• author: Clive B.

Date : Dec 3, 2003 2:12 pm

I posted this earlier in the week, and of course it could well be that nobody found it interesting enough to respond to, which would be fair enough. On the off-chance that it got lost and unnoticed (dropping quickly to page 2 of the forum), and at the risk of egotism, I'm posting it again. I hope the formatting works.

I’m giving it another go, because there are some interesting ideas being discussed on this site. I will be brief, so necessarily I will telescope some thoughts. I would appeal to Albert, or whoever else might feel inclined to respond, not to do so simply with philistine abuse or extrapolations based entirely on these few remarks.

A few points only for now on the idea that the US administration is leading, or promoting, or aiming to do so, bourgeois democratic revolution across the world, and in the first place the Middle East, which is what I understand the argument which Albert is putting to be. It's an interesting idea, but I disagree with it. I think it is an interesting idea, but I don't agree with it.

It is important to distinguish between an outcome which is democratic, or a general aim which is to achieve that outcome, and what, I think, could properly be called a revolutionary-democratic programme. It is possible that current US policy could lead to the establishment of bourgeois democratic regimes across the Middle East, and solve, in some way, the Israel-Palestine problem. As a (very) rough analogy, US (etc) occupation of Europe and Japan after 1945 resulted in stable, and economically prosperous, bourgeois democracies. Many revolutionaries at the time could not imagine anything other than dictatorships, and they were wrong.

However, even if you assume that this is the aim of the Bush administration; and even if you assume that they will set aside other, more immediate concerns in order to achieve it, it does not follow that the forces they will ally with, promote, etc, are revolutionary, or even democratic. A policy of bourgeois-democratic revolution, I think, if it could meaningfully be called such, would not only have bourgeois democracy as a programmatic aim, but would be revolutionary on the ground – promote radical, democratic forces on the ground. As a test case, Iraq reveals the limits of seeing events in these terms. Even if US occupation ultimately leads to a stable bourgeois democracy in Iraq, the forces on which the US must rest in order to pursue its policy are not revolutionary, and not democratic, either. The IGC consists of ethnic and religious politicians, ex-Ba’thists, swindlers, Stalinists, etc. (with very little popular support or legitimacy). What is now being proposed to move beyond the IGC is a parliament of tribal elders and others. Revolutionary democracy in Iraq – I am speaking, obviously in broad brush terms – would, I think, necessarily be sharply opposed to these instruments of US policy (even if it did not make ‘end the occupation’ an immediate agitational question). The most democratic demands – constituent assembly, forms of local democracy; also questions like trade union and other workers’ rights, and so on – are counterposed to the actual, practical reality of US policy. I can’t imagine what any kind of support for the US would mean if it did not also include some kind of support for the IGC.

In any case, that US policy leads in fact to bourgeois democracy in Iraq is the most optimistic possible projection. So far, it is running into severe difficulties, and it is not at all certain that it can simply overcome them. (Certainly, overcoming them, ie crushing the so-called resistance, might entail them being more colonialistic, more repressive, and entrenching the most undemocratic aspects of occupation, etc). Or they might settle for a stable indigenous regime which protects their interests, but it is very far from democratic – which, after all, is what they have generally done in the past. It is one thing for the American ruling class to decide, in principle, that it would rather the world enjoyed the benefits of US-style democracy, another to pursue that policy in the face of alternative, easier and more workable choices.

Because whatever the advantages to the US ruling class of such a policy, it remains – well, the US ruling class. The US occupation in Iraq, at least to some significant degree, represents and defends the interests of the Halliburtons, etc: that is, of powerful capitalist concerns which might want democracy, but also want a different kind of stability in order to make profits. And those interests are, inevitably, and on a daily basis, sharply counterposed to those of the working class, and to its emerging class organisations, and to other grass roots democratic movements.

Even if we were talking about a revolutionary bourgeoisie, in the sense that it was in early nineteenth century Europe, the working class should maintain its independence and opposition to it – that is, fight, against the bourgeoisie, for its own interests. I would oppose any notion that the class struggle be put on hold until democracy has been won, any strategic alliance with the bourgeoisie. (I think – though I suspect this point could provoke a big discussion in itself – that this was Marx’s conclusion after the 1848 revolutions). I would oppose this notion even if the bourgeois democratic revolution were being led by a revolutionary bourgeoisie. If the people supposedly leading it are the most powerful ruling class in history, I am doubly or sextruply opposed to it.

On a more general theoretical point, I think in any case it is misleading to conceive a struggle for democracy as bourgeois-revolutionary unless the social system in which it occurs is not yet fully capitalist. Iraq has been a capitalist society, fundamentally, for decades. However you might describe Bush’s policy, it is not that of a rising capitalist class leading mass forces to sweep away the residues of archaic social systems, and so on. I do not mean that revolutionary democratic struggles cannot take place even in advanced capitalism (witness South Africa); only that to conceptualise them as bourgeois-revolutionary is misleading, and therefore likely to lead to political mistakes. Advocating support for the American ruling class in its current policy seems to me a very serious political mistake for anyone whose aim is the self-emancipation of the working class and the overthrow of capitalism.

Clive

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Comments : Re:message from Clive B. (by albert on 12/03/2003)

[clive] [...] A few points only for now on the idea that the US administration is leading, or promoting, or aiming to do so, bourgeois democratic revolution across the world, and in the first place the Middle East, which is what I understand the argument which Albert is putting to be. It's an interesting idea, but I disagree with it. I think it is an interesting idea, but I don't agree with it.

[albert] I would emphasise "in the first place the Middle East" and not explicitly assert "across the world". Even in the middle east the new policy is hesitant and inconsistent. The strategic concerns that drive the new policy in the middle east have so far only resulted in minor adjustments to policy elsewhere. Also I would emphasise the term "revolutionary war" rather than simply "revolution" as whatever transformation of social relations is or is not occurring in Iraq is clearly the result of war and occupation rather than insurrection etc.

[clive] It is important to distinguish between an outcome which is democratic, or a general aim which is to achieve that outcome, and what, I think, could properly be called a revolutionary-democratic programme.

[albert] The phenomena is something new and while comparisons with other situations in the past are necessary they should not be allowed to get in the way of concrete analysis of the current situation. Terms such as "revolutionary democratic", "national democratic" and "new democratic" each have a specific theoretical content which may or may not be correctly understood by those using them. Arguing about the applicability of those terms would not be productive. None have previously been used to describe an imperialist superpower occupying a third world dictatorship and radically transforming its social relations in a bourgeois democratic direction. Indeed there is so much cognitive dissonance in the very idea of such a thing happening that it will be a long time before we have any sort of adequate theory and agreed terminology about it.

[clive] It is possible that current US policy could lead to the establishment of bourgeois democratic regimes across the Middle East, and solve, in some way, the Israel-Palestine problem. As a (very) rough analogy, US (etc) occupation of Europe and Japan after 1945 resulted in stable, and economically prosperous, bourgeois democracies. Many revolutionaries at the time could not imagine anything other than dictatorships, and they were wrong.

[albert] Let us pause there for a moment and contemplate the importance of that possibility. It could hardly happen by accident. If that is indeed what they are trying to do, and, as mentioned below, that is the most "optimistic" outcome possible. Then it seems obvious that one ought to support it. Any convoluted theories that "get in the way" of recognizing that obvious conclusion must simply be wrong.

[clive] However, even if you assume that this is the aim of the Bush administration; and even if you assume that they will set aside other, more immediate concerns in order to achieve it, it does not follow that the forces they will ally with, promote, etc, are revolutionary, or even democratic. A policy of bourgeois-democratic revolution, I think, if it could meaningfully be called such, would not only have bourgeois democracy as a programmatic aim, but would be revolutionary on the ground – promote radical, democratic forces on the ground.

[albert] That seems a rather rosy picture of bourgeois democratic revolution historically. The US imperialist superpower we are discussing was a product of the American civil war. That was a bourgeois democratic revolutionary war (which did not even have abolition of slavery, let alone full bourgeois democracy as a programmatic aim). As always, Communists advocated more consistent revolutionary and democratic alliances and tactics while the bourgeois leadership adopted that approach only after trying every other alternative.

Incidentally, I drew attention to this analogy and gave a reference to Marx's discussion of it last November:

Iraq and the American Civil War

Its worth looking up Marx's writings on the American Civil War. There is a striking analogy with the way the bourgeois media of the time treated it as merely a "tariff war" and the enthusiasm with which Marx supported the union and demanded that it fight the war as a revolutionary war.

[clive] As a test case, Iraq reveals the limits of seeing events in these terms. Even if US occupation ultimately leads to a stable bourgeois democracy in Iraq, the forces on which the US must rest in order to pursue its policy are not revolutionary, and not democratic, either. The IGC consists of ethnic and religious politicians, ex-Ba’thists, swindlers, Stalinists, etc. (with very little popular support or legitimacy). What is now being proposed to move beyond the IGC is a parliament of tribal elders and others. Revolutionary democracy in Iraq – I am speaking, obviously in broad brush terms – would, I think, necessarily be sharply opposed to these instruments of US policy (even if it did not make ‘end the occupation’ an immediate agitational question).

[albert] The IGC represents every significant force in the Iraqi opposition and is far more representative and democratic than any other Arab government. Comparison with the politicians who led the english, french and american bourgeois revolutions would not necessarily be unfavourable either.

[clive] The most democratic demands – constituent assembly, forms of local democracy; also questions like trade union and other workers’ rights, and so on – are counterposed to the actual, practical reality of US policy. I can’t imagine what any kind of support for the US would mean if it did not also include some kind of support for the IGC.

[albert] At present there is a serious struggle over the demand for a directly elected constituent assembly insisted on by the Ayatollah Sistani. It is far from obvious that this is necessarily "the most democratic demand". I do not claim to understand enough about Iraqi society to say. Certainly it would have been unfortunate if the Russian constituent assembly had not been dispersed.

[albert] In any case, that US policy leads in fact to bourgeois democracy in Iraq is the most optimistic possible projection. So far, it is running into severe difficulties, and it is not at all certain that it can simply overcome them. (Certainly, overcoming them, ie crushing the so-called resistance, might entail them being more colonialistic, more repressive, and entrenching the most undemocratic aspects of occupation, etc). Or they might settle for a stable indigenous regime which protects their interests, but it is very far from democratic – which, after all, is what they have generally done in the past. It is one thing for the American ruling class to decide, in principle, that it would rather the world enjoyed the benefits of US-style democracy, another to pursue that policy in the face of alternative, easier and more workable choices.

[albert] The American ruling class has not decided, not even in principle. There is an ongoing struggle in which strong forces (backed by almost all other capitalist governments apart from Britain and pretty well all other capitalist ruling classes including Britain's) are positively outraged that the Bush administration has failed to "settle for a stable indigenous regime which protects their interests, but it is very far from democratic".

They keep pointing to the "catastrophic mistake" of dissolving the Iraqi armed forces, excessive de-Baathification etc and call for neighbouring Arab states to be brought in to help sort things out (they know how to "sort out" democrats).

Their strongest argument is of course that this "after all, is what they have generally done in the past".

The anti-war movement is largely a reflection of that ruling class view, consistently advocated in the mass media with the same intensity with which sections of the yankee ruling class demanded an accommodation with slavery to preserve the union.

Part of the campaign is defeatist propaganda about "severe difficulties" despite the practically negligible casualty rate.

This campaign itself is the main "severe difficulty". Fortunately its proponents (eg the leadership of the US Democratic Party) simply don't have a viable alternative. The US is fully committed now and if they tried to backtrack to install a compliant military dictatorship that would just explode in their face.

[clive] Because whatever the advantages to the US ruling class of such a policy, it remains – well, the US ruling class. The US occupation in Iraq, at least to some significant degree, represents and defends the interests of the Halliburtons, etc: that is, of powerful capitalist concerns which might want democracy, but also want a different kind of stability in order to make profits. And those interests are, inevitably, and on a daily basis, sharply counterposed to those of the working class, and to its emerging class organisations, and to other grass roots democratic movements.

[albert] Powerful capitalist concerns can obviously make far more money from a modernized middle east than from a stagnant cess pit. Their opposition to democracy before was strategic (initially against communism, then against the Soviet Union and Iran and in defense of Israel).

[albert] Even if we were talking about a revolutionary bourgeoisie, in the sense that it was in early nineteenth century Europe, the working class should maintain its independence and opposition to it – that is, fight, against the bourgeoisie, for its own interests. I would oppose any notion that the class struggle be put on hold until democracy has been won, any strategic alliance with the bourgeoisie. (I think – though I suspect this point could provoke a big discussion in itself – that this was Marx’s conclusion after the 1848 revolutions). I would oppose this notion even if the bourgeois democratic revolution were being led by a revolutionary bourgeoisie. If the people supposedly leading it are the most powerful ruling class in history, I am doubly or sextruply opposed to it.

[albert] Of course the working class should maintain its initiative and independence within the united front. Furthermore achieving bourgeois democracy merely provides the terrain for the working class to overthrow (not just "oppose") the bourgeoisie.

But frankly no amount of posturing about that can excuse allying oneself with fascists against bourgeois democracy.

[clive] On a more general theoretical point, I think in any case it is misleading to conceive a struggle for democracy as bourgeois-revolutionary unless the social system in which it occurs is not yet fully capitalist. Iraq has been a capitalist society, fundamentally, for decades. However you might describe Bush’s policy, it is not that of a rising capitalist class leading mass forces to sweep away the residues of archaic social systems, and so on. I do not mean that revolutionary democratic struggles cannot take place even in advanced capitalism (witness South Africa); only that to conceptualise them as bourgeois-revolutionary is misleading, and therefore likely to lead to political mistakes.

[albert] This sort of "general theoretical point" is the sort of convoluted stuff that just gets one tied in knots instead of helping to illuminate "what is to be done".

Actually there is a lot of pre-capitalist relations in the oil rentier states - whether overtly feudal and medieval like the Saudi princes dispensing oil revenue to their retainers and subjects or with a fascist state apparatus doing that as in Iraq. In both cases tribalism remained the basis for the state and the association between wealth and position in the state had as much in common with feudal social relations as with capitalist ones.

[clive] Advocating support for the American ruling class in its current policy seems to me a very serious political mistake for anyone whose aim is the self-emancipation of the working class and the overthrow of capitalism.

Clive

[albert] Supporting the campaign by advocates of the old imperialist policy of "stability" with a pseudo-left "theoretical" cover is a disgusting betrayal.

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Whoops! (by albert on 12/03/2003)

On two occasions, three consecutive paragraphs above were tagged [albert].

In both cases, the middle one, should of course have been tagged [clive].

PS Sorry, I just don't have time for proof-reading at the moment. (I'm using somebody else's computer while temporarily off line). This lack of care no doubt also affects the content.

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Re: message from Clive B.

• (by Patrick on 12/03/2003)

An Irish farmer might tell US tourists ‘If I was going to democracy I wouldn’t be starting out from here’, but the rest of us have no choice but to be where we are and put one foot after the other.

The US Administration is doing whatever it’s doing because it’s in their interests.

Clive wants to ‘distinguish between an outcome which is [or may become] democratic’ and ‘a revolutionary-democratic programme.’ And thinks that revolutionary democrats in Iraq would oppose the US. Maybe they would do so by condemning freedom of the press, or the yet to be written constitution, or by refusing to stand for election to any proportionally representative parliament!?!

Still seeing the US as rampant, (as they would have people do), rather than viewing their last sixty years of policy, in a crashed pile of defeat, Clive reasons that the US ruling elite may have to win by losing. ‘..to pursue that policy in the face of alternative, easier and more workable choices.’ No Clive these former policies have unfortunately become bankrupt and required the change in the first place, if they revert to them then sooner or later they will have to return to the change.

They are just another superpower heading for the scrap heap. Bush is not a modern colossus bestriding the known world, but a garden variety conservative squarely facing reality. The pseudo-left will not face reality and are therefore doomed to continue to be irrelevant when they are not being reactionary.

Of course ‘the working class should maintain its independence’, but united fronts don’t work if you start shooting at other members of the front. People not engaged in armed struggle in Britain, at the moment, should keep that thought as they think about Iraq.

Workers have more than an enormous interest in struggling for democracy. For a start if they could not lead this struggle how could they possibly lead a further struggle to transcend it? But it is not comrade Bush and co that are in the way of workers struggling for democratic rights it’s the feudal clerics!

Clive agrees that revolutionary democratic struggles take place even in advanced capitalism like South Africa so what gives?

Exposing the US ruling class and what they are up to, can never be a mistake, that is why there is independence and initiative within a principled united front against feudalists etc. But keep your eye on the enemy. That enemy in Iraq is the Baathists and the clerics.

BTW I have never heard Albert sound like he is advocating support for the American ruling class.

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Fantasies about united fronts (by albert on 12/03/2003)

Very briefly, the united front in Iraq is no fantasy - as I mentioned it includes every significant force in the Iraqi opposition. There are no significant working class or "socialist" forces in Iraq at the moment because they were killed off by Baathist death squads decades ago and they desperately need some bourgeois democracy to recover. Speculating about what stand negligible forces should take is typical fantasy stuff.

My approach certainly does relate to Mao's line in China (which did not result in the Communists having to flee to some offshore islands ;-)

That in turn differs substantially from the Spanish communists more passive attitude to the united front, which ended in defeat.

Both of course are directly opposite to the line of trotskyists in both China and Spain of actively sabotaging the united front and thus assisting fascsism.

No doubt we are not going to agree about that. Since most people do not actually know much about these historical events I do not think arguing about them here would be very productive. We have a very concrete policy issue in Iraq that can and should be the subject of argument on these issues in a way that could be productive.

I am certainly in favor of the struggle "from below". Hal Draper does have some useful insights on some aspects of that but he is so classic as a negative example on the question of a united front against fascism that long before you arrived here we had published the following item as a warning of just how bankrupt one can get with the sort of analysis you are proposing. Please check it out.

Hal Draper - Students in the 1930s

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Re: message from Clive B.

• (by albert on 12/03/2003)

PS above was in reply to an item from Clive buried behind a + sign.

Its best to use "Reply" to the top level message on a thread as unfortunately replies to replies end up buried behind plus signs.

When replying to a buried item it is necessary to include a link to it as I have just done now as otherwise people cannot easily see what you are replying to.

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Concrete analysis of Iraqi conditions

(by albert on 12/03/2003)

• Replying to another hidden message from Clive.

Clive, if you want to demonstrate that your approach to these issues is better than mine, it will be productive to cite concrete facts about the situation in Iraq which others can form independent judgments about. Claiming that your perspective has been historically proved correct in numerous other cases such as Spain, China (or even the Franco-Prussian war) is simply not going to result in any productive discussion.

You speak of "those (Iraqi) movements which are developing now" that share your views. Fine, elaborate on their precise policy and explain how they are contributing more to the liberation of Iraq than the IGC.

Since I do not speak either Arabic or Kurdish and am unable to keep up with the specialist literature on Iraq in english either, I would not presume to offer policy advice to Iraqis. The issue between us is not what Iraqis should do but whether to support the anti-war movement that is seeking to end the occupation of Iraq as soon as possible (as you do) or oppose it (as I do). That is an issue on which we could both plausibly know what we are talking about and where what position we take could actually make some difference in the real world rather than just be posturing.

Nevertheless, you have repeatedly refused to justify your position of openly conceding that ending the occupation would be enormously damaging to the Iraqi people while participating in an anti-war movement with precisely that aim.

After I gave up trying to get a response from you on that, you nevertheless came back wanting more discussion, presumably about something else.

So if you have sufficient confidence in your understanding of Iraqi society and current issues there to be putting forward (or endorsing) an analysis, by all means do so. But its no use just claiming there is one - you have to actually present it.

As far as I can see the Iraqi tendency you have most confidence in is the Workers Communist Party.

You should ponder this article from them:

ISO on Iraq: Nationalist Isolationism or International Solidarity

It highlights the difficulty in both your position and theirs. The only alternative they are able to offer to US occupation at the moment is a UN occupation. That alternative happens to be sheer fantasy! So concretely, they have precisely nothing to offer despite all their huffing and puffing.

No serious political party can behave like that and expect to win mass support. One has to advocate real alternatives rather than fantasies.

Hal Draper's article is entirely relevant and you cannot simply ignore the lesson of it by saying you "don't entirely agree" with his position on world war II. The fact is that the sort of non-analysis of concrete conditions that you are engaged in leads to such complete idiocies, even from an intelligent writer such as Hal Draper, as smugly denouncing communists for advocating collective security against fascism in 1937-38 without even noticing that it might be necessary to explain why that was a wrong line and why Draper's line of proclaiming that he would not support the US government in any war that it might fight was correct - at a time when the Chinese revolution was faced with Japanese occupation.

Simple proclamations that it is wrong to side with the US occupation authorities are no substitute for a concrete analysis of why you say that is wrong. You are behaving exactly the same way as Hal Draper's example - completely oblivious to what your audience might be thinking about the issue.

The bankruptcy of the Workers Communist Party's call for a UN occupation of Iraq is a direct result of flat refusal to concretely analyse concrete conditions.

In the period leading up to the war, all they could say was that millions of Iraqis would be massacred by US nuclear weapons:

We Must Not Allow the Recurrence of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedies in Iraq

I had a discussion with a couple of their members in Australia. They seemed completely sincere but were also completely paralysed by their sincere belief that there would be hundreds of thousands killed in any war, as well as a danger of even more killed from nuclear weapons and that therefore it was unthinkable to do anything but support the anti-war movement.

There was no way to get past that and have a serious discussion about policy at the time, and no way to avoid the fact that they were completely wrong.

As for this group's understanding of revolutionary democracy from below, try this paragraph from their comments on the Shia Ashura festivities in which several million people celebrated the religious freedom that they had gained from the overthrow of the Baathist tyranny:

"Last week’s events when thousands of people duped by religious fervor in these desperate times, led by mullahs and masochistic men inflicting injuries on themselves marched to Karbala, chanting pro-Islamic slogans in a trance-like state, covered with blood and sand, creating a surreal, claustrophobic and terrifying ambiance, was a preview of what an Islamic state, or a powerful Islamic movement would bring for the people of Iraq. It is ironic that this orchestrated show of cruelty and masochism was described by the western media and by the US government as freedom of religion, and was glorified as an indication of the newly won freedom of the Iraqi people. These are indeed alarming indications of a dark scenario unfolding in Iraq before our eyes."

From Let`s turn a dark scenario into a bright future: A look at the Iraqi situation

While I would not presume to put forward a positive analysis, I am quite confident about rejecting the views of people who describe millions of people celebrating their freedom of religion as "thousands" of people doing something "terrifying". That is quite simply cluelessness as to how to fight against the clericalists and other reactionary forces.

By using the same language as the Baathists in opposition to the exercise of Shia religious freedoms they would, if they had any actual influence, be a real problem driving the Shia masses into the arms of their mullahs.

Whatever mistakes the US occupation authorities are making (and whatever crimes they are committing) they cannot be as bad as deliberately seeking to stir up Shia hostility in a country with a 60% Shia population.

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Re: message from Clive B. (by albert on 12/03/2003)

(Sigh) the following links were not entered properly above:

"We Must Not Allow the Recurrence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s tragedies in Iraq!!" here

"Let’s turn a dark scenario into a bright future: A look at the Iraqi situation" here

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Re: message from Clive B.

• (by albert on 12/04/2003)

I'm eliding some of the latest buried posting from Clive as I simply don't have time at the moment.

[clive] [...] I entirely accept, which seems to be one of Albert’s arguments, that the world is posing new questions for which we don’t have ready made answers. For my part, I am treading cautiously into this new territory, trying to maintain what seem to me the basic principles of socialist politics – the first of which is the clear political independence of the working class from the bourgeoisie. Albert – forgive me if this is a false impression, because I don’t know you, but it certainly is my impression – has no caution at all: it is all obvious, anyone who feels less certain, more unwilling to jump to conclusions, etc, is a “pseudo-left”. [...]

[albert] I do not regard the (very large) numbers of people who are hesitant in the current situation (or even all those who take an anti-war position and think of themselves as being on the "left", as being pseudo-left. I use that term quite precisely for people who put forward characteristically "right wing" arguments (for appeasement, isolationism, "stability" etc) dressed up in militant "leftist" rhetoric.

I have been of the view that the genuine left has been swamped by a pseudo-left for literally decades and have still not reached any conclusions as to on what basis a revolutionary communist movement could be rebuilt, so I find the impression of lacking caution merely amusing.

I have often been told, by friends as well as opponents that I too easily label people who can't see what I regard as obvious quickly enough, as being utterly blind etc. That may well be true.

Nevertheless some things are obvious and the political bankruptcy of the anti-war movement is obvious enough that the vast majority of people who took part in February have already dropped out.

It was precisely because you have clearly and explicitly recognized the absurdity of some of the positions being taken by other sections of the anti-war movement that I initially expressed hope that you might be someone worth arguing with. It ought to make a rational exchange easier if one has some shared assumptions.

Nevertheless, you simply refuse to engage on the actual issues and keep just wandering off. I gave up last time you did that and will cheerfully give up again if you persist.

[clive] I tried to point to “concrete” objections to the “united front” in Iraq – not in the spirit of “giving advice to Iraqis”, but in terms of the basic principles. The IGC is not a democratic body, its members are not democrats, and some of them are hardly, for that matter, not fascists. This is a concrete issue, surely.

The notion, which seems to be the objection, that one can only oppose such people politically by calling for their immediate overthrow – or the immediate withdrawal of occupation troops – seems to me simply ridiculous. Likewise, that I do not call for such immediate withdrawal does not oblige me to give the occupation, and the IGC, my political blessing. I’m sorry, but to me this is simply the first few letters of the political alphabet.

[albert] The IGC is an Interim Governing Council deriving its authority from the governor appointed by the military occupiers of Iraq. Of course it isn't democratic!

Its members are broadly representative of the main political tendencies in the Iraqi opposition to the Baathist regime. The various parties such as the Shia islamist SCIRI, Dawa, and Hezbollah the Sunni islamist Mulsim Brotherhood, the nationalist/social democrat/revisionist Iraqi Communist Party, the Kurdish KDP, PUK and so on do not give each other their "political blessing" either.

These parties have all fought each other and have no problem whatever maintaining their "political independence" from each other and from the occupation authorities.

What they are agreed on is that they need to join together with each other and with the occupation forces to fight the previous regime and need to avoid civil war by establishing a democratic system.

You on the other hand have actively opposed the occupation (as discussed below). In pretending that this is merely a matter of not giving your "political blessing" to people you don't agree with, you are simply evading the issue.

[clive] The argument of Albert’s which hits hardest is about the anti-war movement. If the anti-war movement had been successful, Saddam would still be in power; if the demand “troops out now”, which many of the organisers of the recent anti-Bush protests support, were achieved, it would be a catastrophe. How then can I participate in this movement?

[albert] Excellent! If you had followed that clear statement of precisely the issue I am accusing you of evading with some kind of answer, then you would have refuted the accusation and we could start debating your answer (which I would undoubtedly disagree with, but could no longer accuse you of simply avoiding debate).

[clive] Since readers of this site probably don’t know, it’s worth saying that I and my comrades are regularly denounced as “racists”, “pro-imperialists” and all the rest for the positions we have taken within the anti-war movement: we exposed the Muslim Association of Britain, who have been co-sponsors of the big demos, as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, and have been called “Islamophobes” and so on as a result. There are previous anti-war movements we have refused to participate in, for instance over Kosova, for much the same reason Albert gives in this case. (Though we did not positively support NATO).

[albert] I'm a really hard person to distract. Read the question again. If you are under any illusion that this was some kind of answer you are mistaken. All it does is confirm that other participants in the anti-war movement you actively support find your participation as puzzling as I do, but are less polite about it. If they were as polite and patient as I am, they would simply be insisting on an answer to the obvious question - given your views "How then can you participate in this movement?"

[clive] Two basic points here. First, prior to the war, I was not prepared to give the US and British military a “blank cheque” – to trust that they could surgically remove Saddam without vast numbers of casualties, or that the “peace” after Saddam’s defeat would be a clear run to democracy. They killed fewer people than I feared they might, though I’m not sure by what criteria, or right, I can judge those deaths acceptable in the name of “revolutionary war”. (And they are making a mess of the “peace”). If this had been purely a case of humanitarian intervention – as didn’t happen in Rwanda, but did in Sierra Leone – it would have been different. But that there are, plainly, a whole range of other concerns, within which the actual freedom of the Iraqis for its own sake is a low priority, I do not see how I could have supported the war with a clear conscience. Faced with the same choice tomorrow, I would make the same decision.

[albert] The introduction of a numbering system strongly suggests that after a preliminary distraction, perhaps merely due to pompous verbosity rather than deliberate evasion, you are now proceeding to present 2 specific reasons why you actively supported the anti-war movement, knowing full well that "If the anti-war movement had been successful, Saddam would still be in power."

Stripped of the verbiage, your first point amounts to this:

a) You wrongly expected "vast numbers of casualties".

That is a reason for admitting you were wrong. Instead you clearly state that "Faced with the same choice tomorrow, I would make the same decision." Having wrong expectations in the past cannot be a reason for continuing to actively support a movement when you know that if its goals "were achieved, it would be a catastrophe".

b) Before you could support the war you would require trust that "after Saddam’s defeat would be a clear run to democracy".

This begs the question, "Why?"

c) "But that there are, plainly, a whole range of other concerns, within which the actual freedom of the Iraqis for its own sake is a low priority, I do not see how I could have supported the war with a clear conscience."

Again, you may be under the illusion that constitutes some sort of argument, but actually it is yet another declaration that you have one while failing to actually state what it is so that it can be responded to.

[clive] Second, most, or anyway a significant number, of the millions of people who mobilised against war internationally simply were not motivated by sympathy for fascism or Islamism. The task was how to turn that movement towards solidarity with the people of Iraq, and elsewhere, rather than smug denunciation of it for its stupidity.

[albert] Most, or anyway a significant number of the people who supported the "America First" movement that Hal Draper's opposition to collective security was effectively allied with were not motivated by sympathy for fascism either. Smug denunciation of its stupidity seems quite appropriate to me. After Pearl Harbour most of them agreed with that smug denunciation.

The mainstream anti-war movement over Iraq was opposed to solidarity with the Iraqi people - advancing classic right wing arguments for appeasement, isolation and "stability" and explicitly responding to claims that the tyranny needed to be overthrown by saying "it isn't our problem".

The question is why some people who claimed to support solidarity with the Iraqi people nevertheless joined that movement. The above is not an answer but merely a confirmation that you are among those who did. The question remains - "Why?"

[clive] I know these answers won’t satisfy Albert. For me, the biggest problem we face in the world today is that there is no international socialist movement; the task is to build one. The policy Albert advocates regarding the US will not, in my view, help in that task.

[albert] If you cannot give straight answers to simple questions, how on earth can you hope to participate in facing the biggest tasks in the world today?

That may sound like a gratuitous insult just to round things off, and to some extent perhaps it is.

But frankly the left got into the mess it is in by accepting the "good intentions" of people who waffle on like this instead of challenging them to debate their ideas without clouds of bullshit.

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Re: message from Clive B.

• (by Clive on 12/05/2003)

My impression is that Albert has “given up” on me again, and is not planning to respond. Maybe I’m wrong. Incidentally, from my end it looked like me who “gave up” the first time, but there you go. I think the stated reasons for the “giving up” are worth absorbing, however. I was annoyed by what seemed to me a level and method of argument which precluded proper discussion. Albert, it seems, didn’t want to talk to me because I am too stupid to answer his questions.

There obviously will be no answer to Albert’s chief question, about my participation in the anti-war movement, which will satisfy him other than me changing my mind. I think, for someone seriously prepared to listen, there are reasons for participating in it.

But I want to mention here three subsidiary points. First on the Worker Communist Party. I hold absolutely no brief for this organisation politically, though I am impressed by some of the work they seem to have done on the ground, and by their apparent thoughtfulness; they seem to be the only show in town, so to speak, in Iraq; and so I want to build solidarity with them. I also think that they find it both right and necessary to oppose, simultaneously, the Ba’thists, the Islamists, and the occupation, is instructive, and not to be put down to whatever general idiocies you may think them guilty of.

Albert criticises their attitude to Shi’a festivals shortly after the fall of Saddam, in which they expressed horror at rituals being performed for the first time in years. Albert comments:

“I am quite confident about rejecting the views of people who describe millions of people celebrating their freedom of religion as "thousands" of people doing something "terrifying". That is quite simply cluelessness as to how to fight against the clericalists and other reactionary forces... Whatever mistakes the US occupation authorities are making (and whatever crimes they are committing) they cannot be as bad as deliberately seeking to stir up Shia hostility in a country with a 60% Shia population.”

I take Albert’s point about a rather sectarian secularism, if you know what I mean, in the WCPI’s approach, though I think he is missing their main concern: those Shi’a festivities certainly did allow the various Islamist tendencies to organise, and they have been growing ever since – the most “militant” the fastest.

But I think comparing the WCPI to the US occupation authorities in the way Albert appears to do here is very revealing; and revealing of the difference between us. The WCPI are, as far as I am concerned, mistaken comrades. I will give them the benefit of some doubt. To compare them, unfavourably, to a an army of military occupation to me is simply weird: you are not comparing like with like, and the WCPI would have to make very serious mistakes indeed to be “worse” than the CPA. (Incidentally, the inference that there is some sort of Sunni chauvinism on the WCPI’s part is mistaken, I think: their bemusement at Shi’a religious feeling comes more from their largely Kurdish base; the Kurds are generally much more secular).

The second point is on Hal Draper and World War Two. Albert makes two points here: that Draper was wrong on the war – arguing, essentially, for a repetition of the internationalist line in the First World War, ie, opposition to both sides; and that Draper’s method of arguing takes no account of his audience, doesn’t try to persuade (which he says I am guilty of, too – I think that this reveals a common method between me and Draper).

On the general politics, to put this in shorthand, I disagree with Draper on World War Two, and agree (roughly) with the “mainstream” American Trotskyist position, which was also that of British Trotskyists, which made a sharp distinction between the bourgeois democracies and fascism, and argued, in effect, for revolution as the best way to fight the war against fascism (they had slogans like “only a workers’ government can fight Hitler”). That’s a complex debate in a paragraph, but it will do. It’s a general approach which informs what I am saying about Iraq; if the connection isn’t obvious, I will be happy to spell it out later if anyone would like.

Draper’s pamphlet to which Albert refers was addressing a particular audience, I think, which already knew the general arguments, so the second criticism is largely unfair. It would be interesting to see how those arguments were articulated in more agitational material.

Finally, on history. We can, and should, discuss contemporary questions concretely – I think some of the points I have made about Iraq, about the nature of the IGC, for instance, are concrete. But I find the idea that the strategic conceptions we have can be divorced from historical lessons we have drawn frankly perplexing. Marxism is sometimes called the “memory of the class”: one of the most terrible features of working class experience is the repetition of the same mistakes, leading again to defeat. For sure, referring to historical experience can be an exercise in academic question dodging, or in some cases I suppose just a kind of bullying. I freely admit I don’t know enough about the American civil war to comment on what Albert has said; it’s an interesting question, and I will read up on it. But I think there are almost innumerable cases of the consequences of the working class losing its clear independence, sometimes tragic consequences – which is what I think Albert is advocating for Iraq. History, surely, is relevant.

___________________________

Giving up on getting an answer from Clive (by albert on 12/07/2003)

[clive] My impression is that Albert has “given up” on me again, and is not planning to respond. Maybe I’m wrong.

[albert] Perhaps you gained that "impression" from my statement:

"...Nevertheless, you simply refuse to engage on the actual issues and keep just wandering off. I gave up last time you did that and will cheerfully give up again if you persist."

As can be seen immediately above, you have clearly understood the question you are being asked:

"If the anti-war movement had been successful, Saddam would still be in power; if the demand “troops out now”, which many of the organisers of the recent anti-Bush protests support, were achieved, it would be a catastrophe. How then can I participate in this movement?"

Nevertheless you persist in avoiding any answer and just "wandering off" into clouds of bullshit.

For the record this discussion started with similar questions being posted to you From Harry's Place (blog)

Discussion here started with Face the facts candidly on November 1.

[clive] Incidentally, from my end it looked like me who “gave up” the first time, but there you go. I think the stated reasons for the “giving up” are worth absorbing, however. I was annoyed by what seemed to me a level and method of argument which precluded proper discussion. Albert, it seems, didn’t want to talk to me because I am too stupid to answer his questions.

[albert] After taking offence at my sentence by sentence demonstration that your replies had been completely "content free" you went off in a huff. You subsequently became so keen to resume discussion that you made 3 attempts to get a response to an identical posting, which kesa eventually drew attention to for you as Lost message from Clive B

You said "I’m giving it another go, because there are some interesting ideas being discussed on this site."

I do not believe you are too stupid to answer the question above. I believe that you have no answer to it.

There are indeed some interesting ideas being discussed here. But you have been here for more than a month without answering a simple question, so naturally the time available for responding to any ideas you might have is now quite limited.

[clive] There obviously will be no answer to Albert’s chief question, about my participation in the anti-war movement, which will satisfy him other than me changing my mind. I think, for someone seriously prepared to listen, there are reasons for participating in it.

[albert] That is your umpteenth assurance that "there are reasons for participating it" without actually explaining what your reasons are. There is a limit to how often you can do that before people stop bothering with you.

Of course I am unlikely to be "satisfied" with any answer. But if you provided an unsatisfactory answer then we would be able to debate it. The problem however is that you simply have nothing to say, but insist on saying it at great length. That is very different from debating.

Every registered user of this site has their own "home" area. If Clive ever does intend to answer, hopefully he could place it there

Meanwhile, I have prepared a search topic which lists all of Clive's postings here. If anyone can draw my attention to some actual answer (plausible or not), to the above question, that is not completely content free, either now or in the future, please do so.

[clive] But I want to mention here three subsidiary points. [...]

[albert] Of course you do Clive...

If I notice you saying anything that could usefully be used to illustrate something of interest, I will of course respond to it.

However, while I felt some obligation up to now to wade through your verbiage since I invited the discussion, I am simply not interested in discussing "subsidiary points" with someone who just won't answer a simple question.

_________________________

Re: message from Clive B. (by Clive on 12/07/2003)

Um, Albert, you have a site which promises discussion, but on which a very small number of people post comments. Despite the most laughable demagogy by way of argument against me, I chose to keep trying to have some discussion – for no other reason than that I think discussion is valuable – and because you hold some ideas I have been thinking about myself, and I wanted to tease them out. (What other reason do you think I might have? Do you think I am in awe of your genius and desperate to join your inner circle? Or do you imagine, perhaps, that I roam the net trying to get people to debate with me and this was the first small pond I found where anyone paid me attention?)

Naturally, you are free to think everything I say is drivel. And god knows, nobody is forcing you to discuss with me or anyone else. But you write as if you are BESIEGED by dilettante bullshitters demanding so much of your precious time... And the truth would seem to be that those into whom you can sink your cheap polemical barbs are actually a bit few and far between. Wonder why.

What is it you want, exactly? Someone volunteers to debate your ideas, and you complain they are wasting your time. Even allow that my first response was a “huff”: I am astonished by a mind set which merely impatiently dismisses any further discussion. I said before you struck me as a self-satisfied sectarian. You haven't exactly proven me wrong, you know.

______________________________

"silly, carping and irrelevant"

• (by albert on 12/07/2003)

[clive] [...] I chose to keep trying to have some discussion – for no other reason than that I think discussion is valuable. [...]

[albert] Thanks for the concise summary of your "position" Clive.

Sorry - I should have realised earlier that you had "no other reason"...

BTW my reaction to that is not as unique as you imply:

Here's some thoughts you might want to ponder from Building the Socialist Republic of Heaven

vvvvv

... and A Bit of What They Pay For

Speaking of poor service, it's noticeable that the "heated debate" going on at Harry's Place about whether the pro-war left is moving right has been dominated from the start by academics. Whether under the heading "marxist.org.uk", where the discussion quickly veered off into nitpicking about agrarian reform in Egypt in the 1950s, or under the heading "Moving rightwards", where the discussion got bogged down in name-calling and definition-mongering, once again the over-educated with too much free time have shouldered aside the merely questioning and the deeply committed, in order to subject every issue that comes along to the familiar fate of death by pedantry.

We used to think that there was something inherent in leftism (or "lefty"-ness) that made people get all worked up about details and lose sight of the bigger issues. Perhaps it had something to do with feeling embattled under capitalism, and conning oneself into believing that every aspect of the system had to be put in question, from the universals down to the minor points, in order to expose the whole gigantic scam. Well, many leftists are like that, and it's not always a bad thing either. But now that the left has shrunk from being a mass movement to being an intellectual game for professors and lecturers (in this country if not, thankfully, everywhere), we think that it's the academics who are making the left look silly, carping and irrelevant, not the other way round.

^^^^

(Unfortunately their # reference does not work so you have to scroll down to find the item).

_____________________________

Speculations about reasons (by albert on 12/08/2003)

Another buried comment from Clive says (in full):

"So... what do you think my "reason" was?"

That is admirably succinct, but even when succinct it is difficult to pin down precisely what Clive is actually saying, or as in this case, even guess what he might be asking.

I am guessing that the above question is not an invitation to speculate as to why the inheritors of the Lovestone-Burnham-Schactman "tradition" of Trotskyism once again find themselves aligned with the State Department/CIA/AFL-CIO wing of the American ruling class, promoting the same old "cold war" policies that the "third camp" pushed on other issues for decades. It would be fascinating to speculate on the existence of some sort of "blowback" from a "rogue operation" with the "third campers" coming back to haunt US imperialism in the same way that Al Qaeda did. However that is just idle speculation, which I don't even believe myself, and I'm sure it isn't what Clive is asking for.

A more reasonable possibility is that Clive's question as a direct reply to the long quote from "Building the Socialist Republic of Heaven" is asking whether I share their conclusion that the reason for his behaviour described as "silly, carping and irrelevant" is simply a natural propensity of the "over-educated with too much free time" to "subject every issue that comes along to the familiar fate of death by pedantry".

But why would Clive ask such a thing?

Perhaps Clive is inviting me to speculate as to what answer he would give to the simple question he was asked, if he was not too carried away with word-spinning to give one.

I have already given my view on that. I believe the reason he has not answered the question is because he simply does not have an answer.

In desperation I even offered Clive a reference to the text of an article from the Worker Communist Party of Iraq:

ISO on Iraq: Nationalist Isolationism or International Solidarity

If, like them, Clive had said he wants to "end the occupation" by replacing it with a transitional UN administration we could debate whether that was fantasy or both possible and desirable.

But no, Clive acknowledges that ending the occupation now would be a catastrophe, yet actively supports campaigns for an end to the occupation and flatly refuses to provide any explanation for the apparant contradiction.

My best guess however is that Clive, self-referential as ever, was inviting me to speculate, not about his (still unstated) reasons for taking an absurdly self-contradictory stance on Iraq, but about his reasons for being here, as stated above:

"because you hold some ideas I have been thinking about myself, and I wanted to tease them out."

I am settling on that interpretation, especially as it was immediately followed by "(What other reason do you think I might have? ...)" and the latest comment seems to be a repetition of that rhetorical question with the rhetoric omitted.

The answer is that I have no reason to disbelieve that this was Clive's motive and I regard it as a perfectly acceptable motive.

What is unacceptable is that in the course of "teasing out" his ideas Clive just waffles on without responding to simple questions with direct answers.

The answer he should have given to the question he was asked, if my guess is correct, is that he does not have a satisfactory answer and is still trying to work through the contradictions between his desire to participate in the largest recent mass mobilization in history and his knowledge that a victory for that movement would result in "catastrophe".

Unfortunately instead of providing either that or any other answer, Clive just engages in "name-calling and definition-mongering" and tries to shoulder aside "the merely questioning and the deeply committed, in order to subject every issue that comes along to the familiar fate of death by pedantry."

__________________________

Re: message from Clive B. (by albert on 12/08/2003)

In his (buried as usual) third "parting shot" (so far) in the course of his second departure (so far), Clive writes:

vvvv

I have given an answer to your oft-repeated question. First, I have given you my reasons for opposing the war, namely (in short) that I was not prepared to give the US etc military a “blank cheque”, and not willing to make the sort of propaganda for them and their allies Albert wants to make. Second, indeed I wanted to “participate” in a “mass movement”; and there were and are many people involved in it who are open to argument, who are not Islamofascists, or whatever, and who could be persuaded to turn their activities towards solidarity with the Iraqi people and Iraqi workers in particular rather than purely negative opposition to the US. (And the slogan “end the occupation” is in general unobjectionable to me).

It is of course your right to find this answer unpersuasive, or evasive, or opportunist, or whatever else you think. Or to simply ignore me.

But to insist I give an answer which will satisfy you, when plainly none will, before anything else at all is a legitimate matter for discussion, is simply unreasonable. It is even worse to insist I have simply not tried to answer the question at all.

^^^^

I already responded to a very similar statement by pointing out that this is not just "unpersuasive, or evasive, or opportunist" but simply does not constitute a reason at all. That is indeed worse.

Clive's response to that was to form the "impression" that I am about to give up on him and then to mention "three subsidiary points". He made no attempt either to elaborate his non-answer or refute my demonstration that it was not an answer at all.

The problem appears to be that Clive has no concept of a debate being "about" anything or leading towards any conclusions, just as he cannot conceive of the united front as being about "winning".

His interest is in "trying to have some discussion – for no other reason than that I think discussion is valuable".

Nevertheless, there is in fact a real world out there and real people are living and dying in it.

A country called Iraq is currently under military occupation and significant numbers of people, many of whom are not just pompous twits with nothing better to do, are engaged in campaigns to "End the Occupation".

Unlike the overwhelming majority of those people, Clive has published an article. which expresses certain views I happen to agree with, namely:

[clive] Before March of this year, Iraq was a country without the barest shred of democracy, rightly called by its critics a “republic of fear”. Thousands of people disappeared never to be seen again, their remains perhaps now being discovered in mass graves. One of Saddam’s sons, running a ministry supposedly devoted to sport, had a torture chamber in his building. There were places in Saddam’s Iraq known as “rape rooms”. In addition to the Kurdish slaughter just mentioned, one might remember the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, in which - under the nose of Bush senior, who had encouraged the revolt - insurgent Shi’a, and then Kurds, were exterminated in their tens of thousands. Anyone criticising the regime could face, minimally, horrific punishment if they were lucky enough to live.

Today, that dictatorship has gone. There is a plethora of political parties, newspapers, etc. Working class organisation is beginning - for the first time since the first Ba’thist coup in 1963 - to re-emerge. There is scope for independent democratic organisation for the first time in forty years. Parties calling themselves communist, for instance, are legal, and publish newspapers.

[...]

It is possible that the US forces, increasingly unpopular, will retreat to propping up in Iraq a dictatorship of the same sort that they used to support and use in Central America.

[...]

And it has to be confronted by all of us demonstrating against occupation that an immediate - that is, tomorrow - withdrawal would lead either to the return of the Ba’th, the coming to power of some Islamist faction, or more probably simply descent into civil war and far worse chaos and violence than currently exists. Those who call for the United Nations to replace the Americans, British, etc, have a profoundly misplaced faith in the UN; but they are at least facing a truth. There is nothing “revolutionary” about demanding “troops out now” if the result sets back the development of a democratic working class movement in Iraq. A revolutionary policy can say “end the occupation” only if focuses on helping to build, in the first place by solidarity, those forces who can replace the occupation with something better.

[albert] Naturally that has prompted various people, including myself, to ask Clive why then he is actively promoting the demand to "End the Occupation" (eg by participating in and helping to build demonstrations on September 28).

Unlike others, who appear to have simply given up at the first whiff of bullshit, I have been quite persistent about it, which (understandably) makes Clive feel uncomfortable. He'd rather talk about something else.

Whatever Clive means by being "not willing to make the sort of propaganda for them and their allies Albert wants to make" it is very obvious that he can refrain from doing so, without having to build demonstrations whose actual effect is to encourage the US advocates of retreating to establish a more friendly military dictatorship, and whose goals, if achieved, would in Clive's own opinion, have catastrophic results.

Whatever Clive means about being "not prepared to give the US etc military a “blank cheque”" it is obvious that he, like billions of others could refrain from doing that without doing what he is doing.

Finally, it is obvious that one can attempt to persuade people to change their views without having to engage in such dishonest behaviour as participating in demonstrations in support of their views.

Since these things are obvious it is equally obvious that Clive has not given any answer at all.

As to Clive's question "who DO you want to debate with?" the answer is I want to debate with people who take their own views seriously enough to be willing to defend them by engaging in actual argument.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Patience and Optimism (1):

• The United Front in Iraq (by albert on 12/17/2003)

Some (friendly) comments on this debate are in an item "Patience and Optimism (1): The United Front in Iraq" dated 13.12.03 at Socialism in an Age of Waiting. .

Unfortunately their item permalinks don't work so you have to search or scroll down.

They have a sidebar link back to us and there's also quite a lot of other stuff there of interest. Unfortunately I don't have time to comment on it at the moment but strongly recommend others start perusing it regularly and taking up some of the issues raised.

The other sites they link to also need to be explored.

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