Published: The Workers’ Advocate, Vol. 12, No. 8, September 5, 1982.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The war over the Falkland Islands will go down in history as a senseless slaughter to serve the reactionary aims of both the warmongering British imperialists and the Argentine military dictators. Nevertheless this capitalist bloodletting has provided valuable lessons. Among other things, the Falklands crisis served as a litmus test for the Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary forces: Do our tactics and agitation stand up to the required Marxist-Leninist level? Do they stand up to the level required for the coming much greater storms of war and revolution? Or are there serious shortcomings which must still be overcome?
This test was most severe for the revolutionaries in the two belligerent countries where the bourgeois pressure was greatest and where the responsibility was greatest for taking a revolutionary Marxist stand. But unfortunately, in the case of the Marxist-Leninist party in Britain, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Falklands crisis brought out in striking relief major weaknesses.
We believe that these weaknesses are not just of importance to the Party and the working class of Britain, but that they are weaknesses which center on fundamental questions of general concern to all of the Marxist-Leninist communists. We are writing this article guided by the Marxist-Leninist spirit that shortcomings cannot be overcome by shuffling them under the rug and pretending to the world that all is fine and dandy. At the same time, by addressing these problems squarely, we are confident that this will serve to overcome weaknesses and to further temper the militant unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement on the foundations of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism.
The June 5 issue of The Workers’ Advocate carried an article entitled, “The Falkland Islands: On Renouncing Revolutionary Tactics Before Social-Democracy, and Fighting One’s ’Own’ Bourgeoisie.” Without naming the RCPB(ML) or its newspaper Workers’ Weekly, referring only to the agitation of “a political newspaper in Britain,” this article raised some of our concerns about the agitation on the Falklands war. While pointing out that the authors had appropriately denounced the chauvinism and aggression of British imperialism, we also pointed out there was a fly in the ointment. This mistake was to raise the strange issue that in the British imperialist aggression in the Falklands a major factor was the alleged betrayal of the “national interests” on the part of British imperialism. We tone down, to take the edge off of their own repeated condemnations of aggressive British imperialism.” And we raised our concern that this error carried with it the danger “of blunting the razor sharp exposure of one’s ’own’ imperialist ruling class and obscuring the idea of the class struggle with that of a struggle for national interests.”
Unfortunately our worst fears were confirmed; the agitation of the RCPB(ML) fell into major errors of principle in its stand towards the British imperialist government. Other mistakes of principle were made as well such as coming out foursquare in support of the British imperialist ruling class.
An examination of the Workers’ Weekly over the course of the Falklands war reveals a failure to take a militant proletarian revolutionary stand against British imperialism and the Thatcher government’s criminal aggression. On the contrary, the agitation in the Workers’ Weekly was marred by the influence of the bourgeois pacifism and social-democracy of the “left” wing of the British Labor Party. Moreover, it trimmed its sails before the imperialist tempest of national chauvinism, adapting itself to petty-bourgeois nationalism.
These serious weaknesses in the agitation of the Workers’ Weekly are completely incompatible with the proletarian spirit of class struggle, the spirit of implacable hostility towards one’s “own” bourgeoisie. But what is equally striking is the theoretical argumentation that has been given to defend these weaknesses. No attempt has been made to show how Marxism-Leninism justifies such erroneous stands. On the contrary, reflecting a liquidationist spirit, the arguments flaunted their disregard for well-known Marxist-Leninist principles. Without unbending loyalty to the fundamental teachings of Marxism-Leninism, it is impossible to maintain a firm class line and to wage a consistent revolutionary struggle against reactionary war. Nevertheless, the Workers’ Weekly produced arguments which, in a most cavalier manner, cast to the winds the basic premises of Marxism-Leninism on the questions of war and revolution.
The shortcomings which we have described run through all of the agitation of the RCPB(ML) on the Falklands war. The arguments to justify these weaknesses are brought together in a major four-part series entitled “The Events in the Falkland Islands: A Matter of Grave Concern for the British Working Class and People.” The Workers’ Weekly explains that it is the fourth and last installment, carried in its May 29 issue, that presents the “tasks of the revolutionary and patriotic forces in opposing the reactionary policies of the British imperialists....”
The starting point of this installment is a polemic against the ’left’ opportunists. Workers’ Weekly makes an impassioned appeal for “Great Vigilance Against the Dangerous Activities of the ’Left’”; but for some unexplained reason it doesn’t bother to say who these “leftists” might be. This major article is devoted to refuting “their semi-anarchist, semi-terrorist positions”; but for some queer reason no indication is given as to what ideological or political trend these “’left’ opportunists” may belong – Trotskyism, Maoism, Castroism or whatever. How it is that the workers are supposed to maintain “great vigilance” without being informed against whom and what this vigilance is necessary is a mystery to us. But what concerns us here is the arguments which Workers’ Weekly attempts to wield against the so-called “dangerous activities of the ’left’ ” because these arguments are dangerously rightist. They are pacifist, liberal, and petty-bourgeois nationalist arguments; they are arguments directed against the left without quotation marks, directed against the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism in regard to war and revolution.
Workers’ Weekly introduces its polemic with a bitter condemnation of the slogan “The Main Enemy Is at Home.” It brands it as a typical example of the “sectarian slogans and policies” of the “’left’ opportunists.” (Workers’ Weekly. May 29. 1982) To us, how this slogan can be ridiculed as a “left” or “sectarian” slogan or policy is simply beyond comprehension.
Isn’t the idea expressed in this slogan a cornerstone of the doctrine of Marxism? Wasn’t this same idea proclaimed by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto when they set forth that “the proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie ”? (Foreign Languages Press edition, Peking, p. 45)
Moreover, is there a single lesson from V.I. Lenin’s struggle against the social-chauvinists during the inter-imperialist First World War that is more fundamental than the principle that under conditions of a reactionary war between governments the primary duty of the proletarian revolutionary is to explain to the workers that his “main enemy is at home” – his “own” capitalist ruling class? Didn’t the German revolutionary Marxists that rejected “defense of the fatherland” in an imperialist war hold aloft the slogan “Our Main Enemy Is at Home!”? And didn’t Lenin hail them as comrades precisely because they gave this slogan?
The Falklands war was another example of a reactionary war between governments. To pursue this reactionary war the British bourgeoisie unleashed a barrage of jingoist and chauvinist hysteria among the people precisely, as Lenin put it, “to divert their attention from the chief enemy – the government and the ruling classes of their own country.” (Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 369, emphasis as in the original) Under these conditions, for a consistent struggle against the British imperialists and their chauvinist crusade, it was essential that the agitation of the British revolutionaries be conducted fully in the spirit of training the workers that indeed their ’chief enemy’ is none other than the government and the ruling classes of their own country. This fundamental idea is essential for combating bourgeois chauvinism, for training the working class in the spirit of the class struggle and proletarian internationalism, for instilling in the minds of the workers an implacable hatred for their “own” British bourgeoisie, a hatred which is essential to bring the workers into revolutionary action against the British imperialist aggressors.
Conversely, under the conditions of the Falklands war, to appeal to the British workers for “the necessity of great vigilance” against such “dangerous” slogans and policies as “The Main Enemy Is at Home,” is completely unjustifiable. It means trimming one’s sails to bourgeois chauvinism. It means obscuring the class struggle. It means pouring water on the fire of hatred and struggle against one’s “own” British imperialist ruling class, instead of doing everything possible to fan the flames of this fire among the working masses.
In our opinion, this failure to conduct their agitation in the spirit of this touchstone of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine – that the enemy of the working class is first and foremost its “own” domestic bourgeois ruling class – was the primary shortcoming of the RCPB(ML)’s agitation on the Falklands war.
The question naturally arises: If “The Main Enemy Is at Home” is an erroneous slogan and policy, where then is “the main enemy of the British workers?” Workers’ Weekly tries to avoid giving a direct answer; it prefers to warn of all the pitfalls and “dangers” implied by the “main enemy is at home” idea without saying explicitly where the “main enemy” might be. But what the Workers’ Weekly authors have on their minds is not lost on the reader. For example, in contrast to the “left” opportunists and their “dangerous and splittest policies” they explain that: “The Party considers that the struggle against the policies of the British bourgeoisie in the South Atlantic is extremely important; but, at the same time, it considers that this struggle should not be seen in a narrow way, that it must be taken up and waged in the context of opposing and fighting all imperialism and reaction, headed by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and opposing and fighting the growing and grave danger of inter-imperialist war....” (This and all other quotations from Workers’ Weekly are from Part IV of the series “The Events in the Falkland Islands: A Matter of Grave Concern to the British Working Class and People,” May 29, 1982, pp. 6-7, unless otherwise indicated.)
Under the cover of generalities, a very definite message is being conveyed here. Let us not be so “narrow” as to declare that our main enemy is at home. Let us not expend too much energy concentrating too much fire against our “own” British government and its imperialist aggression. Rather, let us be broad-minded, let us fight ”all imperialism... headed by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union,” and “the danger of war.”
But this warning against the “danger” of such “narrowness” is a false alarm. The real danger is in failing to tell the British workers the truth! Only in the “narrow” context of seeing that “the main enemy is at home,” only in the “narrow” context of the working class and its Party striking with all their might against their “own” British imperialist ruling class, can there be any meaning whatsoever to splendid declarations about “fighting and opposing all imperialism,” “the two superpowers,” and “the danger of war.” Any other line means falling prey to phrasemongering and impotence before the bourgeoisie.
Indeed, this has been one of the main points of contention between revolutionary Marxism-Lenin-ism and the Chinese revisionist theory of “three worlds.” The “three worlders” have also demanded a “broad” and “international” outlook. They have argued that the working class of Western Europe, Canada and Japan, of the so-called “second world,” must see that their main enemy is not their ”own” imperialist ruling classes, but the two superpowers and the danger of war. On this basis, the “three worlds” theorists have wiped out the perspective of the class struggle and the proletarian revolution. They have demanded that such “narrow” aims as the revolutionary action of the proletariat and the socialist revolution must be subordinated to a struggle for “national sovereignty” waged against one or both of the two superpowers. Following this road, it is well known that the “three worlders” joined into an open patriotic alliance with their own imperialist governments in the name of opposing the two superpowers. Today this policy has been reduced to opposing only one superpower, siding openly with U.S. imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism.
The lessons from the struggle against Maoist “three worlds-ism” – a struggle which burst out with such intensity on a world scale only six short years ago and which is in fact far from over – must never be forgotten. One of the most important of these lessons is that the proletariat of the imperialist states must never lose sight of the perspective that it must “first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.” The proletariat must understand fully that its “main enemy is at home.” Only by building up the revolutionary mass movement against this “main enemy” can the proletariat strike blows against all imperialism, the two superpowers, and the danger of war. This is a major question of principle; it is a dividing line between revolutionary Marx-ism-Leninism and counter-revolutionary “three worlds-ism.”
Adherence to the principle that “the main enemy is at home” demanded that in both Britain and Argentina the revolutionaries had the duty to strive to use the Falklands crisis to advance the revolutionary movement against their “own” reactionary governments. Both sides of the conflict represented sworn enemies of the cause of the proletariat and oppressed peoples. In this situation, it was not the job of revolutionaries to speculate about whether it would be more “favorable” for either the British or Argentine forces to gain victory. Clearly for either side to gain victory would only strengthen the bloodstained hand of either the Thatcher or the Galtieri government. The revolutionaries in both countries, therefore, could not but welcome defeat of their “own” government. This is because, from the proletarian standpoint, the only “favorable” outcome of such a reactionary bloodbath would be for the revolutionaries to successfully take advantage of the military reverses and embarrassments of the war to bring closer the overthrow of the warring governments.
But to our astonishment, Workers’ Weekly polemicized vehemently against the ”dangerous and reactionary aims of the ’left’ opportunists” in welcoming “Every defeat for British imperialism.” This polemic against the “defeat” idea is a serious error. Indeed, how is it possible that the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist party would attempt to polemicize against this concept? It is well known that the principle of welcoming defeat for one’s “own” government in a reactionary war is a red thread running through Lenin’s teachings on war and revolution. It is also well known that this principle was one of the central points of contention in the world Marxist movement at the time of World War I. It was a major dividing line between, on the one hand, the proletarian internationalists led by Lenin’s Bolsheviks and, on the other hand, the social-chauvinist class traitors of the Second International and their Kautskyite centrist hangers-on. It is therefore incomprehensible why the leadership of the RCPB(ML) would not take this ABC of Leninist tactics as the underlying idea behind its agitation on the Falklands war. But what is worse, it rejected this principle out of hand, and tried to bury it with liberal, pacifist, and petty-bourgeois patriotic arguments. In fact, as we shall see, these arguments were not new, but mirrored the very same social-democratic, Kautskyite and Trotskyite arguments that Lenin refuted long ago.
The principle of welcoming the defeat of one’s “own” government is set forth in a host of Lenin’s most renowned works on war and revolution, including “Socialism and War,” “The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution,” and many others. Of particular relevance is Lenin’s article, “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War” which is a powerful polemic against the notorious Trotsky who at that time was a leading exponent of Kautskyite centrism in the Russian revolutionary movement. An examination of a series of passages from this polemic reveals in no uncertain terms Lenin’s point of view on this question.
During a reactionary war,” Lenin explained, “a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.
This is axiomatic, and disputed only by conscious partisans or helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists.
Lenin stressed that this principle is diametrically opposed to the “phrase-bandying Trotsky” and other “helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists” who prattled about revolutionary struggle against war but who rejected revolutionary action against one’s own government because it facilitated its defeat in reactionary war.
A revolutionary struggle against the war’ is merely an empty and meaningless exclamation, something at which the heroes of the Second International excel, unless it means revolutionary action against one’s own government even in wartime. One has only to do some thinking in order to understand this. Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat. (’Discerning reader: note that this does not mean blowing up bridges, organizing unsuccessful strikes in the war industries, and in general helping the government defeat the revolutionaries.) (Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 275, emphasis as in original)
Lenin goes on to explain that the defeat slogan is a fundamental question of whether or not one stands for the principle of the class struggle or lapses into positions of class compromise and betrayal to the governments under the conditions of reactionary war.
To repudiate the defeat slogan means allowing one’s revolutionary ardor to degenerate into an empty phrase, or sheer hypocrisy.
What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of neither victory nor defeat’.... The Organizing Committee, together with Bukvoyed and Trotsky, stand on fully the same ground as David when they defend the neither victory-nor-defeat slogan.
On closer examination, this slogan wilt be found to mean a class truce, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is impossible without dealing blows at one’s ’own’ bourgeoisie, one’s ’own’ government, whereas dealing a blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Budvoyed’s information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of one’s own country. Those who accept the ’neither-victory-nor-defeat’ slogan can only be hypocritically in favor of the class struggle, of ’disrupting the class truce’; in practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the imperialist governments against defeat. The only policy of actual, not verbal disruption of the ’class truce,’ of acceptance of the class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie in order to overthrow them. This, however, cannot be achieved or striven for, without desiring the defeat of one s own government and without contributing to that defeat. ...
Whoever is in favor of the slogan of neither victory nor defeat’ is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes. (Ibid., pp. 278-9, emphasis as in original)
And finally, Lenin underscores that behind the defeat slogan is the paramount task of arousing hatred against one’s own government and bourgeoisie.
Hatred of one’s own government and one’s own bourgeoisie – the sentiment of all class conscious workers who understand, on the one hand, that war is a continuation of the politics’ of imperialism, which they counter by a ’continuation’ of their hatred of their class enemy, and, on the other hand, that ’a war against war’ is a banal phrase unless it means a revolution against their own government. Hatred of one’s own government and one’s own bourgeoisie cannot be aroused unless their defeat is desired; one cannot be a sincere opponent of a civil (i.e., class) truce without arousing hatred of one’s own government and bourgeoisie!” (Ibid., p. 280, emphasis as in original)
Beyond a doubt these clear and definite principles maintain their contemporary relevance and are fully applicable to the Falklands war. But unfortunately, the Workers’ Weekly gave no heed to these essential Marxist-Leninist principles. On the contrary, in the midst of the Falklands war crisis, it launched a polemic against the “splittist” and “sectarian” policy of advocating that ”the main enemy is at home.” and against the “dangerous and reactionary aims of the ’left’ opportunists” in welcoming “defeat for British imperialism.” But by rejecting the “defeat” idea, Workers’ Weekly was so much as announcing to the world that, while it speaks in words about the “necessity for revolution,” when the crisis breaks out and when push comes to shove it will not put its words into deeds; it will not work with its full determination to take advantage of the crisis to raise the masses in revolutionary action to defeat their “own” government. In a word, by renouncing the idea of “defeat” Workers’ Weekly is so much as announcing that it is not fully serious about its stated revolutionary aim.
The principles that “the main enemy is at home” and of “defeat” for one’s “own” government in a reactionary war, flow from the strategic perspective. They flow from the perspective that the fight against imperialist war must be rooted in the class struggle, that it must be closely connected with the struggle of the exploited proletariat for the overthrow of the exploiting imperialist bourgeoisie – with the socialist revolution.
These principles flow from Lenin’s thesis that in “the objective situation in the biggest advanced states of Europe...progress...can be made only in the direction of socialist society, only in the direction of the socialist revolution...” Therefore, “the imperialist bourgeois war, the war of highly developed capitalism,” Lenin concluded, “can, objectively, be opposed only with a war against the bourgeoisie, i. e., primarily civil war for power between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.... ” (“The Junius Pamphlet,” Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 316, emphasis as in original)
Of course, this thesis does not mean that in every demonstration and in every popular appeal against imperialist war the revolutionaries should give civil war and socialist insurrection as the action slogans or the assessment of the present stage of the struggle. No, that would be a mockery of Lenin’s profound idea. Rather it means that the revolutionaries must strive in the direction of linking the popular movement against imperialist war to the class struggle; to strive in the direction of closely connecting this movement with the cause of the proletarian revolution; and to imbue this movement with a revolutionary perspective by linking it with agitation for the socialist revolution.
Opposing imperialist war “in the direction of the socialist revolution” is a cornerstone of Lenin’s theory and tactics on the fight against capitalist war. However, to our amazement, Workers’ Weekly not only agitates in a spirit contrary to this principle, but it theorizes directly against this famous thesis of V.I. Lenin. Indeed, without qualification Workers’ Weekly mocks the very idea of linking the struggle against war to the struggle to overthrow capitalism.
“The ’left’ opportunists,” Workers’ Weekly polemicizes, “say that it is necessary to follow the policies they advocate in order not to ’separate the struggle against war from the struggle to overthrow capitalism.’ This serves only to further expose their sinister aims. For these forces, the democratic struggle to unite the people against imperialist war. to unite the people to fight British imperialism and colonialism is ’pacifist patriotism.’ Thus, by introducing their ’struggle to overthrow capitalism’ AS THE BASIS OF UNITY of the anti-war movement, they strive to disunite the movement, restrict its expansion in numbers, militancy and determination and give a free hand to the imperialists to carry out their warmongering schemes.” (May 29, 1982, p.6)
Here Workers’ Weekly has committed a grave theoretical blunder. By arguing against the idea of not separating the anti-war struggle from the struggle to overthrow capitalism, it has given theoretical expression to what is in fact the very essence of “pacifist patriotism.” It has repeated the very same “democratic” objections which Lenin refuted long ago. Let us examine these objections more closely, because there are profound ideological issues at stake here.
First of all, it is necessary to dispense with the timeworn subterfuge which our authors have tried to hide behind. Workers’ Weekly argues that “by introducing their ’struggle to overthrow capitalism’ AS THE BASIS OF UNITY of the anti-war movement, they strive to disunite the movement, restrict its expansion in numbers,” and so forth. But this is simply a straw man and that is why Workers’ Weekly feels compelled to put it in capital letters.
The question of principle at stake concerns in what direction a party must carry out its agitation and tactics: Either a party adheres to the Leninist idea of striving to connect the struggle against imperialist war to the revolutionary struggle for socialism, or a party renounces this idea and follows anti-Leninist tactics which divert the fight against imperialist war away from the direction of socialism. Either one set of tactics or the other. This is why Workers’ Weekly has raised the “BASIS OF UNITY” scarecrow. It hopes to frighten the naive with the specter that socialist tactics mean splitting the movement and driving the masses away on the basis of agreement or disagreement on the necessity for socialism.
It is interesting to note that Karl Kautsky resorted to this exact same subterfuge. “The extreme lefts,” Kautsky warned, “wish to ’contrapose’ socialism to inevitable imperialism.... This seems very radical, but it can only serve to drive into the camp of imperialism anyone who does not believe in the immediate practical achievement of socialism.” (Cited in Lenin, Collected Works. Vol. 21, p. 224, emphasis is Lenin’s)
Nothing could be a more monstrous vulgarization of Marxist-Leninist tactics. It is Marxism-Leninism which indicates the path for the revolutionaries to reach out and appeal to all of the diverse sectors of the masses who are stirring to life and struggle. Today, the growing worldwide ferment against imperialist war preparations poses immense tasks before the Marxist-Leninist parties. The parties must do everything possible to encourage and develop this powerful mass ferment. In advancing their slogans and tactical appeals, they must carefully study the actual level of consciousness among the masses so as to penetrate and influence this movement. But all of these slogans and mass tactics must have but one objective – to step by step raise the consciousness of the movement towards socialist consciousness and to bring the movement step by step closer to the revolutionary socialist movement. The closer the connection with the cause of the exploited masses and the greater the consciousness of the ideal of the socialist revolution, the greater the unity, breadth, militancy and staying power of the popular struggle against imperialist war.
On the other hand, to lecture against the “dangerous” and “sinister” aim of not separating the “democratic struggle” against war from the socialist revolution is simply to preach vulgar tailism. It means leaving the movement groping in the dark without a revolutionary perspective. It means leaving the movement under the sway of the pacifist and democratic illusions spread by the social-democratic and revisionist chieftains who are doing plenty to weaken and divide the struggle against imperialist war.
Towards the popular movements against imperialist war the Marxist-Leninists must neither be sectarian nor tailist. They must pay close attention to the ideas of Lenin, who explained that:
It is the duty of socialists to support, extend and intensify every popular movement to end the war. But it is actually being fulfilled only by those socialists who...preach revolution and transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war for socialism. (Lenin, Collected Works. Vol. 22, p. 176)
But let us continue. Apart from the above subterfuge, our author’s objections boil down to one point: The struggle against imperialist war is a “democratic struggle,” and for this reason it must not be linked to the “struggle to overthrow capitalism” because, presumably, such a linking would be a violation of its “democratic” character.
But here again, Workers’ Weekly is not polemicizing against ideas of the ultra-’left”; it is polemicizing against the very ABC’s of Marxism-Leninism. The issue here is not whether the struggle against war should be defined as a “democratic struggle.” Whether it is or isn’t, in either case Workers’ Weekly has lapsed into a serious mistake. Isn’t it necessary to link up the democratic tasks of the revolutionary movement with the socialist tasks, i.e., with “the struggle to overthrow capitalism”? Isn’t Britain a country of “highly developed capitalism” where “progress...can only be made in the direction of the socialist revolution.” The issue is that, according to how Workers’ Weekly understands “democratic struggle,” when it says that the struggle against the Falklands war is a “democratic struggle,” it is implying that the issue of British imperialism can be solved with a bourgeois democratic reform of the present system, a reform that leaves the monopoly bourgeoisie intact. The Falklands war revealed the hideousness, the bloodstained nature of the British imperialist bourgeoisie in striking relief, while Workers’ Weekly is suggesting that the British workers and anti-imperialists should close their eyes and separate the struggle against British aggression from the class struggle and the fight to overthrow that bloodstained bourgeoisie.
Moreover, has not Marxism-Leninism set forth fundamental principles on the particular question of combatting imperialist war? It is well known that at the time of the first imperialist world war a controversy emerged between Lenin and the social-democratic renegade Kautsky on the very question which Workers’ Weekly has posed. It was Kautsky who advocated opposing imperialist war with a democratic program, with an appeal for a democratic peace to be consolidated under bourgeois democratic rule. And it was Lenin who tore to shreds all the Kautskyite chatter about a democratic program for a democratic peace. Lenin exposed this Kautskyite fraud as a fig leaf for imperialism, as an attempt to drag the proletariat backwards towards the past epoch of bourgeois democratic revolutions, and to divert the masses from the tasks of the present epoch – the socialist revolutionary tasks.
Thus against the Kautskyite “democratic peace program” Lenin set forth the proletarian revolutionary “peace program”:
Finally, our ’peace program’ must explain that the imperialist powers and the imperialist bourgeoisie cannot grant a democratic peace. Such a peace must be sought for and fought for, not in the past, not in a reactionary Utopia of a non-imperialist capitalism, not in a league of equal nations under capitalism, but in the future, in the socialist revolution of the proletariat. Not a single fundamental democratic demand can be achieved to any considerable extent, or with any degree of permanency, in the advanced imperialist states, except through revolutionary battles under the banner of socialism.
Whoever promises the nations a ’democratic’ peace, without at the same time preaching the socialist revolution, or while repudiating the struggle for it – a struggle now, during the war – is deceiving the proletariat. (“The Peace Program,” Collected Works, Vol. 22, pp. 167-68, emphasis as in original)
The Kautskyites bitterly protested this Marxist line.
’That means that you have no peace program, that you are opposed to democratic demands,’ the Kautskyites argue, hoping that inattentive people will not notice that this objection substitutes non-existent bourgeois-democratic tasks for the existing socialist tasks.
Oh no, gentlemen, we reply to the Kautskyites. We are in favor of democratic demands, we alone are fighting for them sincerely for because of the objective historical situation they cannot be advanced except in connection with the socialist revolution. ” (Ibid., p. 164)
Clearly Workers’ Weekly has lost its bearings when it counterposes its “democratic struggle” against war to the “sinister aims” of the “’left’ opportunists” who advocate not “separat(ing) the struggle against war from the struggle to overthrow capitalism.” It is precisely this obscuring of the socialist perspective that has led Workers’ Weekly to wander so far astray in its agitation on the Falklands war.
At the heart of the leadership of the RCPB(ML)’s error is precisely the “Substitution of non-existent bourgeois-democratic tasks for the existing socialist tasks.” In particular, it has substituted the so-called “national question” of “British sovereignty” for the existing tasks of the class struggle under the banner of socialism. As a result, the leadership of the RCPB(ML) has made the British “national interests” a mainspring of its agitation and tactics.
Hence, in the fight against imperialist war as well, the tactics of the leadership of the RCPB(ML) do not hinge on the class struggle and the socialist perspective, but on the nationalist perspective of “British sovereignty rights.” In this regard, the Communiqué of the Tenth Plenum of the CC of the RCPB(ML) of June 2. 1982 deserves careful study. This Plenum adopted the “Report on the General Line of the Party.” According to the Communiqué:
The Report discussed the importance of the national question in Britain, and how the struggle against the U.S. domination of Britain and the sell-out of the sovereignty rights of the British people by the British bourgeoisie is an extremely important democratic question to take up for solution. The Report analyzed that the struggle for the sovereignty rights of the workers and people is closely connected with the struggle against imperialist war and the British bourgeoisie, and represents a powerful force against imperialism and their war plans.” (Workers’ Weekly, June 5, 1982, p. 8, emphasis added)
This is truly an incredible thesis to be proclaimed in the “General Line” of the British Party. Not only is “the struggle (for)...sovereignty rights” declared to be “an extremely important...question to take up for solution,” what is more, it is this national “struggle for sovereignty” that must be “closely connected with the struggle against imperialist war...and represents a powerful force against imperialism and their war plans.”
Is it any wonder then why Workers’ Weekly curses with such violent language the very idea of linking the struggle against imperialist war to “the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism”? Workers’ Weekly has simply replaced the Leninist idea that it is “revolutionary battles under the banner of socialism” which represents the “powerful force against imperialism and their war plans,” with the nationalist idea of fighting imperialism under the banner of “sovereignty rights”!
These “national” tactics came out in all of their patriotic glory in the course of the Falklands war. True, Workers’ Weekly criticized the imperialism and chauvinism of the British bourgeoisie. However, it did so not mainly from the class angle, but principally from the national angle, bending over backwards to put the British imperialist aggression in the framework of the “betrayal of the national interests.” Yes, we oppose the British imperialist bourgeoisie, Workers’ Weekly speculates, because they are “the real ’enemies of Britain’”; because the bourgeoisie “sells out the sovereignty of the nation to...foreign imperialist powers”; because the capitalist offensive “bring(s) ruin and disaster to the nation”; because the “British bourgeoisie is not patriotic, it is a traitorous class,” and so on and so forth. Our authors even play this national game with the ultra-raving nationalist “Iron Lady” herself. Placing themselves in the position of the most sincere and most genuine nationalists and patriots of all of Britain they ask: “What of the ’nationalism’ of the Thatcher government? How patriotic’ is Thatcher?” (Workers’ Weekly, May 22, 1982)
This “national” line of agitation has a definite impact. It pounds into the reader’s head that the struggle against British imperialist aggression must not be waged from a “narrow” class angle; that it must not be waged under the ”dangerous” slogan that the “main enemy is at home”; that it must not be waged from the “sectarian” stand of proletarian international solidarity of the workers of Britain, Argentina and all countries against their common class enemies; and that this struggle must not be waged fully in the spirit of the famous manifesto of Marx and Engels which proclaimed that “The working men have no country.”
This agitational line pounds into the reader’s head that the struggle against British imperialist aggression must be waged first and foremost from the angle of the “national interests” and linked to the struggle for “British sovereignty rights.”
It is self-evident that Workers’ Weekly has lapsed into the profound error of trying to combat imperialism and war with a national program. Lenin warned against this very same error which was committed by the German revolutionary Marxist, Rosa Luxemburg. Luxemburg had put forth the argument that when the German opportunist leaders had voted for war credits to assist the German imperialist war effort, this endangered the fatherland. From this national standpoint she argued for a “truly national banner of liberation” and a “truly national program” to “oppose the imperialist war program.”
Lenin pointed out that, “while brilliantly exposing the imperialist character of the present war... [Rosa Luxemburg – ed.] makes the very strange mistake of trying to drag a national program into the present, non-national, war. It sounds almost incredible, but there it is.” (Lenin, “The Junius Pamphlet,” Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 313) To suggest “that the imperialist war should be ’opposed’ with a national program,” Lenin explained, means to urge “the advanced class to turn its face to the past and not to the future!” (Ibid., p. 315) From the theoretical angle, Lenin drew out that such a national program corresponded to the historical tasks of the earlier epoch of the national bourgeois democratic revolutions. But in the present epoch, in the developed imperialist states, Lenin stressed that progress is possible and the imperialist war could be combatted “only in the direction of the socialist revolution.” (Ibid., p. 3.16) “The fallacy” of opposing imperialist war with a national program, Lenin declared, “is strikingly evident.” (Ibid., p. 315)
Nevertheless Workers’ Weekly has become deeply mired in this fallacy. It sounds almost incredible, but our authors worked with might and main to drag the so-called “national question” into the non-national, imperialist war in the South Atlantic, This blunder led Workers’ Weekly to take painstaking efforts to place a clear manifestation of class interests – British imperialist aggression – into a contrived framework of “national interests.” It led it to blunt the exposure and condemnation of its “own” bourgeoisie. It has led it to slur over the class interests and obscure the revolutionary socialist perspective. It has led it to renounce the Leninist class principles that “the main enemy is at home” and working for defeat of this “main enemy” in a reactionary war. And it has led it to adapt to petty-bourgeois nationalist prejudices.
In a word, its “national” tactics have led Workers’ Weekly away from the proletarian class standpoint, towards a national liberal standpoint.
In line with its “national” tactics, Workers’ Weekly attempted to paint a picture that the betrayal of the “national interests” was a major factor in the British imperialist aggression in the Falklands. But, as one can well imagine, this was no easy task. After all, how was it to be explained that Thatcher’s aggression, which was carried out in the name of the national interests of imperialist Britain, was really a manifestation of the betrayal of the national interests? This could be accomplished only by whitewashing the aggressive, warmongering national interests of British imperialism.
This is why Workers’ Weekly twisted itself up into knots trying to convince its readers that Thatcher’s aggression was in reality a big U.S. imperialist plot cooked up to the detriment of Britain. This is why it puts forth the thesis that for the unfortunate British imperialists the Falklands crisis is “an unprecedented fiasco” whereas “the U.S. superpower...loses nothing in this situation.” (April 10, 1982, pp. 1, 8) This is why Workers’ Weekly replaces concrete analysis with abstract generalities about how the United States and the Soviet Union “rule the roost” and about how “it is the two superpowers...which overall preside over the imperialist world and carry overriding weight in deciding the outcome of such conflicts as the present one.” (May 1, 1982, p. 2)
With such generalities about superpower omnipotence, Workers’ Weekly whitewashes British imperialism which is a savage international aggressor in its own right. Far from being a U.S. plot, British imperialism invaded the Falklands for its own plunder of the potential oil resources, for its own status in the sun as a “great” imperialist marauder. From accounts in the bourgeois press, it appears that the U.S. State Department had had a wrong estimation of the British response, and that this is why in the days prior to the Argentine seizure of the islands U.S. undersecretary of state, Thomas Enders, had given Galtieri reason to believe that Thatcher would not try to take them back by force of arms. But in any case, far from simply doing the “U.S. bidding” as Workers’ Weekly would have one believe, British imperialism needed no prodding to launch its task force. It hurled itself on the Falklands like a hungry wolf on its prey.
These efforts to explain the Falklands war as an expression of the betrayal of the “national interests lead Workers’ Weekly down a dead end. It inevitably leads it to tone down its condemnation of British imperialism and to turn the workers’ eyes from seeing the enslaving interests and monstrous crimes of their “own” imperialist ruling class.
For example, Workers’ Weekly complains that “the run down of the British ’conventional’ forces... is an expression of this subservience” to U.S. imperialism. (April 10, 1982, p.6) Never mind that the propaganda about the “run down of the British ’conventional’ forces” is simply a jingo fraud. Never mind that British imperialism is among the most heavily militarized powers in the Western alliance. After all, even jingo lies will do when you are clutching at straws in order to portray British imperialism as a meek little lamb, being reduced to the wretched condition of a mere “vassal state” of a foreign imperialism. (Workers’ Weekly, June 5, 1982., p. 6)
As a result of “national” tactics, the Falklands war also found Workers’ Weekly trimming its sails before the tempest of bourgeois nationalism. In the face of the jingo hysteria of the war, Workers’ Weekly performed somersaults to convince its readers that it was not on the side of the “traitors” and “enemies” of the nation. God forbid! Lest there be any mistake on this score, Workers’ Weekly sung the tune in every key that it speaks for the true “patriotic forces,” for the true upholders of the “national interests,” and for the true champions of “British sovereignty.”
But, as we have already seen, a proletarian revolutionary stand against imperialist war and chauvinism can only be a class stand. It was the duty of the class conscious vanguard of the British working class to take the jingo crusade of the bourgeoisie by the horns. This demanded working tirelessly to focus the workers’ attention on their independent class interests. This demanded an unflinching and consistent struggle against the influence of bourgeois nationalism and patriotism.
Workers’ Weekly, however, adapted to the line of least resistance. In effect, it attempted to ride the wave of patriotic fervor which accompanied the British war in the South Atlantic. Hence it resorted to the “national” tactics of exposing the Falklands war on the wonderfully patriotic, grounds that it only brings “disgrace to the nation.” that it is the opponents of the war who are the real defenders of British “national rights,” etc. Workers’ Weekly tries to make a case for this new-found patriotism by gunning down a false target.
“One of the dangerous positions which has been raised by the ’left’ opportunists,” Workers’ Weekly warns, “is the claim that, ’It is the duty of British socialists to always be “enemies of Britain.”’ With this position, the path is further opened for the bourgeoisie and revisionists to falsely present themselves as ’patriotic’ and ’defenders of the nation’ and to brand all opponents to their policies as ’traitors’ and ’enemies of Britain.’”
Here Workers’ Weekly is flailing a straw man. It is impossible to judge in what context this “enemies of Britain” claim was made or what was meant by it. And surely revolutionaries should strive to point to the class distinction between being enemies of British imperialism and enemies of the British working class. But Workers’ Weekly is simply using the “enemies of Britain” claim as a scarecrow in an attempt to frighten the unwary from class tactics. It is using this scarecrow in an attempt to frighten the naive into believing that by adapting to nationalism and patriotism this will close the path “for the bourgeoisie and revisionists to falsely present themselves as ’patriotic’ and ’defenders of the nation’ and to brand all opponents to their policies as ’traitors’ and ’enemies of Britain.’” In other words, Workers’ Weekly is arguing that by adapting to nationalism it will be able to ”outwit” the wily British bourgeoisie and remove the nationalist fangs from the imperialist wolves.
But this is a big mistake. With this fairy tale our authors are only outwitting themselves. Just look at the events during the Falklands war. Even the mild liberal opposition (even the “distinguished gentlemen” of the BBC for heaven’s sake!) were hounded as “traitors” and “enemies” by Thatcher and the other imperialist jingos. But for a Marxist-Leninist party to speculate with nationalism under conditions of imperialist war on the grounds that this will allegedly allow them to escape from being branded as “traitors” and “enemies” is simply ludicrous. Nay more, it represents an unprincipled and dangerous concession to bourgeois nationalism. It represents adapting one’s tactics to the petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy, which are the strata most readily infected with the nationalist and patriotic poison dished out by the imperialist ruling class.
These same arguments which Workers’ Weekly used to justify adapting to nationalism, it also used to justify renouncing revolutionary tactics before the specter of bourgeois reaction. Workers’ Weekly argued in favor of replacing class tactics with “national” tactics on the grounds that the latter are an obstacle to the bourgeoisie’s “attempts to implement further reactionary and repressive policies against the people under the guise of ’dealing’ with ’the enemies of Britain.’” In particular, our authors condemned the idea of welcoming “defeat for British imperialism” on the grounds that this means welcoming “reactionary and repressive measures” and “facilitate(s) the monopoly bourgeoisie’s preparations for fascism.”
Here too the Workers’ Weekly is making a serious mistake. The Marxist-Leninist class principles that “the main enemy is at home” and of welcoming defeat for this “main enemy” in a reactionary war cannot be tossed out the window on the grounds that they can be used as a pretext for reaction. To argue otherwise means to tailor one’s principles and tactics to what is acceptable to bourgeois legality, to capitalist police law, in the name of depriving the bourgeoisie of “justifications for repressive measures.”
The Marxist-Leninist parties must not be shaken from their principles before the specter of reaction. They must be prepared to work and put into deeds their revolutionary tactics under the most severe conditions of illegality. In regard to a serious inter-imperialist war, no one can have any illusions that the revolutionary opponents of this war will not be met by ferocious repression.
The Falklands crisis was in a sense only a practice run; the bourgeoisie bared the specter of reaction but, in the main, it did not clamp down the full weight of “wartime measures.” Nevertheless, before this specter of reaction, Workers’ Weekly eagerly threw overboard revolutionary class tactics in favor of non-revolutionary “national” tactics. This is hardly an honorable stand. This is tantamount to declaring well before the real crisis has arrived that one is not prepared to put his revolutionary words into deeds. This is like announcing well before hand that one is not completely serious about carrying through a determined revolutionary struggle.
Let us again return to Lenin’s teachings from the days of the first imperialist world war. The social-chauvinist leaders of the Second International were dead set against revolutionary action against their “own” ruling classes. One of their principal arguments for this betrayal was that such action would bring down accusations of “treachery” and the consequent police repression against the party organizations, the trade unions, etc. They laughed aloud at the “anarchist idea” of class war against the bourgeoisie under war conditions. In his famous pamphlet The Collapse of the Second International Lenin condemned Kautsky’s justifications for this kneeling before the police law in the strongest terms. Lenin pointed out that, “This means that Kautsky justifies betrayal of socialism by pleading the unpleasant practical consequences that follow from revolutionary tactics. Is this not a prostitution of Marxism?
Not only in wartime but positively in any acute political situation, to say nothing of periods of revolutionary mass action of any kind,” Lenin explained, “the governments of even the freest bourgeois countries will threaten to dissolve the legal organizations, seize their funds, arrest their leaders, and threaten other practical consequences’ of the same kind. What are we to do then? Justify the opportunists on these grounds, as Kautsky does? But this would mean sanctifying the transformation of the Social-Democratic parties into national liberal-labor parties.” (Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 255, emphasis as in original)
Lenin’s Party alone stood firm on proletarian principles. At the cost of enormous sacrifices, the Bolsheviks were true to their revolutionary words and put into deeds Lenin’s teachings on the struggle against imperialist war. For this the heroic Bolsheviks were mercilessly executed, imprisoned and marched off to Siberia, and branded as “German spies” and “internal enemies.” But this sacrifice was not in vain. It paved the way for transforming the imperialist war into a civil war for socialism and the triumph of the earthshaking October Revolution. And to this day it remains the model of proletarian revolutionary conduct under conditions of reactionary war.
Therefore, when the Workers’ Weekly argues against revolutionary tactics, against the principles of fighting against and working for defeat for one’s “own” imperialist government, etc., on the grounds that this will intensify “repressive policies,” we must call a spade a spade. This is an argument for “sanctifying the transformation” of Marxist-Leninist tactics “into national liberal-labor” tactics.
In its argument against “the dangerous positions of the ’left’ opportunists” and in favor of its “national” tactics, Workers’ Weekly put up a smokescreen. “The principal question at stake in Britain,” our authors argue, “is to mobilize the people to fight the reactionary, warmongering policies of the British bourgeoisie, to demand that it withdraw its task force, to demand that it ends its colonial, imperialist activities in the South Atlantic and hands the Falkland Islands back to the Latin American people.” And on this last point on decolonization, Workers’ Weekly does not fail to mention that this demand ”is recognized by world progressive opinion and by the United Nations itself.”
Surely, to fight warmongering and imperialist activities is a noble cause. But “the principal question at stake” posed by the Workers’ Weekly polemic is with what tactics and under what slogans is this warmongering and imperialism to be fought? Is imperialism to be fought with revolutionary class tactics or with national liberal and pacifist tactics?
Indeed, in Britain there was just such a liberal opposition to the Falklands war in the “left” wing of the British Labor Party. Tony Benn and the other “left” social-democrats also protested Thatcher’s warmongering, called for the withdrawal of the task force, and (of course) recognized the UN resolution on the decolonization of the Falklands. But they did so precisely because they were afraid of a military or political fiasco, of a major defeat for British imperialism.
Such a bourgeois liberal opposition to imperialism has a long tradition in Britain. For example, in his article “British Pacifism and the British Dislike of Theory” Lenin speaks of a Mr. Morel, former member of the Liberal Party and a contributor to the press of the Independent Labor Party. Mr. Morel was a leader of the Union of Democratic Control which stood for “peace, disarmament, all territories to have the right of self-determination by plebiscite, and the democratic control of foreign policy.” (Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 262) Undoubtedly UN resolutions on decolonization would have been just Mr. Morel’s cup of tea. But, at the same time, Mr. Morel rejected any thought of revolutionary class action against imperialism. “All this shows,” Lenin concluded, was that Mr. Morel had turned “away from the jingoist bourgeoisie to the pacifist bourgeoisie.
Lenin subjected such a liberal pacifist opposition to withering criticism. “To influence the workers and the masses in general,” Lenin pointed out that “the liberal bourgeoisie (and their agents in the labor movement, i.e., the opportunists) are prepared to swear allegiance to internationalism any number of times, accept the peace slogan, renounce the annexationist aims of the war, condemn chauvinism, and so on and so forth – anything except revolutionary action against their own government, anything in the world, if only they can come out ’against defeat.’” (“The Main German Opportunist Work on the War,” Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 272, emphasis as in the original)
These remarks of Lenin’s underscore the nature of the shortcomings in the agitation of the Workers’ Weekly. The leadership of the RCPB(ML) not only “came out ’against defeat.’” but they came out swinging with an ardent appeal for “great vigilance” against this “dangerous and reactionary” idea. And, not surprisingly, the arguments which Workers’ Weekly could muster against this principle of “defeat” were simply liberal and opportunist arguments.
“These dangerous and reactionary aims of the ’left’ opportunists,” Workers’ Weekly proclaims, “can be further illustrated by considering the basis upon which they are raising their slogans. They write, for example, ’Every defeat for British imperialism... intensifies the attacks of the Tories against the working class and accelerates revolutionary struggle.’’ Thus, here are these ’left’ opportunists, under the guise of ’accelerating’ revolutionary struggle’’ in Britain, hoping and working for an intensification of the attacks of the Tories against the working class.’ For these ’left’ opportunists the attacks oh and restriction of the sacred and hard-won rights of the workers and people, the dangers of fascism, are nothing; on the contrary they welcome such reactionary and repressive measures! (Emphasis added)
What a frightening argument! You see how evil those “leftists” are who hope and work for ”defeat for British imperialism”? They are really only “hoping and working for an intensification of ’the attacks of the Tories against the working class.’” But wait, let us examine this frightening argument more closely. Beyond a doubt, the defeat of the British armada in the South Atlantic would have been a heavy blow to the British bourgeoisie, pushing British imperialism ever deeper into crisis. And beyond a doubt such a defeat would mean the intensification of the class struggle as the bourgeoisie would inevitably try to saddle the workers with the cost of the defeat and the burden of the deepening crisis. As to whether or not such a defeat would be accompanied with “reactionary and repressive measures,” this could only be determined by the resulting class struggles. Workers’ Weekly, however, is simply trying to frighten its readers with the specter of this intensification of the class struggle. It is simply presenting a liberal abhorrence of the class struggle to justify renunciation of revolutionary class tactics.
From the economic standpoint, Workers’ Weekly is simply echoing the arguments of the liberal philistine, whose foremost concern is defending the profits of imperialism. I must not welcome ”defeat for British imperialism” because, after all, that means to “hope and work for” attacks on “the sacred and hard-won rights of the workers and people.” Such is the miserable logic of the well-fed petty bourgeois or the fat labor bureaucrat who opposes defeats for his “own” imperialism out of the desire to defend what is most near and dear to his stomach – the “sacred and hard-won” sops from the table of imperialist superprofits.
A similar liberal argument was also the source of Workers’ Weekly’s anger with the slogan “Victory to Argentina!” Our authors had put forward two objections of substance to this slogan. The first was a correct objection that this slogan meant to “support the Argentine military junta.” But the second objection was simply liberal-pacifist muck. They opposed this slogan on the grounds that it was a “demand that more British workers and people should die on behalf of the British imperialists,” whereas Workers’ Weekly demanded the “withdrawal of the task force” and that the troops “should not fight.”
Within a week’s time, Workers’ Weekly itself had come out whole hog in support of the Argentine fascists. Nevertheless, it did not change its attitude towards the “Victory to Argentina!” slogan and it continued to agitate simply for the withdrawal of British troops. In other words, even while Workers’ Weekly supported the Argentine generals in the war, at the very same time, they continued to oppose the idea of defeat for the British imperialist forces on the wonderfully pacifist and liberal grounds that this would bring harm to the British soldiers. Only one of two conclusions can be drawn from this: either Workers’ Weekly stands for pacifism and opposes all wars, including class wars and liberation wars; or it stands for nationalist hypocrisy and is in favor of defeats for reactionary and aggressive armies just as long as it isn’t the British imperialist army.
In a sense, this ridiculous position of desiring ”neither victory nor defeat” for either of the warring governments epitomizes the national-liberal stand adopted by the leadership of RCPB(ML) towards both its “own” government and that of the Argentine oligarchy.
This brings us to the conclusion of our discussion of the weaknesses of the agitation of the RCPB(ML) on the Falklands war. From the ideological standpoint these blunders add up to shortcomings in the direction of classical opportunism. Lenin summed up the ideological foundations of the opportunism which gave rise to the shameful collapse of the Second International as follows:
Advocacy of class collaboration; abandonment of the idea of socialist revolution and revolutionary methods of struggle; adaptation to bourgeois nationalism; losing sight of the fact that the borderlines of nationality and country are historically transient: making a fetish of bourgeois legality: renunciation of the class viewpoint and the class struggle, for fear of repelling the broad masses of the population ’ (meaning the petty bourgeoisie) – such, doubtlessly, are the ideological foundations of opportunism.” (“The Position and Tasks of the Socialist International,” Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 35)
Lenin’s critique of the opportunism of social-democracy must be studied and restudied by revolutionaries everywhere because it is as vital and fresh today as when it was written.
As well, if we examine more recent history it is clear that the RCPB(ML)’s shortcomings bear the hallmarks of an opportunism of a contemporary type. It was only a few short years ago that the clash between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and “three worldist” social-chauvinism broke out in force.
Didn’t Maoist “three worlds-ism” wipe out the perspective of the socialist revolution in the imperialist states such as Britain and replace it with the perspective of a democratic struggle for sovereignty? Didn’t “three worlds-ism” wipe out the perspective of the class struggle and replace it with the perspective of the struggle for the “national interests”? Didn’t “three worlds-ism” wipe out the perspective that “the main enemy is at home,” one’s “own” imperialist ruling class, and replace it with the perspective that the main enemy is one or both of the two superpowers? Were these not fundamental Marxist-Leninist principles which Maoist “three worlds-ism” betrayed, leading its followers in the imperialist countries into an open social-chauvinist alliance with their own imperialist ruling classes?
It is inconceivable to us that the leadership of the RCPB(ML) could have forgotten this ancient history of “three worldist” betrayal. In fact, it was hardly yesterday that this same organization was militantly agitating for these very same “three worldist” and social-chauvinist positions. For example, it was only seven years ago that Workers’ Weekly hailed the referendum approving Britain’s membership in the EEC as “an important victory for the struggle of the world’s people,” as a vote to “further strengthen the bloc of European monopoly capitalist countries against the two superpowers. ...in line with the trend growing throughout the world, of the people, nations and countries uniting to oppose the two superpowers, their hegemony and preparations for a third world war.” (Workers’ Weekly, “The EEC Referendum,” Vol. 3, Nos. 9-10, June 21-28, 1975, p. 1, cols. 1-2) At that time Workers’ Weekly was arguing against those who refused to ”raise in the working class the importance of putting the short-term considerations of revolution secondary to the overall task of uniting with the world’s people to oppose the two superpowers and the serious danger of another world war....” (Ibid.. p. 6, col. 4)
In other words, only yesterday Workers’ Weekly was arguing in favor of out-and-out “three worldist” treachery. But today it is clear that it has not learned fully the lessons of such a serious mistake. This mistake should have served the leadership of the British party as a grave warning. It should have brought home to this leadership the real danger involved in failing to firmly uphold the fundamental teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin against all Maoist “three worlds-ism” and all other revisionist and social-democratic distortions. But instead, we find that today Workers’ Weekly is flaunting the Marxist-Leninist principles on such basic questions as the stand towards one’s “own” imperialist government and the character of the revolution in the imperialist countries. But instead, we find that today the leadership of the RCPB(ML) has fallen prey to shortcomings in its agitation and tactics which are ideologically identical to the rotten, social-chauvinist, Maoist theory of “three worlds.”
The crisis over the Falkland Islands will undoubtedly be remembered as a minor affair compared to the great storms and clashes which the future holds in store. But from this it does not follow that the weaknesses which this crisis brought so clearly to the surface in the agitation and tactics of the RCPB (ML) are therefore only of minor concern. Quite the contrary. Shortcomings of this type must be faced head-on if a Marxist-Leninist party is to shoulder its responsibilities to the working class in the course of approaching great tests of history.
The Second International collapsed in the face of the then unprecedented crisis of the First World War because it had been eaten away by opportunist corrosion. This opportunist soil was allowed to accumulate as a result of the utterly rotten methods practiced by the parties of the Second International, including: fear of self-criticism; pompous revolutionary slogans and resolutions to cloak their opportunist practice; and covering up shortcomings with a deceptive show of well-being. Lenin and Stalin pointed out that such utterly corrupt methods were the fatal sin of the Second International.
The Marxist-Leninist communist parties completely reject this social-democratic legacy. That is why when we see the serious mistakes which the Marxist-Leninist party of the fraternal British working class is making, we cannot gloss over these things with phrases of official optimism. We Marxist-Leninists are duty-bound to address these questions in a forthright Leninist manner. This is the path of overcoming shortcomings. This is the path of steeling and bolshevizing the Marxist-Leninist vanguards. This is the path of tempering the militant revolutionary unity of the international Marxist-Leninist movement for the great class battles that lie ahead.
(Below we reprint the first section of Part IV of ’The Events in the Falkland Islands: A matter of grave concern for the British working class and people. Workers’ Weekly. May 29, 1982.)
A further disruptive, splittist and dangerous trend is presented by the “left” opportunists. This trend promotes erroneous and “leftist” slogans and positions in order to further split the opposition which is developing against the warmongering, imperialist policies of the British bourgeoisie, to facilitate the splitting activities of the revisionists and greatly assists the attempts by the bourgeoisie and revisionists to spread maximum confusion amongst the workers and people.
The revolutionary and progressive forces must be extremely vigilant against this trend; this trend, like that of revisionism and social-democracy – and, in fact, working hand-in-glove with them – attempts to do great damage to the struggles of the people developing against the warmongering activities of the British imperialists and strives to divert this movement down a dangerous course.
Opportunism is synonymous with splittism, and the “left” opportunists, like the revisionists, work to fragment and divide the movement in opposition to the British government’s reactionary activities in [the] South Atlantic. In particular, as in all struggles, these “left” opportunists have raised their “own” “special” and sectarian slogans and policies and used them to try to divide the movement. From “The Main Enemy is at Home” to “Victory to Argentina” and “Forward to the World Socialist Revolution,” these opportunists have entered into the movement in order to try to line up the people behind their “own” sectarian programs. The question of building and strengthening the unity of the people to fight the reactionary policies of the British imperialists is nothing, according to these “left” opportunists. On the contrary, what is “most” important, according to them, is their “special” “program” and, upon this basis, great efforts are made to fragment the movement, as well as to fuel the attempts by the revisionists to maintain their domination over the movement by labelling all opponents of their social-chauvinist policies as “splitters.”
One of the dangerous positions which has been raised by the “left” opportunists is the claim that, “It is the duty of British socialists to always be ’enemies of Britain.’” With this position, the path is further opened for the bourgeoisie and revisionists to falsely present themselves as “patriotic” and “defenders of the nation” and to brand all opponents to their policies as “traitors” and “enemies of Britain.”
One of the central tactics of the British bourgeoisie, as well as of the revisionists, is to manipulate the national question in order to carry out their reactionary policies at home and abroad. Thus, the war preparations are organized on the basis of “defending the nation”; the aggression in the South Atlantic on the basis of “defending ’British’ sovereignty”; the unloading of the crisis onto the backs of the people on the basis of “making the nation ’great’ again,” etc. All this propaganda is aimed at hiding the fact that it is the imperialist bourgeoisie and their representatives who are the real “enemies of Britain.” It is precisely these forces who disgrace the nation through their imperialist, colonial and warmongering activities abroad, through their oppression of other nations; it is precisely these forces who sell out the sovereignty of the nation, the sovereign rights of the workers and people to the U.S. imperialists and other foreign imperialist powers in order to pursue their own interests and realize maximum capitalist profits; it is precisely these forces who bring ruin and disaster to the nation and the workers and broad masses of people through their crisis policy, and preparations for fascism and war. The British bourgeoisie is not patriotic, it is a reactionary, traitorous class which manipulates the national question, which promotes the most rabid chauvinism in order to try to fool the people and line them up behind its imperialist, warmongering activities abroad and its anti-working class”, anti-democratic policies at home. As Marx stated, “the chauvinism of the bourgeoisie is only a vanity, giving a national cloak to all their own pretensions.”
When the revolutionary and progressive forces oppose the warmongering and reactionary policies of the British bourgeoisie in [the] South Atlantic, are they “enemies of Britain”? This is not the case! They are enemies of the British bourgeoisie and all its representatives; they are enemies of their imperialist policies abroad; they are enemies of the U.S. imperialists and their increasing domination of Britain; they are enemies of the reactionary policies of the British bourgeoisie at home. The revolutionary and progressive forces stand against and fight the real “enemies of Britain” and vigorously take up the struggle to expose their false and hypocritical “patriotism.”
To suggest, as the “left” opportunists do, that “British socialists should be ’enemies of Britain’” adds weight to the attempts of the bourgeoisie to carry on its fraud of posing as “patriotic,” of promoting the ”common” interests of all classes within the nation and presenting itself as the “defender of the nation.” It facilitates its attempts to implement further reactionary and repressive policies against the people under the guise of “dealing” with “the enemies of Britain.”
The revisionists assert that they are not “enemies of Britain,” while the “left” opportunists, declare that they are “enemies of Britain.” The revisionists and “left” opportunists thus work hand-in-glove to try to obscure the real question at stake, namely that it is British imperialism and its warmongering activities which are the enemy of the British workers and people and against whom they should intensify their struggles; the revisionists and “left” opportunists complement and utilize each other in order to try to split the movement along completely false lines and impose on it equally reactionary positions.
The “left” opportunists have raised the slogan “Victory to Argentina” in order to realize their aim of splitting and subverting the movement. The important question at stake is the manner and the basis on which the “left” opportunists are raising this slogan.
What is the situation? It is very clear that the demand of the Argentinian people for the return of the Falkland Islands to Argentina, for the British imperialists to end their colonial rule in the area, is a just demand, a demand that is recognized by world progressive opinion and by the United Nations itself. The principal question at stake in Britain is to mobilize the people to fight the reactionary, warmongering policies of the British bourgeoisie, to demand that it withdraw its task force, to demand that it ends its colonial, imperialist activities in the South Atlantic and hands the Falkland Islands back to the Latin American people, from whom it stole them by force of arms 150 years ago. It is the struggle for these demands – waged in direct opposition to the attempts by the revisionists and social-democrats to divert the movement into supporting a neo-colonial solution through the United Nations – which is uniting increasing numbers of the broad masses of people against the warmongering activities of the Thatcher government and the support for these activities by all the political representatives of the bourgeoisie.
Furthermore, it is well known that the progressive forces in Britain do not support the Argentinian military junta, which rules Argentina through a fascist dictatorship on behalf of the Argentinian bourgeoisie and foreign imperialism, especially that of the United States. And, finally, it is also well known that the progressive forces do not demand that more British workers and people should die on behalf of the British imperialists, but that they should not fight in this reactionary war of aggression.
Under these conditions, then, what is the aim of the “left” opportunists in raising the slogan “Victory to Argentina!” Firstly, it is to try to prevent the broadest possible unity of the people being built and strengthened on correct, democratic principles; it is to try to split the movement, spread confusion in its ranks and give ammunition to the bourgeoisie and revisionists to attack and subvert it. Secondly, it is to try to liquidate the struggle against the British imperialists and their warmongering activities, to divert the struggle into a vague, “support” movement for Argentina. Thirdly, it is to spread every kind of confusion in the ranks of the people, to try to confuse and hide the actual class questions at stake. Thus, the “left” opportunists make the question one of supporting “Argentina” and not one of supporting the Argentinian people in their struggles for their rights and emancipation in Argentina and against the Argentinian monopoly bourgeoisie and its military junta, against U.S. domination, against British colonial rule over part of their territory and against British imperialist bloody aggression. At the same time, in Britain the “left” opportunists make the issue one of being “enemies of Britain” and not of being enemies of the British imperialists.
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The “left” opportunists say that it is necessary to follow the policies they advocate in order not to “separate the struggle against war from the struggle to overthrow capitalism.” This serves only to further expose their sinister aims. For these forces, the democratic struggle to unite the people against imperialist war. to unite the people to fight British imperialism and colonialism is “pacifist patriotism.” Thus, by introducing their “struggle to overthrow capitalism” AS THE BASIS OF UNITY of the antiwar movement, they strive to disunite the movement, restrict its expansion in numbers, militancy and determination and give a free hand to the imperialists to carry out their warmongering schemes.
These dangerous and reactionary aims of the “left” opportunists can be further illustrated by considering the basis upon which they are raising their slogans. They write, for example. “Every defeat for British imperialism...intensifies the attacks of the Tories against the working class and accelerates revolutionary struggle.” Thus, here are these “left” opportunists, under the guise of “accelerat(ing) revolutionary struggle” in Britain, hoping and working for an intensification of “the attacks of the Tories against the working class.” For these “left” opportunists the attacks on and restriction of the sacred and hard-won rights of the workers and people, the dangers of fascism, are nothing; on the contrary they welcome such reactionary and repressive measures! Thus, their tactics in the movement against British imperialism are openly designed to facilitate the monopoly bourgeoisie’s preparations for fascism, its fascization of the state at home. Such tactics are reactionary and serve only the bourgeoisie and its representatives and are extremely dangerous for the working class and broad masses of people.
In the struggles of the people, and in particular in the present struggles of the people against the warmongering, imperialist activities of the Thatcher government, the main danger to these struggles comes from the right, from the social-democrats and revisionists. But while fighting this danger, the revolutionary and progressive forces must also retain utmost vigilance against the so-called “left” trends who use the frustration and opposition of the workers and people against the treacherous activities of the social-democrats and revisionists in order to push their semi-anarchist, semi-terrorist positions. Such policies are greatly welcomed and encouraged by the bourgeoisie in order to try to isolate and discredit the real revolutionary, progressive and democratic forces from the masses of workers and people and to provide further justifications for the adoption of increased repressive measures against the people.