground. Then he moved to study, to the Academy of social sciences of the communist party and became one of the excellent historians of WWII in Poland. At beginning of 80s with the introduction of marshall law he went to the camps and tried to convince the imprisoned leaders of Solidarity, that no other way for socialism was possible. In 1988 he wrote the official polish paper making clear, that the official soviet version of the murder in Chatyn could not bee true. In the last years he did extensive research and wirting on stalinist crimes, on WWII in Poland and the following civil war. But Ryszard never understood my acceptance of the Solidarity as a real, through not socialist and very nationalist labor movement.
And now the question: A good resistance fighter? A bad State Security officer? You have the clear line - show us! --------
James wrote:
Sebastian says, dripping with irony, 'your socialism would be interesting, beautiful, with no harm to the people because every time you would try to do you best'. But why the irony? Why shouldn't socialism, be beautiful? And why, for christ's sake, should socialism be harmful to the people? -------- Why the irony?
First, because i t's not so easy to make a beautiful socialism in economically backward countries, wich had to build as much weapons, as the west, but not with 50 percent of world industry, but with about 25 percent, ore less. Socialism should be good, but fighting for socialism can be quite harmful for the people. And fighting will not stopp the day after worldrevolution.
Second, because I do not believe in romantic ideas: Read the play of Bertolt Brecht on the holy Johanna. The whole play on Johanna is very peacefull and tries to avoid the use of force. But she learned at the end, that force may be necessary, and then there is no idea about controlled use of force, there is a outbreak in favour of brute violence: The romantics tip over first.
Third I learned, that people have quite different ideas about what "beautiful" is. And that quite a lot of labor will be needed to realize only a few of these ideas -and so there will be conflicts, harsh conflicts, wich idea of "beauty" should be realized, one group will say, the concept of the other is harmful to the people and so on. In paradise the building of socialism would be quite easy, but not necessary to meet anyones needs. Here on earth building socialism will be necessary to meet many needs, but it will not be so easy.
------ James wrote:
Did I try to do my best? Of course I did. When your fellow Communist Party members in France where bulldozing immigrnat hostels, me and my comrades campaigned against it. When your c omrades in England rallied to the cause of British jobs for British workers, we pointed out the chauvinism implicit in what they were saying. And when they rallied to support the British occupation in Ireland, we campaigned against it. ----- Out of wich secret service report you know my party book ore that I agree with the nationalism, widespread in labor movement? I do not. If you opposed the PCF course - well done. But I have - like Sun Tse advises us - tried to get an idea about the things, I'm fighting against: What nationalism in labor movement is, where this nationalism comes from. It does not come from the influence of misguided communist parties. It has to do with the conflicts of interest in market economy, blowing away every moment the elements of solidarity in working class. Only trotzkyist believe, that the root of nationalism is the slogan of "socialism in one country" - but the 4. August 1914 was long before Stalin attained power. ---- James wrote
"Sometimes the masses were anti-Semitic and the leadership not" says Sebastian. But here is the utter evasion of responsibility that is characteristic of Stalinism. How convenient to project your own insular, chauvinistic perspective onto the masses, so much easier than to face the truth that it was the Stalinist parties own chauvinistic programme of "national roads to socialism" that was the greatest single contribution to racialism in the labour movement. --- Evasion of responsibility? No, not at all. Responsible are those
acting. In the case of a pogrom - the men and women, taking part, the bystanders - and those, trying to stop the murder and rape, they are responsible to use all the means appropriate. The idea behind your critic is, that some (bad) leadership is responsible. I do not share such evasion of responsibility for "the masses". The masses are formed by individuals, well aware, what they are doing.
----- James concluded:
You have a lot to say about anti-semitism in eastern Europe after the event. Some of us pointed out that the programme of socialism in one country would inevitably lead to national chauvinism and anti semitism at the the time. You are part of the problem, not of the solution. ----- Clearly after the event, we are living in 2008. I do not pretend to explain the great story of international labor movement in few lines. But it seems to me, that we have to learn out of the past. Going back to the true ideas of Trotzky - ore whoever the authority is - that's no solution, it's a part of the problem. Another part of the problem is the attitude of many trotzkyist comrades, based on the binary worldview: Who is not with us, he is a Stalinist. But there are other leftist positions possible, for Marx' sake.
Sebastian
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