Response to Sean Matgamna on "What if Israel bombs Iran?"

No doubt, Sean Matgamna intended his "discussion article" to provoke debate. Certainly, it does facilitate discussion when comrades are honest and make their views clear. But the article, which includes only minimal and superficial reference to independent working-class politics and any idea of working-class agency, instead dishonestly zigzags between empathising with Israeli hawks and using figleaf, weasel words to avoid openly 'advocating' an Israeli strike against Iran in advance. He says we should "least of all" support Ahmedinejad, as if we were under any compulsion to pick sides and support Olmert a little bit more instead.

(Throughout Sean also takes for granted the idea that the Iranian regime is indeed developing nuclear weapons. This claim is highly tendentious - it is not the opinion of US intelligence - and Sean does not cite any evidence in support of this assertion. Sean clearly uses this only for the reason that if true it helps justify his broader argument in an article light on analysis of what is actually going on in the Middle East as opposed to on the British left. The same could be said for his over-simplified drawing of an equals sign between the Iranian regime and al-Qaedist suicide bombers. However, since my opposition to Sean's position is far from reliant on any illusions in the peaceful intentions of the Iranian regime, I shall ignore this for now).

Sean begins: "An attack on Iran will most likely lead to great carnage in the Middle East and beyond as supporters of Iran resort to suicide bombings in retaliation. There might well be large scale Iranian civilian "collateral" casualties. An attack would strengthen the Iranian regime and license a smash down on its critics, including working class critics, inside Iran. It would throw Iran back into the worst chaos". The only part of the article citing reasons why Sean would be critical of an Israeli bombing raid on Iran (we may assume that a ground invasion would be impossible) this paragraph is interesting in that its main argument is simply that an attack could well be counterproductive for Israel because of how Islamists would react. Note that the opening sentence tells us that the cause of the carnage would in fact be that "supporters of Iran" would retaliate! And Sean's focus is not the interests of the labour movement or the tasks of Marxists in the (potential) belligerent countries, but rather hoping for a balance in the world of geopolitics, military manoeuvre and weapons competition. The reference to Iranian workers is only in passing, even though sabre-rattling and sanctions against Iran, Ahmedinejad's "anti-Zionist" rhetoric and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians all serve to foster a generalised chauvinism in the region and create enormous obstacles to the development of an internationalist labour movement. Sean's view is crude and one-sided and he is far from condemning the Israeli government's effort to cling onto its status as the leading regional power by force: if he realises that such a bombing run would hamper the possibility of workers in the region "uniting to fight for a socialist Middle East", he certainly doesn't show it.

From then on Sean confuses what is "rational" in the interests of Israeli imperialism and great-power realpolitik with what is "rational" in the interests of humanity. As if gazing into his crystal ball Sean predicts that Israel "will not tolerate" and "will act to stop" Iran's nuclear proliferation; Israel "will bomb Iran, with or without the agreement of the USA and NATO"; Israel "will act" on its interests; "Israel will act to stop this Muslim fundamentalist regime". Yet here the word "will" almost seems to be used not to mean that these events are likely but rather as an expression of defiance - you may have doubts in its leaders' confidence, but Israel will stand up for itself! Sean asks us to see the situation from Israel's point of view - "In Israeli eyes the facts and alternatives here are stark" - but is clearly talking about the alternatives as seen in the IDF leadership, ignoring the question of how an attack would be viewed through the eyes of any class-conscious Israeli (or indeed Iranian) worker. He focuses on the tasks of the Israeli government and indeed nearer the end of the article he neatly concludes: "the harsh truth is that there is good reason for Israel to make a precipitate strike at Iranian nuclear capacity".

What an awful, awful thing to write. Good reason for "Israel" to do this: or do you mean that the Israeli military would be justified in attacking Iran? This just playing the game of speculating on manoeuvres the great powers might make with their armies and airforces to guarantee stability, while discounting out of hand as utopian any possibility of the working class acting independently in the regional crisis. Of course, as a "left" figleaf Sean writes that he would rather it was the Iranian workers than the Israeli bombers who got rid of Ahmedinejad, as if the two eventualities are in any sense comparable or would have any similar results. Sean does not want to "advocate" or "endorse" an attack: but this is just playing with words, and clearly given the tone of the piece and the fact that he is so keen to defend the rationale for an attack which is not yet on the cards the article can only be read as offering justification for Olmert et al. How can you say there is "good reason" to do something but not "endorse" it?

Indeed, Sean denounces those who would "condemn" the Israeli government for "refusing to stand idly by", an argument which - if you believed that Saddam Hussein could launch an offensive in 45 minutes - could equally have been used to justify the invasion of Iraq in opposition to those who would prefer to "appease" the Iraqi dictator. Much in the same vein of those on the far left who accuse Third World tyrants of being insufficiently ardent in their opposition to US imperialism, Sean is incensed by "idlers" who would sit on their hands rather than stand up to Ahmedinejad, by fair means or foul.

Sean asks "In the name of what alternative would we condemn Israel?" (having decided that the only choices on offer are (i) Israel attacks Iran or (ii) Iran attacks Israel) and goes on to score easy points against those who say that Israel has no right to exist or that Iran has a right to nuclear weapons. His conclusions do not automatically follow though - thinking that there is "good reason" for a pre-emptive bombing attack on Iran is not merely the logical corollary of the belief that, whatever its government's crimes and whatever its history, the Israeli nation has the right to self-determination and to have a state alongside Palestine if it so chooses. You do not have to be "kitsch left" to oppose an Israeli attack on Iran, nor do you have to be "kitsch left" to refer to Israel's hypocrisy in keeping its own nukes, which Sean avoids reference to. We can say these things whilst posing a positive alternative opposed to all "sides" in the stand off. Even if working-class forces are currently weak in the Middle East, Marxists cannot put off building this independent class camp for the sake of taking sides in some more 'immediate' conflict: doing so and fostering jingoistic illusions actually makes our main objective more difficult to realise.

Sean makes occasional, tokenistic references to 'the workers': these are abstract and separate from the general thrust of the article, and indeed Sean makes no effort to delve into the tasks of the working class in the region or how it might intervene in the crisis. Nor, for that matter, does he refer to the oppression of the Palestinian's or the utter hypocrisy of Israel, the region's sole nuclear power, posturing as "anti-nuclear".

Indeed, one among the "kitsch left reasons for criticising Israel" Sean throws up in his list is of a rather different character to the others: "Because for choice we would live in a world where the workers of Israel, Iran, Iraq were united in opposition to all their rulers, and strong enough to get rid of them and bring to the region an era of socialist and democratic peace and understanding." Sean clearly thinks this is just utopian, and portrays this approach in a carping and dismissive fashion. Of course, none of us think that there's going to be a worldwide socialist revolution in the next week, month or even before Iran is bombed. But that is our sole objective, and the way Marxists respond to more 'immediate' national disputes does indeed shape the possible future outcome: it is impossible to just mix and match between fighting for revolution and playing at imperialist geopolitics like Sean does. You can, however, oppose both regimes and their militarists.

We are not armchair generals willing the Israeli government to stand up for themselves against the "Muslim fundamentalists" or hoping that the big Western imperialist powers will be able to maintain some sort of ersatz "safety" for the Israeli Jews by keeping Israel's rival regional powers weak until that bright, sunny future day when the workers storm the Knesset and take power. Not only do we refuse to put our confidence in the Israeli generals, but we must ardently denounce their aggressive and imperialist stance, the very mirror-image of the Iranian theocrats and one which puts working-class unity further down the agenda.

Illusions in the Allies

The 21 June Socialist Worker, an issue geared for the SWP’s anti-BNP demo in London, was full of establishment anti-fascism, claiming that the BNP are not a “respectable” party and calling for an apolitical cross-class front against fascism. To this end, the paper included an article about the “hidden story” of West Indian people fighting for the Allies in World War II, as “revealed” by a new Imperial War Museum exhibition.

Simon Assaf tells us that “Over 10,000 West Indians volunteered to defend Britain against the Nazis”, neglecting to mention the imperialist character of the war on both sides. He makes no reference whatsoever to colonial exploitation in the British Empire, and in this vein uses the word "flowed" rather oddly in the sentence "Many people in the British empire took part in raising money to help the war effort – in addition to the extra taxes, raw materials and food that flowed from the colonies to support the war." Surely he means “were forcibly taken”.

Socialist Worker makes great play of the digging-deep the “war effort” required: but the fact that the West Indians were poor doesn't mean that when they got shipped off to Egypt to defend the British Empire from the Germans they were fighting the good fight. They had absolutely no control over the character, strategy and organisation of any aspect of the Allies’ "war effort". They were just cannon fodder for Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and de Gaulle. One could equally say that German soldiers were working-class and fought bravely: should we honour their "contribution"?

There is no mention of the 1934-39 strike wave in the British West Indies, the lack of free elections in such territories or indeed those peoples' demand for independence. West Indians are just portrayed as useful troops for Churchill, and the article is nothing but a long advertisement for an Imperial War Museum exhibition, i.e. an exhibition staged by a museum celebrating British imperialism. It is social-patriotism, pure and simple, and further evidence of the SWP’s complete lack of working-class political bearings.

Anti-war doesn't mean pro-repression!

Respect Renewal MP George Galloway has been far from sympathetic to the case of Mehdi Kazemi, instead choosing to spew homophobic bile and defend the Iranian regime. Showing his complete contempt for human rights and democracy, he has levelled the ridiculous accusation that people campaigning against the deportation of Mehdi Kazemi are “the pink contingent of imperialism” – even though the protests are against our own government.

The controversy started on 13 March on Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff chat show, where Galloway said that the papers’ coverage of Mehdi’s story amounted to “demonisation of Iran”, even though Mehdi is himself Iranian. What Galloway did not like was the criticism of the Iranian regime.

Denying that you can be executed for being gay in Iran (thousands of dead suggest otherwise), Galloway claimed that Mehdi Kazemi’s boyfriend was executed for “sex crimes against young men”. Not even the Iranian government has made this claim, but the contortions of Galloway’s rhetoric do not have much time for little matters such as fact or evidence. By all accounts, the “sex crime” in question was “sodomy”, a term Galloway himself used on his Talksport radio show to describe homosexuality.

After an outcry and an angry statement in the papers by gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Galloway made another appearance on Channel 5 – only to dig himself even deeper. Accusing Tatchell of being a “pink” cover for imperialism (which is both untrue and deeply homophobic), Galloway said that it was pointless to criticise homophobic laws in Iran since there is homophobia everywhere, from Tehran to Tunbridge Wells. At a meeting at SOAS, he reiterated the point, claiming that people who criticise the Iranian regime’s homophobia do not seem concerned by anti-LGBT discrimination elsewhere, such as in US ally Saudi Arabia.

Not only is his allegation totally untrue, but we can also note that Galloway himself does not protest against homophobia anywhere else. For example, there was a demo at the Saudi Embassy when the Saudi king visited Britain in winter, but Galloway did not attend. In fact, the Respect manifesto has in the past always omitted reference to LGBT rights, which neatly complements Galloway’s homophobic remarks on his radio show.

Galloway’s position, at its most ‘rational’, appears to be that we should defend the Iranian government absolutely, because it is under threat of war and sanctions, which would make everything worse in Iran by far. Of course, it is true that any sort of western or Israeli attack on Iran would be an absolute disaster for the people who live there, and indeed that sabre-rattling against Iran will invariably strengthen nationalism in that country and allow President Ahmedinejad to posture as “anti-imperialist”, buttressing his regime. We are opposed to all sanctions, bombing “raids” or war.


However, it does not follow that we should whitewash the Iranian regime, which in the here and now is meting out death and destruction against its own people. The anti-war movement will not deserve a hearing if it does not tell the truth, and clearly Galloway cannot have it both ways – he is claiming both that opponents of Mehdi Kazemi’s deportation are just a left cover used by British imperialism, but also that we are wrong to protest against the British government for threatening to deport him!

Furthermore, the left will be failing (and currently is failing) in its solidarity effort with Iranians if it does not also support them in their struggle against the theocracy. Practical solidarity with workers’, women’s, student and - to the extent that they can exist even underground - LGBT organisations in Iran is an extremely important task for socialists at this time of great struggle inside Iran..

Of course, Galloway is not really a socialist. Never on the left of the Labour Party when a member, he displays no interest in workers’ struggle and social movements, but instead places his sole political focus on apologetics for various third world regimes which take his fancy, including Iran, Syria and Cuba. As I was keen to point out to him when he spoke at SOAS, he is a Stalinist and a homophobe who has nothing to do with the kind of left we need. We need a working-class set of politics which takes up liberation issues and democratic questions, not support for this or that Islamist regime which spouts rhetoric against US imperialism.

Solidarity and "troops out now"

Among other issues the upcoming Alliance for Workers' Liberty conference will debate our position on Iraq and Iran. This piece is intended to contribute to that discussion and explain some of the views of minority comrades.

Within our organisation there is a substantial minority grouping critical of the leadership's attitude to the occupation of Iraq. We argue that the only principled line on the conflict, and only chance to build independent working-class forces, is to stand sharply opposed to US-UK intervention in the region as well as Islamism. In contrast, the majority argue that we should acquiesce to the occupation of Iraq, since if we demanded that the troops leave and they did, Islamist militias would win out and crush democratic space in Iraq.

All of our comrades say they are for solidarity with Iraqi workers, and the debate is normally posed in terms of what slogans we should add to this position - demands like "troops out now", "troops out" or just a general sentiment "against the occupation". But is apparent that there is more to the disagreement than superficial differences in wording. The real divide is between those who believe that US 'globocop' actions are progressive but that socialists shouldn't "give them any credit in advance", and those who think that this misses the point of how to build an independent "third camp" of working-class forces which can stand on its own two feet.

My own differences with Martin Thomas's conference document for the majority are only partly about analysis of what is going on in Iraq. While I have stressed the idea that the Mahdi Army - backed by the Iranian regime - and sectarian militias are increasingly integrated into the occupation government already, and deny that the imperialist troops protect Iraqi workers (the Iraqi government's Decree 8750 renders unions semi-illegal and gives it the right to confiscate all of their funds; the US Army have attacked trade union offices; while all of the British troops are safely ensconced near Basra airport, since Brown is too embarrassed to remove them even though Moqtada al-Sadr already controls the streets), Martin focuses on what would happen if the troops left. I do not deny his assertion that if all the troops magically "disappeared" and the Iraqi government collapsed, the consequence would just be the victory of the best-armed militias. I do not say “troops out now” because I want that to happen. But nor can I accept Martin's terms of argument.

In his only reference to the idea that we should call for "troops out now" he writes,

"...if "troops out now" were somehow to happen, the result would almost certainly be full-scale war between different sectarian clerical fascist militias and then the destruction of the labour movement; the chopping-up of the country; the probable liquidation of any chances of Iraqi (or Arab-Iraqi) national self determination; and the destruction of any elements of democracy (free press, etc.)
"Solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement against both the US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias remains the indicated policy for socialists internationally. We reject negative slogans like "troops out now" which the actual balance of forces would fill with a reactionary political content".

This kind of schematic logic is no good. Marxists understand that social forces and classes do not exist in the abstract, isolated from one another, but instead that they are in struggle, and the subjective factor of political struggle can change the "balance of forces", which is neither fixed nor controlled by some ethereal hand of history. Martin's reference to "if "troops out now" were somehow to happen" makes no sense - in reality slogans do not mysteriously "happen" out of the blue, but are demands raised and fought for by real people. What interests us here is the slogans of the international workers' movement, the forces to which we are aligned and hope to influence.

Our politics, our programme and the slogans which crystallise them are agitational, designed to organise the working-class as well as forces such as women's, LGBT and student movements for struggle. If the workers' movement raised the demand "troops out now", it would not be some magic wand to make the troops "disappear", but a basis for the working class to organise in sharp hostility to US-UK imperialism as well as confronting Islamists and Iranian regional imperialism intervening in Iraq. As Sean Matgamna has written,

"One makes all kinds of educational agitation and propaganda demands, despite knowing that they will not be implemented immediately or precisely. Agitation, the spotlight of the steady beam of propaganda, is seen as preparing the way. The implementation of the demand presupposes a whole series of changes, which the raising of the demand will help to bring about. As strength is built up it becomes possible to act, to plan.”

“Troops out now" is not merely a radical posture. Clearly, we do not raise the slogan because we are comfortable in the belief that we are so weak that the demand will never be realised and so it doesn't matter what we say. Yet we also know that if we ever did organise enough workers around our demands to force the troops out, then the balance of forces would have changed and so the consequences of withdrawal would be different to the troops just "disappearing" tomorrow.

The problem with "troops out", i.e. missing out the word "now", is that in the context of the world we live in it would be seen to deliberately avoid saying "now" and give free rein for the troops to stay indefinitely. This looks like a variant of the majority view that we should accept the presence of troops until the trade unions do not need their protection. But the whole point is that the workers' movement will never grow to be in that position if it takes sides with the occupiers. While we may approve of some democratic side effects of the occupation, "refusing to grant it political support" at the same time as you go round telling people that you also "refuse to demand that the troops leave" is tonally and operationally nothing other than fostering illusions in the democratic credentials of the occupiers.

In the case of the majority, this is worsened by clumsy formulations which, for all of the qualifications and equivocation which surround them, imply taking sides with US imperialism. Martin, whose conference motion presented to National Committee on 1 March avoided any reference to sanctions and the threat of "surgical" air strikes in Iran, had written in October that although plans for war against Iran were "crazy", it was possible to imagine that "if it were possible to imagine some "surgical" operation that would stop Iran's hideous regime acquiring nuclear weapons, and take out the foul Ahmedinejad, it would be good", which is precisely the wrong argument to be making at a time when US threats strengthen the hand of the Iranian regime against our comrades, since it is able to appeal to nationalism and portray itself as "anti-imperialist".

The same goes for the argument that we should not call ourselves "anti-imperialist" since clerical reactionaries have adopted the label too. Firstly, if everyone followed the AWL's majority line, the result would be to buttress sectarian Islamist militias by allowing them to present themselves as the consistent opponents of the US Army, and by saying nothing about the need for Iraqi-Arab self determination we would concede an enormous amount of political territory to Islamists who claim that self determination should mean a patchwork of statelets run by clerical fascist mafias. And secondly, just because the words have been dragged through the mud is not a reason to abandon our politics - why should we not also dispense with the word "socialism", which for most people means something between Harold Wilson and Joseph Stalin?

The question of working-class agency is of vital importance for the minority. Articles by comrades such as Daniel Randall and myself have stressed the need for a working-class anti-war movement demonstrating that only the workers' movement - and not Iranian regional imperialism and Moqtada al-Sadr - can fight for both democratic rights (including national self-determination) and social liberation. Rather than imagining that occupying troops will protect the working-class, we should be calling for the arming of the workers and supporting efforts at community self-defense.

Also important here is working-class action at home - while actions such as those of the Motherwell train crew and the Italian dockers who refused to transport weapons for use in Iraq are occasional and receive little coverage in the Guardian, we must vocally propagandise about them as a means to undermine the war effort, and argue that they are necessarily the same struggle as oil workers in Iraq who strike against the looting of the country's oil by Halliburton. While in the lead-up to conference the majority have co-opted some of that point into their position, it does not sit well - if you think the occupiers' democratic war effort is the only hope for the Iraqi trade unions, how can you also be in favour of attempts to sabotage the troops carrying out that mission?

To refuse to call for the withdrawal of troops is to refuse to pose yourself sharply against the occupation, and so weakens efforts to organise anti-war workers' action. The majority's position reflects an unwillingness to take on this important question and acquiesces to US imperialism as a guarantor of democracy for a supposedly eternally weak working class. In contrast, the minority argue that we must struggle for a strong and independent third camp, with the international left and workers' movement organising around the slogans "Solidarity with Iraqi workers against the occupation and Islamism. Troops out now".

World Against War rally

Hezbollah were among the organisations represented at the 'World Against War' rally in Friends' Meeting House, London on 25 February, with the Stop the War Coalition seeing fit to give a platform to the clerical fascist Lebanese militia. Reflecting the StWC's eclecticism, this utter reactionary was speaking alongside Tony Benn, who gave his usual upper-class liberal speech about why the United Nations should be stronger and why we should learn from the Bible's lessons of contrition.

Introduced by Communist Party of Britain commissar Andrew Murray to rapturous applause from the 250-strong audience, the Hezbollah speaker Ibrahim Mousawi shied away from the Shia-supremacist, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-trade union rhetoric which his organisation peddles in the shanty towns of Beirut. Instead, he told us that Hezbollah are oh-so reasonable - "why do the Americans ignore the real terrorists at the expense of us, the bridge-builders?". Hezbollah are not led by a bunch of gangsters, but "engineers, lecturers and people from all walks of life".

Indeed, Hezbollah are fully willing to arrange a lash-up with the rest of the Lebanese ruling class, for example the pro-Western parties behind Prime Minister Siniora, to resolve the political crisis which has seen the country without a president for three months. Mousawi said that all Hezbollah want is to be able to veto anything the government tries to do - isn't that reasonable? Along with this, Hezbollah are strong proponents of Lebanon's sectarian political order, whereby seats in parliament are distributed according to religious group and politics is staged at the level of horse-trading between the leaders of competing faith and ethnic communities.

Crashing full frontal into Bond villain-esque self-parody with his long leather coat and black shirt, Mousawi - editor of a Hezbollah newspaper and former manager of a TV station which put out soap operas about the Jewish World Conspiracy - claimed that the problem in his country was the lack of a strong government, and argued that since the Lebanese government cannot be relied on to keep order and stand up to the Israelis, Hezbollah have every right to arm themselves and patrol the streets. At pains to deny that he hated the Jews (the western Trots don't really like that kind of thing, but it's fine for Lebanese TV), he appealed to "a man's right to protect his family" from Zionism.

The other speeches were rather less spicy. Lindsey German, the Socialist Workers' Party candidate for the London mayoral election, gave a dull talk about the hypocrisy of the British establishment and echoed much of Benn's liberal sentiment. For example, she talked at length about the "dodgy dossier" used by Tony Blair to make the case for war, and why he should be "taken to a war crimes trial in the Hague". But who does she think polices "international law"? Last time I checked, the United Nations was a cartel run by the imperialist powers victorious in World War II. Making no reference to socialism or workers in the Middle East, she did however attempt a 'radical' pitch - "Those who support the right of Hezbollah and Hamas to fight back are characterised as extremists. If opposing the government is extremist, then we're all extremists".

The only person on the platform whose views were worthy of respect was Hassan Jumaa, leader of the militant Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions which has waged several strikes against privatisation and looting of Iraq's major resource, demonstrating the potential of the working-class movement despite nightmarish circumstances. Although the union is non-sectarian and organises all oil workers, Juma'a is influenced by the soft-Islamist Shi'ite Fadila group, and so said little about the workers' movement's opposition to clerical reaction in Iraq.

Instead, he focused on the question of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the destruction the US and UK have unleashed. He commented that "the Iraqi workers will win victory for the oppressed Iraqi people" - given that the American mission's success is reliant on stable control of Iraqi resources, strikes represent a significant challenge for the occupiers. Indeed, Jumaa's attitude to the troops was stark, "you should not be taken in by those who say that the withdrawal of troops will bring death and destruction. The longer they, the source of death, stay, the worse it will get", and said that at the last two May Days the union had raised a call for the troops to leave Iraq. Without doubt, this was an optimistic characterisation of events, but Jumaa's understanding of the situation is certainly worthy of our attention.

Unfortunately, the audience was not allowed to ask any questions or make any comments, so we could not find out more about Jumaa's support for political Islam or how workers organise against the home-grown bourgeoisie. After all, in the eyes of the Stop the War Coalition and its SWP and Stalinist leadership, letting activists talk to the leading trade unionist in Iraq is not as exciting as giving a platform for a fascist to rant in defence of Hezbollah. It seems that for these "socialists", the workers' movement is just one part of the cross-class spectrum of "The Movement", and so giving a token ten minutes to someone like Hassan Jumaa is sufficient to cover their left flank.

Capitalism and War

Yesterday I attended a Socialist Worker Student Society meeting at King's College London, with Alex Callinicos speaking on 'Capitalism and War'.

Callincos's lead off, arguing that the logic of capitalism inevitably leads to wars, was extremely bland, and furthermore failed to explain why war is inherent to capitalism. Instead, he simply gave various examples of the argument that 'big capitalist powers have a record of launching wars, ergo capitalism means war'.

Unsurprisingly, the result of this argument-by-correlation was that many confused members of the audience asked questions along the lines of "surely it's not just capitalism that causes war, but also religion and national conflicts" while others said that war had always existed. Since Callinicos had neither said that war is the logical product of class societies, nor argued that other oppressive ideas such as nationalism and religious chauvinism are rooted in class exploitation, he was forced to backtrack by these in fact rather facile questions and start again from scratch. Bizarrely, he angrily tore into one student who had said that there had always been conflicts, telling him "you should think twice about coming to a meeting and saying that before you've studied it".

This was pathetic, as was his speech about how for the majority of human history people had lived in egalitarian "primitive communist" societies where there was no war and all lived happily, and then extrapolated from this that "class is in fact a marginal factor in human history". Of course, even though it is true that class societies have existed for only fifteen thousand years or so, the large majority of humans in history have lived in class society, and "primitive communism" is certainly not what we are fighting for. In any case, it was silly of Callinicos to get drawn into such sophistry rather than try and talk about how class impacts other factors as well as class's relationship with imperialism.

Indeed, I posed the question of how it was possible to fight against imperialism on the level of supporting the ruling class of Iran against the United States (and its own working class), given that it is far from anti-capitalist. Its relationship with imperialism is contradictory - much as Iran faces sanctions and threats, its regime is willing to implement IMF reforms and support the occupation of Iraq in the hope of grabbing its slice of the pie. Disingenuously I also asked if he could 'expand' on the issue workers', women's and student's struggles in Iran, which he had neglected to mention.

Callinicos in fact has no perspective whatsoever for working-class opposition to imperialism, as he demonstrated when he responded (at the second time of asking), telling me that while he supports "petitions for democracy" in Iran, the fact that the Iranian government is not consistently anti-imperialist is no reason for the USA to invade it (!) Interrupting, I repeated my question about whether Callinicos supports strikes in Iran and the imprisoned students, but he again ignored the question - clearly, for him "petitions for democracy" and supporting "reformists" within the elite is sufficient.

Therefore, we had a meeting on 'Capitalism and War' where the SWP speaker said that war was the result of capitalism - yet then told his audience that rather than opposing capitalism or supporting working class struggle, we should simply devote our efforts into Grand Old Duke of York demo-building in "solidarity" with the rulers of Iran.

Fidel Castro on Czechoslovakia in 1968

Two speeches by Fidel Castro on August 23rd and 24th 1968, attacking the "counter-revolutionary" anti-Stalinist movement in Czechoslovakia and supporting the USSR's invasion. To the dismay of the "Mandelite" Fourth International, which to this day venerates Che Guevara (who died in 1967), the Cuban regime put itself firmly in the camp of Russian imperialism fighting to crush the organs of democratic working-class power that had emerged in Czechoslovakia.

August 23, 1968 - Excerpts from Cuban Premier Castro's speech in defense of Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia are given below. In his speech, Premier Castro criticized the Soviet leadership for not giving more aid to defeat the counter-revolution - in other countries as well as Czechoslovakia. But he did not, as some social democrats contend, give merely "critical support" to the action of the Red Armies.

Right here, I wish to make the first important affirmation: we considered that Czechoslovakia was moving toward a counter-revolutionary situation. Toward capitalism and into the arms of imperialism.

So this defines our first position in relation to the specific fact of the action taken by a group of socialist countries. That is, we consider that it was absolutely necessary, at all cost, in one way or another, to prevent this eventuality from taking place. ...

Discussion of the form is not, in the final analysis, the most fundamental factor. The essential point to be accepted, or not accepted, is whether or not the socialist camp could allow a political situation to develop which would lead to the breaking away of a socialist country, to its falling into the arms of imperialism. And our point of view is that it is not permissible and that the socialist camp has a right to prevent this in one way or another. I would like to begin by making it clear that we look upon this fact as an essential one. ...

A real liberal fury was unleashed; a whole series of political slogans in favor of the formation of opposition parties began to develop, in favor of open anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist theses, such as the thesis that the Party should cease to play the role which the Party plays within socialist society and begin to play the role there of a guide, supervising some things but, above all, exerting a sort of spiritual leadership. In short, that the reins of power should cease to be in the hands of the Communist Party.

The revision of certain fundamental postulates to the effect that a socialist regime is a transition regime from socialism to communism, a governmental form known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. This means a government where power is wielded in behalf of one class and against the former exploiting classes by virtue of which in a revolutionary process political rights, the right to carry on political activities -- whose objective is precisely to struggle against the essence and the raison d'etre of socialism - cannot be granted to the former exploiters.

A series of slogans began to be put forward and in fact certain measures were taken such as the establishment of the bourgeois "freedom" of the press. This means that the counter-revolution and the exploiters, the very enemies of socialism, were granted the right to speak and write freely against socialism.

As a matter of fact, a process of seizure of the principal information media by the reactionary elements began to develop. As regards foreign policy, a whole series of slogans of open rapprochement toward capitalist concepts and theses and of rapprochement towards the West appeared...

On many occasions the imperialists have publicly stated what their policy is in relation to the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. And in Congress, in the press, they always talk about encouraging the liberal tendencies and even about promoting, of making available, some selective economic aid and of using every means of contributing to creating an opposition to socialism there. The imperialists are carrying out a campaign, not only in Czechoslovakia, but in all the countries of Eastern Europe, even in the Soviet Union.

Opinion on Intervention
August 24, 1968

I wish to quickly make the first important statement that we considered
Czechoslovakia to be heading toward a counterrevolutionary situation,
toward capitalism and into the arms of imperialism. This is the operative
concept in our first position toward the specific fact of the action taken
by a group of socialist countries. That is, we consider that it was
unavoidable to prevent this from happening - at any cost, in one way or
another.

Of course, let us not become impatient, because we propose to analyze this
in line with our ideas. Discussing the form is not really the most
fundamental thing. The essential thing, whether we accept it or not, is
whether the socialist bloc could permit the development of a political
situation which lead to the breakdown of a socialist country and its fall
into the arms of imperialism. From our viewpoint, it is not permissible and
the socialist bloc has the right to prevent it in one way or another.

We first wish to begin by establishing what our opinion is about this
essential matter. Now, it is not enough to explain simply that
Czechoslovakia was heading toward a counterevolutionary situation and that
it had to be stopped. It is not enough to conclude simply that the only
alternative was to prevent it and nothing more. We must analyze the causes
and determine the factors which made possible and necessary such a
dramatic, drastic, and painful remedy. What are the factors which required
a step unquestionably involving a violation of legal principles and of
international standards, which have often served as shields for peoples
against injustices and are so highly regarded in the world?

What is not appropriate here is to say that the sovereignty of the
Czechoslovak state was not violated. That would be fiction and a lie. The
violation was flagrant, and on this we are going to talk about the effect
on sovereignty, and on legal and political principles. From the legal
viewpoint, it cannot be justified. This is quite clear. In our judgment,
the decision on Czechoslovakia can be explained only from the political
viewpoint and not from a legal viewpoint. Frankly, it has absolutely no
legality.

What are the circumstances that have permitted a remedy of this nature, a
remedy which places in a difficult situation the entire world revolutionary
movement, a remedy which constitutes a really traumatic situation for an
entire people - as is the present case in Czechoslovakia - a remedy which
implies that an entire nation has to pass through the most unpleasant
circumstances of seeing the country occupied by armies of other countries,
although they are armies of the socialist countries. A situation in which
millions of beings of a country have to see themselves today in the tragic
circumstance of electing and choosing either to be passive toward these
circumstances and this event--which so much brings to mind previous
episodes - or to struggle in comradeship with pro-Yankee agents and spies,
the enemies of socialism, the agents of West Germany, and all that fascist
and reactionary rabble that in the heat of these circumstances will try to
present itself as champions of the sovereignty, patriotism, and freedom of
Czechoslovakia?

Logically, for the Czechoslovak people this experience and this fact
constitute a better and tragic situation. Therefore, it is not enough
simply to conclude that it has arisen as an inexorable necessity and even,
if you wish, as an unquestionable obligation of the socialist countries to
prevent such events from happening. [One must inquire] what are the cases,
the factors, and the circumstances that brought forth - after 20 years of
communism in Czechoslovakia - a group of persons whose names do not even
appear anywhere, and this petition directed to other countries of the
socialist camp, asking them to send their armies to prevent the triumph of
the counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia and the triumph of the intrigues
and conspiracies of the imperialist countries interested in breaking
Czechoslovakia from the community of socialist countries?

Could it be imagined, gentlemen, that at the end of 20 years of communism
in our country - of communist revolution, of socialist revolution--that
under any circumstances it could happen that a group of honest
revolutionaries in this country, terrified at the prospects of an advance
or, better said, of a retrogression toward counterrevolutionary positions
and imperialism, would see the need of asking the aid of friendly armies to
prevent such a situation from occurring?

What would have remained of the communist consciousness of this people?
What would have remained of the revolutionary consciousness of this people,
of the dignity of this people, of the revolutionary morale of this people?
What would have remained of all those things that mean for us essentially
the revolution if such circumstances should one day arise?

But no circumstances of that kind will ever occur in our country. First,
because we believe that it is a duty and fundamental responsibility of
those who direct a revolution to prevent deformations of such a nature that
might make possible such circumstances. Secondly, gentlemen, for an
unquestionably practical reason and not only a moral elemental reason,
because we could ask if it would be worth the trouble if, after 20 years,
to survive a revolution one had to resort to such procedures. And also, for
a very simple practical reason: who would false personalities of this
country ask to send armies? The only armies that we have in our vicinity
are the Yankee army and the armies of the puppets allied with the Yankee
imperialists, the because we are too alone in this part of the world for
there ever to exist the most remote possibility of saving this revolution
by asking aid of allied armies.

And it must be said that I do not know anyone capable of having enough
shame to do such a thing if they had the need and opportunity to do it,
because what kind of communists would we be and what kind of communist
revolution would this be if at the end of 20 years we found ourselves
having to do such a thing to save it?

Always, when we have thought about foreign aid, we have never had the idea
of foreign aid to fight against the imperialist soldiers and against the
imperialist armies. I simply analyze these facts because I know that,
legally, our people are concerned with an explanation of these concepts.
Such things are not in our idea of the revolution.

I do not think that a person can justify the appeal of high-ranking
persons, because the justification can only be the political fact in
itself - that Czechoslovakia was marching toward a counterrevolutionary
situation and this was seriously affecting the entire socialist community.
And besides, there is no lack of figleaves of any kind. It is the political
fact in itself, with all its consequences and all its importance. As we
were saying, recognizing that and nothing else is simply enough.

Or if it is obligatory, it is elementary to draw from this most bitter
experience all the political conclusions. And as it is possible, we repeat:
In these circumstances, an analysis must be made of all the factors. For
the communist movement, there is the unavoidable duty of investigating
deeply the causes leading to such a situation, a situation inconceivable
for us, the Cuban revolutionaries. If such action is impossible for us
Cuban revolutionaries - we who saw the necessity for carrying out this
revolution 90 miles from imperialism - we also know that we cannot fall into
these circumstances because it would mean the very end of the revolution
and falling into the worst situation, provoked by our enemies,
full of hatred. But this is not the reason for making or trying to make
this profound analysis.

Working class internationalism and the Middle East

The left devotes much of its efforts to campaigning against imperialism, which is no surprise given the present foreign policy of the American and British governments. However, in order to effectively combat imperialism and war, it is necessary that we understand what ‘anti-imperialism’ means, who is anti-imperialist, and what relationship that has with working-class politics.

Unfortunately, the dominant conception of ‘anti-imperialism’ on the British left today, as schooled to thousands of young new activists by organisations such as the Socialist Workers’ Party, is wholly inadequate. As I shall explain, rather than taking imperialism on at a structural level, i.e. by understanding it as the logic of modern capitalism, the SWP along with orthodox Trotskyist and Stalinist groups take an anti-war stance entirely abstract from any analysis of class relations or democratic rights such as self determination. For this reason, they take the position that any opponent or competitor of the largest imperialist power – the United States – is therefore ‘anti-imperialist’ and therefore worthy of support.

In order to sustain this illusion, they exaggerate or falsify the progressive characteristics of the forces they support. For example, they claim that that Iran is the most democratic country in the Middle East, and wax lyrical about the welfare programmes and "women's participation" in Hamas. At Stop the War conference these ‘anti-imperialists’ entertained Somaye Zadeh, who lied outrageously to play down the human rights abuses of the Tehran regime. In the NUS left unity discussions the SWP were unwilling to raise slogans to support workers in Iran but happy to make vague gestures of support for "democratic forces". Claiming that the existence of pro-reform elements within the elite is itself evidence that Iran is democratic, they look to sections of the Iranian bourgeoisie to effect change rather than encouraging the working class to overthrow it.

They seem to want to see this decade as the 1960s in slow motion, with Hamas substituting for the Vietcong and the Iranian government for Cuba. Indeed, so progressive do they deem these ‘anti-imperialist’ friends in the Middle East that they see fit to deny the existence of a working-class movement opposed to both imperialism and political Islam. But this attitude is not just a betrayal of our comrades in the Middle East, who so badly need solidarity from the international labour movement – it is also a completely wrong-headed understanding of what forces are able to challenge imperialism.

Of course, helped by the sabre-rattling of George Bush and Western sanctions, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is plenty able to speechify with anti-imperialist rhetoric - and yet not only did the Iranian regime ban demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq, but it supported the invasion, and furthermore supports the occupation of Afghanistan. Ahmedinejad has willingly introduced all sorts of IMF plans to liberalise the Iranian economy and at the same time has clamped down on trade unions, with long periods in jail for activists in the militant bus workers’ union. Similarly, parties in Iraq like Dawa, SCIRI and even the forces led by Moqtada al-Sadr, which all call for the immediate withdrawal of troops, are not even sufficiently ‘anti-imperialist’ as to refuse to participate in the occupation government. Hezbollah are Shia sectarians and radical Islamists, but their row with Prime Minister Siniora in fact has the aim of grabbing a few posts in a coalition government. On the other side of the conflict, the Americans have their own Islamist allies and militias in Iraq, and, indeed, as in the past with Saddam Hussein, are perfectly willing to deal with any local despot.

While all the organisations I have mentioned have at times been in direct conflict with US imperialism, and their relations with the US bourgeoisie are complex, they are far from consistently anti-imperialist. They are little but sections of the ruling class looking to grab a slice of the action, yet the Socialist Workers’ Party characterises them as relatively progressive since they are not the ‘main’ enemy. A logical extension of the same idea, as employed by Socialist Action and the CPGB (Marxist-Leninist), is that the Chinese government is (or “remains”) ‘anti-imperialist’ since it is in competition with the USA, or liberal support for the European Union as some sort of counterweight to George Bush.

What is missing from all of these ideas is any notion of class, with barely even the suggestion that imperialism is premised on a set of class relations. The Middle Eastern labour movement, which is mostly relatively weak, obviously disappoints these people. We can see the same mistake being made by such people as Nick Cohen, the Euston Manifesto group and ex-Marxists like Norman Geras who, thinking that the working-class is dead after the fall of the Soviet bureaucracy, support “humanitarian” interventions or imperialist missions to spread democracy, with the US Army staging a Bonaparte-like fight to spread the French Revolution by the sword. They deprive words like ‘democracy’ (and they even speak of ‘workers’ rights’) of any meaningful content, substituting liberation-from-above by imperialist powers for the idea that people should take control over their own lives. Operationally, these people are not left-wing in any real sense, since they have no understanding of agency other than that US troops can be an effective force for ‘change’.

For those who have stuck by Marxism, the recent conflicts in the Middle East have just offered further bloody proof of the absolute impossibility of imperialism serving the cause of democracy. We stick unfailingly by the idea that it is the working class which fights for social liberation, and even if it is weak in the here and now we must seek to build its organisations, not rely on some two-bit democrat in a smart suit or a general’s epaulettes.

The stance of the majority group in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, whose ideas are explicitly based on the “third camp” of the working class, is not the same as Cohen and his ilk. Engaging in real solidarity work with comrades in the Middle East, the AWL’s refusal to call for the occupying troops to leave Iraq is predicated on the understanding that their withdrawal would destroy the Iraqi labour movement, since if Islamists came to power they would not tolerate trade unions, or indeed women’s or LGBT organisations. If you believe the AWL majority, the call for “troops out now” is counterposed to defence of the Iraqi workers’ movement.

However, this understanding of events, along with the AWL’s positions on Iran and Palestine, belies some of the same problems as both the SWP and their allies and the Eustonites. The question of class independence is not always in the forefront of their minds. In practice, pessimistic about the prospects for the working class to stand up for itself, the AWL acquiesces to imperialist involvement in the region in the here and now the belief that it will be able to hold Islamism at bay and so create breathing space for the workers’ movement to grow. Of course, we are always living in the “here and now”, while the question of how and why the Iraqi left and trade unions are meant to grow in the “meantime” before the troops leave is barely considered.

Yet it is apparent that the occupation is not a bulwark against Islamism – as I have said, there are numerous Islamist parties and associated militias in the seat of power under the occupation, while most trade union activity is illegal. The imperialist occupiers would far rather make backroom deals to put the Islamists in charge than devote their time to defending workers’ organisations from the likes of Moqtada al-Sadr and his forces.

Furthermore, it is quite clear that if the workers’ movement fails to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops, it will help Islamist groups foster illusions in their own ‘anti-imperialist’ character and abstain from having anything to say about the question of Iraqi self-determination, which should hardly be left for Shia or Sunni supremacists to carve up. If the labour movement did reach the position where it could force the realisation of the slogan “troops out now”, then clearly the balance of forces would shift in favour of working-class internationalism and against clerical fascist reaction.

But not only does the AWL refuse to call for “troops out of Iraq now” in the understanding that the workers’ movement will be crushed if they are withdrawn, but it supports the US-EU-backed Fatah to stave off Hamas and has even taken a soft stance on US aggression against Iran. In Solidarity Mark Osborn has played down the idea that Palestinian workers could act independently of Fatah, “under Fatah there is some freedom for a third camp to develop; under Hamas there is none. David doesn’t like the choice, Fatah or Hamas. I don’t like it much myself. But during the fighting in Gaza that’s what it came down to”, while Martin Thomas made the hypothesis “if it were possible to imagine some ‘surgical’ operation that would stop Iran’s hideous regime acquiring nuclear weapons, and take out the foul Ahmadinejad, it would be good”, as if it were even vaguely plausible that such an eventuality could a) not kill thousands of people b) not strengthen the hand of the regime to crush internal dissent and c) replace the Ahmedinejad government with anything better. This is not a consistent third camp position, but one which veers towards support for non-working class forces who happen to use the right catchphrases about “democracy”, “two states” and so on.

I refute the suggestion that we must prioritise opposing the occupation of Iraq or war and sanctions against Iran over direct solidarity with workers, women and students in those countries, or indeed vice-versa. This idea concedes an awful lot of ground to the Stalinist worldview which sees all Middle Eastern workers with democratic or secular goals as ‘objective’ allies of imperialism, and claiming that any talk of democracy is siding with George Bush, seeks to set a dividing line between anti-war and workers’ solidarity efforts. Equally, I do not accept that we should "prioritise" either opposition to imperialism or opposition to Islamists over the other - we shouldn't be allying with either.

Far from being counterposed, these two fronts of struggle are inextricably linked. Workers' action to undermine our armed forces and strikes against the war are vital in showing the power of the working class to stand on its own two feet as a force which can intervene in the "war on terror" conflict. "Troops out now" is not a magic wand to make the troops disappear, but a slogan for the working class to organise around, to try and force the realisation of that demand itself. I support the slogan not because it is unrealisable, so it doesn't matter what the consequences would be if it played out, but precisely because if it is workers in the US and UK or workers in Iraq whose efforts force the troops out, then the balance of forces will turn in favour of the workers' movement.

Even if they do not receive prominent coverage in the international pages of the bourgeois media, actions like those of the train crew in Scotland or dockers in the United States who refused to move weapons are inextricably linked to the strikes of oil workers in Basra, and must be both encouraged and advertised. Rather than writing articles about geopolitical developments which we cannot influence with analyses cropped from the comment pages of the Guardian, our primary task is to talk about what the workers' movement can achieve through its own struggles

This idea of working-class internationalism does not just mean trade union conferences passing resolutions about the war, or bureaucrats in suits speechifying about the need to give a bit of money to the Stop the War Coalition, but practical solidarity action with our comrades abroad, critical engagement with the ideas of the Middle Eastern left (including encouraging exile communities to assimilate into the local left) and propaganda which sharply poses the question of how workers in countries like Britain can fight in common with their counterparts abroad.

The defining characteristic of most of the far left’s stance on imperialism is a profound retreat from class, looking to any number of reactionaries and local bourgeoisies to resist the influence of the US hyperpower. Of course, it is true that despite large strikes in the Iraqi oil fields and Egyptian textile factories, the Middle Eastern working class is far from being in a position to defeat imperialism and Islamism. But that does not mean that we can loosen our grip on the Marxist understanding of class independence – the growth of our forces, which currently appear weak, is the only hope we have for democracy and peace in the Middle East, and – worldwide - we must strive unerringly to develop workers’ understanding of their independent agency. The AWL does have a much stronger class focus than other left groups, yet has still failed to develop a real understanding of working-class internationalism and what exactly constitutes an anti-imperialist workers’ movement.

Solidarity with Iraqi workers!
Troops out now!